THE VERY GREATEST BUILDING
THAT WAS NEVER BUILT

The design proposed by Sir Edwin Lutyens for Liverpool Metropolitan Cathedral is one of the great unrealised buildings of the 20th century. At a time when architects were rejecting historicism and tradition, Lutyens’ cathedral drew inspiration from Byzantine and romanesque architecture, from the architecture of ancient Rome, from its revival during the Italian renaissance and from Christopher Wren’s ‘English renaissance’. Lutyens planned an awe-inspiring building of immense size. It would have dominated the Liverpool skyline, far outstripping Giles Gilbert Scott’s Anglican cathedral in prominence.

The exterior was to be composed of interlocking rectangular masses, with soaring walls of pinkish-brown brick relieved only at the base and at the top by silver-grey granite bands, forming strong horizontal lines. At the upper levels, the interlocking forms became more complex, and were given greater architectural enrichment, with detached columns, delicate Wren-like spires and more substantial belfry towers topped by classical pavilions. It would have been crowned by an enormous dome, 510ft in height, much taller than Michelangelo’s dome of St Peter’s (450ft) and Wren’s St Paul’s (250ft). In area, it was to have been twice as large as St Paul’s, but not ...

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