Liturgically Gibberd’s design works best for modern liturgies – it was the post Vatican II pioneer, and Clifton, rightly commended in E J Kimber’s comment, learned from Gibberd’s mistakes. A mobile nave altar has had to be constructed in Scott’s great basilica to make it user-friendly today, though the original brief of no fixed seating (unacceptable in RC churches) makes for a very versatile space – not only for worship but concerts and exhibitions. Incidentally, at ecumenical services in the Anglican Cathedral, nuns used to admit to us how much they envied us our building as it was more like a ‘proper’ cathedral than theirs!

From a musical point of view there is no contest. The vast space of the Anglican Cathedral is fabulous for voices – especially so for ‘a capella’ singing, the slightest, quiestest sound can be heard clearly throughout the building, and the accoustic holds choral harmonies beautifully. From my point of view (ex chorister) the 11 second reverberation was great until you sang a wrong note! When I sang in the choir we often used all the nooks and crannies – the bridge, the galleries, the corona gallery in the tower (nearly a hundred feet up)for wonderful antiphonal effects. The building comes alive with music.

The great Willis organ is unrivalled in this country, and holds its own with the world’s greatest. It was designed to have been much, much larger, but some bits were destroyed by bombing during the war (awaiting dispatch in a railway siding), and were never replaced, the rest was never built. I enjoyed playing the Walker instrument in the Wigwam, and it’s ‘en chamade’ motor horns made a fine sound, but it’s not a patch on its rival down the road.

There is an intriguing and convincing discussion (by Sir John Summerson, possibly, but I forget exactly who) attributing a much greater influence by Bodley on Scott’s design than the usually acknowledged Lady Chapel. As Scott was so young when he won the competition the experienced Bodley was engaged to oversee his work. His influence is readily seen in the Ladychapel (completed first, then Bodley died leaving Scott on his own) but compare Scott’s completed cathedral (much altered from his competition winning design) with Bodley’s church at Clumber Park; look at his use of double transepts, central tower, mouldings melting into the walls without capitals, and many other signature features, and they are all re-used by Scott at Liverpool (Scott’s St Paul’s Stoneycroft, Liverpool, is almost a scale model of the Cathedral in brick, and a direct crib from Clumber Park).

Finally, as regards great unbuilt designs, Charles Rene Mackintosh submitted a breathtaking Arts and Crafts design for Liverpool, which I definitely wish could have been built. There are extant drawings.

Graham Beard

The Ba’hai’s ‘Lotus Temple’ at New Delhi is indeed a striking structure, but of course not built with liturgy in mind, since Ba’hai’s are not fans of ritualism. So if the Bailey design is similar I wonder how it would have worked any better than Gibberd’s?

And may I just note that all of this means that Liverpool has FOUR unbuilt great cathedrals – the ones unmentioned so far being (a) the handsome Victorian project at Everton (designed by Pugin’s son) which was the first expression of Liverpudlian Catholics’ aspiration for a cathedral. Shame that Lady Chapel could not be saved. And (b) the alternative proposal for the Anglican building by W R Lethaby and friends, which would have produced a less triumphalist but more unusual arts-and-crafts gem; I particularly regret the rejection of this design, Scott notwithstanding, since nothing like it was built elsewhere.

But as practical Diocesan buildings I think they’re gargantuan nightmares! I would not like to be the Dean of either. Would You?

Gibberd’s replacement for the Lutyens design (Paddy’s Wigwam)is of course far more practical, a veritable machine for worshipping in, and is saved from excessive clinical coldness by an arresting shape and dramatic, almost ‘psychedelic’, manipulation of light. But too much is going on behind the altar – the theatre-in-the-round approach did not succeed in creating a restful focal point in the sanctuary.

Brentwood seems to me to be a bizarre cross between the ‘modernist’ planning of Maguire and Murray’s famous St Paul’s, Bow Common, and a rather non-conformist-looking essay in 18th century classicism. An interesting hybrid, but i’d rather have Bow Common, thanks. Which, unlike Brentwood, even has a baldacchino!

Middlesbrough, from what I’ve seen of it, seems to be a building that is a little too desperate to fit into a modern housing estate without being noticed! This may be grossly unjust, but looking at the pictures does not make me want to put it on my ‘must see’ list.

Neither Maufe’s Guildford nor Spence’s Coventry convince either as neo-traditional or modern churches. Coventry is noteworthy more for the quality of its fixtures and fittings, while Guildford is a seldom-acquired taste, despite praise from the great Alec Clifton-Taylor.

