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Telegraph
30-06-2025
- General
- Telegraph
The ugly buildings we secretly love
When news came last week that Liverpool's Metropolitan Cathedral of Christ the King – colloquially known as 'Paddy's Wigwam' – had been granted Grade I-listed status, it marked a long-awaited vindication for a building that has weathered its fair share of criticism. The design by Sir Frederick Gibberd, selected from 300 entries worldwide, took shape over five years (1962–67) and sits atop Mount Pleasant, overlooking the city with views stretching to the Mersey estuary beyond. Built quickly and cheaply – as many post-war buildings were – it has been described as 'a gargantuan concrete aberration from the Apollo space programme'. Even as recently as 2013, CNN named it one of the world's ugliest buildings. Inside, of course, the story is very different. Bathed in coloured light from the kaleidoscopic stained glass, the cathedral is an extraordinary space – one that has come to be cherished by Liverpudlians, Catholic or not. It is the latest in a long line of buildings that, though they didn't receive universal acclaim at first, have endured nonetheless. Scottish Parliament Building, Edinburgh The 1997 vote for Scottish Devolution meant a new parliament was needed, but its birth was, to put it mildly, a car crash. Ten times over budget and years behind schedule, Holyrood's construction became a dream story for the press but a nightmare for MSPs and civil servants, whose mistakes were broadcast daily. The image of the dour, thrifty Scot clashed with the flamboyance of the building's cost and design, hardly endearing it to the public when it opened in 2004. Questions were also raised about the practicality of the joint design by RMJM – one of the world's largest architecture and design firms – and Barcelona-based architect Enric Miralles, who avoided much of the controversy by passing away midway through the project in 2000. Yet opinions shifted after it won the 2005 Stirling Prize, the highest honour in British architecture. Scots, embracing a new era free from Westminster's control, came to see the building as a symbol of a renaissance north of the border. Today, visitors flock to marvel at its outré design. Hillingdon Civic Offices, Uxbridge Hillingdon Council's Ford Granada-driving apparatchiks wanted a new HQ, and what they got ended up defining over a decade of suburban style in Britain. If the Hillingdon Civic Centre reminds you of a supermarket, you wouldn't be far off – this became the signature look of Tescos and Safeways across the south. The bulky Civic Centre was designed by Andrew Derbyshire of RMJM and opened in 1979. 'Like any suburban orgy, it was more comical than sexy,' said the architecture journalist Jonathan Meades. 'It was the architectural equivalent of Benny Hill or Sid James: coarse, matey, blokeish, undemanding, unthreatening, accessible.' This building felt like the starting point of a backlash against the progressive and exciting modernism that had flourished during Britain's ' Les Trente Glorieuses'. Over the following 30 years, there was little but disdain for modernist achievements and a widespread retreat from ambition, with brick vernacular becoming especially fashionable in this new, cautious era. Nowadays, modernism and postmodernism have found a warmer welcome. While Hillingdon Civic Centre might not immediately evoke the wild, pastel-coloured tropical postmodernism of John Outram and others, it's certainly an uncle to those buildings. Now listed, it enjoys a bit more affection from the people of Uxbridge. University of East Anglia, Norwich The serpentine teaching block, dubbed the Lasdun Wall, snakes along a ridge where University of East Anglia (UEA) students study, while the eye-popping ziggurats tumbling down towards the River Yare are where they sleep. Space-age chic seems entirely at odds with sleepy Norfolk; architectural historian Elain Harwood called it 'the boldest architecture of any new university', and it became the backdrop to Malcolm Bradbury's novel The History Man. It's heartening that, despite the UEA's stark 1960s campus, it has gained more fans as it has reached middle age. It's not without problems – issues with the fireproof reinforced autoclaved aerated concrete (RAAC), widely used as a cheap material especially in roofs, have led to the closure of the ziggurats during remediation work. Meanwhile, new extensions to the university have sparked thorough debate. Architecture fans visiting can also explore the Sainsbury Centre next door. Designed by Lord Foster, it opened in 1978 and was hailed as revolutionary for its lightweight, high-tech design, influencing many airports and office buildings throughout the 1980s and 1990s. Southbank Centre, London London's Southbank