3D Modelling of Lutyens’s Proposed Liverpool Cathedral: The Greatest Building Never Built 1

Dr. Nick Webb, Jeff Speakman
A discussion of the design for a Roman Catholic Cathedral at Liverpool, based on physical and digital models.
Additional links:
Digital models
sketchfab.com/...
Physical model endoscopic film (Mezzo Films)
/ 1000271463459518
Article on the digital model
doi.org/10.101...
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Dr Nick Webb
Architect and lecturer @Liverpool School of Architecture
Dr Nick Webb is a qualified architect and lecturer at the Liverpool School of Architecture. As a researcher he is interested in how digital tools and techniques can be used as methods to enhance and critique our understanding of historic works of architecture, whether they be existing buildings, were built and then damaged or destroyed, or were not built at all. His research focuses on methods that enable new information to be provided that would not have been possible in a pre-digital context, including digital capture technologies such as laser scanning, three-dimensional digital modelling and analysis, and immersive virtual reality techniques. He is currently principal investigator on the AHRC funded project ‘Tracing the past: analysing the design and construction of English medieval vaults using digital techniques,’ alongside a team of researchers at Liverpool.
Jeff Speakman
Assistant Curator @Archaeology Museum of Liverpool.
Speakman was the lead researcher / curator on the display of Lutyens's large scale Liverpool Cathedral model in the The Museum of Liverpool, which is one of eight Museums and Art Galleries around Merseyside which form National Museums Liverpool. Speakman has worked for NML for 25 years on excavations and as a post-excavation ceramic specialist writing finds reports from many of our excavations, as well as with responsibilities for the Regional Archaeology collections and display of archaeological material.

[@Knoyle1632]

Lutyens's Metropolitan Cathedral would have been so original, so monumental, so colossal, so phenomenal, so magical !! :-o :-o :-o

[@Knoyle1632]

Lutyens's Catholic Cathedral would have been something of a miracle !! :-o :-o :-o

[@Knoyle1632]

The great model in itself is a Masterpiece !!

[@marksletters]

Thank you....A brilliant and informative video !!

[@Knoyle1632]

If I were a Liverpudlian, I would be very proud of my city's architectural heritage !! For it is fabulous, marvellous, glorious !! :-o :-o :-o

[@Itsonlyaname81]

I am a Liverpudlian. We are proud of this city and it's heritage. This city is 814 years old now, was officially given town status by King John, the same bad guy in Robin Hood stories. It's also got the most listed buildings outside London. Oldest Chinatown in Europe as well. I could go on, this city is dripping in history. The last Confederate ship surrendered in Liverpool in 1865. This city's history isn't all something to be proud of, we were a big part of the slave trade.

[@sglenny001]

@@Itsonlyaname81 yes but you have the better building

[@Itsonlyaname81]

@@sglenny001 We do have amazing buildings. St George's Hall is right in front of you as you come out the train station, more listed buildings than any other city in UK except London, the Tobacco warehouse at Stanley dock is one of the biggest brick buildings in the world, a world famous waterfront with the 3 graces. It's an gorgeous city.

[@sglenny001]

@@Itsonlyaname81 I'm talking of 60s rocket its honestly my favourite Relgous building in UK only behind Lincoln Cartadel

[@Itsonlyaname81]

@@sglenny001 Oh your talking about Paddy's Wigwam. That's the informal affectionate name for the Metropolitan Cathedral. Yeah it's certainly a striking building. And the name of the road between the 2 cathedrals is called Hope Street, quite fitting don't you think.

[@HTtwentyten]

Many critics here have remarked on the building's scale. I say its scale is entirely in keeping with the role faith SHOULD play in our lives. A commercial skyscraper should not compete with a city's cathedral for prominence on its skyline. I applaud the 'extravagance' of Lutyen's design, its reassuring solidness and regularity, its grounded, earthy tones. It could have been a great sanctuary for the faithful, and an ever-present beacon for the faithless. For its time, it would have been a gusty shout in the face of encroaching social (and aesthetic) modernism.

[@willhemmings]

Impressive as it is, I am glad the cathedral was never built; and remains a glorious might have been. The experience is sufficient for me to imagine a virtual perambulation through the building, with stately music quietly playing, the candles gently flickering, all present stunned into silence

[@roberthossen8354]

I wrote my Masters thesis on Lutyens design for the cathedral. I still deplore it was never finished... A fantastic piece of architecture!!! Unfortunately I wasn't able to go to the exhibition of the restored model in Liverpool and alas, the museum no longer sells the catalogue. If anyone knows where I can still buy a copy, I'd be thrilled!!

[@Johnconno]

It's a complete mess, was he an opium addict?

[@anthonyhulse1248]

I need to know more - I'm doing a paper in my MA Theol on the Liverpool Cathedrals

[@Knoyle1632]

Giles Gilbert Scott was a brilliant architect too !!

[@shumoon1]

The cathedral would look even better if were located in New Delhi😉

[@colsmith434]

It would certainly go well with Lutyens' other monumental works there.

