Architectonic — Architecture — Religious — Territory — Theory — Urban Planning — Atlas

Lutyens’ monumental design for Liverpool Cathedral

Subject Liverpool Metropolitan Cathedral

Author Edwin Lutyens

Location Liverpool, England

Year 1930

In 1930, Edwin Lutyens was commissioned to provide a new cathedral for the city of Liverpool. It was intended to be the second largest church in the world and would have had the world's largest dome.

Circle, dome and monumentality

Edwin Lutyens (1869-1944) was an English architect famously known for his work on the colonial establishment of New Delhi. After almost 20 years of practice in India, he was commissioned in 1930 to design the new Roman Catholic cathedral of Liverpool.
The design proposed a colossal brick and granite structure crowned by a dome 50 metres in diameter, almost 10 metres larger than that of St Peter’s Basilica.
Lutyens’ project envisaged a new focal point in the city of Liverpool, moving away from the Pier Head to create a new concentric area of influence centred on the cathedral. The cathedral itself was to be 160 metres long, and work on the crypt began as early as 1933. However, the Second World War brought the project to an abrupt halt, and it was never resumed after the end of the conflict.