Originally opened as the Museum of the City, exploring life in different cities of the world, focusing on Los Angeles, Paris, Sao Paolo, Singapore, Tokyo and of course Manchester.  By a twist of fate, Manchester's most futuristic building occupies land once occupied by a warren of filthy courts and decrepit housing which Frederick Engels described in his work 'The Condition of the Working Class in England'.  In a further twist of fate, by examining such cities a Sao Paolo, Urbis shows how little has been learned since Manchester became the model for unregulated and uncontrolled urban and industrial expansion.

Since 2012 Urbis has been the home of the National Football Museum, about which I know nothing..!

The building occupies the western side of Cathedral Gardens, Manchester's newest public park, the first for seventy years.  Glass and sloping roofs seem to be becoming trade marks of Manchester's new buildings, the motif continuing in future developments such as The Edge and the Great Northern Tower.  Urbis was designed by Manchester based Ian Simson Architects, who also designed No1 Deansgate.