Centre has long been at the heart of various culture wars. When Churchill's Tories won the autumn 1951 snap election, they sought to dismantle the remains of the Festival of Britain, viewing it as a thoroughly socialist project by Labour's Herbert Morrison – which, of course, it was. The futuristic Skylon was removed, but the Royal Festival Hall survived. The Southbank Centre was expanded in a brutalist style during the 1960s. Its maze of passageways and high walkways confused visitors, while its gruff exteriors offended many sensibilities. In 1988, the then Prince Charles famously likened Denys Lasdun's National Theatre (NT) to a nuclear power station. Today, attitudes have shifted. We now recognise the stark beauty in its complexity and surreal sculptural forms, and the restrained harmony of the theatre complex in particular. John Grindrod wrote in his 2013 book Concretopia that 'Lasdun's interiors have a rather cosy aesthetic,' echoing theatre critic Michael Billington's 1976 view that the NT is 'a superb piece of sculpture.' The entire Southbank complex was designed the way it was because planners insisted on roads and car parks, and even proposed building a heliport next door – hence the Queen Elizabeth Hall's thick, austere walls. Today, the terraces are bustling with diners, while the undercrofts have become a beloved haunt for skateboarders. Moseley Road Baths, Birmingham The residents of Balsall Heath in south Birmingham were certainly grateful when the baths on Moseley Road opened in 1907. Back in 1890, Birmingham was hailed as the 'best-governed city in the world' by Harper's Magazine – a claim that might raise a wry smile from today's locals still waiting for their bins to be collected. Its trams, housing, utilities and public baths were all part of a civic effort to lift the city from industrial slum to modern metropolis. But the baths were not universally loved, and have only narrowly escaped demolition, more due to luck than design. As the 20th century wore on and more homes welcomed bathrooms and washing machines, fewer people needed the bathhouse. And Birmingham (city motto: 'Forward'), spent much of the 1960s demolishing its Victorian and Edwardian architecture, including the grand Central Library and the original New Street Station, as tastes turned against the ornate. In recent years, however, a dedicated campaign has saved the arts-and-crafts building. Now Grade II-listed and undergoing careful restoration, the Moseley Road Baths are protected at last. Scarborough Grand Hotel, North Yorkshire Scarborough's grande dame was originally conceived as the Cliff Hotel, built at a time when the town was establishing itself as a premier seaside resort following the arrival of the railway on the Yorkshire coast. Visitors came to take the waters, and a grand hotel was needed to accommodate them. But throughout its life, the building has been a victim of its own scale – beset by fires, outbreaks of illness, and now, by its current management. Run as a tired, cut-price hotel, it was dubbed 'the shame of Scarborough' by Tory mayoral candidate Keane Duncan last year. When it opened in the 1860s, it was one of the largest hotels ever built – so large, in fact, that some wondered whether it was all a bit much for the once-sleepy fishing town. The Grand's story is closely tied to that of its architect, the exquisitely named Cuthbert Brodrick. A Hull native, Brodrick also designed Leeds' monumental Town Hall and Corn Exchange – buildings with a distinctive size and swagger that often clashed with the era's more restrained architectural tastes. Brodrick's overblown Oriental Turkish Baths on Cookridge Street in Leeds were unceremoniously demolished in the 1960s – by then, he had well and truly fallen from favour. That changed in 2007, when Jonathan Meades made a film about him for BBC Two, sparking a reappraisal of his work. Today, the Grand is a much-loved landmark on the Yorkshire coast. Blackpool Tower, Blackpool The Eiffel Tower is perhaps the most famous example of a building once heavily derided that has only grown in popularity with age. Blackpool's imitation, by contrast, was long dismissed as a poor copy aimed at entertaining the lower classes. Like Brighton's more recent i360 seafront tower, it was seen by some as overly tall and something of a white elephant. Today, it's a listed building, and its kitsch swagger has come to define the Blackpool seafront. We'd never dream of demolishing it now – nor its ballroom, the spiritual home of ballroom dancing. Yet in the 1920s, there was serious talk of tearing it all down. It may seem far-fetched, but that's exactly what happened to the similar-looking New Brighton Tower on the Wirral. Despite being even taller than Blackpool's, it had few defenders when it was demolished in 1919 after just 