RIBA North opens on Merseyside in June
The Royal Institute of British Architects is to open its second national centre on Liverpool’s waterfront on June 17.
RIBA North, designed by Broadway Malyan, will focus on Merseyside’s built heritage, with an interactive 3D model of the city that tells the buildings’ stories. The new facility – on Mann Island next to the Museum of Liverpool – will also be a resource for developers, architects and planners to meet and have conferences.
There will also be temporary exhibitions drawing on the RIBA’s archive which reaches back to the 15th century. The opening exhibition will be Liverpool(e): Mover, Shaker, Architectural Risk-Taker’, which has an HLF grant of £67,000.
The cost of the new building is not being revealed but no public funding is being used and the RIBA itself has contributed £600,000.
“We’re proud of our heritage in the city, which is why we have focussed on bringing so much of it back to life, and I have high hopes that the RIBA’s presence in the city will increase opportunities to work with other cities across the Northern Powerhouse” said Joe Anderson, Liverpool’s mayor. “They will bring new tools and innovations, like the RIBA North digital city model, to improve planning and engage with communities and industry about developing our cities in a way that we will be proud of in the future.”