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The area
The museum stands in an area that built bombers and aero engines
The museum overlooks the Manchester Ship Canal on Trafford Wharf Road, Trafford Park, a key industrial centre in the Second World War. Factories there produced Avro Lancaster heavy bombers and Rolls-Royce Merlin aero engines.
Libeskind
Daniel Libeskind designed it as a shattered globe in three shards
The Berlin-based architect Daniel Libeskind won the competition in 1997 with his first building in the United Kingdom. He imagined a globe shattered by conflict, in three interlocking shards representing air, earth and water.
The shards
The air shard is 55 m high and holds the entrance
The air shard, 55 m high, provides the entranceway. The earth shard houses the exhibition spaces, and the water shard holds a cafe with views of the canal.
55 mthe height of the air shard
The floor
The gallery floor curves away like the Earth from a North Pole
The permanent exhibitions are in the earth shard. Its 3,500 m2 floor is curved, dropping away like the curvature of the Earth from a nominal North Pole near the entrance. A chronological display runs around the 200-metre perimeter.
The Blitz
684 people were killed in raids over two nights in 1940
Trafford Park was heavily bombed, particularly during the Manchester Blitz in December 1940, when 684 people were killed in raids over two nights. The museum opened on 5 July 2002 and explores the impact of modern conflicts on people and society.
684people killed in raids over two nights in December 1940
Day 2, afternoon
It comes after Science and Industry Museum. Then Old Trafford.
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The words are a retelling of the Wikipedia article Imperial War Museum North, and are shared under CC BY-SA 4.0. They are checked against those articles, and a fact that is not in them is left out.