Rebuilding Christchurch

Christchurch New Zealand was hit by earthquakes in 2010, 2011 and 2016. The February 2011 event was the most devastating causing the loss of over 1200 heritage buildings, at least 75% of the city centre was lost or demolished as a result and sadly 185 people died.

Fifteen years on and the city is still punctuated by swathes of open space where buildings once stood. By all accounts it was a very attractive city, the most “British” of the colonial centres that the Victorians built across the globe. Founded in the 1850’s, it was a grid plan in a largely gothic revival style, the cathedral was designed by Giles Gilbert Scott.

In the aftermath of the quake a military cordon was placed around the city centre whilst the damage was assessed, it was two years before what was left of the CBD was reopened.

Historically the reconstruction of cities has taken many forms, repair and rebuild or renew and replace always at the heart of the debate. In London after the Great Fire, Wren’s plan was rejected and the medieval street pattern re-adopted.  In contrast after the 1755 earthquake, Lisbon’s Baixa established a new grid plan, and in Berlin after WW2, East and West approached reconstruction in very different ways.

Whilst a masterplan and set of planning guidelines was developed the approach to reconstruction in Christchurch feels muddled, a sense of that plan is yet to emerge. Instead, it feels like an architectural free for all, symbolised by the propped up remains of the Scott’s cathedral. The drive to rebuild was initially commercially funded with office, retail and hospitality leading the way. Latterly new public buildings have been opened, Schmidt Hammer Lassen and Architectus’s new library is a success. 

Reminiscent of the Deichman library in Oslo, it is a similarly well used public building that has a sense of community and life. Across the street is the new Convention centre (Woods Bagot and Warren & Mahoney), an amorphous blob that doesn’t seem to have any relationship with its context, a building that in many ways epitomises the spirit of the post-quake rebuild, the opposite of the Colonial city which was ordered and stylistically coherent. New Zealand is a modern country, and one that feels as if it is still struggling to come to terms with its post-colonial guilt. The outskirts of Christchurch has some fine, confident contemporary domestic architecture, in contrast the CBD tends toward the ubiquitous glass and cladding that we see all too often.

There were some good 1970’s buildings that survived the quake, for example the 1972 Town Hall, again by Warren and Mahoney, is a fine example. Shigeru Ban’s temporary Transitional “Cardboard” Cathedral quickly gave the city an elegant and light filled place of worship. The brand-new stadium is centrally located and an elegant example of its type. (Warren and Mahoney again, inevitably with Populous) Perhaps one of the most interesting areas is the Arts Centre which is housed in about twenty neo gothic buildings. Once Christchurch University and re-purposed for museums, galleries, art and music studios, cafes and educational spaces. It has a calm collegiate grace. Nearby Patterson Architects Ravenscar House Museum is a joy to visit, a sequence of rooms around a courtyard that is both playful and sculptural, the use of earthquake debris in the concrete mix is inspired.

It does seem to me that the planners missed an opportunity to create a significant new public space at the heart of a renewed city anchored by the old cathedral and framed with the new publicly financed buildings. Some simple guidelines setting datums, height and materiality would have provided a dignified back drop to the city’s heart. It is perhaps the one square where ordered landscape would be more appropriate than the proposed natural landscape that we see far too much of. (Beware London - Regent Street is next!)

Regenerate Christchurch