Description of the attraction
Liverpool Church of Christ the King is the cathedral of the Roman Catholic Church in the city of Liverpool. It is one of the two main Christian churches in the city along with the Anglican Cathedral.
In the middle of the 19th century, the Catholic population of Liverpool increased sharply, tk. due to the Irish potato famine, many Irish residents, mostly Catholics, were forced to emigrate. The city needed a new Catholic church, but due to lack of funds, construction was postponed. In the 30s of the XX century, a large-scale project appeared, which could be regarded as a "response" to the construction of a grand Anglican temple in the city. Edwin Lutyens designed the second largest temple in the world, with the largest dome, 51 meters in diameter. (For comparison, the diameter of the dome of the Church of St. Peter in the Vatican is 41 meters.) The implementation of this project was prevented by the Second World War.
In 1959, the question of building a temple was raised again. The main requirements for the competition project were as follows: the temple must accommodate at least 2,000 people who must see the altar, and the project must include the part of the temple that was built before the war. The competition was won by architect Frederick Gibberd. His project is an example of modern church architecture. The building is round in plan, 59 meters in diameter, topped with a crown of glass and sharp spiers.
The temple was built in just five years, from 1962 to 1967. Such rapid construction, unfortunately, was not of good quality - the roof leaked, the mosaic cladding fell off, and in the 90s major repairs had to be carried out.
