Reconnection to Cleared Site in Christchurch Architecture for the Rememberer

Abigail Michelle Thompson

A thesis submitted in ful! lment of the requirements for the degree of Master of Architecture (professional), The University of Auckland, 2012 Fig 1: Project. Surface study model by author. Abstract

The loss of life and buildings due to the devastating and continuing earthquakes in Canterbury (since 9th September, 2010) have created a need to examine the issue of memory with concerns to architecture in a New Zealand context. This thesis was initiated with concern to addressing the cleared (destroyed, demolished) buildings of Christchurch and architecture’s role in reconnecting Cantabrians mnemonically to the cleared sites in their city. This is an investigation of architecture’s ability to trigger memories in order to speci! cally address the disorientation experienced by Cantabrians subsequent to the loss of built fabric in their city.

The design intention is to propose an architectural method for reconnecting people’s memories with site, which will have implications to other sites throughout the city of Christchurch. Consequently, two signi! cant sites of destruction have been chosen, the Methodist Church site at 309 Durham St (community) and the house at 69 Sherborne St (domestic). With the only original material left on these cleared sites being the ground itself, two issues were made apparent. Firstly, that ground should play a signi! cant role in substantiating the memory of the site(s), and secondly the necessary task of designing a mnemonic language without tangible links (other than ground).

Collective memory is examined with regards to theory by Maurice Halbwachs, Piere Nora, and Peter Carrier. Design exploration of mnemonic language is developed with concern to issues of collective and individual memory. Individual memory theory of Gaston Barchelard, Marcel Proust and Frances Yates are discussed. This research resulted in two opposing design strategies, one that is Referential and conducive to collective memory through use of mass and surfaces, the second strategy Experiential, aligning with an idea of individual memory by use of layers and the cut as an analytical tool. These strategies, along with archetypes such as doors and staircases (as discussed later in relation to phenomenology and semiotics), became essential to the design process and ! nal outcomes. As a result, Referential and Experiential moments have been designed to occur at looking through a window, entering through a door, or ascending up a stairway. The resulting architectural interventions are signi! cant in addressing use of mnemonic language to reorientate Cantabrians to cleared site in their central city. Fig 2: Project. Surface study model by author. Dedication

To my father, Mark Thompson (29/12/1959 - 06/10/2012) who taught me the courage, determination and diligence that I needed to write this thesis, and who demonstrated the faith, hope and love that I will need in life. Acknowledgements

Firstly, I would like to acknowledge Lynda Simmons as my supervisor. Her time, encouragement, and critical input made this thesis possible. I would also like to acknowledge my family, especially my mum, who have always supported and believed in me. Lastly, to my friends, " atmates and fellow students who kept me sane during the year with their humour and continued friendship. Contents

Introduction ...... 15

1 The City ...... 19 1.1 The City as Containing Memory ...... 21 1.2 Christchurch as Site ...... 23

2 Memorial Culture and Language ...... 29 2.1 Memorial Culture ...... 29 2.2 Memorial Culture in New Zealand ...... 31 2.3 International Memorial Language ...... 35

3 Collective Memory ...... 41 3.1 Theory of Collective Memory ...... 43 3.2 Referential Language (Surface and Mass) ...... 45

4 Individual Memory ...... 49 4.1 Theory of Individual Memory ...... 51 4.2 Experiential Language (Layers and the Cut as Device) ...... 53 5 Experience and Memory ...... 61 5.1 Theory of the Haptic in Architecture...... 62 5.2 The Framed View (And Layered Space) ...... 65

6 Design ...... 67 6.1 Site analysis and relationship ...... 67 6.2 Architectural Language ...... 68 6.3 Design Methodology ...... 75 6.4 Proposed House, Site 1 ...... 77 6.5 Proposed Church, Site 2 ...... 87 6.6 Presentation Layout ...... 95

Conclusion ...... 97

7 Appendix ...... 99 7.1 Interviews with experts working in Christchurch...... 99 Richard Dalman (Dalman Architecture) ...... 99 Ashley Hide and Nich Faith (Ath! eld Architects) ...... 101 Jeremy van der Linden (Sheppard & Rout) ...... 104 Jenny May (Historic Places Trust) ...... 105

7.2 Initial drawings and models ...... 109

List of Figures ...... 115 Bibliography ...... 117 Preface

I visited the city of Christchurch in January 2011,1 just after the ! rst of its two most destructive earthquakes in September 2010. I found that the city was fragile, with many of its buildings being held up with external bracing, and its people unsure of the future. The major quake on February 22nd in 2011 brought much more destruction to the people of Christchurch and their cityscape as well as human casualties. The historic Central Business District, and heart of the city, has been disconnected from its citizens for over two years, and the demolition of thousands of buildings been deemed necessary.

When I again visited Christchurch in April 20122 I witnessed many local people lost in their central streets. Cleared sites brought about confusion, a lack of recognition, not only of the missing buildings that used to stand there, but also of entire streets, direction, and place. People stood looking through wire fences at cleared sites, and asked each other “what used to be here?”3 With so many buildings, or reference points disappearing, the place of Central Christchurch is currently disjointed, disorientating and being questioned by many individuals. This further establishes the importance of this thesis, which fundamentally seeks reconciliation between Cantabrians and their city’s ground.

In this design project I explored two sites that once had buildings on them and that I had witnessed standing, drew, and photographed, before their demolition. I also met and discussed the lost buildings with the owners of both these sites. It is the memory of these buildings, what they meant to the individual and the collective that I am primarily responding to. My personal memory has allowed me to relate to the sites and to the people that knew (know) them. Events that caused their demolition must also be acknowledged. By activating the ground in my interventions, consciousness of the recent earthquakes, and of further past events, will be awakened.

1 Initial visit occurred between 10th – 16th January 2011. 2 Second visit occurred between 24th – 29th April, 2012. 3 Bystanders, Durham Street, Christchurch, 23rd April, 2012.

13 Fig 3: Christchurch City within its landscape.

14 Introduction

The intention of this thesis is to test architecture’s ability to connect Cantabrians with their cleared sites through triggering the memory of the buildings that used to stand on them prior to the earthquakes of 2010-11. This project proposes a design methodology for using architecture as mnemonic, supporting collective and individual memory speci! c to two sites, but with potential for application to many places throughout Christchurch City.

To objectively discuss the loss of buildings over time from any context, it is important to acknowledge a building’s natural lifespan. The buildings around us must change over time. However, the sudden loss and mass destruction of so many buildings, such as in Christchurch, particularly after the February 22 quake, creates a need for reorientation and re-identi! cation in the city. The in" uential urbanist Kevin Lynch states that ‘nothing is experienced by itself, but always in relation to its surroundings, the sequence of events leading up to it, the memory – of past experiences… (meaning that) every citizen has long associations with some parts of his city, and his image is soaked in memories and meanings.’4 The abrupt, large-scale loss of built fabric in Christchurch has revealed the need for new buildings to be involved in a dialogue about time and memory.

Images of ruined and abandoned buildings are powerful because we imagine the absent occupants, what they would have felt, seen, heard. Broken buildings appeal to the inner romantic, create emotionally charged atmospheres, and confront us with our own mortality. Robert Bevan writes ‘there is both a horror and a fascination at something so apparently permanent as a building, something that one expects to outlast many a human lifespan, meeting an untimely end.’5 Architecture has always been in very close dialogue with time, and holds the ability to awaken our senses and memory. However, this thesis does not investigate the romantic type of melancholy evoked when a building over time falls to abandonment or neglect. Unapologetic, immediate and total destruction of buildings in Christchurch has created a need for research that moves away from traditional ideas of memory being preserved through tangible materials, and use of another methodology. This sets the framework for the area of critical architectural investigation.

This thesis is divided into ! ve parts. Firstly, contextual issues are discussed. The city as containing memory ! rmly establishes the foundation for this thesis. The city is critical to sustaining the culture and memory of a community, 4 Kevin Lynch, The Image of the City (Cambridge: Technology Press, 1960). 1. 5 Robert Bevan, The Destruction of Memory : Architecture at War (London: Reaktion Books, 2006). 7.

15 Fig 4: Christchurch Cathedral, after the February 22nd quake, 2011.

16 as the buildings around us are our heritage, and thus tied to our identity. Kevin Lynch’s text The Image of the City discusses the conceptual image people hold of the city, an understanding of the city further developed by theorists Umberto Eco and Jan Birksted who discuss the Semiotics, the city as a code that people read and recognise. However cities and streets cannot be understood as a true language, as phenomenologist Juhani Pallasmaa argues. Pallasmaa describes the city as having a more non-linguistic level of communication, indirectly a# ecting our body, senses and memory. In the second part of this chapter Christchurch is introduced as site. History, including Maori and European settlement, the earthquakes of 2010-11, and present day are outlined as layers of memory to be acknowledged. Theories of the city are important in understanding the di# erent ways the built environment contains memory, and the frame work with which architecture may trigger memories of lost buildings in Christchurch.

Establishing knowledge of this thesis in relation to Memorial Culture and Language follows this section, where changes in the ! eld are identi! ed and related to this thesis. Within this conversation there is a focus on Memorial Culture in New Zealand, and Christchurch, followed by precedent memorial studies. The third chapter expands on the theory of collective memory. Theories of Maurice Halbwachs, Piere Nora, and Peter Carrier are discussed. Halbwachs describes collective memory as a social framework, and Nora argues it is an anchor for social cohesion. Carrier adds that places of memory do not have to be physical, but can also be mental. The idea of historical consciousness is acknowledged, and the need to recognise history and memory as having a close but disjointed relationship critical. Surface and Mass, in the works of artist Rachel Whiteread and Aldo Rossi, are then argued as conducive, relating primarily to a collective sense of memory. Interrogation of ground in the sculptures of Alice Aycock further develops this discussion. Here the ground underneath Christchurch is established as substantiation for memory of the site.

