Liverpool Metropolitan Cathedral in dramatic black and white, showing Frederick Gibberd’s modernist Roman Catholic landmark on Mount Pleasant.

Liverpool Metropolitan Cathedral rises dramatically above Mount Pleasant in a high-contrast monochrome view that gives Sir Frederick Gibberd’s radical post-war design an almost futuristic, spaceship-like appearance. Officially the Metropolitan Cathedral of Christ the King, it is the Roman Catholic cathedral of the Archdiocese of Liverpool and one of the city’s most distinctive architectural landmarks. Gibberd won an international design competition held in 1959-60, and construction took place between 1962 and 1967 above the surviving crypt of Sir Edwin Lutyens’ much larger, unfinished cathedral scheme. The completed building was consecrated in May 1967. Its revolutionary circular plan places the sanctuary at the centre of the congregation, reflecting changing ideas about Catholic worship associated with the Liturgical Movement and the Second Vatican Council. The exterior is dominated by a cylindrical lantern tower crowned with slender pinnacles, supported by powerful concrete ribs and flying buttresses that create a sculptural silhouette visible across Liverpool. Historic England describes the cathedral as the first British cathedral built around an innovative centralised plan and regards it as the greatest Roman Catholic post-war architectural commission in Britain. Inside, the lantern contains vivid dalle de verre stained glass by John Piper and Patrick Reyntiens, while other major twentieth-century artists contributed to the building. The cathedral’s distinctive outline has generated affectionate Liverpool nicknames including “Paddy’s Wigwam” and “The Mersey Funnel”. In this wide-angle black-and-white photograph, the sweeping circular entrance canopy, angular wall carrying the cross, soaring lantern and turbulent sky exaggerate the building’s space-age qualities, making the 1960s cathedral resemble a landed spacecraft while still recording one of Britain’s most important examples of modern sacred architecture. In 2025 its heritage status was upgraded to Grade I,