75: Towards a New (Coventry) Cathedral

John Wyver writes: To Coventry, to the city’s great and glorious cathedral, and most particularly to the exhibition 75: Towards a New Cathedral (until 21 September), mounted there in the Chapel of Christ the Servant (above). I visited with my friend and colleague Helen Wheatley, who was the consultant on my BBC Four documentary Coventry Cathedral: Building for a New Britain (the link is to the film on Youtube, as here): When Helen and I, along with our collaborators Todd MacDonald, who filmed and edited, and Ian Cross, who created the very special graphic design, were working on the film in 2021 , I was frustrated by how few traces I could find of the 200-plus entries to the 1950-51 competition to design a rebuilt cathedral after wartime bombing. Basil Spence, of course, won that competition, and now this compact and thoughtful exhibition surfaces a number of those other plans. Helen and I found it fascinating. On display are plans and elevations from the proposals by a dozen…