Thursday 19 January 2012

Liverpool Metropolitan Cathedral Liverpool- Is it good architecture, or bad?

After CNN voted it amongst the worst 10 buildings a local debate has raged. The new look "The Post" the new weekly version of the now defunct Daily Ghost asked Wayne to write 400 words for "The Debate" which he duly did, this was to go in the first ever publication
Then after time anda bit of time and effort, it was asked to be cropped to 200. Wayne was aware that he was being lined up to say he did not like the building so he never said what they wanted.
The 400 was cut to 200 and the promise was the whole 400 would be on the website.
They speak with forked tongue there at the new look, old methods, The Post. Just when you think they are getting into serious debate, they then revert to type.
 http://www.liverpooldailypost.co.uk/liverpool-news/regional-news/2012/01/19/the-debate-liverpool-catholic-cathedral-is-it-really-an-ugly-building-video-99623-30151571/

So here are the actual 400 words that Wayne submitted;
I love modern architecture, but it’s hard to like this brutalist concrete upturned funnel, though I can’t agree it’s in the world’s worst 10 buildings.

Looking remarkably like The Cathedral of Brasilia, a hyperboloid structure designed by Oscar Niemeyer in 1958. It immediately leaked like a giant colander. The architect Frederick Gibberd was sued. Structural problems were not resolved until the 1990’s. The mosaic tiles had to be replaced with glass-reinforced plastic!
Jerry built, was the term, often used to describe its construction. Is it still a structural time bomb?
The outspoken and highly intelligent ecclesiastical sculptor Arthur Dooley coined the term Paddy’s Wigwam.
It sums up the 60’s, as a now outdated architecturally futurist fantasy, that at times went horribly wrong.
When tried and tested methods of construction, bent the given laws of logic to, sometimes, severe and often detrimental effect.
European funding was recently spent on its so-called realignment with Hope Street while next door, the Wellington Rooms, one of our historic gems, is derelict and sadly ignored.
Always meant to compete with the majesty of Giles Gilbert Scott’s Anglican Cathedral, it does so only by being architecturally impertinent and the use of shock effect.
Like a noisy little mongrel, barking at a graceful distinguished pedigree.
It dates from a time of religious conflict when children played football in the streets, Protestants verses Catholics.
Charles Rennie Mackintosh, who submitted a design for the Anglican Cathedral competition, once said 'There is hope in honest error, but none in the icy cold perfection of the mere stylist.'
The original Lutyens design was meant to be a rival to St Peter’s in Rome. He only managed the building of the Crypt before the outbreak of war, and then in the 60’s the cut-price colander idea came along.
No doubt it was sold to the public as being Iconic.
Liverpudlian’s are often defensive, of their own, but CNN have sparked off a debate that if entered into will give us more understanding of our public realm.
It’s not a good idea to risk your future by disrespecting your architectural inheritance.
Now loved by many who are proud to have two Cathedrals in the City, people now seem to have got used to it. Does that mean it’s good architecture?
Lutyens original design model is in the new Museum of Liverpool, now that is, a building that should be in the world’s worst top 10.

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