In the fourth chapter, Individual Memory, theory of Gaston Barchelard, Proustian theory and Frances Yates are examined. The second design methodology is then explained in connection to this. Layering (or strati! cation) and the Cut are demonstrated in the work of artist Gordon Matta-Clark and architect Carlo Scarpa. These projects substantiate the argument for Experiential language (Layers and the Cut) as being conducive to individual memory. Following this chapter is a focused discussion of Experience and Memory, ! rstly investigated through the study of phenomenology. This conversation includes the theory of Christian Norberg-Schultz, and further discussion of ideas by Pallasmaa. Secondly in this chapter archetypes are argued as a crucial aspect of experiencing and remembering buildings, supported with the architecture of Rossi. With archetypal elements, such as windows, doors, and staircases understood as mnemonic, it is the framed view (in the writings of Lyndon Donlyn and paintings of Franco Magnani) that links movement with these archetypes. This is critical to understanding the two design methodologies discussed in the preceding chapters.

In the design outcome both methodologies are connected with a tension line that cuts into the proposed buildings, framing views between the in- and out-side and creating both Referential and Experiential moments (as discussed in Chapter Five). These architectural interventions explore the relationship between individual (Experiential) and collective (Referential) memory on Christchurch ground. By doing so, they address reconnection of people to site at both an individual and collective scale. The abruptly lost buildings are remembered. Through activation of ground, the earthquakes themselves are also remembered, as well as events previous to this in Christchurch’s history. The resulting architectural mnemonic language is a step towards reconciliation between Cantabrians and their city.

17 Fig 5: Digging of the Gestapo Terrain, Berlin, after WII.

18 1 The City

‘By architecture I mean not only the visible image of the city and the sum of its di# erent architectures, but architecture as construction, the construction of the city over time.’ Aldo Rossi, The Architecture of the City, 1966.6

The city is a collective expression of culture, society and the individual in time and space. In the city, memory acts to sustain culture for both the community and the individual. The 2010-11 earthquakes in Canterbury have revealed a need to respond to layers of history, memory and heritage in redesigning and rebuilding a fallen city. The decision to deconstruct the Christchurch Cathedral resulted in more than 60,000 people queuing to bid farewell to their church and symbol, and in many ongoing heated public debates regarding its future. This clearly demonstrates connection between the citizens of Christchurch and their architecture. Other signi! cant buildings throughout Christchurch have needed demolition and were met with similar (though smaller scale) responses of grief and loss. Cantabrians are grieving for a sudden and violent loss of their buildings, and consequently loss of identity and cultural support. This chapter addresses di# erent theories of how the city contains memory. An understanding of these di# erent approaches is critical to development of this proposal, and has implications for a mnemonic architectural response in the city of Christchurch.

Substantiating history through architecture is a pattern secured by European nation making. To have a heritage, and proof of it through material traces, a% rms identity. Architect Carlo Scarpa stated that ‘the experience and memory of humankind are laid down in layers in the physical environment, concretely and graphically.’7 Each building restored, each new one erected or demolished, continues the historical narrative of the city. The act of building is a sign of hope, a sign of belief in future, a gesture forward in time. It is crucial to learn from other cities that have recovered from extensive damage, such as Berlin, Munich and Dresden. Our memories are constantly in dialogue

6 Aldo Rossi, The Architecture of the City (Cambridge: MIT Press, 1982). 21. 7 Anne-Catrin Schultz, Carlo Scarpa: Layers (Stuttgart: Edition Axel Menges, 2007). 6.

19 Fig 6: Project. Christchurch Masterplan, drawing by author.

2020 with our physical environment, and so the local people of Christchurch will learn a new way of interaction and way of exchange with their streets, buildings and homes. This thesis proposes an architectural role in this.

1.1 - THE CITY AS CONTAINING MEMORY

‘The city, however, does not tell its past, but contains it like the lines of a hand, written in the corners of the streets, the gratings of the windows, the banisters of the steps, the antennae of the lightning rods, the poles of the " ags, every segment marked in turn with scratches, indentations, scrolls.’8 Italo Calvino, The Invisible City, 1972.9

Italian writer Italo Calvino describes cities as containing memory. His poems in The Invisible City describe encounters in streets as depicting and creating stories for the walker of the city. The city is more than physical material, the images we hold of it play a crucial role between ourselves and the outer world. The image of the city, as theorised by Urbanist Kevin Lynch, is how we mentally and emotionally relate to the built objects around us. Lynch discusses the conceptual image people hold of the city as ‘an important sense of emotional security.’10 A reinvention of Lynch’s idea of the city as an image is the city as " owing image, produced by social dynamics and spatial practices, and constantly shifting. Our method of using the city also has an e# ect on this image, whether we are walking, cycling or driving. Lynch reduces this image to being made up of conceptual stimuli that direct our behaviour, such as paths, edges, districts, nodes and landmarks. However sociologist Henri Lefebvre says the city’s spaces are more than this, they are a social (re)production. The relationship between people and space is an interactive one, people making place and the place making people.11 Each space, as it exists in the present, is only one image in a series of images reaching into the past and future. Iain Borden writes ‘(the city is) at once a history, geography, and sociology of the urban as it presents itself today and a proposition, a move towards confronting the problems of how we might know of, and exchange with, the urban. We o# er here an approximation of this problematic, suggesting a move from things to " ows’12 This is useful in viewing the Christchurch earthquakes as disrupting the ordinary " ow, but is an event that must be acknowledged historically as a factor changing the city. The city may not be considered as static, but as a " ow of space and time. For Christchurch, the recent earthquakes although disruptive, must now be accepted as part of that " ow.

Lynch’s method of breaking our environment up into physical elements to construct images analyses the denotative, largely excluding connotation. Studies in Semiotics, however, focus on connotation. Theorists such as Umberto Eco de! ne the city as not just an image, but as a construction that communicates meaning through signals. The city has potential and limitation in being read as text. Eco describes architectural objects as ! rstly communicating

8 Italo Calvino, Invisible cities (London: Vintage, 2002). 11. 9 Ibid. 10 Lynch, The Image of the City: 4. 11 Iain Borden, Ed The Unknown City : Contesting Architecture and Social Space (Cambridge: MIT Press, 2001). 28. 12 Ibid, 3.

21 their function, the signals reading as particular acts and able to be classed into codes. Elements such as windows, doors and staircases are semantic codes which have rules and that we recognise. This is relevant to this thesis’ design research in uncovering the way Christchurch’s streets and buildings were read and recognised by its users. By understanding the city as text, the city can be designed with signals intentionally on sites, following or breaking away from the previous code. Writer Jan Birksted also recognises the city in this way, stating ‘built analogies - the original object as well as the representation or symbolic recreation - evoke associations: they indicate a broader context than the building itself, allowing the building to be understood as part of a legible system. These analogies can refer to details originating from di# erent places and times.’13 Aldo Rossi is an architect who uses this known code of architectonic elements, or type, by redesigning them, playing with repetition, context and scale to call into question their original meaning. His addition to the Cemetery of San Cataldo in Modena, Italy (1984) (see ! gures 35-36) re-interprets the notion of typology in architecture, it is a manifestation of his ideas laid out in his critique of Modernism, The Architecture of the City (1966).14

Furthering discussion of architecture as a code that can be read, phenomenologist Juhani Pallasmaa’s essay Sounding: The Two Languages of Architecture (1980), questions the idea of architecture as language, and thus the study of Semiotics. He asserts that there is no advantage in describing architecture as readable, as it gives little insight to the way that architecture communicates. Pallasmaa admits that architecture, like language, stores and transmits messages, but that architecture is only akin to language in metaphorical terms, as ‘architecture is experiences through many simultaneous sensations, and is meaning is communicated through an unconscious body language, not in intellectual, verbally articulated terms.’15 Later, in The Contemporary Avant-garde and the Wisdom of Architecture (1993) Pallasmaa says that treatment of architecture as a language has mainly caused confusion. Architecture should be experienced, not have to be explained to understand its meaning.16 Pallasmaa believes architecture is haptic, sensory language which is interpreted by people both conscious and unconsciously. He refers to urbanist Michael Benedikt, who says ‘Buildings themselves constitute neither tests nor a true language; their complex of meaning and their subtle powers operate almost exclusively at pre- and non-linguistic levels.’17 According to Pallasmaa’s thought architecture is fundamentally not a language; it a# ects us primarily through unconscious metaphors. Architecture interacts directly with our body, senses, and memory, while also operating, to some degree, as a language on a logical level.

The text Memory and Architecture explains ‘human memory is both heightened and endangered in the urban landscape. Etched into the hardened fabrics of brick and stone, records of human interaction mark cities as sites of endurance as well as of change.’18 This texture is proof of heritage, and substantiates history and identity for a people. Architect Carlo Scarpa continues this line of thought by saying ‘the experience and memory of humankind are laid down in layers in the physical environment, concretely and graphically.’19 Borden asserts that the city is a texture: a ‘creation of time-spaces through the appropriate activities of its inhabitants architecture…the merely

13 Jan Birksted, ed, Landscapes of Memory and Experience (London: Spon Press, 2000). 51. 14 A discussion of archetypes and Aldo Rossi’s architecture and theory will be further discussed in Chapter Five. 15 Juhani Pallasmaa, Encounters: Architectural Essays (Helsinki: Rakennustieto Oy, 2005). 29. 16 Ibid., 26. 17 Ibid., 173. 18 Eleni Bastea, ed, Memory and Architecture (Albuquerque: University of New Mexico Press, 2004). 25. 19 Schultz, Carlo Scarpa: Layers: 6.

