Time to finish the greatest unbuilt building

“Time to finish the greatest unbuilt building,” authored by Simon Heffer for The Telegraph, discusses the failed build of Edward Lutyens’s Roman Catholic cathedral and the successful build of Giles Gilbert Scott’s Anglican cathedral.

Edward Lutyens’s Roman Catholic cathedral

Edward Lutyens’s Roman Catholic cathedral was designed for Liverpool in 1932.

It would have sat on a hill half a mile from Giles Gilbert Scott’s Anglican cathedral, of which building had begun 30 years earlier. The intention to build another cathedral in Liverpool was simple - to grace the skyline with two great churches.

Unfortunately, Lutyens’s Roman Catholic cathedral never came to be. This is where the phrase “Lutyen’s Dream” comes from. Work on the crypt ran from 1933 to 1941 but that’s as far as work got. The closest you can get to seeing the church is in the Museum of Liverpool, which has a model of the cathedral.

Giles Gilbert Scott’s Anglican cathedral

By contrast, Giles Gilbert Scott’s Anglican cathedral was a roaring success.

In 1903, Scott won a competition to design the cathedral and he was partnered with George Frederick Bodley, who was trained by Scott’s grandfather, to oversee the work.

An old man at the time, Bodley disagreed with much of what Scott proposed but the two worked together just fine. Bodley died in 1907, which allowed Scott free reign to design the cathedral as intended. The cathedral’s build was completed in 1978, although the first section of the cathedral was completed in 1924.

You can find out more about these two cathedrals on The Telegraph.