Checkpoint 1

Some facts relating to the photo

The Chapman Building was built to provide additional lecture theatres to an expanding institution. At the time, the building was described as having a “Southbank look”, referring to London’s iconic brutalist Southbank Centre on the Thames. Over the years, significant changes have been made to the interior and the exterior of the Chapman Building and the surrounding area. The upper foyer housed the University’s art gallery from the late 1970s to the early 1980s. 

The building is named after Sydney Chapman (1888-1970), a mathematician and geophysicist born in Eccles. Sydney was a student the Salford Royal Technical Institute, which was housed in the Peel Building, from 1902 to 1904. He would go on to teach geophysics at the University of Manchester, Imperial College London and the University of Oxford.