22 apparent pattern of a much more complex set of forces, dynamics, and interrelations’.20 It is our movements that create this, texture both containing and evoking our memories through materiality. Etching and layering, as the traces of the past revealed in the urban, then in a way become the manifestations of memory themselves. This thesis is aligned to Scarpa and Borden’s theories outlined above. With much of Christchurch’s texture removed, it is of increased importance to continue tracings of history on sites within the city. The Christchurch Earthquake Recovery Authority (CERA)’s decisions to demolish condemned buildings and leave nothing but in! ll on sites has endangered the containment of memory in the city. These cleared sites leave us with only ground as a tangible memory-material, a concern this thesis addresses. Ground, as the only remaining texture and material, has been used to substantiate memory for the speci! c sites and city in this thesis’ design proposal.

1.2 CHRISTCHURCH AS SITE

The area of Christchurch, located on the east coast of the South Island of New Zealand, was not always " at. Nestled between an island volcano (now Banks Peninsula) and the cordillera of the Southern Alps,21 the land in time became the largest " at area in New Zealand through glacial processes. The River Avon is just one of the many waterways that " owed into swamps that previously dominated the Canterbury plains.22 The land was ! rst inhabited by Maori, who settled north of Christchurch, in approximately 1250 A.D. With the arrival of European settlers in 1850 came modi! cation of the wetlands.23 The area central Christchurch now occupies was drained and ploughed, and a European colonial grid structure imposed by city planner Edward Jollie. 24 The central area of the city, orientated about Cathedral Square, can be identi! ed as being within the ‘Four Avenues’ (Bealey, Moorhouse, Fitzgerald and Deans Avenues). Within these four borders is Hagley Park, part of the ‘Green Belt,’ implemented later (1959)25 for recreation and relief from the urbanized areas of the city. From this Christchurch gained its name ‘the Garden City.’26

The destructive earthquake on the 4th September, 2010 marked the beginning of thousands more quakes to come. While the initial earthquake only destroying buildings, the quake that occurred on the 22nd February not only caused much more damage to the physical city, but took with it 185 lives. This was New Zealand’s most destructive earthquake in 80 years. This quake resulted in the city centre being cordoned o# , with the majority of the buildings within the four avenues continuing to be demolished. The city of Christchurch had the country’s biggest and most historic collection of architecture, however due to the quakes of 2010-12, the majority of these will be removed.27 Among the buildings deemed beyond repair is the Christchurch Cathedral. The decision to deconstruct the Cantabrian icon has created 20 Borden, The Unknown City : Contesting Architecture and Social Space: 20. 21 Janet Hunt, Wetlands of New Zealand : a Bitter-sweet Story (Auckland: Random House New Zealand, 2007). 226. 22 John Wilson, City and Peninsula: the Historic Places of Christchurch and Banks Peninsula (Christchurch: Rainbow Print Group, 2007). 82. 23 Hunt, Wetlands of New Zealand : a Bitter-sweet Story: 16. 24 By the 1990s only two pieces of original swamp land were remaining. One of these is the Travis Wetland, now a National Heritage Park, North East of Christchurch city. Hunt, Janet. See: ibid. 25 E. J Haarho# , Brand, Diane Joy, Aitken-Rose, Elizabeth Southern Crossings : Waka Whitiwhiti au Tonga : Proceedings for the Sixth Australasian Urban hHstory (University of Auckland, 2002). 193. 26 Ibid. 27 Current ! gures standing at 113 of the approximately 308 heritage buildings in the CBD already demolished. CERA. “Demolitions”. http:cera.nz/demolitions/list (accessed March 15, 2012).

23 Fig 7: Edward Jollie’s 1850 plan for Christchuch: Christchurch City Council.

24 much public debate.28 Furthermore, ongoing quakes have hindered the rebuilding process of the city’s infrastructure and buildings. The plains of Canterbury have been occupied for at least 760 years, and this rebuild of the city will mark the third wave of occupation in Canterbury’s known history. With so much devastation, the question of whether to rebuild the city at all has been raised. However since the destruction of the 2010-11 earthquakes extensive recovery e# orts and planning for the future city have demonstrated a gesture of hope, as well as Cantabrian’s (and New Zealand’s) commitment to the city. Because of the memories and heritage associated with this land, people are determined to rebuild, despite the continued shaking. Christchurch is a city deeply woven into New Zealand’s recent history and identity. As the country’s oldest established city, and the largest in the South Island, it is home to approximately 377,000 people.29 It is critical to the nation that the city is rebuilt, the city is the largest in the South Island, and is located at a strategic transportation node, containing an airport and seaport. As well as being a gateway city, it contains two universities and one of the South Island’s two tertiary hospitals.

It is also important to recognise the land is not a ‘tabula rasa’,30 although the majority of the buildings in the CBD will be demolished.31 The Christchurch council is determined to keep the colonial grid as the organisational structure of the city, mainly for logistical reasons. Also, by retaining the layout, less geographical and memory reorientation will be necessary for Christchurch residents. The remaining buildings in Christchurch, geological landscape and surrounding features such as the Port Hills, the Southern Alps and coastline are layers that the city will continue to build upon. However, the opportunity to incorporate older layers of history, like underground streams and important Maori sites (such as Urupa) and trails (ara tawhito), has been foregone. Moa hunting tribes initially inhabited Kaipoi and Banks Peninsula, when the central city land was a swamp and mainly used as a food gathering area. There are two memorials (one in Cathedral square and one in Victoria square) that acknowledge the history before the arrival of the Europeans, although further knowledge about the sacred Maori sites within Christchurch has been largely unpublished.32 A disconnection between the two cultures (Maori and European) remains, possibly because of lack of published knowledge about the history of the land.33 This Maori history is acknowledged in the recovery plan for the city,34 but does not show how it will be integrated.35 The many streams underneath Christchurch, ! lled in by the European planners of 1850, have reasserted themselves in the recent earthquakes by creating large cracks in the ground to show where they used to run. Many of the worst a# ected areas of the city were built on old riverbeds or waterways. These streams, not only the idealised and landscaped Avon river, should be considered in

28 Public debate reveals issue ownership of collective memory, discussion developed in 3.1, Theory of Collective Memory. Deconstruction of the cathedral is currently on hold, with an independent engineer report waiting to be reviewed by CERA. See: Marc Greenhill, “Christ Church Cathedral demolition ‘on hold’,” http://www.stu# .co.nz/national/christchurch-earthquake/7256835/Christ-Church-Cathedral- demolition-on-hold (accessed September 9th 2012). 29 Population count previous to the 2010-11 earthquakes. See: Christchurch City Council, “Christchurch Central Recovery Plan,” (Christchurch 2012), 15. 30 ‘Tabula rasa’ is a Latin term meaning ‘blank slate’, relating to the Modernist idea of building on a site as if it has been ‘scraped clean’. This thesis is positioned in opposition, instead claiming that despite sites being cleared, the buildings that previously stood there are of importance, and their memories must be negotiated in the design of the new building. Treatment of cleared sites as a palimpsest, not a blank slate. 31 Emily Sharpe, “Christchurch’s Heritage Faces Demolition,” Conservation, no. 230 (2011). 32 Wilson, City and Peninsula: the Historic Places of Christchurch and Banks Peninsula: 82. 33 There is a wealth of knowledge within the local iwi (Ngai Tahu), however this knowledge has not been published and is not easily accessible. See: Brown, Helen. “Maori on the Canterbury Landscape”, lecture, the University of Auckland, July 22, 2011. 34 Council, “Christchurch Central Recovery Plan,” 11-12. 35 A site has been set aside for a Ngai Tahu cultural centre, though this is a one o# solution and not an integrated approach.

25 Fig 8: High St, Central Christchurch, aerial view after the February 2011 earthquake.

26 the future plans for the city. This thesis’ proposal considers these older layers, the master plan drawing for the city (see ! gure *) suggesting their traces as well as o# ering opportunities for them to come to the surface or be brought into the present in a tangible way.

The challenge of planning a renewed Christchurch, at a scale never before faced in the country’s history, has been met with the Blueprint Plan within the Christchurch Central Recovery Plan (July 2012). Assembled by a team of architects including Bo# a Miskell, Warren and Mahoney, Woods Bagot, Populous, and Sheppard and Rout, the Blueprint scheme proposes a spatial plan for Christchurch.36 A green frame is planned about the central city (within the four avenues) and key anchor projects such as a new convention centre, indoor sports facility, library, and stadium. The green frame will encapsulate the city core, create density and alternative walking routes. However it is also possible that it will isolate the central city from the surrounding areas. Recon! guration about this central area (mostly inaccessible to the public and currently a void in the city fabric) may be further encouraged. This thesis proposes a di# erent type of frame, made up of a series of its own ‘anchor’ projects (or points of reference) that will reconnect residents to the sites and city through the act of remembering. This requires intimate knowledge of the lost buildings from the owners and other local residents, something that the current blueprint proposal lacks. The blueprint master planning exercise is a ‘top-down’ approach, largely ignoring the expertise and intimate knowledge of the local residents of the city. However, the scheme could be used in unison with this thesis proposal (that works ‘bottom-up’, by ! rstly establishing intimate knowledge of the lost buildings) to create a city that would be both well planned and reconnect Cantabrians with their city through Referential and Experiential moments.

Christchurch as a city, and New Zealand as a nation, must now respond to layers of history, heritage and memory as we demolish, deconstruct, rebuild and reconstruct. It is critical to understand Christchurch’s past, and the development that made it the city known before the earthquakes of 2010-11. Christchurch has unique Maori and European heritage that must acknowledged. It is also important to acknowledge the urban fabric of Christchurch before the destructive earthquakes, and the implications of losing parts of the city. Awareness of contextual issues will mean gained insight in proposing an architectural methodology that will prompt recall for reconnection between the people of Christchurch and their ground.

