Photograph of City Council Civic Offices, 194-198 Manchester Street (47)

Images, UC QuakeStudies

A photograph of the ceiling of the City Council Civic Offices on Manchester Street. The room has been exposed by the partial demolition of the building.

Photograph of City Council Civic Offices, 194-198 Manchester Street (28)

Images, UC QuakeStudies

A photograph of the partially-demolished City Council Civic Offices on Manchester Street. The rooms inside have been exposed by the partial demolition of the building.

Photograph of City Council Civic Offices, 194-198 Manchester Street (29)

Images, UC QuakeStudies

A photograph of the partially-demolished City Council Civic Offices on Manchester Street. The rooms inside have been exposed by the partial demolition of the building.

Photograph of City Council Civic Offices, 194-198 Manchester Street (6)

Images, UC QuakeStudies

A photograph of the earthquake damage to the City Council Civic Offices on Manchester Street. Red stickers have been taped to the door, indicating that the building is unsafe to enter.

Photograph of City Council Civic Offices, 194-198 Manchester Street (7)

Images, UC QuakeStudies

A photograph of the earthquake damage to the City Council Civic Offices on Manchester Street. Red stickers have been taped to the door, indicating that the building is unsafe to enter.

Photograph by Jocelyn Kinghorn 519

Images, UC QuakeStudies

A view of the intersection of Cambridge Terrace and Worcester Boulevard. From the left are the Police station, Christchurch City Council's Civic Offices, the HSBC Tower and the Harley Building on the right.

Photograph by Jocelyn Kinghorn 1749

Images, UC QuakeStudies

Looking down Montreal Street, with the Christchurch Art Gallery on the left, and the sculpture "Reasons for Voyaging", a collaboration between Canterbury sculptor, Graham Bennett and architect, David Cole. Behind it is the new Christchurch City Council Civic Offices building.

Time capsules from Christchurch's ruins reveal secrets

Audio, Radio New Zealand

Three time capsules recovered from the ruins of Christchurch in the days following the February earthquake have been opened. Two came from the John Robert Godley statue plinth in front of the Christchurch Cathedral, while the other came from the old civic building on Manchester Street.

Community, resilience and recovery: building or burning bridges?

Research papers, Lincoln University

There is a critical strand of literature suggesting that there are no ‘natural’ disasters (Abramovitz, 2001; Anderson and Woodrow, 1998; Clarke, 2008; Hinchliffe, 2004). There are only those that leave us – the people - more or less shaken and disturbed. There may be some substance to this; for example, how many readers recall the 7.8 magnitude earthquake centred in Fiordland in July 2009? Because it was so far away from a major centre and very few people suffered any consequences, the number is likely to be far fewer than those who remember (all too vividly) the relatively smaller 7.1 magnitude Canterbury quake of September 4th 2010 and the more recent 6.3 magnitude February 22nd 2011 event. One implication of this construction of disasters is that seismic events, like those in Canterbury, are as much socio-political as they are geological. Yet, as this paper shows, the temptation in recovery is to tick boxes and rebuild rather than recover, and to focus on hard infrastructure rather than civic expertise and community involvement. In this paper I draw upon different models of community engagement and use Putnam’s (1995) notion of ‘social capital’ to frame the argument that ‘building bridges’ after a disaster is a complex blend of engineering, communication and collaboration. I then present the results of a qualitative research project undertaken after the September 4th earthquake. This research helps to illustrate the important connections between technical rebuilding, social capital, recovery processes and overall urban resilience.