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Artwork planned to transform iconic building in time for Battle of the Somme commemorations

How The Lyceum could look later this year Credit: Liverpool Bid Company

Plans have been unveiled to transform an iconic building in Liverpool to mark the centenary of the Battle of the Somme during the First World War.

Liverpool BID Company have commissioned local artists to reflect ‘the human story of the war’ by using an archive of letters from soldiers to their loved ones held at Liverpool John Moores University.

The giant commemorative artwork is to animate The Lyceum, a Grade II* listed building on Bold Street, which for many years was a post office and is currently vacant.

Designed by The Sound Agents: John Campbell and Moira Kenny, the installation will see five 14m high panels fixed between the building’s Doric columns.

It will also incorporate a poppy motif as a tribute to the fallen as well as a salute to the Weeping Window installation that adorned St George’s Hall, which attracted more than 350,000 people over the winter.

The project was devised as part of Liverpool’s Healthy High Street programme, which aims to increase footfall and reduce the number of vacant units in the city centre, and subject to planning approval could be installed by mid-May.

‘’We were truly overwhelmed by the response to the poppies at St George’s Hall but it is important that Liverpool continues to commemorate the events of World War I as so many people from this city paid the ultimate sacrifice.

‘’For their families the only thing they had to remember them by was their letters and how our soldiers managed to pen and send them in truly horrific conditions is a minor miracle. We are fortunate in Liverpool to have such a precious archive that has recorded their stories for us all to see what war truly means.

‘’I hope by using The Lyceum in this compelling way we manage to put a spotlight on this very human aspect of the war and in doing so remind everyone that this city will never forget those who never returned home.’’

– Joe Anderson, Mayor of Liverpool