36 Christchurch City Council, Recovery Plan.

27 Fig 9: World Trade Centre Site, New York.

28 2 Memorial Culture and Language

This thesis proposes architecture of memory that continues to be used in daily life. It is not my intention to design a memorial, however memorials and monuments are an o% cial expression of a community’s grief or loss in the memory of an event, making knowledge of them is important in relation to this design research. This thesis is not primarily concerned about remembering the earthquakes themselves, but rather the buildings (and at a larger scale, the city) that were lost as a result of these events. While acknowledging layers of history, including the Christchurch earthquakes, this proposal may also look towards the future with other intended functions. This thesis proposes a language of memory that has been tested on di# erent sites, applied to both a house and a church.

2.1 MEMORIAL CULTURE

Memorials are designed with the intention of continuing the society’s memory of an event from generation to generation, relating to the discussed issue of collective memory. But a memorial monument does not guarantee active remembering from the people around it. Peter Carrier says ‘a basic assumption here is that monuments are focal points of a complex dialogue between historical events, producers of monuments, and successive generations of spectators who inquire into the signi! cance of the past on the basis of historical artifacts.’37 This assumption relies heavily on the ordinary observer, and often monuments become part of the city fabric, unchanging and almost invisible. A change in memorial language since 1980, away from the referential monument (the monument as an object on a pedestal) has occurred.38 The public now expect to be able to experience the memorial as a space. This shift can also be observed in the trend away from the cenotaph (the monument or reference to the body or event) and towards the tomb (which contains the body). The cenotaph, or a monument that only references death or an

37 Peter Carrier, Holocaust Monuments and National Memory Cultures in France and Germany since 1989 (Oxford: Berghahn Books, 2006). 7. 38 The most recent architectural questioning of memorials occurred during Post-Modernism a result of this many of precedents (to be discussed later, such as Aldo Rossi and Carlo Scarpa) are from this school of thought.

29 event does not hold meaning in the public as it used to. It is necessary that this language of memorial design is re-addressed in the context of Christchurch in building on the cleared sites of the city. In this way, study of memorial culture and language is essential for this design investigation.

Perhaps the increase in memory-work since the 1980s is reaction to the need for a new way of representing memory in the city. Tragedies in the Western World (since 1980) have resulted in a surge of memory-related projects, as an example the events on the 11th September, 2001. Michael Sorkin in After the World Trade Centre: Rethinking New York City writes ‘buildings are seen as a form of protection, an insulation from danger.’39 This assumption meant the Western World felt a collective sense of loss and horror when the Twin Towers collapsed. With so many people emotionally tied to the cleared site(s) (see ! gure 9), it has taken a decade to ! nally ! ll the gap(s) in the fabric of Manhattan, New York.40 Mark Crinson credits the ‘memory-surge’ to a fear of losing material traces.41 Literary critic Andreas Huyssen has said, ‘the obsessive pursuit of memory may be an indication that our thinking and living temporality are undergoing a signi! cant shift, as modernity (has) brought about a real compression of time and space.’42 Memorials no longer merely represent the past, but are required to re-present history. This mode of re-presentation is important to today because it reveals our belonging to the present, and our connection to particular places.

Crinson goes on to say that ‘architecture is the memory space of the collective,’ 43 and critic James Young developing this idea by saying that the exchange between people and their historical markers is what brings the memorial into being,44 ‘the public become the sculpture’.45 Current memory culture in the Western World demands inclusion and involvement of the public.46 This design investigation acknowledges this, while expanding what the function of this memorial could be, beyond a sculpture, a park, or a museum. Architecture is a medium that has the potential to create places of memory and further develop the idea of memorial. This thesis proposes an architectural language that supports both collective and individual memory while being interacted with as a house and a church.

39 Michael Sorkin, Zukin, Sharon, After the World Trade Center: rethinking new York city (New York: Routledge, 2002). 71. 40 Daniel Libeskind’s ! nal design will be discussed later in the chapter (2.3, Language of the Memorial). 41 Mark Crinson, Ed, Urban Memory: History and amnesia in the modern city (London: Routledge, 2005). xi. 42 Andreas Huyssen, Present Pasts: Urban Palmipsests and the Politics of Memory (Standford, California: Stanford University Press, 2003). 4. 43 Crinson, Urban Memory: History and amnesia in the modern city: xvii. 44 James E. Young, “The Counter-Monument: memory against Itself in Germany Today,” Critical Inquiry 18, no. 2, Winter (1992): 296. 45 Ibid., 278. 46 Examples of this are analysed in a later part of this chapter (2.3, Language of the Memorial).

30 2.2 MEMORIAL CULTURE IN NEW ZEALAND

Bill McKay and Fiona Jack in “Living Halls: The Second World War Memorials of the First Labour Government” discuss the memorial halls built after World War II in New Zealand. There was a very clear political and social shift, (much like the memorial cultural shift discussed in previous section) from memorials as being objects (commemorating World War I) when the new Labour government declined further subsidies to build monuments from June 1953 onwards,47 to instead fund community buildings such as halls (over 400 of these built throughout the country). McKay and Jack write ‘this acceptance of the utilitarian memorial could be seen to re" ect the practical nature of the New Zealander in a young country not yet " ush with the public infrastructure of older cultures.’48 The buildings acted (and still act today) to pull communities together for social occasions and events, and are considered a successful outcome in New Zealand’s short history of memorial culture. World War I and World War II, though o# shore from New Zealand, involved the nation’s identity as was tied to England. Since the tragedy in Canterbury, there is need to address loss again within the nation,49 though this loss is a result of natural disaster, rather than because of a war.

Napier, New Zealand The only other record of extensive devastation such as this in New Zealand in recent history is Napier after its earthquake in 1931. The inner city was devastated in an earthquake, and a consequential ! re. Napier is a useful precedent as an example of how New Zealand has responded in the past to lost buildings and the rebuild of a city. By rebuilding most of the central city in the particular style of Art Deco, Napier has become a well-known architectural destination. However, no regard was given to the demolished buildings, and a totally new style was used. The ground was treated as a blank slate, as ‘tabula rasa’ approach, and though making Napier a tourist destination, lacks sensitivity to history of the building sites. The idea of building in one style has been publicly discussed in Christchurch. However without a clear current architectural style, and the enforcement of the city grid in the Christchurch Council’s plan, it is clear the city has steered away from the ‘tabula rasa’ method of rebuilding. Despite this, Napier is a useful precedent in revealing New Zealand’s (largely unpracticed) memorial culture.

Napier contains two earthquake memorials: a memorial in Park Island Cemetery (a landscape slab of concrete with the names of those who died inscribed), and the Collanade. The Collanade is the enclosure and entrance way to the Soundshell (an outside event space), on the Marine Parade. The foundations of the Collanade are rubble from the earthquake. These memorials stand alone in recognising the loss of lives Napier su# ered, but without recognition of the buildings destroyed. The adopted Art Deco style has been successful in visually bringing together the city, though it is clear that Christchurch will need to negotiate history more sensitively in this time. To address loss and reorientate people to their city at this scale architecture must be pushed further. This thesis tests architecture as a mnemonic language, unprecedented in the context of New Zealand.

47 Birksted, Landscapes of Memory and Experience: 42. 48 Bill McKay, Jack, Fiona, “Living Halls: The Second World War Memorials of the First Labour Government,” in Imagining... proceedings of the 27th International SAHANZ Conference. Michael Chapman, Ostwald, Michael, eds (Newcastle: The University of Newcastle, 2010), 274. 49 This thesis does not examine remembering the people who died in the earthquakes, it is focused towards remembering the lost buildings

31 Fig 10: Temporary Memorial o# Oxford Terrace, Christchurch, 185 Empty Chairs.

32 Memorial Culture in Christchurch

Cantabrian historian Geo# rey Rice documents the attitude of the Cantabrians to memory after the First World War. He says that the region mainly chose to ‘forget about it and get on with the future.’50 The Cantabrians took so long to decide on a suitable memorial that they ended up with two, the Bridge of Remembrance (1924) and the Cenotaph, not completed until 1937. Signi! cant buildings (such as the Thomas Edmonds’ ‘Sure to Rise’ baking-powder factory on Ferry Road (built approx. 1900), the gasworks and Christchurch railway station on Moorhouse Avenue (from 1863) and the Aulesbrook’s factory on the corner of Montreal and St Asaph Streets(1868) have been demolished in years previous to the earthquakes, with not one of these sites signifying their pasts physically on the sites today. The Historic Places Trust not being established in 1954, there was not a strong interest in heritage buildings in Christchurch until the 1960’s.51

Expression of loss and recognition of signi! cant architecture is lacking in Canterbury’s built environment historically. This is relevant today, and to this thesis as it has implications for the way Christchurch citizens may approach the losses due to the earthquakes in their city. Christ’s College, the Christchurch Club in Latimer Square, St Augustine’s Church, and the Cathedral of the Blessed Sacrament are heritage buildings that Miles Warren negotiated restorations and additions to with clients, the Historic Places Trust, and the public (from the 1960’s onwards). These buildings are relevant as precedents, representing perhaps the ! rst careful approach to Christchurch’s heritage. Since the earthquakes of 2010-11, interest in heritage and memorials has increased. This interest has been included in the vision for Christchurch.52 The Central City Plan discusses the future of remaining heritage buildings with the Icomos New Zealand Charter for the Conservation of Places of Cultural Heritage Value charter as a reference. This charter provides information on treatment of heritage buildings that still exist. This design investigation deals with sites that are now cleared, so these guidelines cannot be directly applied as heritage value is tied to the buildings and not the ground that is left.53 Traces of buildings are discussed as being retained, as well as some ruins, however the new architecture on these sites are not examined as having potential to act as a mnemonic device.