Which leaves my shocking opinion. As the best 20th century, English, PRACTICAL Diocesan mother church of the lot (Catholic or Anglican) I nominate the Cathedral Church of Ss. Peter and Paul, Clifton, Bristol, by Weeks, Jennett and Poremba of the Percy Thomas partnership.

This design evolved out of exhaustive and profound discussions with the Diocesan clergy as to what they actually wanted in their cathedral church. It was then built with painstaking love and care, despite the low budget and difficult economic circumstances.

The ‘brutalist’ exterior shape is actually a far cry from the ugliness of failed buildings like Owen Luder’s Tricorn Centre in Portsmouth, or the town centre in Cumbernauld. It’s more striking than ugly, especially when you appreciate how it all works in terms of planning, structure and light. I think that it’s ready for reappraisal as the hidden gem among modern English cathedrals. Everyone who’s interested in modern church architecture should visit this building. (Shame it lost its original doors, though.)

It’s not perfect – it could do with more and larger chapels, for instance – but that was a consequence of the tight budget and tight site. Pound for pound, I think for architectural and liturgical value this building makes anything resembling the Scott or Lutyens designs look like very bad bargains indeed.

After all, the Orthodox church has always managed with a big network of mostly small buildings, has it not – even the Cathedrals are more ornate than grandiose. (Result – no need for a ‘liturgical movement’ to re-involve alienated congregations who were never banished far from the eucharistic action in the first place, by great long thin church buildings.) But I suppose I’d better stop before someone decides to boil me in oil….

You posted comments in February 2007.
I can tell you the name of the architect who was the runner up in 1963. It was Claude Bailey.

His design was designed around the same period as Utzon’s Sydney Opera House and is from the genre. I believe it to be equally as elegant a design as the admirable building and it is interesting that the Sydney Opera house is one of the iconic buildings of the 20th Century (even tough it too is Jetson like..as you put it). Also I would refer you to a much praised and awarded design of the Bahai Temple in New Delhi by Fariborz Sahba though this was designed 20 years later as is astonishingly similiar (no comment) though dumpier than Bailey’s entry for the Liverpool Metropolitan Cathedral competition. Sahba’s building which is even more akin to Bailey’s design is also regarded with much admiration as one of the seminal structures of the 20th Century (again Jetson like). The are many other examples of “shell concrete” around the world which are much admired such as those of Oscar Niemeyer in Bazilia and elsewhere.

The description Bailey’s design is basically as series of dramatically rising shell concrete petals overlapping at two levels and enclosing what is in effect a slender glass steeple rising 300 feet. At the foot of each petal structure was one of twelve glass fronted chapels each with an internal paraboloidal ceiling which in turn opened out on a great circular space composed of large concentric circular terraces stepping down auditorium like to the central altar. From within one would have looked up at the inside of the glass spire 300 feet high surrounded by enormous conical vaulted shell comprised of the inside of the concave concrete petals each rising to a point. Each of these petals met at the top to create a jagged edge from which the glass steeple would emerge, like a flower. Inside the central cone suspended some 100 feet up would have been an internal lattice vault through which the coloured light from the steeple would have been diffused across the auditorium in a most dramatic way.

It is important to note that at the time this competition was being judged Utzon’s shell concrete design for the Sydney Opera House had encountered much publicised great engineering issues, which Ove Arup fixed with the compromise design we see today. No such engineering issues existed for Bailey’scheme as it had been designed cogniscent of the issues encountered by Utzon. However, perception is everything and the design which was favoured aesthetically by the panel, came second because it was felt it could not be built. A cruel irony indeed for Liverpool which could have homed a building to rival that which Sydney has. Ironically 20 years later the construction of the Bahai Temple in Delhi proved the panel to be incorrect in their premise, and illustrated that indeed such a building could be built. Truely Liverpool is now the site of two of the greatest buildings that were never built.

The Catholic Churchs’ brief for the Cathedral was to reflect a new wave of inclusiveness in Catholic thinking that had been rubber stamped by the Pope. This may be why other designs where also of a ‘futurist’ design. Its why the Cathedral is round for instance which is inclusive for a congregation almost by default.

It must also be said that the architect directly took ,and reflected well, his inspiration which was the ‘crown of thorns’ given to Jesus at the crucifixion. Hence the sharp barbs that the structure shows.

Out of the two I think there is no decision to be made & we can all agree Lutyens design would have been the wonderous but it must be said the people of Liverpool are not as agrieved with Gibberds Cathedral as your ‘out of town’ posters seem to think we should be.