Over the footbridge from the Libeskind’s Imperial War Museum there’s extraordinary building, The Lowry Center. As part of a long-term regional regeneration project, the building is an exuberant collection of distinct forms located on a difficult triangular site, the culmination of the collaboration between Wilford and the late James Stirling (1926-1992) on the 1992 Lowry masterplan. The Lowry Center is a combined theater and gallery complex dedicated to L.S. Lowry situated in Salford Quays, in Greater Manchester, England.

In response to a highly complex brief, Michael Wilford’s landmark millennium project, The Lowry Center is located on the Manchester’s historic shipping canal. It is also near to the Old Trafford football stadium. The building was finished in 2000 with the help for £21m of National Lottery funding. The complex brief includes galleries for touring exhibitions and for the City of Salford’s Lowry collection, a Lowry study centre, the Artworks’ interactive childrens’ gallery, a 1730 seat lyric theater and 450 seat flexible courtyard theatre, rehearsal rooms and together with the full complement of support spaces essential for the contemporary visitor attraction such as bars, cafes, retail and hospitality suites.

The two theatres, the Lyric and the Quays, colored purple and red respectively, which host a wide range of touring plays, comedians and musicians. The Lowry Center also hosts the Opera North series of operas. It is said that the Lyric theatre has the largest stage in the UK outside London’s West End. Proving to be very popular, visitor numbers have more than doubled from those first anticipated and the Lowry has now become a destination in itself. It has become one of the top attractions of North West England, receiving over a million visitors a year. The Lowry Center is served by the Harbour City stop on the Metrolink tram network.

It has provided a new focal point within the community and has proved to be successful in encouraging people to experience the visual and performing arts. The major permanent exhibition shows the work of Lawrence Stephen Lowry, 1887-1976, born in nearby Old Trafford. Throughout the plan symmetry between the principle performance spaces predominates on a central axis. In balance to this the peripheral spaces bring a subtle variation both to the external composition and to the carefully choreographed spatial sequences within.

The aerofoil canopy at the entrance is clad with combination of stainless steel shingles, perforated sheet metal and glass in dynamic geometries, illuminated from inside at night. The exciting cladding materials are strong in colors, which provide a new focal point within the community, creating a complex that has already proved to be successful in its mission to encourage people to experience the visual and performing arts.

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