Additionally to this output, multiple photo-essay-styled books documenting the destruction the earthquakes caused have been published.54 These texts, while useful as photographic records, only provide an overview of the destruction, and are evidence of a growing public interest of the lost buildings and level of destruction in Christchurch and the surrounding Canterbury region. Other projects have also attracted much interest. An archive called CEISMIC (The Canterbury Earthquakes Images, Stories and Media Integrated Collection) and a smart phone application, providing virtual views of the old Christchurch, are presented as part of the solution to ! nding a way to navigate in the new city. A Christchurch model-maker, Richard Gardiner, has met demand for miniature scale models of people’s lost homes. He says ‘a model, with the features we knew well…provides a tangible reminder. Its something we can touch and relate to.’55 These projects, while revealing Cantabrian’s interest in remembering their city, do not explore the

50 Geo# rey Rice, Christchurch Changing : an Illustrated History (Christchurch: University of Canterbury, 2000). 51 Ian Lochhead, Miles : A Life in Architecture (Lyttelton: Miles Warren, 2010). 135. 52 “Christchurch Central Recovery Plan,” 17. 53 Expectations of site and building owners should also be considered. Tying heritage values to ground may seem a good way of protecting older buildings, however in many cases it means solutions are very costly and unable to be upkept. 54 Key examples of such texts include: Quake: The Big Canterbury Earthquake of 2010 , Ian Stuart, and The Big Quake: Canterbury, September 4, 2010. 55 Jeremy Hansen, “All that’s Left,” Home NZ Aug/Sep 2012, 35.

33 Fig 11: Dachau Concentration camp, near Munich, Germany. Photo taken by author. Fig 13: The Berlin Wall Memorial, Berlin. Photo taken by author.

Fig 12: Typography of Terrors, Berlin, Germany. Photo taken by author. Fig 14: Slurry Wall of the Hudson River, World Trade Centre site.

34 potential of architecture as triggering memories to reconnect people to their city. There is a need to provide memory support, and reconnection to cleared sites for these communities through architecture, an architecture that is not a ‘memorial’ in the traditional sense, but one that continues in its day-to-day function, as well as acting as a reference to layers (of memory) of the particular site. This way memory triggers are able to be embedded in the everyday use of architecture.

2.3 LANGUAGE OF THE MEMORIAL

Research has included travel through Germany, the Czech Republic, Austria and Italy. I studied the language of the memorials I saw, paying particular interest to memorials designed from 1980. I also analysed memorials within the United States of America. From this I have identi! ed two methodologies: Experiential and Referential. I learned that the memorials used either the Cut and Layers (creating the Experiential), or Surface and Mass (Referential), or a combination of both, to provoke memory. This analysis continues as two architectonics used in my design outcomes.56

Referential (Surface and Mass): At both the Topography of Terrors and the Berlin Wall Memorial, the Berlin wall has been preserved as a tangible surface with which to remember the division in Berlin (see ! gure 14). The Pinkas Synagogue in Prague, the Czech Republic, is a memorial to the 80, 000 Jewish Victims of the Holocaust from Bohemia and Moravia. The interior walls contain the painted names of nearly all of the victims. These walls act as a surface for remembering. Maya Lin’s often cited Vietnam Veterans Memorial in Washington D.C, is another example of a wall used as a surface for remembering. The wall cuts into the ground, and on it are inscribed all those who fought in the Vietnam war in the U.S. Armed Forces.57 Daniel Libeskind also uses Surface and Mass as devices. In the Ground Zero design Libeskind leaves the historic Hudson River wall exposed as a surface in the underground section of the building. This is signi! cant, as it reveals a layer of history to the site of the Twin Towers and allows the public to acknowledge it (see ! gure 14). The mass and surface of the wall is impressive, providing an anchor for the design of the scheme, and for contemplation. In the Jewish Museum, Berlin, Libeskind violently cuts through mass to reveal space and surfaces. Rachel Whiteread’s Judenplatz Holocaust Memorial also uses Surface and Mass, sculpted books, facing outwards creating the surface of a concrete block.58

56 Design outcomes as seen and discussed in Chapter Six. 57 It has been called ‘the Wall that Heals,’ and a transportable replica of the wall has been made to travel to hundreds of towns and cities throughout the United States of America. See: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vietnam_Veterans_Memorial. 58 Discussion of this language is continued in 3.2 – Surface and Mass.

35 Fig 16: Michaelerplatz, centre, Austria. Photo taken by author.

Fig 15: The Jewish Museum, Berlin. Photo taken by author. Fig 17: The Berlin Wall Memorial, Berlin. Photo taken by author.

36 Experiential (Layers and the Cut): Libeskind’s design for the World Trade Centre site includes the use of absence, footprints of the twin towers as ‘re" ection pools’59 with bright lights that create light towers at night where the buildings used to stand. Use of building footprints has been established in the language of the memorial, as a tangible trace of the building that used to be on the particular sites. Other examples include the bunker outlines at Dachau Concentration camp, near Munich, Germany (see ! gure 11), and the Topography of Terrors, Berlin. At the Topography of Terrors, the cells of prisons of the Gestapo Headquarters are outlined with borders (see ! gure 12). Underground prisons have also been uncovered, and left as open to be viewed by the public. Uncovering underground walls and buildings, and making them viewable to the public, is well practiced in historical cities. In Michaelerplatz, the centre of Vienna, Austria, excavations of a Roman House as well as some medieval foundations and remains of the former Burgtheater are exposed (see ! gure 16). It is clear that ground is powerful tool for revealing remaining traces of buildings. As well as revealing traces, ground can act as a visual layer. This strategy is used by artist Herct Hohisel’s monument, in the former concentration camp at Buchenwald, near Weimar, Germany. The Buchenwald memorial is ‘anti-monumental,’ the ground inverted and the previous forms referenced but illusionary, or unreachable beneath it. Rachel Whiteread in her Memorial to the Nazi Book Burnings, Bebelplatz, Berlin, also uses the ground as a layer to view through. The memorial is viewable through a window in the open courtyard, empty white bookshelves seen beneath the surface. This design captures the public’s attention and provokes thought by reinterpreting traditional memorial language. Peter Eisenman uses concrete volumes, laid in a grid though staggered in height in the Memorial to the Dead Jews of Europe. The viewer becomes the experiencer by walking on the undulating ground and through the concrete blocks. Other buildings, such as Libeskind’s Military Museum, Dresden and the Jewish Museum, Berlin cut through layers of " oors (or grounds) in order to achieve views through space. Views cutting up to ceilings, or through " oors to ground have become a key instrument in memorial design.60 Projects such as this are useful in characterising the language of memorials today, and raise the question of how to reinterpret it for Christchurch in this time.

59 Lower Manhattan Development Corporation, “World Trade Center Site: Memorial Competition,” (2007), http://www.wtcsitememorial.org/ ! n7.html. 60 Discussion of this language is continued in 4.2 - Experiential Language (Layers and the Cut as Device).

37 Fig 18: Te Papa Museum, Wellington. Fig 19: Auckland University’s 1991 Venice Bienalle entry.

38 Earthquake in" uence on Memorial Architecture in New Zealand New Zealand, as a young country with little European history, is yet to establish a memorial language of its own. However Te Papa Museum, in Wellington, by JASMAX Architects (1998), may be a precursor to a memory-design language speci! c to this country. The brief asked for ‘a National Museum that powerfully expresses the total culture of New Zealand... a means for each [culture] to contribute e# ectively to a statement of the nation’s identity’.61 The winning design used a fault-line as a metaphor and architectural technique for the building. A three metre thick wall forms the main axis of the museum. Peter Bossley, one of the architects for Te Papa, said that ‘the wall represents the Wellington Earthquake Fault… it also alludes to those future earthquakes that pose a risk.’62 Te Papa’s design integrated the fault line as part of New Zealand’s identity. Although this is New Zealand’s only prominent example, the University of Auckland’s entry to the Architecture Venice Biennale in 1991 ‘Architecture to a Fault’ also used the fault-line as a device (see ! gure 19). This technique is clearly linked to New Zealand’s geographical location and history of earthquakes. It is useful when looking for an architecture that triggers memory in a city after destructive earthquakes, and provides signi! cant support for the line used as device in this design investigation.

61 Michael Linzey, “A Fault-line at Te Papa: The Use of a Metaphor,” Fabrications 17, no. 1 (2007): 78. 62 Ibid., 70.

39 Fig 20: Project. Model showing Referential architectonic, by author.

40 3 Collective Memory

‘One can say that the city itself is the collective memory of its people, and like memory, it is associated with objects and places. The city is the locus of the collective memory. This relationship between locus and citizenry then becomes the city’s predominant image, both architecture and of landscape, and as certain artefacts become part of its memory, new ones emerge.’ Aldo Rossi, The Architecture of the City, 1966.63

When buildings begin to move or change dramatically we become disorientated. This became especially clear as I observed people walking around the central city of Christchurch in April 2012, hearing remarks about being unable to remember what used to be on cleared building sites. We, the walkers and dwellers of the city, expect the buildings around us to stay the same, and often pay little attention to the buildings that surround us. Destruction or demolition of a building is a loss of a memory and is disorientating for people spatially and mentally. Demolition is di% cult to witness as it is emblematic of death, and it is, in a way the death of a memory.

Architecture and designed landscapes serve as grand mnemonic devices that record and transmit vital aspects of culture and history.64 When the buildings change collectively and dramatically, so too does our heritage and our identity. People cast meaning onto material sites. Everyday these sites become more a part of history because of the memories people have associated with them. The city ‘organises the manner in which these facts are conceptualised, remembered, and organised into a temporal framework.’65 If architecture is the memory space of the collective then Cantabrians will ! nd a way to reconnect to their city’s cleared sites. This thesis proposes an architectural language that supports this reconnection.

