The Cardboard Cathedral
01 December 2015 | Temuka Holiday Park, Temuka, South Island, New Zealand
Photo: Framed by cardboard tubes, the stained-glass window of the Transitional Anglican Cathedral in Christchurch, South Island, New Zealand
Given the numerous volcanic features of New Zealand, there is no doubt that you are in a part of the seismically active "Ring of Fire" around the Pacific Ocean. What is less obvious (most of the time) is that major fault-lines run the length of the nation, the most active from the west coast just north of Fiordland to the Blenheim area, and from Wellington to the Bay of Plenty and through the Taupo Volcanic Zone. Most of these faults are oblique strike slip faults which show a combination of vertical and sideways movement. The Alpine Fault, on the western side of the Southern Alps, carries most of the strain of the boundary between the Australasian and Pacific tectonic plates and is considered at high risk of producing a major earthquake in the next 50 years. Somewhat surprisingly, Canterbury (the area around Christchurch) does not lie on any of the major fault-lines but covers a relatively minor fault which would not be expected to rupture very frequently. Of course, try telling that to the residents of Canterbury in 2010 and 2011.
In the early hours of Saturday morning, 4 September 2010, they were jolted awake by a 7.1 magnitude earthquake that lasted for 40 seconds. Popularly known as the Darfield earthquake because its epicenter was 10 km (6 miles) below the town of Darfield, 40 km (25 miles) west of Christchurch, this was the most damaging earthquake in New Zealand since the deadly magnitude 7.8 Hawke's Bay (Napier) earthquake in 1931. While there was plenty of structural damage, amazingly, there was no loss of life in the Darfield earthquake, partly because most people were in bed and the streets were largely deserted. New Zealand's strict building codes, which try to ensure that buildings do not become deathtraps during a major earthquake, must have also saved many lives.
The area was plagued with numerous aftershocks, the most significant of which was the 6.3 magnitude quake which occurred at 12:51 pm on Tuesday, 22 February 2011 and which had a shallow (5 km deep) epicenter just 10 km (6 miles) southeast of the city. This quake lasted only 24 seconds but the peak ground acceleration exceeded 1.8 times the value of gravity, causing people to be flung violently and almost vertically into the air. With the city center full of people at work or shopping and with incredible structural damage, there were huge numbers of injuries and 185 fatalities. These included the deaths of 115 people in the six-story Canterbury TV building, many of whom were international students in a language school.
Built on former marshland at the mouth of the huge Waimakariri River, the land beneath Christchurch is not geologically stable and massive amounts of soil liquefaction caused foundations to sink, infrastructure to buckle, and odorous silt to spew out of cracks in the ground. Many buildings already weakened by the Darfield quake and especially those built with unreinforced masonry, before stringent earthquake codes were introduced, collapsed, warped, dropped significant chunks of masonry and glass, developed massive cracks, or otherwise became unsafe for occupation.
A "Red Zone", initially excluding public access to most of the central business district was established on the day of the earthquake and gradually diminished in size as infrastructure and buildings were inspected and fenced-off. Of the 3,000 buildings inspected within the four avenues of the central city by 3 March 2011, 45% had been given notification to restrict access because of the safety problems. As of February 2015, there had been 1,240 demolitions within the four avenues since the September 2010 earthquake. Even surviving buildings might remain closed pending repairs and/or structural reinforcement to meet the new building codes.
Leaving the van just west of the city center in the massive Hagley Park on Monday morning (November 30th), Randall and I walked through the cheerful Botanical Gardens and then around the center of Christchurch absorbing the massive scale of the damage that the earthquakes had inflicted. Without having been to the city before, we were spared the heartbreak of seeing familiar buildings damaged and abandoned or simply gone, but the wide-open spaces and massive areas of new construction left no doubt about the scale of what had happened there.
Most heartbreaking was the temporary memorial of 185 white-painted chairs of many different types and sizes which had been collected on one small demolition site to commemorate the fatalities, which had obviously included at least one baby and several small children. Also poignant were the two mutilated cathedrals, the central, Anglican Christchurch Cathedral, from which the spire and part of the tower had collapsed, and the once-beautiful basilica of the Catholic Cathedral, which had lost its towers and dome. Both ruins are fenced-off and await decisions about whether to rebuild them or start afresh, matters that are influenced not only by the congregations and their parent churches but also by the managers of the city's historic character.
