National Centre for Popular Music, Sheffield, England

The National Centre for Popular Music was a museum in Sheffield, England for contemporary music and culture, a £15 million project, which opened on 1 March 1999, and closed in June 2000.

The building consists of four giant stainless steel drums, surrounding an atrium area, the upper floor of which has a glazed roof. The drums, whose tops were built to rotate in to the wind, no longer rotate and have been left pointing in various directions.

The ground floor contained office space, a shop, a bar, a cafe and a further exhibition space. Access to this floor was free, with only the top floor forming the museum.

It became a live music venue for a period from July 2001 and then being taken over by Sheffield Hallam University from September 2003, who bought it from Yorkshire Forward for £1.85m in February 2003.

Architect : Nigel Coates

Urbis, Manchester, England

Urbis is an exhibition centre located in central Manchester, England. The centre features changing exhibitions on the subject of city life, alongside talks, gigs and other events.

The building opened in 2002 as part of the redevelopment of the area around Exchange Square known as the Millennium Quarter.

The design and shape of the building can be compared with the Flatiron Building in New York.

The exhibition centre is set across five floors. Hosting temporary exhibitions that run from between three to five months. Each October, the entire building is given over to Manchester Fashion Weekend, an offshoot of a similar event in London.

Urbis also contains a cafe, a shop, rooms for corporate hire and a restaurant and bar, on the fifth and sixth floors.

Architect : Ian Simpson

Curve, Leicester, England

Curve is a theatre in Leicester, England, based in the Cultural quarter in Leicester City Centre. Before being named Curve, it was referred to as Leicester Performing Arts Centre. It is adjacent to the Leicester Athena conference and banqueting centre.

The £61 million project is the result of a close collaboration between the design team, Leicester Theatre Trust and Leicester City Council. The cutting edge design turns the typical theatre configuration ‘inside out’ by exposing the production, construction, craft, and technical components of theatre to the public, integrating all aspects of performance into the life of the city and making it truly inclusive and accessible.

The theatre features a four-story glazed and louvered curtain wall. Hung from a vast truss spanning the site, the glass hits the ground without interruption from structure, offering a continuous and unobstructed 4m high window revealing the two main audience volumes, a 750-seat main auditorium and a 350-seat studio, and the production and administrative facilities behind.

Architect : Rafael Viñoly