A story submitted by Anonymous to the QuakeStories website.
A close-up photograph of a sign about the Fisher's Building, with the words, "Making our mark. An architect's vision contributes to a transformation of the commercial heart of our city. Whether a building survives or becomes just a memory is part of the continually changing Central City. Fisher's Building".
Avonhead Park Cemetery Interment Site. Central plinth. Inscription reads: "Etched in our City’s memory, never to be forgotten. The City of Christchurch" in Spanish. File reference: CCL-2012-02-27-AvonheadParkCemeteryIntermentSite-February-2012 DSC_026.JPG From the collection of Christchurch City Libraries.
Avonhead Park Cemetery Interment Site. Central plinth. Inscription reads: "Etched in our City’s memory, never to be forgotten. The City of Christchurch". File reference: CCL-2012-02-27-AvonheadParkCemeteryIntermentSite-February-2012 DSC_027.JPG From the collection of Christchurch City Libraries.
Avonhead Park Cemetery Interment Site. Central plinth. Inscription reads: "Etched in our City’s memory, never to be forgotten. The City of Christchurch" in Filipino. File reference: CCL-2012-02-27-AvonheadParkCemeteryIntermentSite-February-2012 DSC_028.JPG From the collection of Christchurch City Libraries.
A notice on the fence outside the CTV site on Madras Street. The notice reads, "Please respect this site. In recognition of the special significance this site holds for the people of our city and all those affected by the earthquakes, the Christchurch City Council is working with Canterbury Museum to preserve aspects of our remembering. Tributes may be left at this site. Older tributes will be removed for archiving by the Canterbury Museum to become part of the city's memory of the Canterbury Earthquakes. Organic materials will be composted and used in the city's gardens. Canterbury Museum. Christchurch City Council".
Disasters are a critical topic for practitioners of landscape architecture. A fundamental role of the profession is disaster prevention or mitigation through practitioners having a thorough understanding of known threats. Once we reach the ‘other side’ of a disaster – the aftermath – landscape architecture plays a central response in dealing with its consequences, rebuilding of settlements and infrastructure and gaining an enhanced understanding of the causes of any failures. Landscape architecture must respond not only to the physical dimensions of disaster landscapes but also to the social, psychological and spiritual aspects. Landscape’s experiential potency is heightened in disasters in ways that may challenge and extend the spectrum of emotions. Identity is rooted in landscape, and massive transformation through the impact of a disaster can lead to ongoing psychological devastation. Memory and landscape are tightly intertwined as part of individual and collective identities, as connections to place and time. The ruptures caused by disasters present a challenge to remembering the lives lost and the prior condition of the landscape, the intimate attachments to places now gone and even the event itself.