20 years. Its ballroom – where the Beatles played no fewer than 27 concerts – met the same fate in 1969, following a major fire. Strawberry Hill House, London A gothic wedding cake by the Thames, Strawberry Hill House is a singular and delightfully eccentric creation – perfectly in keeping with its owner, Horace Walpole. An unmarried enigma and gothic novelist who puzzled polite society, Walpole built his fantastical home in Twickenham as a whimsical homage to medieval cathedrals and castles. It was a world away from the architectural fashions of the mid-1700s and, at first, had few admirers. Slowly but surely, people began to visit, drawn in by the fairytale interiors and jaunty gardens, and Strawberry Hill House grew into an attraction. A century later, gothic revival (an architectural style) had become a full-blown Victorian obsession – just look at the Houses of Parliament – so Walpole's creation no longer seemed quite so outlandish. Architecture critic Ian Nairn once remarked that 'Walpole's stucco fancy' was 'prettier and less finicking than you'd expect'. A high-profile restoration in the 2000s, featured on TV, brought a new wave of admirers. Today, the house welcomes around 25,000 visitors a year. Buckingham Palace, London Like the face of an ageing celebrity, Buckingham Palace has had more alterations over the years than you can shake a Botox syringe at. Throughout its life, it has endured feelings ranging from antipathy to outright hostility from its residents. The original house, built in 1703 by William Winde, was – using the polite parlance of stately home design – 'improved' countless times. It was so often disliked that entire sections were torn down and rebuilt. John Nash's lavish 1820s redesign nearly bankrupted the Royal household, and he was promptly sacked. When Queen Victoria made it her primary residence in 1837, the palace still failed to charm – particularly Prince Albert. Albert tried to modernise it with plumbing, lighting and even toilets for servants. But, like many of his descendants, he preferred to be elsewhere. His own pet project, Osborne House on the Isle of Wight, was met with a lukewarm response thanks to its oddly Italianate style. The late Queen favoured Windsor and Balmoral; the current King prefers Highgrove and Clarence House. Yet today, tourists flock to the Palace's current form, fronted by Aston Webb's century-old Portland stone façade. More state venue than family home, it may have finally found its purpose.
Yahoo
30-06-2025
- General
- Yahoo
The ugly buildings we secretly love
When news came last week that Liverpool's Metropolitan Cathedral of Christ the King – colloquially known as 'Paddy's Wigwam' – had been granted Grade I-listed status, it marked a long-awaited vindication for a building that has weathered its fair share of criticism. The design by Sir Frederick Gibberd, selected from 300 entries worldwide, took shape over five years (1962–67) and sits atop Mount Pleasant, overlooking the city with views stretching to the Mersey estuary beyond. Built quickly and cheaply – as many post-war buildings were – it has been described as 'a gargantuan concrete aberration from the Apollo space programme'. Even as recently as 2013, CNN named it one of the world's ugliest buildings. Inside, of course, the story is very different. Bathed in coloured light from the kaleidoscopic stained glass, the cathedral is an extraordinary space – one that has come to be cherished by Liverpudlians, Catholic or not. It is the latest in a long line of buildings that, though they didn't receive universal acclaim at first, have endured nonetheless. The 1997 vote for Scottish Devolution meant a new parliament was needed, but its birth was, to put it mildly, a car crash. Ten times over budget and years behind schedule, Holyrood's construction became a dream story for the press but a nightmare for MSPs and civil servants, whose mistakes were broadcast daily. The image of the dour, thrifty Scot clashed with the flamboyance of the building's cost and design, hardly endearing it to the public when it opened in 2004. Questions were also raised about the practicality of the joint design by RMJM – one of the world's largest architecture and design firms – and Barcelona-based architect Enric Miralles, who avoided much of the controversy by passing away midway through the project in 2000. Yet opinions shifted after it won the 2005 Stirling Prize, the highest honour in British architecture. Scots, embracing a new era free from Westminster's control, came to see the building as a symbol of a renaissance north of the border. Today, visitors flock to marvel at its outré design. Hillingdon Council's Ford Granada-driving apparatchiks wanted a new HQ, and what they got ended up defining over a decade of suburban style in Britain. If the Hillingdon Civic Centre reminds you of a supermarket, you wouldn't be far off – this became the signature look of Tescos and Safeways across the south. The bulky Civic Centre was designed by Andrew Derbyshire of RMJM and opened in 1979. 