Manchester Development
World-renowned architect's homecoming at M.E.N Property Lunch 2018
Sir Terry Farrell returned to the city of his birth to talk about his extraordinary career at the annual event
The world-renowned architect who designed the iconic MI6 headquarters has hailed Manchester as pivotal to his success.
Sir Terry Farrell has sketched out an incredible career regenerating northern cities, including Manchester, where he was born.
He was also behind huge projects such as Charing Cross Station and his KK100 tower in China, the tallest building ever by a British architect.
Sir Terry, 80, returned to the city as the key speaker of the M.E.N Property Lunch.
The event at the Midland Hotel yesterday (October 17) was attended by hundreds of the region's top property professionals, who heard tales from Sir Terry's 60 year career.
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"My family never wanted to come here," he told the audience. "They were Irish immigrants who arrived in Manchester during the potato famine. But I am very glad they did."
Sir Terry recalled memories of seeing elephants at Belle Vue Zoological Gardens when he was a child before his family moved to Newcastle upon Tyne, where he grew up on a tough council estate and realised the importance of getting an education.
He passed up a chance to return to Manchester to study and later found out he would have been a classmate of legendary Mancunian architect Sir Norman Foster.
Sir Terry named Sir Norman as a peer he admired most, wryly adding: "I note what he's achieved, but can't compare myself to him."
After graduating with an architecture degree, followed by a Masters in urban planning at the University of Pennsylvania in Philadelphia, Sir Terry formed a partnership with Sir Nicholas Grimshaw in London.
After 15 years he founded his own company, Terry Farrell & Partners, where he focused on housing projects until his big break designing the TV-am headquarters in Camden Lock and the redevelopment of Comyn Ching Triangle in London's Covent Garden.
Sir Terry Farrell (Image: Manchester Evening News)
Sir Terry spoke about his regeneration projects in the UK such as Newcastle Quayside, Brindleyplace in Birmingham, and Hull Deep Aquarium, before detailing his work in Manchester.
Here he worked with Howard Bernstein and Sir Richard Leese on the Arc of Opportunity - a geographical area stretching from the University of Salford, through Manchester city centre to the Oxford Road Corridor - Project Unity, the merger of UMIST and Victoria universities, and later Macintosh Village.
Sir Terry, who claims Manchester Town Hall is his favourite building in the city, observed: "Manchester has never been a single place, a place of monoculture. It is more a place of enterprise of a different level.
"Manchester has a great ability to re-invent itself and be enterprising and reach out for the best minds that country and indeed the world can offer."
His latest work in the city is on the £1bn Northern Gateway, which will see nearly 15,000 homes and extensive regeneration delivered across Collyhurst, around Queens Park, the Irk Valley, New Cross, and Rochdale Road.
"The Northern Gateway epitomises the best of what is going on in the world today," he said. "This river valley was one of first bits of industrialisation in Manchester and it has fallen on hard times. But the multi-level 3D possibility in terms of masterplan and layout are considerable."
Sir Terry talked about the importance of parkland in his urban planning.
"I've spent a lot of time in London masterplanning and I used to describe my mother and father, getting on a tandem bike, and going off to the Peaks, the Lakes, Yorkshire Dales," he explained. "The North is well endowed with great National Parks but city centres don't have as many parks like Manchester has, so we aim to have an urban park in City River Park."
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Speaking of his most famous building, MI6 Sir Terry claimed he wasn't aware he was designing the headquarters of the Secret Intelligence Service in the late 1980s.
"At that time MI6 wasn't an official organisation," he said. "I remember after the government finally publicly revealed it as a department, the head of MI6, Roger Dearlove, who has a name like something from James Bond, said that because our design was so visible the government had been forced to reveal MI6. He told me 'You enabled us to be able to talk about what we did with our wives and family for the first time'."
Sir Terry is also noted for his success in the Far East.
He established an office in Hong Kong in 1990 and was behind Incheon International Airport in Seoul and Beijing South Railway Station – the largest in Asia.
He designed the Peak Tower, Kowloon Station development, the British Consulate-General in Hong Kong and the KK Tower in Shenzhen.
Sir Terry amused the audience by claiming the KK tower's backers had wanted to call the development 'Kinky' until he tactfully intervened.
His extraordinary success in China has blazed a trail for inward and outward investment with the UK, and Manchester.
Farrell's Northern Gateway project is backed by the Far East Consortium (FEC).
But beyond the grandeur, Sir Terry told the audience of his appreciation of Manchester's historical attempts to use architectural solutions and social issues, including Greater Manchester Mayor Andy Burnham's project to tackle homelessness.
"I was always fascinated that Marx and Engels got together here to talk about the housing issues," he said. "Clearly being a leader in thinking through the social issues of our times distinguishes Manchester, very much."
Andy Burnham (Image: Manchester Evening News)
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The Property Lunch, which was sponsored by leading property developers Capital & Centric, law firm JMW, Airport City Manchester and Bolton Council, also heard from Andy Burnham.
"Greater Manchester is very much a city region in transition," he said. "We are changing, growing, emerging as a world class city on the global stage, the evidence is all around us. But as you do rebuild, you put more pressure on the infrastructure, including transport. I need now to make the case for same powers over transport that other world class cities take for granted, such as the power to enforce our box junctions and the power to have an oyster card so people can use our transport system.
"But as well as celebrating the cranes in the sky we have to look around us on the streets."
Burnham spoke of the major problem of rough sleeping in the city and his plans to eradicate it by 2020.
"We're not the kind of people who walk on by, not matter how successful we've been in life," he added. "That's what sets our region apart. It's not about solving through public money but we're trying to build a movement from the business world, the faith community, the charity and voluntary sector."
He paid tribute to Tim Heatley. co-founder of Capital & Centric, who chairs his Business Network for the Homeless.
"It's not just industrial progress but social progress," Burnham said. "That's always been the Manchester way."
Darren Thwaites (Image: Manchester Evening News)
Burnham's vision was backed by M.E.N editor in chief Darren Thwaites.
"You can't help but be impressed right now by the scale of development and regeneration in the city," he sad. "We're in the grip of a construction boom, with the city skyline dominated by the tower cranes of more than 30 live schemes.
"We have 1.5 million square feet of new offices and more than 20,000 new apartments already in progress.
"Large-scale schemes include the Northern Gateway, £1bn Bolton town centre master plan, the Airport City development, Circle Square on Oxford Road and UA92.
"Whether it's breathing life into disused mills, like Capital & Centric, or forging a new inner city park at Mayfield, Manchester's property sector has a long history of doing things differently."
Airport City
Bolton Council
Salford University
The Midland hotel
Greater Manchester Mayor
Sir Howard Bernstein
Sir Richard Leese
Manchester City EDS
Collyhurst