Liverpool Architecture Index 2005

Fourth Grace: AXED
Architect: Alsop Architects
Developer: Neptune Devlopments

Links
Competition Site

Liverpool's Fourth Grace
adj to Port of Liverpool building

The collapse of the Fourth Grace scheme at Liverpool's pier head waterfront site has more than anything thrown the spotlight on the enormous reality gap in delivering contemporary architecture in Liverpool and the price we are now paying for the Victorian City theme park that is WHS.

This page will be a growing section on the latest chapters on the 'Cloud' fiasco as the council enquiry attempts to unravel the reasons why the scheme unravelled!

Back to Square One. Before the Cloud was even a twinkle in anybody's eye, the major issues of providing a cultural complex at Mann Island was being hotly debated. All the problems and potential difficulties were sidelined the minute it was decided instead to run a competition for a 'jaw-dropping' complex that could justify building on this site. To do this you have to build BIG! To build big your need a commercially viable funding package. This needs a major office and/or residential component - you can't build out so you need to build up, but you then fall foul of WHS and you go back to Square One!

It just so happens it was the Cloud that had to be dropped, but any scheme (or replacement scheme) would run into the same brick wall of WHS and 'in keeping'. This scenario is even more apposite when you do try comply with WHS 'in keeping' and 'harmony'. To even begin to provide the volume of public space in Alsop's scheme would then entail so much more public funding and additional private funding... As for ‘going back to square one? The point is you can only do jaw-dropping on this site…so, maybe best is… no building at all? What price 'heritage'?

Size Matters
As David Henshaw, CEO of the City Council gives evidence to the inquiry into the collapse of the Fourth Grace, DL asks why did we let height restrictions kill this project? Are we to be Milton Keynes or Manhattan?

Liverpool Vision Exonerated
Steve Parry of Neptune developments, part of the Fourth Grace consortium appears to have exonerated Liverpool Vision in the collapse of the Fourth Grace scheme, calling them 'positive and professional' in his meeting with the city council enquiry.

DL support this view; let's not permit Vision to be made patsy over a decision made through faltering nerve at the highest echelons of the city.. Regrettably, even now - local councillors are calling for LV to be made the culprit.

Euphemistically Speaking
Meanwhile, NWDA Chief Executive Steve Broomhead offers an astounding spin to the saga in claims this summer that the decision to axe the scheme "has absolutely not damaged Liverpool" and would even boost investor confidence. Ask Alsop.

Alsop Sees Red
As well as being a major factor in the collapse of Alsop Architects -the practice of Will Alsop which went into receivership in November 04 - the collapse of the 4th Grace in Liverpool has had wider implications.

Will Alsop's Cloud at Mann Island Will Alsop having made 25 people redundant and having lost Project Architect Christopher Egret - is calling for Liverpool City Council's CEO to resign. In a conversation with the Liverpool Daily Post,. Alsop suggested the city had 'a weak planning department under the control of David Henshaw who should go'

The council has repsonded saying they will not be 'lectured to' by an architect with a string of failed projects behind him..

Postscript
The enquiry into the Fourth Grace closed in November 04 and the findings of the committee has now been published.

The report is essentially critical of the failure of leadership amongst the public sector leaders, let us not forget perhaps the wider impact of the decision to axe the project. Not the £2.5m lost in pre-planning and project management but the millions potentially lost in Liverpool's damaged reputation in the international architecture and developer community.

Only delivery at Kings Dock will perhaps salvage some hope - [PSDA is on-site and a major build but it is retail-driven] - Liverpool needs to deliver anew on a major cultural project. Chris Willkinson (Wilkinson Eyre Architects) on board for Kings Dock will hopefully be a major boost.

As for Mann Island, we learn now that of the £37m originally earmarked for this project by the regional development agency, just £2.5m has now been agreed for a replacement project on the site.

The ambition to build on this site needs to be understood from the earliest days of SOM's strategic masterplan for the city back in 2000 which identified the Mann Island site as one of eight key areas in the city, and a possible site for new development as a means to create economic vitality near the waterfront and greater linkage between the city and Pier Head.

Many of the elements of SOM's plan remain, including the current widely supported Lime Street Gateway and the City Centre Movement Strategy -currently on-site.

Mann Island remains under-developed and likely to be window-dressed into 'public realm', when in reality the Mersey can be a miserable, windswept place for most of the year, and Pier Head was always a transport interchange and centre of commercial activity.

What has been the greater loss to the city - loss of nerve in building the Fourth Grace, or loss of face in not building it?

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