63 Rossi, The Architecture of the City. 130. 64 Treib, Marc, ed. Spatial Recall: Memory In Architecture and Landscape (New York: Routledge, 2009). XIV. 65 Lisa Maya and Walkowitz Knauer, Daniel J Memory and the Impact of Political Transformation in Public Space (Durham: Duke University Press, 2004). 226.

41 Fig 21: Project. Concrete and plaster Site model of Sherborne St, by author.

42 3.1 THEORY OF COLLECTIVE MEMORY

Renowned philosopher Maurice Halbwach theorises social frameworks for collective memory, saying that memory is not only the result of individual recollections, but to reconstruction of the image of the past for a society. It is then ‘the degree that our individual thought places itself in these frameworks and participates in this memory that it is capable of the act of recollection.’66 French historian Pierre Nora writes that ‘sites of memory act as vehicles for shared memories underpinning social cohesion.’67 Shared memories are important part of identi! cation within a community. These communities are in part tied to the buildings and physical environments around them. This is interesting in recognising our built environments as ‘anchors’ or ‘focal points’. ‘Anchoring’ is something which occurs when a person ! nds a way to start telling their own story. At that point, the person ! nds a place in the world, and that ‘place’ comes into being. Peter Carrier recognises that memory cultures share these common focal points, but adds that they may not be physical places, but points of emotional attachment. So then if people use the cities and buildings around them to orientate themselves within their community and culture, to lose buildings is to have to reconnect themselves, individually and collectively, to the new fabric of the city around them. It is critical to the people of Christchurch that a new framework is created to reconnect them to communities and physical and emotional anchors.

Author Eleni Basrea counters Halbwach’s idea of the ‘collective memory,’ as so clearly linked to architecture around us. She points out that this memory is only a cultural reference if there is a willingness from the public to acknowledge the past. So it would seem that without a community’s desire to actively remember past events, architecture loses its ability to inform us of history. The collective framework of a community must have active input from its citizens in order for its memory to " ow legibly. Collective memory is then a construction of its willing community. Freudian theory, as discussed by Ofelia Ferran, supports this idea. So while Halbwach asserts that social frameworks are a way to reconstruct the image of the past for that society, we must realise that without participants, the city remains uncommunicative of memory.

Collective memory is di# erentiated from history. While history is intended to be a factual record of what happened, our memory of those events is constantly modi! ed, and only ever in the present. We destroy history by remembering. Basrea continues this argument, quoting Pierre Nora, saying ‘history and memory (are) irreconcilable.’68 For Nora, memory is orientated towards the future, and history to the past. It is then possible for societies to forge and construct sites of memory to create a sense of commonality. The city of Munich, reconstructed after the end of World War II, illustrates this theory convincingly. Destroyed heavily from bombings from 1942-1945, the city set about reconstruction. In 1958 it was declared that ‘Munich had remained Munich!’69 The citizens created for themselves an almost exact replica of Munich before the war, almost as if the bombings and trauma had never occurred. Historian Gavriel D. Rosenfeld documents this process, and discusses arguments about its reconstruction at the time. It would seem that by exactly reconstructing the city the citizens of Munich demonstrated the inability to mourn, and the desire to forget.

66 Maurice Halbwachs, On Collective Memory (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1992). 34. 67 These sites are usually associated with rituals, whether a house (family, every-day rituals), or a church (religious). (Carrier, Holocaust Monuments and National Memory Cultures in France and Germany since 1989: 188. 68 Bastea, Memory and Architecture: 144. 69 Gavriel David Rosenfeld, Munich and Memory : Architecture, Monuments, and the Legacy of the Third Reich (Berkley: University of California Press, 2000). 48.

43 Munich may look like one of the most historical cities in Germany, but it is an illusion, one the people built to comfort themselves with, denying the war as having a part in their memory or identity.

Eleni re" ects that discussions of what to do with a city after such large-scale destruction often revolve around whether or not to reconstruct. If a city decides to reconstruct, then it is said a collective amnesia to that event is adopted. However, with the alternative being to build anew, the irony is this destroys evidence of the original buildings. This has occurred in Christchurch in the clearing of many sites by CERA throughout the city. Dresden is a city that embraces both these extremes, reconstruction (of the old) and rebuilding (of the new). Its historic inner centre was reconstructed, while new buildings were built throughout the rest of the city. Anthony Clayton and Alan Russell discuss in Dresden: A City Reborn the harmonious synthesis between old and new, saying the ‘city should be regarded as a stage set in which the fusion of its built environment and the other activities of its inhabitants were intricately and unequivocally related to each other’.70 However to recreate a world, even if it is linked to other parts of a new city, is here regarded as inauthentic, pretending a continual existence and not properly acknowledging the events and buildings lost. It is clear that some negotiation between reconstruction (of the old) and rebuilding (of the new) is important. This thesis’ design proposal seeks to negotiate a balance between awareness of loss in the new built architecture of Christchurch and of rebuilding on these cleared sites.71

Sharon Macdonald refers to philosopher Je# ery Olick’s idea of ‘historical consciousness’ as a useful distinction between ‘history’ and ‘memory’, questioning the content of these two things, as well as how they might be applied to contexts today. The historic consciousness of a city is a malleable medium, capable of uniting or isolating the relationship between buildings or site and people. The idea of constructing historical consciousness then becomes likened to the idea of a memory archive or index, by Alice Caroline Wiedmer. Wiedmer expresses the ‘memory index’ as a ratio between remembering and forgetting important events,72 perhaps like Reynold’s idea of a cultural memory bank that we lose touch with as we forget, becoming more disconnected with our past. Peter Carrier also references this notion, though doesn’t think of memory as something which we can easily tap into, but rather an archive that requires an external reference point or recorded material. He continues to say that ‘e# ective communication about the past can open up membership of a memory culture to any participants who are versed in the issues and language of that memory culture.’73 He would propose that historical consciousness only exists when there are physical reference points, such as architecture, that support it. It is especially important that the buildings around us support memory with people emigrating or immigrating, as they are in Christchurch at this time. This substantiates this design thesis’ proposition for an architectural language that triggers collective memory.

Urban commentator Iain Borden is enthusiastic about the city’s ability to communicate information (within the ! eld of Semiotics). Here the built environment is described as ‘a densely coded context for narratives of discovery and the recovery of experience… and enable meanings to be “built” on historical and spatial axes, a city of signs, enclaves, clues.’74 However Basrea says that ‘buildings do not reveal their past to us any more than families reveal their own

70 Anthony Clayton, Russell, Alan, Dresden: A City Reborn (New York: Berg, 2001). 98. 71 Precedent cities in Germany have been selected as I visited Germany in June and July 2012 as part of this research. 72 Donald Martin Reynolds, ed., “Remove Not the Ancient Landmark” : Public Monuments and Moral Values (Australia: Gordon and Breach, 1996). 3. 73 Carrier, Holocaust Monuments and National Memory Cultures in France and Germany since 1989: 209. 74 Borden, The Unknown City : Contesting Architecture and Social Space: 65. Also, please note that Semiotics has been discussed in a

44 past to strangers.’ She admits that embedded in the buildings is history, but that without careful extraction, the history will remain locked away, unable to be tapped into. It would be di% cult for a stranger to stand in a city and be expected to unravel the stories of the buildings and cities around him. Basrea continues by saying ‘architects should design physical space as they would a memory palace, conceiving of the built environment as a mnemonic, or memory aid,’75 although she does not give strategies as to how this might be achieved. This then supports a proposal to design an architectural language that supports memory of site(s), to maintain historical consciousness and continue to build the social framework of the Christchurch community.

There is a need for references of the memory of the buildings in Christchurch so that people may reconnect with their city. Collective memory can play a powerful role in awakening local history and uniting people to place. It can ‘spur an important dialogue that links insights about the past with visions for the future… galvanising citizenship.’76 Borden agrees that ‘memory can also be structured and guided… (it) can be composed to supplement and realign existing histories… stimulated and preserved’.77 Exchange of memory with speci! c sites for a community of people generates collective memory and social identity, as located in time and space. With two design proposals, this thesis investigates two sites as ‘anchor sites’ of collective memory for Cantabrians.

3.2 REFERENTIAL LANGUAGE (SURFACE AND MASS)

House, Rachel Whiteread (1993):

The sculpture House (1993) by Rachel Whiteread inverts interior space to be revealed as a Mass and a Surface. The three-storied Victorian terraced sculpture (see ! gure 22) stood for a period of time as a casted concrete volume, the exterior house materials peeled o# to reveal the surface of what was once interior, made public to anyone passing by. House captures intimate traces of private lives through casting the interior of a house in Eastern London, on a street where the surrounding houses had been demolished by the council. The traces of private life visible as a reference to the house (and neighbourhood) that once stood there. Whiteread’s works function as ‘both archeological document and mnemonic provocation,’78 relevant in directing a methodology for this project’s investigation, introducing new spaces by revealing forgotten layers of history.

The sculpture House was a temporary exhibition, destroyed and removed after one year. As the public was confronted with the loss of Whiteread’s House, they were outraged. Whiteread speci! cally chose the house as it was a Victorian- terraced style, an archetypal building, which would remind people of multiple other houses, and of the other houses in the demolished neighbourhood. Although a recognisable form, it becomes unfamiliar because the stories of the interior become " ipped outwards. Like in this thesis’ Sherborne Street house, the once-private-space of the domestic house suddenly became visible to anyone from the footpath (as a result of the September 4th 2010 earthquake).

previous chapter, 1.1 - The City as Containing Memory. 75 Bastea, Memory and Architecture: 290. 76 Daniel Bluestone, Buildings, Landscapes, and Memory (New York: W.W Norton & Company, 2011). 268. 77 Borden, The Unknown City : Contesting Architecture and Social Space: 268. 78 Chris Townsend, ed., The Art of Rachel Whiteread (London: Thames & Hudson, 2004). 105.

