A multimillion-pound luxury penthouse flat named after the revolutionary communist philosopher and writer Friedrich Engels has caught the attention of social media irony hunters after it was listed with a £2.5m price tag by developer Renaker.
The apartment is in the east tower of the Deansgate Square development, where Renaker says its vision “is to create a sustainable and attractive neighbourhood where people feel proud to call home”.
The tower stands just off Deansgate, in what was once a slum area of Manchester, and just a few hundred yards from the former ‘Little Ireland’ slum, which much of Engels’s seminal 1845 work The Condition of the Working Class in England, as well as 1850’s The Communist Manifesto, which Engels co-wrote with his comrade Karl Marx.
Both men spent significant periods in Manchester, the birthplace of the Industrial Revolution that inspired much of their work, researching and writing their storied tomes. Engels himself spent more than two decades in the city, and is commemorated by a statue in the city’s Tony Wilson Place, named after another local cultural icon.
The 290 sq metre (3,126 sq ft) flat is listed on the developer’s website as a showhome, but in promotional material it was advertised with a price tag of £2.5m.
A second penthouse apartment, The Turing, named after the University of Manchester computer scientist, Enigma codebreaker and early LGBT icon Alan Turing is also on the market for £2.5m.
The Engels features three-en suite bedrooms, as well as a home office and a sweeping open-plan living area.
The irony of the co-creator of Communist thinking being used to market a luxury flat was not lost on social media users, with Guardian journalist Hannah Al-Othman:
Journalist, author and former Hacienda DJ Dave Haslam:
And nearby Gorse Hill and Cornbrook Ward Labour councillor and self-proclaimed ‘proud socialist’ Fianna Hornby among those raising an online eyebrow at the intriguing naming decision:
