Author Archives: The Sharp Project

You can’t help feeling that it’s deliberate, the sense of confusion you’re dealt before your first Sharp Project visit. Talking to people, reading press reports and picking up fragments of information scattered around the internet, you’ll hear themes and comparisons, but that’s as sharp as the focus gets: a laboratory mindset might be mentioned; a business ecosystem; Silicon Valley comes up; an incubator; a place to try things; even a place to be allowed to fail and try again. Continue reading →

Great cities don’t thrive by constantly dredging up the exploits of their past inhabitants; they just let their esteemed reputations act as catalysts to the waves of citizens choosing live and work in them. And so the process continues. That’s why Manchester didn’t cease to be relevant once the Industrial Revolution went viral; the city merely shifted its focus, remained industrious and became a centre for enterprise, entertainment and education.

Design icon Peter Saville has carried this vibe with him on his journey from Factory Records to London and LA and back again to Manchester, where he now works with the City Council as consultant creative director. Saville is behind Manchester’s “Original Modern” concept that has provided a starting point for some of the city’s great endeavours of late. By being the first industrial city, Manchester is the archetype of the modern city, the blueprint, the original – but Original Modern was never intended as a two-word history lesson; it’s a concept that goes on feeding the current generation. Its most recent manifestation is the Sharp Project.

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