Through a visitor’s eyes there’s much to admire
The last time I spent more than a few hours in Christchurch was nearly 20 years ago. Nearly a decade before that I’d spent two years there as a frugal student. I had mixed memories of the city. Looking back now I see the bad memories as more a reflection of wanderlust-induced anxiety and an aversion to a static desk-bound existence in a long-sincedemolished ramshackle cottage in Peacock St.
Mostly I remember a mix of massive nor’west arches above long straight roads, cafes in Cashel St, afternoon reveries in Hagley Park and Cathedral Square, and a fairly undignified trip down the Avon River on a raft struggling to float under the weight of beer.
Earlier this month a family emergency prompted an unplanned trip from my current home of Hawke’s Bay.
Our regions share a similarity in landscape, wine, climate (to some extent) and earthquakes.
It’s been 87 years since ‘‘our’’ quake claimed 256 lives and flattened Napier. Only relatively recently have we learned to appreciate the architectural quality of the buildings spared the wrecking balls of the 1980s. Less tangible is our appreciation of the forces at play that drove our forebears to get the rebuild started as soon as possible.
Without any of this in mind, I spent three recent days wandering the streets of Christchurch. I was familiar with criticism of the pace of the rebuild, concerns around the future of the cathedral, and I was of course aware of issues around EQC and insurance. The sum of which had me expecting to be saddened and underwhelmed by my walks.
To be fair, I could have been paying more attention to what was actually going on down there, but to be quite honest I don’t know if many of us outside the region can truly get a fair handle on your city without actually walking its streets. To cut to the chase, the place really got to me. New building after new building had me stopping in admiration. Form and function combined in a gesture to impress and assure. The bus station, the justice and emergency precinct, the PwC building, the partly completed hospital outpatients building, to name a few. Even the parking buildings are beautiful.
One might argue that these will date and that, in time, they will be viewed in the same way as the utilitarian monoliths of the 80s and 90s. Possibly, but I think it more likely that in 80 years’ time there will be walking tours through the CBD akin to the art deco tours we have in Napier.
There is a palpable reverence about the Canterbury Earthquake National Memorial, the CTV building memorial site and the 185 Empty Chairs. Each has a simplicity belying their impact.
One of my walks took me to the site of a favourite flat of mine. A large second-floor studio in a brick building on the corner of Manchester and Tuam streets. There’s nothing there now. In fact there was little I recognised in the immediate area. The nearest familiar landmark was the old post office building. Now home to C1 Espresso, it was the popular Alice in Videoland when I was last here.
It’s a building that would have been at home in Napier. Which is not surprising as it was built in
1932, around the same time the rebuild was under way up north.
I met and spoke with whichever local I could corner for a chat as I made my way between the public art works, memorials and buildings.
I was left with the impression that they had been pleasantly surprised by progress to date. They were not surprised when I said that we outsiders really had the vaguest of grasps on what they and their city had gone through in the years after the
2011 quake.
It wasn’t until I’d flown home that it occurred to me that the city’s new structures were a kind of physical form of the stoicism I’d sensed in those I had spoken with.
New building after new building had me stopping in admiration. Form and function combined ina gesture to impress and assure.