Breaking the deadlock
How the $104 million rebuild of ChristChurch Cathedral will be funded.
Bomb threats? No. Anarchist attacks? No. Earthquakes? Yes – the spire was damaged by tremors in 1881, 1888 and again in 2011. Protests? By the fistful. After the announcement in 2012 that the ChristChurch Cathedral would be largely demolished, to be replaced by a new “inspirational cathedral”, the church has been a lightning rod for protests, petitions, delayed pronouncements, legal challenges, costly analyses and cheap allegations.
To break the deadlock, in 2016 the Government established the Cathedral Working Group (CWG), comprising appointees from the Church Property Trustees (which holds the property on trust for the church), the Government and the pro-heritage Great Christchurch Buildings Trust (GCBT), to recommend a viable way to reinstate the damaged building.
In its November 2016 report, the group recommended a “reinstatement scenario” costing about $104 million.
Last week, members of the Christchurch Synod were asked to vote for one of three options: repair and strengthen the existing building along the lines of the CWG recommendations; pull it down and build a new church; or gift it as is to the people of New Zealand. In choosing the first option, the Church Property Trustees is now committed to work with the Government to finalise arrangements, including the establishment of a fundraising trust. Already, $90 million of the $104 million has been accounted for, by the
“We have had very generous offers from a whole raft of people from the community and overseas.”
$42 million insurance payout, a Crown cash grant of $10 million, a Crownfunded loan of $15 million (which will not need to be repaid if certain conditions are met), a Christchurch City Council grant of $10 million (subject to public consultation) and a GCBT pledge of $13.7 million. This leaves about
$14 million for fundraisers to find.
Given the financial support offered over six years of “pretty relentless opposition” from the church, says GCBT co-chair and former MP Philip Burdon, this won’t be a problem. “Certainly, the fundraising organisations believe it won’t be an issue. We have had very generous offers from a whole raft of people from the community and overseas, one on the table for $4 million, so I don’t believe it will be an issue. There is serious goodwill out there.”
for the Sagrada Família had been destroyed, any interpretation would be a betrayal of an architect “who constantly improvised during his projects”.
As he said, the model used by the architectural team, now led by Jordi Faulí, was the third devised by Gaudí. Had he not been hit by a tram on his daily walk to confession, dying three days later in a paupers’ hospital, might there not have been a fourth?
“I cannot imagine what a fourth version would have been,” says Burry. “I can imagine him producing small refinements – he was quoted as saying great cathedrals absorb the lessons of their building as they get built – but I can’t imagine a quantum shift and I can’t imagine a client having a 73-year-old architect turn up and say, ‘You know that work I’ve been working on for last 12 years? Well, I’ve just had a new idea. Let’s start again.’”
Burry has no doubts.
“I’m certain Gaudí could see exactly what he was getting. He didn’t have to write about his work; it didn’t require explaining. And he always expected the building would be finished by others who would bring their own skills and vision to the job.”
To go into that building now, he says, and not be moved by the light and space, “requires a particular type of vanity, an ability to actually transcend your visceral feelings and instincts. Visually, emotionally and spatially, the work resonates for most people.”
As it did, eventually, with Tusquets Blanca. Half a century after issuing his manifesto, the prominent architect delivered a public retraction. Although he remains unconvinced by some of the more recent decorative additions, he admits that “this wonder would not exist if people had listened to us 50 years ago”.
If architecture is principally space and light, he continues, “the interior of this church is architecture with a capital A, exciting and grand”.
LAST FACADE
Nearly four decades after arriving in Barcelona, Burry, now fluent in Catalan and an expert on Barcelona’s eateries, has completed the design for the third and last facade. “That is the main facade, the last unknown for the building. There is nothing else to do. The major design is finished.”
Burry will still have some involvement in the completion of the church (it was consecrated and proclaimed a minor basilica in 2010).
Last November, he was awarded a prestigious Australian Research Council Discovery Grant to investigate Gaudí’s theories and techniques and he will continue to research the city that has stood behind the remarkable sculptural feat unfolding on its doorstep.
“Barcelona has three things going for it: it recognises its geniuses, it gives its geniuses space to do their thing and Catalonia is the only place I know that has the resilience to get through civil wars, economic cycles, religious high and low points and still keep plugging away at a building. So you could argue that Gaudí was simply an exceptional character within an exceptional community.”
By the time the cranes and scaffolding come down in 2026, the Sagrada Família will be an exceptional statement on the Catalan landscape. The west sacristy will be completed and the remaining towers erected.
At its centre will loom the 172.5m Tower of Jesus Christ, making it the tallest church spire in the world, 10m taller than the titleholder, the Ulm Cathedral in Southern Germany, but still 1m short of Barcelona’s Montjuïc Hill. True to Gaudí’s wishes, his creation will not surpass that of his God.
“Gaudí always expected the building would be finished by others who would bring their own skills and vision to the job.”