THREE spectacular pavilions are being launched in Liverpool neighbourhoods to mark the city’s Capital of Culture year.

A new garden, arts hub and “artistic republic” are being created by residents in Kirkdale, Kensington and Garston.

The specially commissioned pavilions will be opened to the public over the course of a month from the end of April.

They include one at the Rotunda, in Kirkdale, to open on April 27; Edge Hill railway station, on May 3; and the former Wellington Street school, in Garston, on May 31, as part of a “cultural revolution”.

The scheme, funded by the Culture Company and managed by Liverpool Biennial, is part of a broad programme of work reflecting the city’s cultural life and its varied communities.

Kerenza Hines, who is working with the Biennial, said: it was “quite a big project” compared with Winter Lights, which saw striking light installations set up in the same three neighbourhoods.

She said: “It has been fantastic so far.

“It is a healthy step forward for all concerned, developing projects in these ways.

“Each site is very different and we want to try and encourage people to come out to the neighbourhoods to see these incredible pavilions.”

Each area is collaborating with an artist to bring the installations together.

The Rotunda, in Kirkdale, is working with internationally acclaimed landscape architects Gross Max to turn a strip of derelict land next to the building into a community garden.

Metal, in Kensington, invited Columbian artist-and-architect, father-and-son team Luis Fernando Pelàez and Juan Manuel Pelàez to design a stunning transformation of the disused approach to Edge Hill station.

And artist Michael Trainor, working closely with the Garston Cultural Village organisation, will transform the area’s boundaries into the Artistic Republic of Garston, making the school building into a civic embassy.



All three pavilions will be open to the public until the end of 2008.

Liverpool Echo