page_title: CIS Tower
section_title: Background
hierarchical_section_title: CIS Tower / Background
caption_attribution_description: English: Co-operative Insurance Society Tower, Miller Street, Manchester. The best of Manchester's 1960s towers, and perhaps the best anywhere in the country. A thoughtful and deep-pocketed client, thoughtful architects, and top-quality materials serendipitously came together to prove that 1960s architecture can age gracefully while continuing to meet the needs of its users. Continuous occupation by those original clients helps too. The sleek twenty-five storey tower is glass, aluminium and black enamelled steel, materials chosen to resist the degrading effect of Manchester's dirty atmosphere. It was built 1959-62, the architects G.S. Hay of the CWS and Gordon Tait of Sir John Burnet, Tait &amp; Partners, who drew inspiration from skyscrapers across the Pond. Grade II listed. Pevsner notes that "when the building was being planned the CIS General Manager set out three aims: to add to the prestige of the Society and the Co-operative Movement, to improve the appearance of the city and to provide first-class accommodation for staff. The aims were fulfilled, and continue to be forty years on."
context_page_description: The CIS Tower is an office skyscraper on Miller Street in Manchester, England. It was completed in 1962 and rises to 387 feet in height. The Grade II listed building, which houses the Co-operative Banking Group, is Manchester's eighth-tallest building and the tallest office building in the United Kingdom outside London. The tower remained as built for over 40 years until maintenance issues on the service tower required an extensive renovation which included covering its facade in photovoltaic panels.
context_section_description: The tower was designed as a prestige headquarters to showcase the Co-operative movement in Manchester. In 1958, the company proposed building an office tower block, construction began the following year and it was completed in 1962.
  It was designed by Gordon Tait of Burnett, Tait & Partners and Co-operative's own architect, G. S. Hay. In the 1990s, it was granted Grade II listed building status by English Heritage. The tower, described as "the best of the Manchester 1960s office blocks", was listed for its "discipline and consistency". It is part of a group with New Century House and its Conference Hall on Corporation Street. The tower's design was influenced by Skidmore, Owings & Merrill's Inland Steel Building in Chicago after a visit by the architects in 1958.
  In 1962, at 387 feet, the CIS Tower overtook the Shell Centre as the tallest building in the United Kingdom, a title it retained for a year until it was replaced by the Millbank Tower in London. In 2006, the Beetham Tower became the tallest building in Manchester.
caption: CIS Tower from Miller Street
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