Christchurch - Wow!

Wednesday 12^th February – Christchurch

We were up early and into the city, not really knowing what to expect, but was bowled over by the place. It was hit really hard by two earthquakes in February 2011, we are just coming up to the third anniversary. 

Parts of the city centre are still cordoned off and you are no allowed down the streets. Sometimes it looks like a war zone, and really sad. It must have been a dreadful day. There are bizarre scenes of what look like new hotels with curtains still up at the broken windows. One we looked at had buckled in the middle.

Other buildings are shored up with scaffolding, but everywhere there are containers being used as businesses, shops and cafes.  Right in the centre is Container City, brightly coloured containers stacked together as cafes and shops.

The Cathedral is a mess and the second quake brought down the spire, but the square outside had a flower festival outside.

                                               The cathedral being held up with steel

Everywhere there is art and colour, art and sculpture, as if the city is trying to bring life and colour to the mess. And everywhere there is building works going on. It will probably take another 10 years for them to cleared everything away and rebuild, but there appears to be the will to do it.

We visited the most wonderful place,the cardboard cathedral, literally a cathedral built with leftovers from the quake, rolls of cardboard hold the whole structure up. It was built by an architect Shigeru Ban, who calls himself an Emergency Architect.  It took nearly two years to build, but they reckon it will last for 50 years to allow the main cathedral to be rebuilt. It will then become a parish church. The architect gives his servies for emergency works free of charge, and has been involved with designing tented cities after the last Kobe and Pakistan earthquakes. I want to look him up when we get back, he sounds just amazing.

Nearby was an installation called 185 chairs, to mark the 185 who lost there lives in the quake. I was unaware that a similar thing had been put together in New York for the people who died in the 9/11 as well as a number of other tragedies.

I just could go on for ever about the place, which  is totally inspiring.  But will end on the lovely river through the city, with lovely gardens, to calm the spirit.