Imperial War Museum North is in Trafford, Greater Manchester. It is one of five Imperial War Museum branches and the first in northern England. Daniel Libeskind, a Berlin-based architect, won a 1997 competition to design it, and it was his first building in the United Kingdom.
The building consists of three interlocking shards that represent air, earth and water and together form a shattered globe. The 55-meter air shard contains the entrance. The earth shard houses the exhibition galleries, with a curved floor of about 3,500 square meters. The water shard contains a café overlooking the Manchester Ship Canal.
The museum opened on July 5, 2002. It was budgeted at £40 million and was completed for £28.5 million. Displays include a Russian T-34 tank and a Harrier jet, and admission is free.
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