Issue Vii — Liverpool — March 2018
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THE — UNLIMITED — EDITION ISSUE VII — LIVERPOOL — MARCH 2018 Featuring: FACT, Liverpool Biennial, Granby 4 Streets, Ian Cobain, Claire McColgan, John Belchem, Homebaked, Static Gallery and more ISSUE VII CRUISE LINERS COME HOME TO LIVERPOOL Jonathan Brown, Share the City Liverpool invented and perfected the luxury liner – and then saw them depart, apparently forever. Now, like migrating birds, they are back. In the 10th anniversary year of the new Cruise Liverpool terminal, Jonathan Brown reflects on their return, and its meaning for the city. Liverpool’s mythic ‘Liver Birds’ (pronounced Lyver), perched 330ft above the waterfront cruise terminal, overlook all arrivals by land and sea, the city’s shamanic protectors. As with the ravens at the Tower of London, tour guides claim the city will fall if these exotic birds should ever take flight. That seems unlikely given that Liverpool’s giant cormorants are made of gilded copper, and chained fast to concrete domes. Nowadays, as they watch over crowds swirling happily across the Pier Head for selfies with the Beatles statues, and punters queuing far below for Mersey ferries and funfair rides, a civic fall seems happily distant. But not so very long ago, from the early 1970s into the new millennium, LIVERPOOL (Continued on page 2) 2 THE — UNLIMITED — EDITION ISSUE VII — LIVERPOOL — MARCH 2018 THE — UNLIMITED — EDITION ISSUE VII — LIVERPOOL — MARCH 2018 3 Image courtesy of Culture Liverpool Image courtesy of Culture THE UNLIMITED EDITION is a newspaper exploring, celebrating and speculating about the future of particular places. Each issue is place-based, delving into key A CULTURAL themes, which shape our cities including places of work, cultural spaces, food networks and development legacies. The paper invites guest writers, policy-makers, LEGACY BEYOND artists, architects and community members to contribute creative snapshots of each place. Previously, Issues I–V celebrated the London neighbourhoods of BUILDINGS Whitechapel and Bermondsey and Issue VI explored Aarhus in Denmark. Issue VII Claire McColgan MBE, Director of Culture, Liverpool travels to Liverpool. The Unlimited Edition is curated by We Made That. Digital Cultural cities are defined in the global decade are all crucial factors enabling consciousness by the buildings which the extraordinary transformation we versions of all issues of the paper are available for free at www.wemadethat.co.uk. they boast. From the Louvre to the have seen. Natural History Museum, MoMA to the But personally, I think the most Guggenheim, the buildings (and the important legacy of 2008 is not the institutions they house) are what gives physical or built environment, but the these cities their cultural credentials. emotional infrastructure which has Image courtesy of sharethecity.org Liverpool an edge that was to cut time since, Liverpool has established Liverpool punches above its been created. through most explosively in the Beat itself as Britain’s favourite port of call for weight in this field – with extraordinary Capital of Culture gave this era, as the fashion and music tastes the influential ‘Cruise Critic’ editors, and buildings and institutions from Tate city a new energy, a renewed sense of young ‘Cunard Yanks’ reverberated is rated one of Europe’s most desirable Liverpool in the iconic Albert Dock, of self and importance in the world. back across the Atlantic. destinations by passengers, who enjoy its seven national museums, the The audiences of Liverpool have Marionette from ‘Sea Odyssey: Giant Spectacular’, 2012 Since the 1980s Liverpool has fought being able to board and step ashore in Bluecoat and the Art Deco majesty repaid this with a new commitment, a spirited battle to reinvent itself as the heart of the city’s historic centre. of the Liverpool Philharmonic Hall acceptance and understanding of Liverpool is not a monetarily As we march into an uncertain a centre of culture, tourism, shopping Now it is again becoming familiar, to name but a few. arts and culture. They are willing to rich city. But a diverse opinionated future, where there are threats to and higher education, salvaging the though no less wonderful, to see a fully Add to that in the last decade try new things, to be challenged and audience, where three generations funding, to the ease of international Albert Dock, building a superb shopping sold out passenger ‘megaship’ arriving the RIBA Sterling Prize winning stretched and to embrace creative of a family will come together to co-operation and where the level of centre and cleaning up the river, but on the Mersey from Cape Canaveral in Everyman Theatre, the stunning ambition and innovation. create memories, want to be engaged competition for audience’s attention Disney Magic at the Cruise Liverpool terminal, the scarcity of great passenger ships Florida, or calling on a regular 12-day Museum of Liverpool and the growth