I have always found this functional chimney impressive. A part of the Royal Liverpool Hospital and built around 1963 (Holford Associates) the boiler house upturned ‘hammer’ like chimney belongs I suspect to the 1960s brutalist style. Although, I have never found it brutal – in fact I find it inspiring and thrilling both in style and scale. It measures 67.06m in height and I was around when it was being built. I grew up close to the construction site and would have been about 9 years old when the building was finished. I have a fondness for the boiler house in particular. It’s brutalist style looked very modern to my young eyes, surrounded as I was by Victorian terraced houses. This was something new and exciting, dynamic and daring and I liked it.
I wanted to make a photograph that would capture those feelings that I had for this building and with the billowing steam at atop the chimney and the dramatic sky above, I think I have done it some justice.