'Like any suburban orgy, it was more comical than sexy,' said the architecture journalist Jonathan Meades. 'It was the architectural equivalent of Benny Hill or Sid James: coarse, matey, blokeish, undemanding, unthreatening, accessible.' This building felt like the starting point of a backlash against the progressive and exciting modernism that had flourished during Britain's 'Les Trente Glorieuses'. Over the following 30 years, there was little but disdain for modernist achievements and a widespread retreat from ambition, with brick vernacular becoming especially fashionable in this new, cautious era. Nowadays, modernism and postmodernism have found a warmer welcome. While Hillingdon Civic Centre might not immediately evoke the wild, pastel-coloured tropical postmodernism of John Outram and others, it's certainly an uncle to those buildings. Now listed, it enjoys a bit more affection from the people of Uxbridge. The serpentine teaching block, dubbed the Lasdun Wall, snakes along a ridge where University of East Anglia (UEA) students study, while the eye-popping ziggurats tumbling down towards the River Yare are where they sleep. Space-age chic seems entirely at odds with sleepy Norfolk; architectural historian Elain Harwood called it 'the boldest architecture of any new university', and it became the backdrop to Malcolm Bradbury's novel The History Man. It's heartening that, despite the UEA's stark 1960s campus, it has gained more fans as it has reached middle age. It's not without problems – issues with the fireproof reinforced autoclaved aerated concrete (RAAC), widely used as a cheap material especially in roofs, have led to the closure of the ziggurats during remediation work. Meanwhile, new extensions to the university have sparked thorough debate. Architecture fans visiting can also explore the Sainsbury Centre next door. Designed by Lord Foster, it opened in 1978 and was hailed as revolutionary for its lightweight, high-tech design, influencing many airports and office buildings throughout the 1980s and 1990s. London's Southbank Centre has long been at the heart of various culture wars. When Churchill's Tories won the autumn 1951 snap election, they sought to dismantle the remains of the Festival of Britain, viewing it as a thoroughly socialist project by Labour's Herbert Morrison – which, of course, it was. The futuristic Skylon was removed, but the Royal Festival Hall survived. The Southbank Centre was expanded in a brutalist style during the 1960s. Its maze of passageways and high walkways confused visitors, while its gruff exteriors offended many sensibilities. In 1988, the then Prince Charles famously likened Denys Lasdun's National Theatre (NT) to a nuclear power station. Today, attitudes have shifted. We now recognise the stark beauty in its complexity and surreal sculptural forms, and the restrained harmony of the theatre complex in particular. John Grindrod wrote in his 2013 book Concretopia that 'Lasdun's interiors have a rather cosy aesthetic,' echoing theatre critic Michael Billington's 1976 view that the NT is 'a superb piece of sculpture.' The entire Southbank complex was designed the way it was because planners insisted on roads and car parks, and even proposed building a heliport next door – hence the Queen Elizabeth Hall's thick, austere walls. Today, the terraces are bustling with diners, while the undercrofts have become a beloved haunt for skateboarders. The residents of Balsall Heath in south Birmingham were certainly grateful when the baths on Moseley Road opened in 1907. Back in 1890, Birmingham was hailed as the 'best-governed city in the world' by Harper's Magazine – a claim that might raise a wry smile from today's locals still waiting for their bins to be collected. Its trams, housing, utilities and public baths were all part of a civic effort to lift the city from industrial slum to modern metropolis. But the baths were not universally loved, and have only narrowly escaped demolition, more due to luck than design. As the 20th century wore on and more homes welcomed bathrooms and washing machines, fewer people needed the bathhouse. And Birmingham (city motto: 'Forward'), spent much of the 1960s demolishing its Victorian and Edwardian architecture, including the grand Central Library and the original New Street Station, as tastes turned against the ornate. In recent years, however, a dedicated campaign has saved the arts-and-crafts building. Now Grade II-listed and undergoing careful restoration, the Moseley Road Baths are protected at last. Scarborough's grande dame was originally