Comment: Don’t let row delay museum

Apr 21 2008 Liverpool Daily Post

EVEN though building work is well under way on the new £68m Museum of Liverpool, the project is in danger of getting bogged down in a legal row over who owns the designs for the iconic building.

It follows the sudden and unexpected dropping of Danish architects 3XN from the project towards the end of last year. They are now in talks with lawyers and may seek damages over breach of copyright.

The waterfront museum is still based almost solely on 3XN’s sculptured platforms concept, and now the company has said they are looking into whether or not they can stop the current lead-architects – Manchester-based AEW – meddling with their distinctive X-wing designs.

They also claim National Museums Liverpool (NML), who are managing the Mann Island project, have withheld outstanding payments for some of their work, a claim denied by NML.

This latest row is just the latest in a series of setbacks and disputes which have marked this troubled scheme, ever since Will Alsop’s controversial Cloud – or “Fourth Grace” – was scrapped in 2004.

Indeed, many observers must be wondering if this project on the city’s Unesco world heritage site is jinxed, such has been the catalogue of woes to afflict it.

The latest has now descended into a bitter and public war of words between the two architectural firms concerned, with the prospect of a courtroom battle unless the matter can be settled amicably.

Of course, discussions about changing the cladding material from Travertine to Jura will be meaningless to most people. All they want to see is for this flagship building to be ready and open to the public by the scheduled completion date of 2010.

Whatever the rights and wrongs of this issue, nothing should be allowed to get in the way of that over-riding aim.