45 Fig 22: Rachel Whiteread’s sculpture House (1993).

46 Although one of many damaged, the shocking display of an internal space made this domestic building especially identi! able, the memory of it in this state more powerful to the observer and a contributing factor to being chosen as one of the sites for this design investigation.

Other examples of Referential Language (Surface and Mass):

As discussed in the previous chapter, 2.3, Language of the Memorial, use of Surface and Mass is an established technique used in memorial architecture. Architects such as Peter Eisenman and Daniel Libeskind use and adapt it to their particular design styles, as seen in Eisenman’s Memorial to the Dead Jews of Europe, and Libeskind’s Ground Zero scheme. Whiteread’s sculptures likewise rely on a positive negative space (or mass) dialectic, as well as confronting Surfaces. The Berlin Wall and Maya Lin’s Vietnam Veterans Memorial are very powerful surfaces, the ground here is arguably used as the Mass, especially in Lin’s design. Lin says that her urge was ‘to cut away from the earth, giving it a skin, extracting space.’79 The wall slices into the ground, an angular cut, the experience of walking on it a crucial aspect to the memorial’s success. 80

These architects, through Mass and Surface, reveal their most powerful moments from the outside of their forms. This language references the event, evoking collective memory. The power is in the view from the exterior, and is designed to rely on the viewer’s silence. These views, from the outside in, use solid forms or large mnemonic surfaces, working primarily in elevation. The type of re" ection, or remembering, that they evoke requires forgetting oneself to remember the event or whole, lending itself to referential or collective memory. Collective memory is the sum of individual memory, and so views (through the cutting of windows, doors, other frames) do exist and are accessible in glimpses, though it is primarily mass and surface that is viewed. This methodology has been applied to this design investigation: surface and mass used to create key moments for remembering collectively within this thesis’ design proposals (see 6.2 – Architectural Language).

79 Andrews, Bearsley, John, Weshler, Lawrence, eds. Maya Lin: Systematic Landscapes (New Haven: Yale University Press, 2004). 87. 80 Ibid., 61.

47 Fig 23: Project. Model of layers through to Port Hills, by author.

48 4 Individual Memory

‘In saying or in writing, “I remember,” whether out loud, or on the page, or in the innermost reaches of our minds, we are involved in a linguistic sense-making activity that de! nes the very conditions of our existence.’ Evelyne Ender, Architexts of Space, 2005.81

Each person’s individual memories are part of a much larger, collective memory. Individual memory of an event, such as the earthquakes of 2010-11 in Christchurch, will be stored in the mind of each person who lived through the experience. Likewise, these people will have individual memories of the city of Christchurch as it existed before the earthquakes.82 Evelyn Ender suggests, we have a desire to rememember. To say, “ah I have been here,” con! rms the actuality of a place, time, and ourselves. As Marc Treib writes, ‘In our exchanges with a world that is far more complex than we can grasp, we need places where we can lodge hooks that can be used to secure a common ground.’ 83 The design outcomes of this thesis project are intended as ‘anchors,’ buildings that use a language where individual memory is recognised and supported, crucial for the Cantabrians currently coming to terms with the destruction in their city. Study of individual memory reveals how this might be done, and is architecturally explored, speci! cally in Experiential moments in the ! nal design outcomes (see 6.2 – Architectural Language).

81 Evelyne Ender, Architexts of Memory: Literature, Science, and Autobiography (United States of America: University of Michigan, 2005). 242. 82 In a larger view of time personal memories will be passed on to the next generation, and to the next, though gradually fading until only the traces of collective memory remains. However it is crucial for the investigation of this thesis, as it concerns the ! rst and second generations of Cantabrians. 83 Treib, Spatial Recall: Memory In Architecture and Landscape: 83.

49 Fig 24: Project. Model showing Experiential architectonic, by author.

5050 4.1 THEORY OF INDIVIDUAL MEMORY

A change has occurred in memory research since 1980, wherein the remembering brain is no longer considered as containing a storehouse of memories. Memories are no longer conceived as ‘stored’, but constantly rewritten and modi! ed.84 As a result Proustian memory has regained interest. Renown writer Marcel Proust (1871) has made contribution to memory theory through descriptions, particularly in Swann’s Way, where involuntary memory is subject matter. In these descriptions, Proust gives insight to individual, involuntary memory in which a physical occurrence when registered by sight, smell, sound, touch or taste, evokes a memory from our subconscious. Proust makes the case that our individual memories are essential to our identities, it is the way we ‘make sense of our lives by connecting to the thread of impressions, feelings, emotions that we have experienced’. Proustian memory is about the individual, ‘the many individuals who must have personal memories and inner lives’.85 Memory images provide a fragmentary record of our deepest and most signi! cant emotions, bringing us back to the singular of histories that de! ne each individual’s existence.’86 Proust’s ‘Awakening’ scene87 establishes a deep connection between our memories and the physical places of time and places that we inhabit. Our memories are incredible reconstructions of the past, from the depths of our minds.88 Psychologist Oliver Sacks says ‘all of us have our own, distinctive mental worlds, or own inner journeyings and landscapes’,89 signaling that we occupy both a mental and physical world, just as we have body and mind. Proust’s writings seem to anticipate a departure from the Cartesian conception seen today.90 In his theory, memory occurs somewhere between body and mind. Memory is then theorised as at the intersection of body and mind, our physical world and body signaling our mind through memory. ‘Healing Gardens’ are a known therapy used today for Alzheimer’s patients,91 based on sensory cues (such as the familiar scent of a " ower) in our environment as being able to retrieve experiential memories. These care facilities are both a real space and a metaphor. The ‘Rememberer’s Garden’ in Swann’s Way contains images which serve as mnemonic cues. This design investigation proposes an architecture that likewise triggers individual memories.

Historian Frances Yates (1899) and philosopher Gaston Bachelard (1884) also conceived of mnemonic cues being recorded in both mental and physical locations. Yates explains that ‘the art of memory depended on developing a mental construction that formed a series of places or ‘topoi’ in which a set of images were stored images that made striking impressions on the mind.’ 92 The Art of Memory describes a sequence of spaces in a house as prompting memory. Recent studies by Gabriel Radvansky have con! rmed that people are more likely to remember if they are in the same physical contexts as when those memories were created.93 Radvansky even suggests that walking through

84 This shift occurred after experiments such as Elizabeth Loftus’ Misinformation E# ect. See: Ender, Architexts of Memory: Literature, Science, and Autobiography, 5. 85 Ibid., 7. 86 Ibid., 20. 87 Scene found in the opening passage of Swann’s Way. 88 Ender, Architexts of Memory: Literature, Science, and Autobiography, 13. 89 Ibid., 39. 90 Ibid., 31. 91 Ibid., 121. 92 Olick, Je# rey, K., Vinitzky, Vered, Levy, Daniel, eds. The Collective Memory Reader (New York: Oxford University Press, 2011). 280. 93 Gabriel Radvansky, Human Memory (United States of America: Pearson Education Group Inc. , 2006). 137.

51 Figs 25-26: Alice Aycock’s Maze, 1972.

52 doorways (into di# erent rooms) creates memory lapses,94 thus drawing further parallels between our physical and mental worlds95. Gaston Barchelard describes a ‘oneiric house’ that exists in our minds. He says ‘I called this oneiric house the crypt of the house that we were born in….It is on the plane of the daydream and not on that of fact that childhood remains alive and poetically useful within us…to inhabit oneirically the house we were born in means more than to inhabit it in memory; it means living in this house that is gone, the way we used to dream in it.’96 Barchelard’s ‘oneiric’ house, along with Yates’ Art of Memory, speci! cally relate to the Sherborne Street site in this design investigation. References to the house as a place strongly linked to each individual’s memory supports this design proposal as being able to trigger individual memory, speci! cally memories (of the demolished house) for the owner of the domestic site.

Sculptures by Alice Aycock (1946) contain architectural implications to this discussion of individual memory. Aycock says ‘In projects…I thought about how I could envision and embody the structures of the mind with all its layered and labyrinthine connections.’97 Aycock’s ‘Maze’ (1972), is designed from two vantage points, one from the inside (where confusion is experienced, see ! gure 26), and the other from plan view (see ! gure 25). These two modes of viewing can be understood as the ! rst relating to the body and the latter to the mind, the body-mind split.98 Aycock’s early sculptures, such as ‘Study for a Hexagonal Building,’ commonly consist of a series of walls, often forming mazes, digging into the ground. Here she describes the sculpture:

The building has two levels. The exterior of the upper level has three openings, only one of which leads inside. The other two openings lead to a space between the outer and inner walls from which one can see inside through the eye slots but not get inside. Conversely, on the inside there are four openings, only one of which leads out. The lower level can only be entered from the interior courtyard. This level, a narrow, low passageway, is a cul-de-sac with an eye slot at its terminus so that one can see into the courtyard. In the center of the courtyard is an entrance to an underground pit. (Robert Hobbs, Alice Aycock: Sculptures and Projects [London: The MIT Press, 2005], 130).

These mazes contain di# erent levels, and viewable but physically inaccessible spaces, a further commentary on our mental landscapes. The inaccessible spaces are like Barchelard’s basement in the ‘oneiric house’, memories that are hard to access, or else forgotten.99

Proust likewise uses ground and geological language as a metaphor for remembering within the mental landscape, he says ‘all these memories, superimpose upon one another, now constituted a single mass, but not so far coalesced that I could not discern between them – between my oldest memories, my instinctive memories, and those others, inspired ore recently by a taste or ‘perfume,’ and ! nally those which were actually the memories of another person

94 Ibid. 95 Note layering revealed at doorways in this thesis’ design proposals. 96 Robert Hobbs, Alice Aycock: Sculpture and Projects (London: The MIT Press, 2005). 87. 97 Aycock’s in" uence for this sculpture was Jorge Luis Borges’ fabled maze in the story Labyrinths. Treib, Spatial Recall: Memory In Architecture and Landscape: 91. 98 Aycock here takes part in discussion of Phenomenology, the Cartesian body/mind split. See: Hobbs, Alice Aycock: Sculpture and Projects: 83. 99 Note that the proposed house design includes inaccessible, but viewable spaces. See sections on pgs 80 - 85.

