
In a vacant lot opposite the CTV building where a building has been demolished, is a commemoration to those who died in the earthquake. It includes a pile of demolition rubble and 185 white stones in honour of each person who lost their life on 22nd February 2011. Around it are also item such as a frame photograph and flowers left by the public.
In a vacant lot opposite the CTV building where a building has been demolished, is a commemoration to those who died in the earthquake. It includes a pile of demolition rubble and 185 white stones in honour of each person who lost their life on 22nd February 2011. Around it are also item such as a frame photograph and flowers left by the public.
In a vacant lot opposite the CTV building where a building has been demolished, is a commemoration to those who died in the earthquake. It includes a pile of demolition rubble and 185 white stones in honour of each person who lost their life on 22nd February 2011. Around it are item such as a frame photograph and flowers left by the public.
A digitally manipulated image of Michael Parekowhai's sculpture 'On First Looking into Chapman's Homer' on Madras Street. The photographer comments, "This is the work of New Zealand artist Michael Parekowhai titled 'On First Looking into Chapman's Homer'. There are two bronze pianos and a very dominant looking bronze bull on each".
A digitally manipulated image of Michael Parekowhai's scuplture 'On First Looking into Chapman's Homer' on Madras Street. The photographer comments, "One of the two bulls on pianos by Michael Parekowhai called 'On First Looking into Chapman's Homer'. They have been placed on the site of a building that was demolished after earthquake damage.
A photograph submitted by Gaynor James to the QuakeStories website. The description reads, "DTZ building going, 20 July 2011. A small crowd watches the demolition …There is an eerie silence- no excited buzz – people watching yet another part of their history turning into rubble. The wrecking ball, delicately positioned, drops and is followed by the cracking and rending of floor after floor and the debris tumbles down … It starts to clear and an extraordinary sight greets us. Hundreds and hundreds of sheets of paper drift down like giant confetti.".
A PDF copy of signage for the Places of Tranquillity initiative. Healthy Christchurch lead the collaborative project to create six gardens of beauty and peace to fill in some of the grey demolition sites across Christchurch. The signage promotes the initiative and invites people to register to create tranquil gardens at healthychristchurch.org.nz. From healthychristchurch.org.nz: "Healthy Christchurch is leading this innovative collaboration creating six gardens of beauty and peace to fill in some of the grey demolition sites across Christchurch.These gardens are for peace and tranquillity as well as family and community use with spaces designed for both." "This is a Healthy Christchurch collaboration in partnership with the city's ethnic communities to include their traditions, cultures and spiritual beliefs. This ensures that these communities' voices and presence is more visible in the rebuild of our city. There are three key partners in this collaborative project. Greening the Rubble are providing expertise in temporary site development and project managing the creation. Lincoln University School of Landscape Architecture provided the student competition and are supporting the winning students and their designs into fruition. Community and Public Health (CDHB) provide the overall project management, networks and promotion." "In 2012 Lincoln University School of Landscape Architecture students created 40 beautiful designs for the Places of Tranquillity. Six winning designs were chosen from the 995 votes made online or at the displays at Community and Public Health and the Migrant Centre. The six winners were announced at the Healthy Christchurch Hui on the 31st May 2012. Each winning student received a Certificate and a $50 Scorpio Book Voucher. The awards were presented by Michelle Mitchell, General Manager of the CERA Wellbeing Team."
The Canterbury earthquake sequence of 2010-2011 wrought ruptures in not only the physical landscape of Canterbury and Christchurch’s material form, but also in its social, economic, and political fabrics and the lives of Christchurch inhabitants. In the years that followed, the widespread demolition of the CBD that followed the earthquakes produced a bleak landscape of grey rubble punctuated by damaged, abandoned buildings. It was into this post-earthquake landscape that Gap Filler and other ‘transitional’ organisations inserted playful, creative, experimental projects to bring life and energy back into the CBD. This thesis examines those interventions and the development of the ‘Transitional Movement’ between July 2013 and June 2015 via the methods of walking interviews and participant observation. This critical period in Christchurch’s recovery serves as an example of what happens when do-it-yourself (DIY) urbanism is done at scale across the CBD and what urban experimentation can offer city-making. Through an understanding of space as produced, informed by Lefebvre’s thinking, I explore how these creative urban interventions manifested a different temporality to orthodox planning and demonstrate how the ‘soft’ politics of these interventions contain the potential for gentrification and also a more radical politics of the city, by creating an opening space for difference.