Coventry Cathedral
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Anglican cathedral for Coventry incorporating four chapels, central chancel, verger's flat and the ruins of the old cathedral
The modernist design for the new cathedral developed as a result of the devastation caused by the 1940 Luftwaffe attack on Coventry.
The design is based around the theme of atonement and the sacrifice and resurrection in which both the old and the new cathedrals play their respective roles.
The two separate cathedrals are linked together by the great porch and steps leading up to it. The new floor plan is based on the traditional long basilican. The walls are saw tooth in design and made of Hollings sandstone with seventy-foot stained glass windows run from floor to ceiling.
The nave canopy is supported on precast concrete columns, cruciform in plan, standing on bronze pins, between the concrete ribs sit thousands of Sitka spruce rafters.
Attached to the central nave is the Chapel of Unity a decagonal structure with deeply recessed windows designed to resemble a Crusader's tent.
Data
- Begun: Mar 1956
- Completed: May 1962
- Sector: Religious
- Tender date: 1950
- Address: 1 Hill Top, Coventry, CV1 5AB, United Kingdom
Professional Team 
- Architect: Basil Spence
- Client: Church of England
- Quantity surveyor: Reynolds & Young
- Lighting consultant: John & Sylvia Reid
- Acoustic consultant: The Building Research Station
- Landscape consultant: G. P. Youngman
- Timber consultant: E. H. B. Boulton
- Structural engineer: Arup
Suppliers
- Copper roofing: Frederick Braby & Co Ltd
- Glazing: Glass (Coventry) Ltd
- Precast concrete: Woolaway Concrete