War museum opens for the North

The building represents a globe fragmented by war

A £28m war museum has opened in Greater Manchester.

The building is expected to attract 300,000 visitors a year and is the first branch of the Imperial War Museum outside the south of England.

Manchester's Imperial War Museum North chronicles the impact of conflicts in which British and Commonwealth forces have been involved since 1914.

It is housed next to the Manchester Ship Canal at Trafford Park, in an aluminium-clad building designed to show the fragmenting effect of war.

Mixed offering

Museum director Jim Forrester said: "My ambition for the museum is a real mix of people all talking about war experiences or war opinions.

"People who are interested in weapons or people who are more interested in the people side of it."

Features of the museum include:

A T34 Russian tank and a Harrier jump jet.

The artillery piece which fired the first shell from the British side in World War I.

A 360-degree audio-visual show drawing on the museum's photograph and sound archives

Other displays focus on themes including prisoners of war, refugees, and women and war.

The building designed by architect Daniel Libeskind is based on the concept of a world shattered by conflict.

It shows a fragmented globe in three shards, representing conflict on land, in the air, and on water.