conceived as the Cliff Hotel, built at a time when the town was establishing itself as a premier seaside resort following the arrival of the railway on the Yorkshire coast. Visitors came to take the waters, and a grand hotel was needed to accommodate them. But throughout its life, the building has been a victim of its own scale – beset by fires, outbreaks of illness, and now, by its current management. Run as a tired, cut-price hotel, it was dubbed 'the shame of Scarborough' by Tory mayoral candidate Keane Duncan last year. When it opened in the 1860s, it was one of the largest hotels ever built – so large, in fact, that some wondered whether it was all a bit much for the once-sleepy fishing town. The Grand's story is closely tied to that of its architect, the exquisitely named Cuthbert Brodrick. A Hull native, Brodrick also designed Leeds' monumental Town Hall and Corn Exchange – buildings with a distinctive size and swagger that often clashed with the era's more restrained architectural tastes. Brodrick's overblown Oriental Turkish Baths on Cookridge Street in Leeds were unceremoniously demolished in the 1960s – by then, he had well and truly fallen from favour. That changed in 2007, when Jonathan Meades made a film about him for BBC Two, sparking a reappraisal of his work. Today, the Grand is a much-loved landmark on the Yorkshire coast. The Eiffel Tower is perhaps the most famous example of a building once heavily derided that has only grown in popularity with age. Blackpool's imitation, by contrast, was long dismissed as a poor copy aimed at entertaining the lower classes. Like Brighton's more recent i360 seafront tower, it was seen by some as overly tall and something of a white elephant. Today, it's a listed building, and its kitsch swagger has come to define the Blackpool seafront. We'd never dream of demolishing it now – nor its ballroom, the spiritual home of ballroom dancing. Yet in the 1920s, there was serious talk of tearing it all down. It may seem far-fetched, but that's exactly what happened to the similar-looking New Brighton Tower on the Wirral. Despite being even taller than Blackpool's, it had few defenders when it was demolished in 1919 after just 20 years. Its ballroom – where the Beatles played no fewer than 27 concerts – met the same fate in 1969, following a major fire. A gothic wedding cake by the Thames, Strawberry Hill House is a singular and delightfully eccentric creation – perfectly in keeping with its owner, Horace Walpole. An unmarried enigma and gothic novelist who puzzled polite society, Walpole built his fantastical home in Twickenham as a whimsical homage to medieval cathedrals and castles. It was a world away from the architectural fashions of the mid-1700s and, at first, had few admirers. Slowly but surely, people began to visit, drawn in by the fairytale interiors and jaunty gardens, and Strawberry Hill House grew into an attraction. A century later, gothic revival (an architectural style) had become a full-blown Victorian obsession – just look at the Houses of Parliament – so Walpole's creation no longer seemed quite so outlandish. Architecture critic Ian Nairn once remarked that 'Walpole's stucco fancy' was 'prettier and less finicking than you'd expect'. A high-profile restoration in the 2000s, featured on TV, brought a new wave of admirers. Today, the house welcomes around 25,000 visitors a year. Like the face of an ageing celebrity, Buckingham Palace has had more alterations over the years than you can shake a Botox syringe at. Throughout its life, it has endured feelings ranging from antipathy to outright hostility from its residents. The original house, built in 1703 by William Winde, was – using the polite parlance of stately home design – 'improved' countless times. It was so often disliked that entire sections were torn down and rebuilt. John Nash's lavish 1820s redesign nearly bankrupted the Royal household, and he was promptly sacked. When Queen Victoria made it her primary residence in 1837, the palace still failed to charm – particularly Prince Albert. Albert tried to modernise it with plumbing, lighting and even toilets for servants. But, like many of his descendants, he preferred to be elsewhere. His own pet project, Osborne House on the Isle of Wight, was met with a lukewarm response thanks to its oddly Italianate style. The late Queen favoured Windsor and Balmoral; the current King prefers Highgrove and Clarence House. Yet today, tourists flock to the Palace's current form, fronted by Aston Webb's century-old Portland stone façade. More state venue than family home, it may have finally found its purpose. Broaden your horizons with award-winning British journalism. Try The Telegraph free for 1 month with unlimited access to our award-winning website, exclusive app, money-saving offers and more.