They have become voracious and want to be part of a city wide is only going to increase, I believe viewed from an unphased Mersey Ferry, May 2016 on the Mersey continued to corrode circumnavigation of the British Isles of new digital and creative hubs consumers. They turn out in their democratic conversation. the engagement, equality, passion its essential identity. during summer. in first the Baltic Triangle and now hundreds of thousands for free major Without an audience who want and emotional infrastructure which (Continued from front cover…) crews stewarding wealthy passengers Sporadic false starts were made With around 60 cruise ships arriving the North Docks area of the city events, they head to music and art what is being created, the breadth we have been able to foster in this and ‘ten pound Poms’ on voyages across to entice them back. Like rare sightings this year, and a mayoral target of 100, spearheaded by The Invisible Wind shows in locations across the city and and depth of your infrastructure is city is what will allow us to face these it felt perhaps that Liverpool would the seas, assimilating the cultures and of migrating birds blown off course, Liverpool is some way off Southampton’s Factory, and you see a city bursting at throughout the year. They embrace irrelevant. In a world of on-demand challenges head on. fall – indeed, had fallen – shaken to its pleasures of distant port cities. a handful of cruise ships occasionally 300 departures, and of course great the seams with ‘cultural infrastructure’. big international names and nurture and free content, where traditional We will continue to grow and build soul by the sudden, and seemingly final, But as the swinging 1960s segued chanced a stop, as if visiting the wreck passenger ships are no longer built An impressive funding and emerging home-grown talent. business models are going out of the over the next decade – our ambition departure of another exotic breed of into the oil-shocked 1970s, Liverpool of their former flagship. and crewed on the Mersey, Thames, support framework has grown up They are sophisticated but not window and where maintaining the has no expiry date. There are still more metal sea bird, the ocean liner. was hit by a perfect storm of air The trickle of annual visits by Lagan, Clyde or Tyne. Yet growth and around these buildings. pretentious. Vocal but constructive. status quo is becoming a challenge, boundaries to be pushed and audiences With air travel now so fast and travel, containerisation, the decline occasional cruise ships continued customer satisfaction levels have been An advanced network of groups Accepting of the new, and proud of the ability to draw a crowd is going to captivate. Liverpool’s creative affordable, Cunard’s Queen Mary 2 of northern manufacturing, and through the 1990s into the new sufficiently high to commit the city to bring the creative and cultural sector the old. And importantly, they rightly to become one of the most essential appetite remains insatiable and that is is the world’s only remaining true Britain’s turn towards Europe and millennium, the returning pioneers building a proper terminal to replace the together regularly to encourage demand excellence. things we do as a society. the infrastructure which will serve us well. passenger ocean liner, and even she is away from its Atlantic, African and building a precarious crow’s nest from cheerful marquee that currently greets and enable collaboration. A funding really a hybrid cruiser, but there are of Asiatic Commonwealth. Most cargo which to seek sustenance among the passengers, hoping to evoke still more of structure has been created which course still innumerable cargo and ferry lines switched to container ports along cliffs of rusting iron. the glamorous spirit of the heyday. Also, bridges the public and private sector, lines criss-crossing the seven seas. Prior England’s continental seaboard, or the Fred Olsen was the first blue-chip Peel Holdings’ much-awaited Liverpool dedicated roles engage the education Homebaked to the jet airliner’s rapid ascendance European mainland, and for miles along shipping line to seriously commit to Waters project may yet see a second sector and local communities in in the 1960s, Liverpool was the world’s the Mersey, the most extensive dock re-establishing a permanent cruise base landing stage and terminal installed by opportunities, and a pipeline of talent premier ocean liner port, the Heathrow, system ever built was increasingly left in Liverpool, and should also be credited the central docks, where a new stadium from the city’s four major universities JFK or Schiphol of the seas, with more to the seagulls and silt. Liverpool’s with stirring – perhaps shaming – the for Everton FC is also proposed. ensures a fresh and vibrant injection Wirral scheduled services, and a larger, faster sublime granite seawalls fell silent. city into investing in a proper landing The psychological and spending of ideas every year.