can anyone give me any history to connect with this building? All I know is it's nickname is 'the sandcastle'.

A picture of this building is here - http://www.manchesteronline.co.uk/ewm/ic13/08.html

There is not too much history to tell really. Will try and find the architect etc, but it was mainly important as part of the Shankland Plan for the redesign of, not only the area, but the way the whole relationship between humans/pedestrians should interact with the urban environment.
A vital part of the Shankland Plan was for a system of 'walkways in the sky'

RSA, Metropolitan House and most of the buildings around that area were interlinked at first floor level... the intention being to extend this right across the downtown area. The remnants of this idea are slowly disappearing... and rightly so. We should, in this heritage obsessed city, preserve at least a small part of it though as a warning to letting planners go to far into fantasyland!

As a piece of architecture as well as it's contribution to downtown's landscape and massing I really like it. As I have said loads of times, all it needs is some matching metropolitan scale companions to give it proper context.

one of my fave buildings......long may it reign over that part of town.....deserves to be eventually listed and one of the very few good things to come out of the 70's.

NNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Bomb the bastard i hate it!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

My three least favourite major Liverpool buildings are:

3. RSA

2. QE2 Law Courts

1. Merseyside Police HQ.

Give me tall, narrow, glassy and bland, rabbit warrened 1 bedroom apartment blocks with insufficient car parking spaces any day.

RSA reminds me of a few girlfriends. Ugly as fuck in the stark reality of day, but rather sexy looking in the evening with the make up on. :)

Thanks guys, that's pretty useful stuff, especially the reference to Shankland.

One more question - does anyone know what was there before it? I know that area was heavily damaged in the war, but was there something else between then and the 1970's?

Is it supposed to mirror the Liver Building with the two peaks? Only in a 90 degrees Twist and made out of Yellow concreate...

Thanks guys, that's pretty useful stuff, especially the reference to Shankland.

One more question - does anyone know what was there before it? I know that area was heavily damaged in the war, but was there something else between then and the 1970's?
This is one of Brian Saville's pics taken from the India Building between 1959-63. The RSA would be to the right of St Nicks. The Princes Dock is in the background.

http://www.**************************/brian/images/indiabldg002.jpg

can anyone give me any history to connect with this building? All I know is it's nickname is 'the sandcastle'.

A picture of this building is here - http://www.manchesteronline.co.uk/ewm/ic13/08.html

"Liverpool's Heritage Is Being Highlighted In A New Guidebook.

Catherine Jones Takes A Tour With Its Author

I CAN understand admiration for the Liver Building and Liverpool's Georgian terraced streets.

But a 1970s office block? Surely some mistake.

But no. He may look sheepish when he admits this, but architectural historian and Pevsner guide author Joseph Sharples has a sneaking admiration for the concrete lines of the Royal & Sun Alliance building in Old Hall Street.

In the new guide dedicated solely to Liverpool - Nikolaus Pevsner's first Buildings of England books came out half a century ago - Joseph says that at pavement level "its blank walls give little pleasure, but from a distance - and especially from the river - its rugged bulk and distinctive silhouette contribute greatly to the skyline.

"As a monumentally selfimportant head office of a local insurance company, it follows worthily in the tradition of the Royal Liver Building."

Link (http://icliverpool.icnetwork.co.uk/0100news/0100regionalnews/tm_objectid=14228035&method=full&siteid=50061&headline=a-grand-tour-of-our-fab-skyline-name_page.html)

RSA reminds me of a few girlfriends. Ugly as fuck in the stark reality of day, but rather sexy looking in the evening with the make up on. :) :yes:.

http://img205.imageshack.us/img205/7452/resultingimageafiltered850c6ka.jpg

http://img326.imageshack.us/img326/2978/pict0506tifffilteredp2x27mt.jpg

I think opinions will chance once there are a few skyscrapers around it.

As for what useed to be there, I think it was mainly warehouses...latee georgian/early Victorian ones. The district did have some office blocks, the cotton exchange for example, but it was an area in slow transition from dock related... and as mentioned in another post...residential.

The area just a little North, around Leeds St and Union St were as notorious for pimping, prostitution and shanghaing etc as the Paradise St districts.


On a side note... it is worth pointing out to the (usually) middle class heritage freaks with pretensions that the historic significance of 'the ropewalks' area is not the decade or two when it was a neat town row for merchants, but the following hundred years when it was the biggest whore district in the world.. probably the maddest, baddest, most exciting place on Earth!

REAL Liverpool mercantile/maritime history... I've never heard a sea shanty about fine crinolines and fucking architecture!

REAL Liverpool mercantile/maritime history... I've never heard a sea shanty about fine crinolines and fucking architecture!
:cheers:

Hi dave...just saw your post on another thread, but this site is taking ages to load tonight,,,real trouble getting around.

Just to add to the stuff about Old Hall St. Where Beetham Tower was, there was of course the start of the Leeds Liverpool canal. The stupidly retained and awfully restored brick boz outside is the remains of the lock keepers cottages.
There was also the old Hall that was the seat of the Morris'..I think
There used to be a route down to the river called the ladies walk... imagine what the people who laid that out would think of the scenes downtown on a saturday night nowadays!

