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Liverpool: Shaping the City is an entertaining and objective assessment of the architectural history and recent regeneration of Liverpool. It takes the reader on a journey of a city that, for many outside of the city, was once stereotyped as a denuded and struggling place to now being one that is visibly resurgent. The book explains the city’s rich architectural heritage and rediscovered treasures whilst documenting some world class architecture both past and present.

Liverpool has certainly produced its fair share of best practice over the last few years, and in 2009 Liverpool One by BDP became the first masterplan to be nominated for the RIBA Stirling Prize. But then this should be no surprise as Liverpool has a history of ‘firsts’ – the first building which used skyscraper technology, the first commercial wet dock and the world’s first hydraulic cargo-handling systems.

Liverpool, through a whole series of new buildings and public realm schemes, has been thrust back into the public spotlight – and this time for all of the right reasons. A World Heritage Site with one of the most recognisable waterfronts in the world, Liverpool, with its collection of historic buildings intermeshed with contemporary, iconic buildings, has one of the finest and most spectacular skylines.Written by Stephen Bayley, the Observer’s architecture and design correspondent, and illustrated throughout with stunning photographs and masterplans, the book showcases some of the most exciting and dynamic contemporary buildings of the last twenty years; including the Liverpool One masterplan, the Unity Building, the Ropewalks Action Plan and the Bluecoat restoration, to name but a few.

Liverpool: Shaping the City tells the story of a city that once was proud and wealthy, then declined into ruin, and is now a city that can really show what it means to strive for world class architecture and urban design. A valuable and enlightening book, Liverpool: Shaping the City is a must read for all architects, developers, built environment professionals, academics – indeed anyone interested in the redevelopment and regeneration of Liverpool.