downtown Liverpool: Fourth Grace

Liverpool Fourth Grace

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'?

:LIVERPOOL FOURTH GRACE - latest comment:

4th Grace Inquiry
You can follow a transcript of the 4th Grace scrutiny panel online at the LC website. Makes for interesting reading.

What a site!
For those of you who thought that Alsop's ‘Cloud’ was good, then here is some news of a possible site in Birkenhead that may brighten your day and improve downtowners' view!

Knives Come Out
Poor old Will Alsop. Not content with throwing his scheme out for the fourth grace, it is now reported that Alsop is being blamed for the number of revisions made to the scheme in the preceeding six months.

Could this have anything to do with his being instructed to do them in the first place! [height of towers 'too tall', access ramp from James St 'no bridges over Strand', façade treatment, etc etc etc...]

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..

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

:MANN ISLAND site -the replacement scheme:

A return for Richard Rogers?
Local press speculate a return of Lord Rogers for the site.. Check this site to see one of his recent buildings in Gateshead and learn what you can expect for £70m nowadays for a cultural centre - and compare how Newcastle is delivering on projects.

Are we alone in seeing the irony that The Cloud was ditched for the avoidance of becoming 'a second Millennium Dome'.

And who was the architect of the dome..?

Around the World
Check out the San Francisco Museum of Modern Art by Botta to see how far off the mark Liverpool is in terms of 'world beating'. Try getting this one past the World Heritage Site.. As for the vision of a Museum of Pop, check out the experience of Sheffield [link].

Also check out some of the World's great museums link and test whether statements about ‘biggest and best in last hundred years’ actually hold water.

A good example might be Zaha Hadid's Contemporary Arts Centre, Cincinnati

A Different Model Perhaps?
We feel Liverpool needs something absolutely world class and utterly original! How about the brilliant, brilliant, Museum of Bad Art.

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