Advertisement

Phoenix city rises from the rubble

The Cardboard Cathedral, designed by Japanese architect Shigeru Ban / Picture: Stephen Scourfield

In its Cardboard Cathedral, Pallet Pavilion and the Re:START shipping container shopping mall, irrepressible human creativity and ingenuity is showing itself in Christchurch.

MORE FROM STEPHEN SCOURFIELD'S SOUTH ISLAND GUIDE
Direct Perth to Christchurch flights launched
Foodie New Zealand
Soaking at Hanmer Springs
More than wine in Marlborough
Wildlife and culture in Kaikoura

Cook Strait: sail through history

This was a city on the South Island of New Zealand whose buildings were largely damaged beyond repair by the earthquakes of two and three years ago but whose essence and inhabitants were not. And certainly their spirit, hope and belief in the future is intact.

The people of Christchurch like to think of this city of cranes and containers as "in transition".

"This is our chance to get it right," says Kelly Stock, a Christchurch woman and the media and communications manager for Christchurch and Canterbury Tourism. Not many cities get the chance to rethink and rebuild.

And, indeed, when the Christchurch Council launched a six-week "Share an Idea" campaign, giving locals the chance to share their thoughts on how the city should be redeveloped, more than 106,000 ideas were put forward. They helped to shape the Draft Central City Plan.

In partnership with Gehl Architects, the project has won high-profile international acclaim, selected from 225 entries for one of four awards in the 2013 Triennale for an Architecture of Necessity - prestigious Swedish awards recognising building, social and city planning projects that promote responsible, diligent, sustainable, just and open planning. The judging panel said the plan would be used to rebuild both the urban fabric and the community.

The 2010 and 2011 earthquakes shook Christchurch with such force that nearly 80 per cent of the central city's buildings were damaged beyond repair. Some are still being taken down, some have been repaired and reopened, most will be replaced. The biggest earthquake had a magnitude of 7.1 on the Richter scale - the equivalent to 671,000 tonnes of TNT explosive.

The story is told with a $10 entry ticket to Quake City, an exhibition about the earthquakes and their events. And it is told through the "gaps" in the city, where buildings once were, yet to be recreated.

In the plane, arriving in Christchurch, the local chap next to me pointed out that anyone who hadn't been here before probably wouldn't see the difference.

And to some extent he's right - some of Christchurch just looks rather like a city under construction, and we are familiar with that.

But it seems cities and people abhor a vacuum as much as nature and the "gaps" have proved fertile ground for human creativity and community spirit.

Indeed, Gap Filler is an urban regeneration initiative backing creative projects for community benefit. It sees vacant sites awaiting redevelopment used for "temporary, creative, people-centred purposes". Gap Filler will work with anyone with ideas and initiative.

One such initiative is the Pallet Pavilion on the corner of Durham Street and Kilmore Street, where once the Crowne Plaza Hotel stood.

The 3000 blue loading pallets are fixed together, forming a pavilion to host live music, outdoor cinema and other events. There's a cafe, tables and umbrellas - as a Gap Filler spokesperson says, "an intriguing and welcoming space for people to visit, spend time and use".

Kelly Stock was one of 250 volunteers who put in 2600 hours of work, backed by more than 50 business partners, and local father and daughter Amy and Glen Jansen look after the programming and running of the venue. Hope and creativity blossom in the gaps.

At Re:START, it has bloomed in a big area based around Christchurch's thankfully untouched Ballantynes department store ("our Harrods," explains Kelly Stock) for which shipping containers were chosen for a temporary shopping precinct because they were strong and could be used for something else when permanent buildings were erected. Although, such is the favourable response, that there seems no rush to replace them. This quirky area has won a place in local hearts.

Brightly coloured and inhabited now by outdoor clothing stores, fashion, gift and coffee shops, they have also taught locals that they rather like this laneways style of living, rather than big commercial concrete canyons.

The cafe C1 Espresso has become another hub. The original C1 was just across the road, on the opposite corner, in a building damaged by the quakes. But it has moved into the tallest undamaged heritage building in Christchurch and owner Sam Crofskey is simply aiming to make it the best coffee shop in the world.

The coffee, sourced from family growers in Samoa, is first class. The clientele is mixed. It has a happening feel.

New Regent Street - a pretty pedestrian shopping area, with facades of Spanish Mission style dating from the 1930s and listed with the New Zealand Historic Places Trust -has been restored and reopened.

In all of this, of course, one retains the respectful thought that 186 people died in the earthquakes of 2010 and 2011.

And perhaps a place to remember them is in two of Christchurch's cathedrals, for around them both is hope, too.

Cathedral Square reopened in July and, despite the still-damaged Christ Church Cathedral at its heart, the Transitional Square Project is seeing it transformed into a welcoming public space. There's new seating and landscaping, art installations and performance.

Even the temporary fences around damaged buildings have mosaics done with colourful plastic square inserts.

I am staying in the smart, contemporarily designed and newly opened The Novotel Christchurch hotel, which faces on to Cathedral Square, and all around, other hotels have been opening -more than 5000 rooms are now available in the city.

The nearby Cardboard Cathedral has proved not only a symbol of the city's temporary but tempting emergency architecture, and a vibrant home for Anglican parishioners, but something that visitors want to see.

The Transitional Cathedral, to give it its proper name, uses 98 cardboard rolls as 20m long pillars for its high-peaking roof, which is of translucent polycarbonate, not only letting in soft light, but letting the building shine at night.

It was designed by Japanese architect Shigeru Ban, who has been building with cardboard since 1986 and designed emergency accommodation in Japan after the tsunami, and an art museum in Metz, in France.

He assures that the Cardboard Cathedral is safe against earthquakes and fires, and won't get soggy in the rain.

It is also designed to last up to 50 years. Even in the temporary, one eye is on the future.

The people of Christchurch don't want to dwell in the past.

FACT FILE

newzealand.com

christchurchnz.com

airnewzealand.co.nz

palletpavilion.com

gapfiller.org.nz

restart.org.nz