- 01 LIVERPOOL METROPOLITAN CATHEDRAL | Eastern perspective with tall stained glass panels
In 2017 I spent a few walking days in Liverpool exploring the waterfront, abandoned docks, new architecture, restored buildings and the two Cathedrals set high above. This chronological set of photographs concentrates on details from Sir Frederick Gibberd’s 1967 Liverpool Metropolitan Cathedral rather than wider perspectives of the whole structure and records the changing weather and light across an afternoon. Interest lay in the assemblage of varied forms and their stone cladding enlivened by flashes of strong colour in the eight tall, free standing, stained glass stela set around the building.
- 02 LIVERPOOL METROPOLITAN CATHEDRAL | Detail from the south east rim of the structure
The Anglican Cathedral is a short walk south along Hope Street and I’d spent the morning there in Britain’s largest and the world’s fifth largest cathedral. It’s a magnificently monumental structure particularly when moving through its interior spaces. At 22, Giles Gilbert Scott won the design competition and his ideas were extensively developed between laying the 1904 foundation stone and completion in 1978.
- 03 LIVERPOOL METROPOLITAN CATHEDRAL | Lantern tower and stained glass from the east side
Taken from the east, this combines details from the Portland stone cladding of the building, the lantern, and part of one of the eight tall abstract designs in stained glass. I liked this combination of varied and narrow vertical shapes and forms topped by the lantern pinnacles and its more concentrated composition in the next image.
- 04 LIVERPOOL METROPOLITAN CATHEDRAL | Raphael Steitz stained glass stele detail
The stela forms of the stained glass panels set north south, east and west give flashes of colour against the pale tones of the building stone. They are by the German designer-craftsman Raphael Steitz and were installed around 2010 as part of extensive renovations and refinements of the original building.
- 05 LIVERPOOL METROPOLITAN CATHEDRAL | The building stands on |Sir Edwin Lutyens’s crypt
The first Roman Catholic cathedral was sited in nearby Everton to designs by Edward Welby Pugin. Building began in 1853 but owing to other demands on funding the work stopped in1856 and the building was designated as a Parish Church: it was demolished in the 1980s. The Liverpool Workhouse occupying this Brownlow Hill site of the second cathedral was demolished when the Church bought the ground in 1930. Sir Edwin Lutyens was commissioned as architect and he proposed a Romanesque building on a truly monumental scale in red brick and pale grey granite
- 06 LIVERPOOL METROPOLITAN CATHEDRAL | An eastern truss fragment
Lutyens design would have supported the world’s largest dome crowning its second largest cathedral structure. It would have comfortably exceeding the scale of Scott’s gothic Anglican Cathedral then rising at the other end of Hope Street. Optimistic costings, the effects of the Second World War and shortage of funds led to the project’s suspension after the completion of the windowed crypt in 1958. That structure’s multi-space interior is magnificent in blue brick under red brick vaults set off by granite dressings. The restored twelve foot high1934 scale model of the whole design is displayed in the Museum of Liverpool.
- 07 LIVERPOOL METROPOLITAN CATHEDRAL | A southern prespective
A third design was commissioned from Adrian Gilbert Scott, brother of Sir Giles Gilbert Scott, the Anglican Cathedral’s architect. His reduction of the Lutyens proposal was rejected and in 1959-60 a competition was organised to provide a fourth design. Its rules required a space that would bring the congregation closer to the celebration of the Mass and incorporate the completed crypt. Some 300 architects based world-wide responded: Frederick Gibberd’s radial design was chosen.
- 08 LIVERPOOL METROPOLITAN CATHEDRAL | Bell tower and lantern fragments
The conical structure combines two concrete ring beams and sixteen sloping trusses now clad in Portland stone set at the southern end of the platform over the crypt. The entrance is through one of the bays between and small chapels stand in the others, separated from the trusses by narrow stained glass windows. A lantern filled with stained glass by John Piper and Patrick Reyntiens crowns the building to flood the interior and its central altar with coloured light.
- 09 LIVERPOOL METROPOLITAN CATHEDRAL | A view centred on one of William Mitchells’ doors
A quite dramatic contrast of densely dark northern rain clouds with this warmly lit fragment of the structure appealed . Two abstract fibreglass relief sliding door sculptures by William Mitchell flank the entrance: I’ve only seen one photograph of them closed over the glazed screen and doors visible in these images. Walking the long flight of steps with the building set against these dark rainclouds was a memorable experience. The afternoon sunlight warmed colour of the Portland stone cladding and the same sculptor’s cruciform reliefs cut into the flat bell tower façade above.
- 10 LIVERPOOL METROPOLITAN CATHEDRAL | Stairway and bell tower reliefs
In the afternoon the very dark rain clouds to the north and sometimes fleeting sun introduced variable light and colour tones to the building.
- 11 LIVERPOOL METROPOLITAN CATHEDRAL | Eastern perspective with stained glass panels
This view from the east shows the Cathedral set on the south of its plinth. The sixteen trusses supporting the building bracket individual structures set against the central cylinder enclosing the interior. It’s interesting to contrast the stained glass set here against masonry with its colours when free standing against the light.
- 12 LIVERPOOL METROPOLITAN CATHEDRAL | Truss and core detail with stairway
This detail is taken from stairway in the bottom-left corner of the previous image.
- 13 LIVERPOOL METROPOLITAN CATHEDRAL | A perspective of the north west rim of the building
Made from the western edge of the crypt platform this view includes another of the eight stained glass panels set in pairs north, south, east and west of the cathedral. The afternoon light was poor on the northern façade of the block structure to the left so I left that unrecorded.
- 14 LIVERPOOL METROPOLITAN CATHEDRAL | Structural forms and stained glass
The camera pointed southwest across the patterned masonry of the crypt to concentrate on the tall panel of stained glass and the main body of the cathedral beyond.
- 15 LIVERPOOL METROPOLITAN CATHEDRAL | A western perspective with lantern
This is a western perspective from outside the platform over the Lutyens crypt.
- 16 LIVERPOOL METROPOLITAN CATHEDRAL | South west corner structural detail
Sunlight and its created shadows emphasise details from the core cylindrical form of the structure and one of its sixteen supporting trusses. It also shows a pair of the narrow stained glass windows flanking each of them.
- 17 LIVERPOOL METROPOLITAN CATHEDRAL | Stairway to the main entrance under the bell tower
After midday I’d walked from the Anglican cathedral to arrive at this point on Hope Street. I wanted views clear of other walkers and more even light from sky to pavement so decided to return later in the day: it was after five by then. I used the forty feet high and richly coloured glass panels to frame the steps and bell tower relief sculptures.
- 18 LIVERPOOL METROPOLITAN CATHEDRAL | Southern perspective from Hope Street
In the ever changing weather across the day I particularly liked the strong contrast of dark clouds and warmly lit stone earlier in the afternoon. Here, the viewfinder was free from walkers as sought but lacking the light that I’d hoped for earlier in the day. I’d have preferred the colour lift and shadow creation I’d worked with in the earlier images. I hope that I’m able to return to City to spend time on a more considered exploration of the intriguing collection of architectural forms working together in the Cathedral.