Despite the more depressing views of empty demolition sites and damaged buildings, Christchurch is currently a buzzing center of new reconstruction providing many jobs and the potential for ultra-modern, earthquake-safer buildings. There are many skilled workers replacing and reinforcing masonry and ornamentation on historic buildings, and novel ideas have been incorporated to try to keep the city center alive. A massive arts project placing sculptures and murals of all shapes, sizes, and bright colors throughout the center provides interesting sights around almost every corner. There is a boldly colored shopping mall of city center shops and cafés constructed entirely and most creatively from shipping containers. And most spectacularly, a transitional Anglican cathedral has been built using shipping containers and cardboard tubes.
Dubbed the "Cardboard Cathedral" the building has graceful lines and a simplicity that make it quite appealing despite the cardboard tubes that adorn it, including the large cross over the altar. Opened in August 2013 to seat 700, it was designed by a Japanese architect who is well-known for his innovative projects to use paper and recycled cardboard tubes to house disaster victims quickly and efficiently. Initially intended to be a temporary place of worship, once it was decided to build a permanent structure (to be used as a parish church eventually) the design was changed so that the 96 massive cardboard tubes inside the steeply sloping A-frame building are not actually structurally supporting the roof but maintained the theme of the rest of the structure. A huge triangular stained-glass window above the entrance was designed around the idea of fragments that had fallen from the original cathedral's shattered rose window.
Turmoil in the city and the numerous aftershocks (31 over magnitude 5 in the subsequent 12 months including another 6.3 magnitude quake in June 2011), have caused many people to move elsewhere. The city's population decreased from being the nation's second largest city (386,100 in 2008) to third place (367,800 in 2015) behind Auckland and Wellington. Even the weary people remaining in the city are not necessarily happy with the way that things have progressed since 2011, with some outspoken cynicism about excessive demolitions to make way for new "vanity projects" and questions about the setting of priorities for recovery funding. Plans for repairing and rebuilding the city center are being projected-out for at least 20 years and it is estimated that this could cost up to NZ$40 billion.
After hearing David's graphic description of how he was thrown around in his work's gym and then struggled to get home to check on the rest of his family, we felt no need to go to "Quake City" an information-center telling "The Christchurch earthquake story" (near the container shopping-mall) to hear more accounts of the earthquakes. Some people may wonder if it is appropriate to sight-see in a disaster area but our sense was that by now they are keen to attract tourists back to the city and that a respectful appreciation of what happened is important.
After our sobering morning in the city, we decided to finish our visit to Christchurch by driving around Lyttelton Harbour and out to the town of Akaroa on the Banks Peninsula. Formed from two large shield volcanoes 11 to 8 million years ago and roughly circular in shape, the edges of the Banks Peninsula are ragged with many bays and two deep harbours. Originally forming off-shore and reaching a height of 1,500 m above sea-level (4,921 feet), the dominant craters of these volcanoes eventually became Lyttelton and Akaroa Harbours. Erosion of the Southern Alps created the flat alluvial fans of the Canterbury Plains and these eventually united the volcanoes to the mainland.
Thanks to a bank of clouds being constantly created as the wind blew off the ocean, driving the roads around the rims of Lyttelton and Akaroa Harbours was not quite as spectacular and enjoyable as it might have been. At times, when completely immersed in the clouds and being buffeted from the side by the strong gusts, it was a little more exciting than we had expected and made us question whether this had been a worthwhile detour from our route south. Still, many of the views were beautiful when available, such as looking across the harbours into which dipped many sharply defined ridges covered in forests and pastures.
Having returned across the wide isthmus separating the Peninsula from the mainland, we passed through Lincoln and then resumed our journey along Highway 1. At the Rakaia River, we crossed the nation's longest bridge and on reaching the southern edge of the impossibly flat Canterbury Plain, we stopped for the night at the Temuka Holiday Park. It had been a strangely exhausting day between the sobering visit to Christchurch and the long, at times white-knuckle drive around Banks Peninsula. So while we were glad to have seen David and to have learned so much about his city, we were looking forward to a few days that we could dedicate to the birds.