A second chance for Christchurch
Following a series of earthquakes that claimed 185 lives, a city once seen as quaintly provincial is not only rebuilding but also reinventing itself. Norman Miller enjoys its new boldness
MY notebook was stuffed. There was breathless recollection of my being chased by a seal across a rocky South Pacific beach at Kaikoura (I’d been trying too hard for that close-up shot), of being thrilled by a haka war dance amid piping-hot geysers and bubbling geothermal pools in the Maori heartland of Rotorua. My scribbles detailed walks in dappled sunlight through a forest of 2 000year-old kauri trees and sips in world-class vineyards. I’d gazed on glaciers and fjords, rainforest and island-studded bays and tried to ignore all mention of hobbits.
After all these natural wonders, I was facing a sight I had tried unsuccessfully to imagine since day one of this 27-day New Zealand odyssey: the world’s only pop-up city.
In contrast to the luxurious outdoor lifestyle and foodie haunts of Auckland, or the cultured hipness of Wellington, Christchurch was once considered quaintly provincial — courtesy of its elegant Victorian buildings and a long-held reputation for being the most “English” of New Zealand’s cities. Now it’s like no other city on Earth, furiously piecing itself back together after major earthquakes in September 2010 and February 2011 reduced swathes of it to ruins.
Eighty percent of the city centre’s buildings collapsed or had to be pulled down. In all, 100 000 houses were damaged, and 10 000 await demolition while insurers debate payouts. This state of affairs has — counter-intuitively, perhaps — sparked a house-price boom, as residents keen to stay in a city they love all seek new homes at once.
Drolly taking as inspiration the phrase “Sure to rise” from a renowned New Zealand primer on baking, Christchurch is busy reinventing itself as well as rebuilding. The city is not only “functioning” mighty well considering what it has been through, but is also replacing its previous staid image with a growing reputation for boldness.
Take its Anglican cathedral. While debate rages over whether — and how — to rebuild the toppled 19th-century original, the city has built a remarkable and imaginative stand-in. The so-called Transitional “Cardboard” Cathedral, scheduled to open this summer, is an engineering miracle dreamt up by the Japanese “emergencyarchitecture” guru Shigeru Ban.
The soaring A-frame wonder is fashioned from enormous reinforced cardboard tubes and a futuristic polycarbonate roof. Inside, a space big enough for 700 is subtly lit by stained-glass windows incorporating fragments from the old cathedral. “It’s a fractured image that has powerful things to say about the city,” said Craig Dixon, a development manager.
Old shipping containers are proving a favourite tool among the pop-up innovators. The closure for repairs of the city’s Art Gallery until mid-2014 has prompted the conversion of cargo holders into street-corner “art boxes” featuring small contemporary art shows.
The Re:Start shopping mall on Cashel Street is another clever post-quake pop-up — 30 or so brightly painted containers stacked like giant Lego, each housing an upmarket shop. Food vans cluster in one corner, and I joined the queue for a delicious bargain lunch of souvlaki from a local favourite, Dimitris.
The recent reopening of New Regent Street, regarded as the country’s most beautiful street when it was built in the ’30s, gives Re:Start a more historic retail complement. After painstaking restoration work, its pastel-hued buildings once again flaunt facades plucked from the Spanish Mission stylebook.
Exploring in the summer sun, I