On our trip to New Zealand last year, we toured the city of Christchurch, the location of massive earthquakes in 2011 and 2016. It was very sad that this beautiful city still has such a long road to recovery. Many buildings downtown were still boarded up and marked as unsafe. One of the buildings damaged in the 2011 earthquake was Christchurch’s cathedral. You can see in the picture below what the roof looked like when we visited in 2020.
The Anglican Cathedral has a long history of being damaged by earthquakes since the cornerstone was first laid in 1864. Earthquakes caused significant damage in 1881, 1901, 2010, and 2011. The spire was damaged in most of these and completely collapsed in the February 22, 2011 quake.
But humans are resilient, and hopeful, and until the latest damage can be repaired, a new, “temporary” cathedral was built in a very unique way.
The new cathedral is set back from the city center so you’ll have to walk for about 15 minutes to get to it, but it is worth the walk.
It is nicknamed the “Cardboard Cathedral” because of the unique building material they used to construct the roof of the new building.it was designed pro bono by Japanese architect, Shigeru Ban. The cathedral was designed to last 50 years rather than the hundreds of years typical cathedrals to built to last.
Perhaps you’ve seen the long cardboard tubes used to pour concrete poles for the footers and supports of bridges or other structures. Long cardboard tubes similar to those support the roof of the cathedral, hence the nickname “cardboard cathedral”. It is quite ingenious and probably was very cost effective as well. It has been recognized by architecture critics as one of the five most innovative buildings in the world and won the Pritzker Architecture Prize in 2014 for the design.
Now you might think that the Anglicans traded a earthquake damage risk for a fire risk with all that cardboard, but apparently the cardboard tubes have been coated with waterproofing and a fire retardant material to reduce that risk.
I’ve visited a lot of cathedrals and churches around the world in my travels and I found the modern design of this one very appealing. It is a light filled A-frame design with very clean lines and has very modern looking chairs instead of pews. It almost reminded me of something America’s Frank Lloyd Wright would have designed. Tourists are allowed to go inside and see the interior if services aren’t going on, but should remove hats and be respectful that this is a place of worship.
We spent the rest of our day in Christchurch touring its parks and the art museum. The art museum, shown in the photo below, was both interesting architecturally and had a great collection of New Zealand Maori and modern art.
We also enjoyed the public art such as the sculpture below as we wandered the city.
I hope you enjoyed my visit to Christchurch!
All images in this post were created by me. If you would like to use any of these images, please contact me for permission before proceeding. Thanks.
I remember visiting these places during my trip to NZ nearly 5 years ago, nice memories!
Hiya, @LivingUKTaiwan here, just swinging by to let you know that this post made it into our Honorable Mentions in Daily Travel Digest #1182.
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