The Guardian
17-06-2025
- General
- The Guardian
‘A dazzling concrete crown': Liverpool Metropolitan Cathedral gets long overdue appreciation
Liverpool's majestic cosmic wigwam has always faced a hard time from critics. Classicists lamented that it replaced an earlier swollen baroque design by Edwin Lutyens, which was cut short by the second world war and rising costs. Modernists found it too prissy, a brittle British version of more muscular concrete creations emerging from sunnier southern climes – a piece of Oscar Niemeyer's Brasília lost in translation between the hemispheres. Time has proved them wrong. Frederick Gibberd's striking upturned funnel is one of the finest postwar buildings in the land, standing as the most prominent Catholic cathedral of any British city, as well as the most original. It is shocking that it wasn't already Grade-I listed – a fact that reflects a broader antipathy for buildings of the era, which is slowly being corrected by a new generation. The building's genius is in its response to the site, bridging history with modernity. Gibberd's competition-winning design of 1959 cleverly drew on the unfinished crypt of Lutyens' 1930s project, using the latter's brick-and-stone vaults as a rugged rocky plinth on which to erect his startling white tent. Made of reinforced concrete clad in Portland stone, the crisp conical pavilion rises from an expansive open platform like a moon lander, extending slender radial ribs out in all directions. These flying buttresses rise to support a 2,000-tonne lantern, a floating stained glass cylinder topped with a crown of toothpick-thin steel pinnacles, ready to impale the sky. 'The great cathedrals of Christendom are generally crowns of the urban composition,' wrote Gibberd. 'Giles Gilbert Scott's tower [of the 1900s Anglican cathedral] already provided one crown for Liverpool and it seemed to me that, if it could be balanced by a tower of the Metropolitan Cathedral, the city would have a unique topography.' Thanks to him, it does, the two mighty buildings standing as spiritual bookends to the axis of Hope Street. The plinth, meanwhile, has become a vital public space, host to ballgames, lunch-hour sandwiches, and fitness fiends jogging up and down the steps. Entered through a monumental wedge-shaped bell tower, carved with abstract reliefs by the sculptor William Mitchell (who also designed the big bronze doors), the cathedral's interior is a radiant Las Vegas vision, washed with electric blue and pink light from the stained glass windows. Sixteen boomerang-shaped concrete columns rise to support the great conical roof, framing a series of side chapels below. Edged with blue glass, they are designed as individual forms, which read from the outside like a conclave of bodies, gathered around in a circle. Eschewing the usual cruciform layout, Gibberd's circular 'altar in the round' form was a direct response to the dictates of the second Vatican council, which encouraged architects to make congregations feel closer to the celebrants. 'The ministers at the altar should not be remote figures,' John Heenan, the archbishop of Liverpool, wrote in his instructions to the architect. 'They must be in sight of the people with whom they offer the sacrifice.' The resulting democratic vision is centred on an altar made of a single colossal slab of white marble – a 19-tonne block sourced from near Skopje in North Macedonia – above which hangs a spiky baldacchino canopy of aluminium rods. It is an extraordinary thing, looking as if a hi-tech spider had been asked to weave its web into a crown of thorns. Such daring comes at a price, and, over the years, the building has suffered its fair share of hiccups. Soon after opening, the aluminium roof leaked and the glass mosaic tiles fell off the concrete frame. Gibberd was sued and the archdiocese was awarded £1.3m in an out-of-court settlement. Repairs of varying quality have continued ever since, but this upgraded listing should hopefully ensure that Liverpool's dazzling concrete crown sticks around for many more generations to marvel at.