[@Knoyle1632]

Scott's Anglican Cathedral is a glorious Masterpiece of architecture !! :-o :-o :-o

[@HistoriaenCeluloide]

I wonder if today will be possible to build something like that, specially in times like this when there're people who wanted to rebuild Notre Dame with a swimming pool

[@michaelrecycle9838]

It looks an awful lot like L'oratoire de Saint-Joseph in Montreal, and yeah, it's awesome!

[@jayh9529]

Tartarian architecture is nice

[@Wanamaker1946]

I’m glad it wasn’t built. It’s an albatross. The Anglican Cathedral also a maintenance nightmare. Can anyone even imagine the cost to heat these piles? Can you? And look at the age we’re in now, it’s entirely too big. We need to all get together at one cathedral, and get over our “mine is bigger than your’s” which has absolutely nothing to do with Christ. As much as truly appreciate this architect, I see the this design more of a train station, and even then, it’s still a maintenance nightmare. The model is magnificent in own right. I firmly believe God is Well Pleased in this model. In a way, the design was materialized to size All Peoples of many ages can enjoy in wonderment. Even Whitemarsh Hall was too big to maintain. It would’ve been made a magnificent model for all the ages. No, I think this model is its own Reliquary. I’d rather have it in the end.

[@roberthossen8354]

The name of the draughtsman of the beautiful watercolour perspectives, isn't Cecil Farey, but Cyril Farey.

[@freelancepear87kakkoka11]

i kinda like the design but only because i like the style of Hagia Sophia, but when i look at the 3d renders of the cityscape it just doesn't fit there. looks like a sore thumb in this very industrial city.

[@misspurrr-fect3684]

Today’s Cathedral is a Funnel for the Tunnel

[@EppingLad]

What a graceless building,more like a giant morseleum than a cathedral. Lucky escape for Liverpool.

[@roberthossen8354]

P.S. I wrote my thesisin 1988 - 1989 and got my Masters degree in 1989.

[@annoyingchannel8812]

That commentator is talking rubbish by trying to link the Lutyens design to a 'power trip'. That is simply his prejudice. There is a tradition over millennia of trying to build ambitious beautiful architecture for the glory of God. That was the motivating imperative.

[@Johnconno]

Bahrain? Just stretch it, then add a lot of mirrored glass. It's a mess.

[@PeterFearon-o8h]

Archbishop Downey not Downing Street

[@blancavelasquez9859]

it would fit better in the middle east like israel maybe but it’s a great building

[@henryb160]

It would only give them another Christian church to spit on.

[@jeanjacques9980]

I’ve visited most of the WW1 memorials, my opinion for what it is worth, the Thiepval memorial is the most ugliest building in the whole of Belgium. It would be well placed as an entrance to a Tesco supermarket. How anyone can argue that this simplistic collection of Lego bricks has any architectural merit I do not know. The proposed Cathedral is dreadful and only surpassed in ugliness by the 1960s Cathedral. I struggle, I don’t think an architecturally pleasing Catholic Church has been built in England since the 1930s, not a great fan of the exterior of Westminster Cathedral, aware that internally it’s a work in progress that will never be completed.

[@nickw4475]

I'd love to visit a Tesco that looks like Thiepval! In my opinion, the architectural merit of the monument (based in France) is it's fractal nature. The fact that the sponge-like ground level allows for 16 oversized columns, and therefore 64 surfaces fulfilling the awful task of including enough space for the thousands of people who died in the first world war. For me, the interlocking arches, which hold each other up, also suggests the comradery of the soldiers.

[@jeanjacques9980]

@@nickw4475 Beauty is obvious in the eye of the beholder, sadly for me having visited all the WW1 & WW2 memorial sites over the years, Thiepval is my least favourite by a long way, you have your opinion which I respect, you seem to love his work. The rows of graves are the most poignant aspect of the Thiepval memorial. Fundamentally I seem to have a problem with this architect’s repetitive style, he seems to be a precursor of brutalism and the 1960s school of architecture. I wouldn’t commission him to design a coal shed.

[@Scouseviking1990]

This was build and destroyed on purpose during the great reset

[@hape3862]

I have never seen anything uglier in my entire life.

[@garrywallace1007]

Its not pretty, and hideous in its urban context. Something's are better left unbuilt.

[@jaimz33]

Good it never got built it looks like a mosque

[@larikipe940]

Such a ghastly monstrosity. Thank CHRIST he saw fit to stop this.

[@ARDA-cb2zr]

How?

[@larikipe940]

@@ARDA-cb2zr Too big, too impersonal, too clumsy, too bulky, too rambling, too much wasted space, too expensive. And UGLY, although that opinion, I will admit, is purely subjective.

[@ARDA-cb2zr]

@@larikipe940 I think it would be one of best in world today if it got built

[@larikipe940]

@@ARDA-cb2zr Yes, well, there is no accounting for taste.

[@HTtwentyten]

I find that opinion of yours to be exceedingly rare. I honestly did not know members of the public existed who have bought so thoroughly into modernist design philosophies that they reject aesthetic traditions and lessons that have been honed for millenia in an unbroken line of succession, and held by most people to be objective. I would have assumed Lutyen's Cathedral to be objectively beautiful, but you confound that assumption.