For this entry in my Great Buildings series, and with a link to the recent themes of war, peace and remembrance, I've chosen Coventry Cathedral. Designed by Basil Spence following the destruction of the previous cathedral during World War, I had never actually been that impressed by pictures of it until I visited an exhibition which had a scale model of the old and new buildings and it suddenly made sense.
Unfortunately, I can only furnish you with pictures, but hope that you get a better impression than I did.
First the most common picture (or certainly the one that used to leave me unconvinced):
Part of Spence's genius was in not replacing the ruins, leaving a lasting a memorial to the events of the war:
...while managing to integrate the new building, for all it's modernist style, with the old:
The building seeks to retain classical Cathedral volumes but not to reproduce or be a pastiche of the old:
This map shows the relation of the ruins to the new Cathedral:
You can see more of the Cathedral on their website here and this Wikipedia entry. There are more of my architecture related posts here.
Andrew