I'm not sure what buildings were on the site of the RSA but I know that the construction completed the obliteration of Lancelot's Hey, an old street that used to run from Brook Street to Chapel Street to the rear of the Thistle Hotel.

This street is where the young Herman Melville encountered a woman and four children starving to death in a cellar to the complete indifference of the local people - ah the good old days. The incident was immortalised in Melvilles semi-fictionalised novel Redburn in the chapter 'What Redburn Saw in Launcelot's Hey' and is believed to have influenced his most famous novel, Moby Dick.

This street is where the young Herman Melville encountered a woman and four children starving to death in a cellar to the complete indifference of the local people - ah the good old days. The incident was immortalised in Melvilles semi-fictionalised novel Redburn

Wow. I read Redburn about 6 months ago. the image of those urchins starving to death in the hole has stook in my mind ever since.- especially the horrible police man and locals. I'd always wondered where about in town that was. Cheers.

Prostitution and commerce replaced by insurance? It's sad times in which we live. This is all great stuff, please keep posting :)

Is where the `Atlantic Tower` and `RSA` over look the Mersey on plots formerly occupied by Grade 2* listed warehouses that were demolished for them to be built.....

I like(d) what they knocked down and I like what was built - but for goodness sake we don`t have to be bland glass and steel every where.

Liverpool obviously having such a grand heritage worries me in so for as, at what point do we knock down `St Georges Hall` for our own `Empire State Building?`

All things in moderation as we do seem to have enough space to accomadate them all.

At what point do we knock down `Oriel Chambers?`

Discuss .....

http://www.hilaryburrage.com/2006/01/modern_cities_need_history_and.php

Modern Cities Need History and Style - so let's all find out how it's done .....

A lot of damage was done to accomodate the art deco tunnel exit in the 1930s', followed by a bit more by the Luftwaffe. There are some really good pics of the area pre-war but I have failed to find any online tonight....will keep on trying.

I wonder what they knocked down to build the original RSA building...the big white one at the corner of Dale St and North John St... just where does heritage take precidence over 'progress'... not evry victorian building is oriel chambers... ther's plenty of shit we could be rid of from that era quite easily, highlighting the good stuff is a red herring.... and of course we have loads of vacant land... why does it all have to look olde worlde...most of Liverpool doesn't!

Give it ten years and that building will be part of our 'must-not-touch' heritage, I'm sure of it. That said, I'm not too impressed by the argument that we must retain everything simply because it is there. On with the new! Does anyone know who the architect/developer was who built the RSA building?

i have said it before and will say it again... take RSA out of the waterfront and it is to the detriument of the whole city scape.

Give it ten years and that building will be part of our 'must-not-touch' heritage, I'm sure of it. That said, I'm not too impressed by the argument that we must retain everything simply because it is there. On with the new! Does anyone know who the architect/developer was who built the RSA building?

Tripe & Wakeham 1972 to 76

I thought the RSA and Thistle were built by the local firm, Tysons?

Bustcapl just think what could replace it :)

Aye cragie man... just think what COULD replace it.
halifax House.. the commercial shit on dale St....
if someone proposed something spectacular, beautiful and tall then I would say knock the thing down tomorrow.... but then I'd say that about St georges hall too! (only kidding - I would suggest they knock down Commutation Plaza and say build what the fuck you like)

Suggesting the thing is expendible coz 'it's ugly' falls into the trap of giving those ammo who want rid of it because it is not 'appropriate'..i.e not victoriana type antwacky!

It is a great building we should leave alone.. or even celebrate.... until someone proposes a Tipai 101 or similar!

'Sandcastle' to set record (Estate Gazette)
17/12/2005 10:40


Royal & SunAlliance's sale of its "Sandcastle" building in Liverpool city centre is in line to set an investment record for the city, writes David Quinn.

Liverpool-based Downing Developments has emerged as the favourite to buy it in a £50m sale-and-leaseback deal.

The 400,000 sq ft building on Old Hall Street, called New Hall Place but nicknamed the Sandcastle because of its unusual appearance, was put up for sale by Royal & SunAlliance last month.

Downing's purchase of the Sandcastle will top Pacific Group's £45m acquisition of the 350,000 sq ft India Building on Water Street, which set the investment record for the city in January 2004.

The landmark, described by one agent as an "esoteric sort of opportunity", attracted the attention of a group of primarily local suitors when bidding closed last week. Sources said several London-based parties had expressed interest in the building but shied away when bidding rocketed more than £10m above the guide price of £36m.

Others bidders are thought to include Liverpool-based Beetham Organisation and Manchester-based refurbishment specialist Bruntwood. However, Downing - described by one local source as "cash ready" - is the favoured purchaser.

Downing and GVA Grimley, which is advising the vendor, both refused to comment.

I thought the RSA and Thistle were built by the local firm, Tysons?


These are the Architects according to Pevsner?

Oh, I thought you were talking about who built it.

Others bidders are thought to include Liverpool-based Beetham Organisation and Manchester-based refurbishment specialist Bruntwood. However, Downing - described by one local source as "cash ready" - is the favoured purchaser.

Beetham eh, what could they do with the RSA building?

Turn it ito a new Hanging Gardens. It'd look great with loads of greenery draped off the setbacks. :)