The city claims to have once been the second city of the British Empire, eclipsing even London for the amount of trade going through its port at times; it is one of the most successful footballing cities in England; it’s art gallery houses one of the best collections of European art outside London and it also has the largest number of Grade II-listed buildings outside London. Its Anglican cathedral is the largest cathedral in Britain and the fifth largest in the world it was the city in which the ill-fated White Star passenger liner “Titanic” was registered (as White Star’s headquarters were located in the city) and many of the officers and crew came from there. It was the site of the first international Garden Festival in 1984, a successful initiative to revitalise tourism with some 3.380,000 visitors, and, on the music scene, more pop artists from this city, including the Beatles and Cilla Black, have had a number one hits than anywhere else.
It is of course Liverpool.
The building of the Museum of Liverpool has not been without controversy. Designed by the Danish architects 3XN with AEW being brought in as execution architects, the building was runner up in the “Carbuncle Cup” in 2011, following on from the “success” of the new Ferry Terminal which won the cup in 2009. The white wavy horizontal form of the building does not sit well on its site or connect well with the riverside, historic buildings such as the “Three Graces” or with adjacent developments. Hopefully this is a temporary situation which will be improved in the future as pedestrian spaces and routes are opened up and the current building works are completed. Inside is much better, though the specification of finishes such as carpets seems to have been reduced to save money. A large spiral staircase provides the central circulation and orientation, off of which are flexible column-free exhibition spaces in which exhibitions explain the history of Liverpool as a global port trading with China and the Americas, its industry, its people, its aspirations, its successes and its unique position as the centre of the popular music in the 1960’s with the Beatles, Cilla Black and others, not to forget its football teams and other sports such as horseracing and boxing.
There is a huge amount of historic material here and, at times, there is a danger that there is too much to take in, but it does succeed in providing an impressive amount of information about the city and its people, complementing the Maritime Museum across in Albert Dock and, from the inside, there are great views out along the riverside including the best view in Liverpool of the “Three Graces”.
The Museum of Liverpool is the largest new building for a national museum in the UK in over a century and has been designed with sustainability in mind with its own combined heat and power (CHP) system and use of renewable and energy efficient technologies. As part of the ongoing development of the waterfront, if is hoped that work will be carried out to improve its setting and the connectivity in particular to the historic adjacent Albert Dock.
