AN ARCHITECTURAL WALKING TOUR OF LIVERPOOL

The Royal Liver Building is a Grade I listed building1 and is arguably the city’s most famous architecture, although not appreciated by all of its critics at the time it was built.  It forms part of Liverpool’s famous waterfront, as the most dominant of the ‘Three Graces’ it stands 12 storeys tall at the Pier Head, the former site of George’s Dock [1].  By 1911 the Royal Liver Building was complete, architect Walter Aubrey Thomas designed the building for the Royal Liver Friendly Society using various architectural styles described by the Liverpool Heritage Bureau as a remarkably free and original style.2  The building was innovative for its time, described as a skyscraper, Sharples explains: 

“The Royal Liver Building of 1908-11, designed by Walter Aubrey Thomas, is perhaps the most extraordinary office block of its date in the country.  It is almost certainly also the tallest, and was referred to as a skyscraper in the contemporary press.” 3

One of the first multi-storey buildings in the world, and the first in England, to be built with reinforced concrete and a steel frame [2], explained by Quentin Hughes:

“Despite its outer cladding of grey-black granite, which gives all the appearance of solidity, it is in fact one of the first large scale reinforced concrete buildings in the world, and certainly the first in Britain; it is held up by a frame.  Here we see the start of a system of construction which, along with the development of the steel frame, was to revolutionise the scale of architecture, making possible the tall skyscrapers of the 20th century.” 4 

The reinforced concrete used was advanced and was at the forefront of building technologies for its time, Bayley states:

“The Liver Building employed an advanced ferro-concrete frame by the engineers Mouchel, using technology established by reinforced-concrete pioneer Francois Hennebique.” 5

Great attention is given to the ‘Three Graces’ at the start of the 1900’s, Liverpool’s shipping and  transport industries were thriving, the buildings were seen as landmarks that gave international travellers their first or last impression of the city.  Outstanding architecture on the waterfront only increases the quality of that impression.6  

Bayley describes the Liver Building as a building of absolute originality and unforgettable presence,7 and explains the prominence of the Pier Head buildings:

“It is these three buildings constructed on the land gained by filling in the George’s Dock that give Liverpool her famous skyline, reminiscent of the great North American Cities with which her principle trade was then carried out.”8

The building has its critics, notably Charles Herbert Reilly (Head of the Liverpool School of Architecture, 1904-33) who mentions the Liver Building whilst describing Water Street:

“But looking down the street one finds the right-hand side and, indeed, the whole street, is entirely over-weighted by the strange domes and towers of the Liver Building, which waits at the foot of the hill like some Brobdingnagian establishment for Turkish baths, into which, if one ever dared to enter, one feels certain one would never come out alive.”9

Another critique of the building Quentin Hughes quotes Reilly but is more reserved in his own comments yet still explaining the building may be famous but not for its architectural qualities:

“writes Reilly ‘A mass of grey granite to the cornice, it rose into the sky two quite unnecessary towers, which can symbolise nothing but the power of advertisement.’ It could never be easy to design so complex an exterior and, inevitably, strange things happen. But besides providing so striking and unforgettable as symbol of the city, the Royal Liver Building has yet another claim to notoriety.”10

The Mersey Docks and Harbour Board were displeased with the Liver Building, their own building (now known as the Port of Liverpool Building) is also part of the ‘Three Graces’.  The Port of Liverpool building is somewhat over shadowed by the scale of the Liver Building, when describing the Port of Liverpool Building Wallpaper City Guide state:

“For statement-making, though, it’s no match for the Royal Liver Building”11

Bayley suggests that the Liver Building was designed very deliberately to upstage the Port of Liverpool Building.12  Sharples explains what the Mersey Docks and Harbour Board desired for the site and how the Liver Building was permitted:

“It displeased the MDHB, which had hoped for a building that would balance its own, not an attention-grabbing monster like this.” 13 … “Because the dock was not quite a rectangle and the streets were not parallel, the sites varied in shape, and this militated against a unified, symmetrical development.  More importantly, no restrictions were imposed to ensure that the buildings harmonised or formed a coherent group, and the result is an amazingly disparate trio.”14

Arguably, the standout feature of the building are the Liver bird sculptures that sit on top of both towers, these are often adopted as the symbol of the city, although there is confusion over where the fictional bird originates from.  In 1207 King John founded the Borough of Liverpool, his emblem was the Eagle of St John, which over years of redrawing has become the Liver bird.15 Sharples explains how the sculptures were made:

“The two giant Liver birds, symbols of the Friendly Society which add a surreal flourish to the clock towers, are of sheet copper (originally guided) on steel armatures.  They were made by the Bromsgrove Guild.” 16

A competition was won to design and make the Liver birds by a German sculptor called Carl Bernard Bartels who had arrived in England at the start of the century.17