A momentous day in Christchurch as a huge steel frame was installed as part of the stabilisation work for Christ Church Cathedral. Karyn speaks with project director Keith Paterson about the plans to return the famed rose window extensively damage in the 2011 earthquake.
Moves towards returning the famed rose window to Christ Church Cathedral begin today. An eighteen-tonne steel frame is being installed onto the cathedral's west facade as part of restoration work. It will eventually housing the rose window. The cathedral was critically damaged in the Christchurch earthquake of 2011. Project director Keith Paterson is in Cathedral Square. He speaks to Susie Ferguson.
Christchurch's Cardboard Cathedral was designed as a temporary structure to fill the void left by the damage caused to Christ Church Cathedral in the 2011 earthquake.
The spire of Christ Church Cathedral once stood 20 storeys high but was reduced to less than half that by last year's earthquake. Its temporary replacement's construction began yesterday with the first sod turned.
It was so nearly lost. As the Christ Church Anglican Cathedral is being rebuilt, historian Edmund Bohan is releasing a history of the distinctive Gothic building. It shows it was controversial even before work started on designing it, let alone building in. From the laying of the foundations to the official opening, it took 40 years, after squabbles over pretty much every aspect of its construction - not to mention the huge problems raising the money to build it in the City Centre. In Heart of the City: The Story of Christchurch's Controversial Cathedral, Edmund is critical of the former Anglican Bishop Victoria Matthews' determination to demolish the badly-damaged cathedral after the Canterbury earthquakes, to replace it with a modern church. And he tells Lynn Freeman he's very much looking forward to seeing the Cathedral restored to its former glory after a lengthy and pricey rebuild. But first he sets the scene. Back in the 1860s, there was controversy over where the cathedral should go, its design, whether it should be in stone or timber - even if there should be a cathedral built at all! Heart of the City: The Story of Christchurch's Controversial Cathedral, by Edmund Bohan is published by Quentin Wilson Publishing.