THE Bluecoat has been named Building of the Year at Liverpool’s first architectural Oscars.

The cultural centre, which opened in March after a £12.5m refurbishment, was the overall winner at the Liverpool Architectural Society’s awards at St George’s Hall last night.

Other winners included Dave King of ShedKM, who was honoured for his lifetime contribution to Liverpool architecture.

The commercial category was won by the bridge between the Liver St car park and John Lewis in the new Liverpool One development. It was designed by Wilkinson Eyre.

Society president Mushtaq Saleri said the awards had been created to honour the great modern buildings erected in the city in recent years.

He said: “It’s been a superb response. We didn’t know, being the inaugural year, how it would be received, but it was better than we expected.

“Given the current uncertain-ty, particularly in construction, it was good to get such great support for the event. Hopefully, we can build something for the future to reward not just the architects but also the clients who had the foresight to engage great architects.”

Award judges included artist Ben Johnson, who painted the Liverpool Cityscape.

Fellow judge Kieran Long, editor of the Architects’ Journal, said he was excited to have been asked to judge the awards in Capital of Culture year.

He said: “There’s definitely world-class contemporary architecture in Liverpool.