PETER BARKER

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HIGH AND MIGHTY

I’ve often thought that the skyscraper or towerblock is the perfect symbol of our economic system because it is very high and has a very small base.  It’s a picture of instability.  As I watch the towers spring up here in Manchester I feel uneasy: too many, too late, too sporadic.  One day, if you ever get the chance, stand close to the bottom of one where it meets the street.  It’s hard not to shiver in its icy maw.

Here is a picture of a pair of them which I took down where the Ship Canal meets the River Irwell, near Pomona Island. Not unusually, they reflect one another - eclipsing perspectives and setting up their own order.