{"id":245488,"date":"2025-07-07T14:39:11","date_gmt":"2025-07-07T14:39:11","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/245488\/"},"modified":"2025-07-07T14:39:11","modified_gmt":"2025-07-07T14:39:11","slug":"northern-quarters-big-horn-is-more-than-a-sculpture-lets-bring-it-back","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/245488\/","title":{"rendered":"‘Northern Quarter’s Big Horn is more than a sculpture – let’s bring it back’"},"content":{"rendered":"

It stood as a welcome post for the city’s creative district for nearly 20 years before vanishing. Now there’s a move to bring it back<\/p>\n

10:45, 05 Jul 2025Updated 12:44, 07 Jul 2025<\/p>\n

The Big Horn was opposite Afflecks Paalace for years(Image: Hayley Flynn)<\/p>\n

The Northern Quarter\u2019s Big Horn sculpture should be reinstated after nearly a decade in storage, a new petition says.<\/p>\n

City centre campaigner Fiona Moinuddin is calling for the return of David Kemp\u2019s \u2018amazing architectural structure\u2019, unveiled in June 1999 as a symbol of Manchester\u2019s creative district.<\/p>\n

The 10m-tall and 15m-long artwork stood on the remains of a Victorian hat factory on the edge of a Tib Street car park until 2017, when the site was redeveloped into the Transmission House apartments by Salboy, which featured a luxury grand piano store for several years. Fiona says the sculpture has been in storage since then.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe Big Horn is more than just a sculpture \u2014 it\u2019s a symbol of our community\u2019s history, creativity and identity,\u201d she said. \u201cWhen residents and visitors arrived in the Northern Quarter<\/a>, the Horn was a moment of joy and a reminder of our shared industrial past.<\/p>\n

\u201cIts absence is deeply felt by those Mancunians and visitors who remember the sculpture, and its return would be a powerful statement that Manchester values its public art and heritage.\u201d<\/p>\n

The city centre mum has identified an opportunity to bring the Big Horn back close to its original location, when the nearby Church Street car park is redeveloped.<\/p>\n

Fiona Moinuddin drumming up support for her petition(Image: Fiona Moinuddin)<\/p>\n

Manchester council said in November 2024 it wants the multi-storey to be demolished and \u2018mixed-tenure residential and commercial uses [and] a new public square\u2019 to come in.<\/p>\n

Fiona is calling for the sculpture to be restored, reinstated on Church Street, and for the council and developers to work with locals on how to celebrate the art.<\/p>\n

The petition has the backing of Labour<\/a>\u2019s Piccadilly ward councillor Jon-Connor Lyons. He told the Local Democracy Reporting Service: \u201cI’ve signed the petition and think it is a great idea to bring back the Tib Street Horn to our streets here in the Northern Quarter.<\/p>\n

\u201cFiona and I will be meeting with Bev Craig, the leader of the council, to present her the petition and ask her to personally intervene and see the Horn returned to our streets in the Northern Quarter. I’d like to ask those who support public art and our Mancunian heritage to please back Fiona’s campaign and sign her petition.\u201d<\/p>\n

You can see and sign the petition here.<\/strong><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"It stood as a welcome post for the city’s creative district for nearly 20 years before vanishing. Now…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":245489,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3939],"tags":[4021,4020,4022,77,8086,8828,9158,285,16,15],"class_list":{"0":"post-245488","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-arts-and-design","8":"tag-arts","9":"tag-arts-and-design","10":"tag-design","11":"tag-entertainment","12":"tag-manchester-city-centre","13":"tag-manchester-council","14":"tag-northern-quarter","15":"tag-politics","16":"tag-uk","17":"tag-united-kingdom"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/245488","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=245488"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/245488\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/245489"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=245488"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=245488"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=245488"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}