Time Out
02-05-2025
- Entertainment
- Time Out
Liverpool's spectacular free art biennial opens next month – everything you need to know
Every other year, the city of Liverpool becomes adorned in spectacular works of contemporary art. Besides its plethora of galleries – from Tate Liverpool + RIBA North to Bluecoat – sculptures, installations and exhibitions will pop up in the likes of Liverpool Cathedral and on the Albert Docks. Almost everywhere you turn in the city this summer, there'll be a masterpiece to see. Known as the Liverpool Biennial, the art fest is one of the reasons we ranked the city as one of the places you just have to visit in 2025. So, here's everything you need to know about the three-month-long event. What is the Liverpool Biennial? Only the largest free festival of contemporary art in the country. This year's Liverpool art biennial will be its 13th edition. For 2025, its theme is 'BEDROCK', inspired by the sandstone that spans the region and features in its architecture. Organisers say that the title also 'acts as a metaphor for the unique social foundations of Liverpool, haunted by empire, and the people, places and values that ground us'. The whole thing has been curated by Marie-Anne McQuay, the head of programme at Liverpool gallery Bluecoat. It'll showcase 30 artists and collectives with 22 brand new artworks commissioned especially for the event. When is the Liverpool Biennial 2025? It'll be taking place throughout the city from June 7 to September 14. Where can I see the art at Liverpool Biennial? The festival will be spread across 18 venues in the city. As part of the Liverpool Biennial 2025, you'll be able to see art, for free, at: Albert Dock Bluecoat FACT Liverpool Liverpool Cathedral Liverpool Central Library Open Eye Gallery Tate Liverpool + RIBA North Walker Art Gallery Liverpool ONE Mann Island St John's Gardens The grounds of The Oratory at Liverpool Cathedral SEVENSTORE Eurochemist The Black-E 20 Jordan Street Pine Court All the exhibitions will be open Wednesday to Saturday but you'll have to check venue websites for their opening hours from Sunday to Tuesday. You should also keep an eye out for art popping up on Liverpool's streets, shop fronts, hoardings and 'other unexpected places'. What art will be at the Liverpool Biennial 2025? Artists from all over the world will be showing their work. There will be a spectacular steel structure by Isabel Nolan at St John's Gardens, mosaic sculptures by Petros Moris and 'glass collages' by Ana Navas at Liverpool Cathedral, as well as at Bluecoat and Walker Art Gallery and a multi-layered gallery installation at Bluecoat by Alice Rekavb. You can see the full line-up of artists here.
BBC News
10-03-2025
- Entertainment
- BBC News
Sun sculpture to go on show at Liverpool Cathedral
A giant illuminated sculpture of the sun is to go on display at a Cathedral said it was "thrilled" to be the first such venue to host Luke Jerram's "breath-taking artwork" 7-metre (23ft) sculpture follows Jerram's series of astronomical artworks, Museum of the Moon, Gaia and Mars, and will be on show from 4 April to 9 said: "It is a giant replica of the sun that features all the sun spots and solar flares and allows the public to see the sun up close for the first time." Liverpool Cathedral, which previously hosted the Jerram's Museum of the Moon and Gaia, is holding a programme of events to complement the exhibition. They include yoga under Helios, a fine dining experience, a talk, and book signing by Dean of Liverpool, Very Revd Dr Sue Jones, said: "We are thrilled to be the first cathedral to host Helios and to complete the celestial trilogy of Luke Jerram's artworks."Helios is a stunning celebration of the sun's life-giving power and its significance across cultures and faiths."She added: "We are delighted Helios will be installed over the Easter period, which helps us to reflect on light and the life-giving light of the resurrection, which brings new life."We look forward to welcoming everyone to experience this breath-taking artwork in our magnificent space." Listen to the best of BBC Radio Merseyside on Sounds and follow BBC Merseyside on Facebook, X, and Instagram and watch BBC North West Tonight on BBC iPlayer.
