Coloured postcard showing a view of Piccadilly Gardens, Manchester. Piccadilly Gardens, Manchester, was formerly the site of the Royal Infirmary and Lunatic Asylum; after they moved to other sites, the Council demolished the buildings and turned the area into a public garden by 1914. In 2002 the area was redeveloped with hard landscaping and a water feature by Tadao Ando; recent websites have condemned the current state of the gardens (2019) as derelict and shameful