Photograph captioned by BeckerFraserPhotos, "High Street with the remains of the Hotel Grand Chancellor and the Holiday Inn and Westpac building (both under demolition). Manchester Street on the left".
Photograph captioned by BeckerFraserPhotos, "Area around Colombo Street between Cathedral Square (lower right) and Moorhouse Avenue".
Photograph captioned by BeckerFraserPhotos, "Corner of Manchester and Gloucester Streets with the site of Iconic in the foreground and the SBS building being demolished to the right. North-east view".
Photograph captioned by BeckerFraserPhotos, "Tuam Street looking north-east towards corner Madras and Cashel Streets. IRD building is the large building on the left".
Photograph captioned by BeckerFraserPhotos, "Looking north along Cambridge Terrace and Durham Street from St Michael and All Angels Church".
Photograph captioned by BeckerFraserPhotos, "A view looking from the Edmonds Band Rotunda across the River Avon to the intersection of Manchester Street and Oxford Terrace".
A photograph captioned by BeckerFraserPhotos, "The Hotel Grand Chancellor viewed from Hereford Street. It is now hard to recognise with many of its exterior panels removed during the deconstruction process".
Damage to the south-west corner of the Cathedral of the Blessed Sacrament. A section of wall has collapsed, exposing the rooms within. Some of the stones have fallen onto a vehicle parked nearby. The photographer comments, "A bike ride around the CBD. Catholic Cathedral, Barbadoes St".
Photograph captioned by BeckerFraserPhotos, "214 Oxford Terrace. This building was integral with the one on the north-east corner of Colombo and Armagh Streets".
A photograph captioned by BeckerFraserPhotos, "A view from Latimer Square, looking across the demolition site of AMI House towards the Marque Hotel/Pacific Tower".
Damage to a house in Richmond. Brick cladding is badly cracked and buckled, and some bricks have fallen. There is a large gap between the floor and the foundations. The photographer comments, "A bike ride around the CBD. Our house - foundations and floor parted".
Damage to a house in Richmond. Large gaps are visible between the floor and the foundation, and between the foundation and the patio. The photographer comments, "A bike ride around the CBD. Our house - patio is heading west - or the sunroom is heading east".
Damage to the Community of the Sacred Name building on Barbadoes Street. The gable ends of the building have collapsed, and bricks have fallen to the footpath below. The building is surrounded by security fencing. The photographer comments, "A bike ride around the CBD. Nunnery, Barbadoes St".
Photograph captioned by BeckerFraserPhotos, "A view looking south down Colombo Street from the bridge over the River Avon. The road damage in the foreground is where the bridge begins".
Photograph captioned by BeckerFraserPhotos, "Looking along Gloucester Street towards the Marque Hotel with the Novotel on the right. Demolition material is the Coachman".
An aerial photograph of Colombo Street near the Bus Exchange and the Crossing. Ballantynes can be seen on the left.
Seen from Cambridge Terrace, the 'White Lights of Hope' spotlights shine into the sky behind a crane and damaged buildings on Oxford Terrace.
Damage to the Community of the Sacred Name building on Barbadoes Street. The gable ends of the building have collapsed, and bricks have fallen to the footpath below. The building is surrounded by security fencing. The photographer comments, "A bike ride around the CBD. Nunnery, Barbadoes St".
Damage to the north-west corner of the Cathedral of the Blessed Sacrament. The upper part of the corner structure has collapsed. A statue of the Virgin Mary can be seen in a window. The photographer comments, "A bike ride around the CBD. Catholic Cathedral, Barbadoes St".
A stone gable wall of one of the buildings of the Beulah Christian Fellowship has partly collapsed, damaging the roof below. The photographer comments, "A bike ride around the CBD. I think this must be part of the Beulah Christian Fellowship. Taken from Edgeware Rd".
www.youtube.com/watch?v=SPXqb7k4azU Details inside a half demolished theatre in central Christchurch. November, 2012. Christchurch, NZ. (c)Mike Brebner. All rights reserved.
Demolition underway on the old Government Life building on a walk around the city September 7, 2014 Christchurch New Zealand.
The city of Christchurch, New Zealand, incurred significant damage due to a series of earthquakes in 2010 and 2011. The city had, by the late 2010s, regained economic and social normalcy after a sustained period of rebuilding and economic recovery. Through the concerted rebuilding effort, a modern central business district (CBD) with redesigned infrastructure and amenities was developed. The Christchurch rebuild was underpinned by a commitment of urban planners to an open and connected city, including the use of innovative technologies to gather, use and share data. As was the case elsewhere, the COVID-19 pandemic brought about significant disruptions to social and economic life in Christchurch. Border closures, lockdowns, trading limitations and other restrictions on movement led to changes in traditional consumer behaviors and affected the retail sector’s resilience. In this study, we used CBD pedestrian traffic data gathered from various locations to predict changes in retail spending and identify recovery implications through the lens of retail resilience. We found that the COVID-19 pandemic and its related lockdowns have driven a substantive change in the behavioral patterns of city users. The implications for resilient retail, sustainable policy and further research are explored.
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.
A photograph captioned by BeckerFraserPhotos, "Pieces of iron fretwork from the entrance of the Warners Hotel which have been carefully laid on the ground outside. This shows the careful salvaging which has taken place in order for pieces to be re-used later".
A photograph captioned by BeckerFraserPhotos, "A view from Worcester Street. A gap has been left by the demolition of the Press building, allowing a view of the Copthorne Christchurch Central Hotel".
A photograph captioned by BeckerFraserPhotos, "Pieces of iron fretwork from the entrance of the Warners Hotel which have been carefully laid on the ground outside. This shows the careful salvaging which has taken place in order for pieces to be re-used later".
Broken stained glass in a window of the ChristChurch Cathedral. The photographer comments, "I only managed to get one picture of the badly earthquake damaged Christchurch Cathedral and I did not want to get the buttresses holding it up like some Medieval siege engine, so I thought this one was perfect. Looking through the window notice that the adjacent wall has gone and the blue windows belong to an office block across the road".
The dome of the Isaac Theatre Royal covered in sheeting and suspended in the backstage area. In the foreground, a small digger sits on the bed of a truck, and a crane is visible to the left. The photographer comments, "This is the 'dome' of the Isaac Theatre Royal's heritage stage. The front section of the theatre has stayed and so has the back, but the middle has been completely demolished. The best way to hide a secret is in plain sight. Could this really be an ancient UFO stored secretly in the old theatre for decades and now exposed by the earthquake? Is the waiting crane and transporter ready to whip it away to another secret location in the dead of night?".
The entrance to the West Avon building on Montreal Street. The photographer comments, "This very wonderful Art Deco heritage building in Christchurch had residents living in it until another visit from the building engineers re-re-checking for earthquake damage. Now it is fenced off and on the list for possible demolition".