'It was uncompromisingly modern when it was built, but at the same time it was very popular'

摘要

This building was my first exposure to modern architecture. As a child I went to a Catholic school in Liverpool — St Edward's College — and every year we went to the Metropolitan Cathedral for St Edward's Day. At the time the building was fascinating to me with its very strong form and, once inside, all that light and colour. Liverpool in the 1960s was very dirty and messy, still peppered with bomb sites, prefabs and black smog-stained buildings. And here was this beautiful building, seeming to emerge up out of the grime, so full of light, art and sculpture. It was part of the great period of post-war architecture in the fifties and sixties — a very optimistic period in Liverpool — the docks were still working, the Beatles were in their heyday — and this building captures something of that optimism.