53 Figure 27: Drawings by Carlo Scarpa.

Figure 28: Carlo Scarpa Brion Tomb, Treviso, 1969-73. Figure 29: Castelvecchio Museum, Verona, Carlo Scarpa, 1973. Photo taken by author.

54 from whom I had acquired them at second hand –if not real ! ssures, real geological faults, at least that veining, that variegation of colouring, which in certain rocks, in certain blocks of marble, points to di# erences of origin, age, and formation’.100 Understanding individual memory like this has design implications, particularly for the ground, in this project’s design outcome. Layering into the ground (strati! cation), and viewable (but inaccessible) spaces became part of the language used in this thesis’ design proposal.

4.2 EXPERIENTIAL LANGUAGE (LAYERS OR STRATIFICATION AND THE CUT AS DEVICE)

In this section individual memory is discussed as being expressed in Layering, Strati! cation and the Cut, in work of Carlo Scarpa and Gordon Matta-Clark, and in examples such as the Colosseum, Rome, and representations of the Berlin Wall, Berlin. Additionally Wim Wender’s ! lm Wings of Desire (1987) is discussed in terms of its representation of space in the ruins of Berlin after World War II. I argue that individual memory relies on internal dialogue, likened to views of the interior, where edges and individual layers are recognised and individual memories triggered. This works primarily in sectional and perspectival views. These precedent studies work by cutting to reveal thin layers, designed to be viewed from the inside and create dialogue. This language is conducive for support of individual memory, with concern to cleared sites in Christchurch. This thesis’ design investigation has tested this language as a methodology for the individual rememberer’s reconnection to site.

Carlo Scarpa (Use of Layering or Strati! cation):

Carlo Scarpa’s renovations create a dialogue about the passing of time by reinterpreting historical context. Fondazione Querini-Stampalia, Venice (1963) and Castelvecchio Museum, Verona (1973) (see ! gure 29) play with the idea of strati! cation, or layering, where they are penetrated by openings such as windows and doors, they become visible as layers. Scarpa is able to direct memory through fragments of the past, and re-interpret them to be part of the present city fabric. Historian Anne-Catrin Schultz says that Scarpa ‘treats architectonic elements as non-hierarchal and then constructs a uni! ed whole out of them…giv(ing) forms to the object as well as the space between objects, planes and spaces. Nonphysical components such as memories and manifested cultural ties are an essential component of the strati! ed work.’101 By removing stratum from structures, he exposes and gives back meaning to each part of the building. Scarpa’s non-hierachical layering of planes reveals buildings as being in a series of stages over time. Though di# erent to the situation of a cleared site (that this design investigation confronts), the method of layering is still valid when confronting original material. Both Castelvecchio and Querini-Stampalia are examples of restoration work that use layering. Castelvecchio was a result of 700 years of restorations, and the question of authentic, the issue of tangible materials was with which one Scarpa struggled. With very little of the original building, Scarpa showcased the museum, applying further layers to walls, " oors and around openings. His architectonic of strati! cation has been applied to this thesis’ design proposal through layering into the ground, the only original material left on the proposed sites.

100 Proust, Marcel, Swann’s Way (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1989). 203. 101 Schultz, Carlo Scarpa: Layers: 128.

55 Fig 30: Gordon Matta-Clark. Conical Intersect, 1975. Fig 31: Cutting through Layers. Drawing by author.

56 Gordon Matta-Clark (the Cut as Device):

Artist Gordon Matta-Clark displays buildings in shocking ways by physically cutting through them to reveal interior spaces.102 In his project Splitting (1974) he literally cuts a narrow, two-storied house in half along its horizontal axis. By doing so he neatly divides " oors, stairs, walls, and landings. This destructive act makes the house unusable, essentially turning it into a sculpture, no longer architecture. In Bingo (1974) Matta-Clark pulls down the external facade of another house, also rendering it useless. Matta Clark talks about the violent act of the cut, ‘a cut is very analytical. It’s the probe… it was the thin edge which interested me so much, if not more than, the views that were being created.’103 For Matta-Clark the interest lay in discovering the layers of the ordinary house that create the spaces we are so familiar with. This interest is like that of Carlo Scarpa’s strati! cation, though a much more violent approach. By performing a series of cuts in his artworks Matta-Clark reveals the thin edges of things, revealing unknown surfaces and creating unnatural but extraordinary views through spaces. These views are especially powerful, as by creating visual access, people’s imaginations are captured by the ruined buildings. The cut is Matta- Clark’s tool, it is what the uses to investigate the unknown in ordinary spaces.

The Christchurch earthquakes likewise violently ripped buildings apart, though not so precisely, leaving them, including the Sherborne Street house (the ! rst site for this investigation) much like Matta-Clark destructions. This thesis proposal translates Matta-Clark’s notion of the Cut into the quake line that runs through the sites. This quake line is used as a design tool, in both plan and section, to Cut through the building design and into the earth on both proposed sites. Unlike Matta-Clark’s sculptures, the quake line or cut retains the function of the building, and thematises the earthquakes that have occurred since September 2010 in Christchurch. The quake cut works to frame views of both experiential memory and referential memory for the inhabiters of the buildings (these moments seen in ! gures 52-59, 6.2 – Architectural Language).

102 Note Matta-Clark’s violent cuts bring the outside into the building, in contrast to Whiteread’s House (see 3.2, Referential Language), which brings the inside to the surface, or exterior of the building. 103 Corinne Diserens, ed, Gordon Matta-Clark (New York: Phaidon Press, 2007). 165.

57 Figure 32: The Colosseum, Rome. Photo taken by author. Figs 33-34: Film stills, The Wings of Desire, 1987, Wim Wender.

58 Other Examples of Strati! cation, Layers and the Cut as Device:

In addition to work by Carlo Scarpa and Gordon Matta-Clark, the layering and the cut methodologies can be recognised in projects by architects Libeskind, Eisenman and in the Topography of Terrors, Berlin, as discussed previously (in 2.3 – Language of the Memorial).104 Other examples such as the Colosseum is a series of layers and materials, with many views cut through the layers to further layers and materials that creates an experience. The Berlin Wall Memorial retains part of the original wall, the second part cut away (see ! gure 13). Cut away sections of the wall are also displayed as a series of layers in another location on the site. The layering in these examples, especially at the Berlin Wall Memorial, is much like the depiction of space in scenes from Wender’s ! lm The Wings of Desire (1987), also set in Berlin, but after World War II.105 The ! lm portrays Berlin with a focus on fragmented buildings and the empty spaces between them. An early scene in The Wings of Desire depicts the making of a ! lm in a derelict, ruined building. The camera moves through a series of fragmented " oors and ceilings, or layers. These powerful images (See ! gures 33-34) require the individual to interject himself into the past, to ! ll in the empty or missing spaces with their own memories and imaginations. The ! lm depicts a model of space and time that the viewer longs to participate in, the emptiness in the ! lm set leaving room for the individual’s thoughts and interjections. This design proposal also seeks to stimulate similar moments of interpretation. By designing views of layers and space, moments are created where Cantabrians can interject themselves, stimulating and reinventing the past.

104 See 3.2 – Language of the Memorial. 105 Wim Wenders, “The Wings of Desire,” (Berlin: Road Movies 1987).

59 Figs 35-36: the San Cataldo Cemetery, Aldo Rossi, Modena, Italy, 1984.

60 5 Experience and Memory

‘It is an inescapable fact about human existence that we are made of our memories: we are what we remember ourselves to be.’

Edward S. Casey, Remembering: A Phenomenological Study, 2000.106

In this chapter the theory of phenomenology is ! rstly discussed as valid in relating architectural elements to the body and memory. Archetypal elements such as doors and windows are focused on as conducive to memory through the work of Aldo Rossi and in Zozer’s (Djoser) funerary complex, by architect Imhotep, Egypt. Materiality and texture is discussed in connection with phenomenology and importance to the design outcome. In the second section ‘the framed view’ in the writings of Lyndon Donlyn and paintings of Franco Magnani are discussed. The power of ‘the framed view’, or spatial image, is asserted as having power over history and our memories. The frame is also the connection between in and outside, the individual and collective, the collective and the referential. These ideas are important to this project’s investigation in understanding materiality, movement and archetypes as mnemonic devices, and in my design propositions’ construction of views through frames.

106 Edward S. Casey, Remembering: A Phenomenological Study (Bloomington: Indiana University Press, 1939). 290.

61 5.1 PHENOMENOLOGY THEORY AND ARCHITECTURE

Architecture in its spatiality and materiality a# ects us physically, mentally and emotionally. Awareness of this is lacking in the trend of modernist architecture, and materiality needs to be reintegrated in our cities, so this should be considered in the rebuild of Christchurch. Phenomenologist Juhani Pallasmaa discusses modernist architecture as normalising human emotion, lacking spiritual and emotional depth. He further states that in order for architecture to reach this spiritual dimension, it must ‘touch something familiar in our collective memory.’107 Pallasmaa describes the way architecture is experienced as ‘relat(ing) to one’s body, moved through, utilised as a condition for other things. Architecture directs, scales, and frames actions, perceptions, and thoughts.’108 Meaningful architecture, he argues, is about bodily reactions. Authentic experiences of architecture are encounters of approaching, confronting, entering, looking. They are verbal elements rather than visual ones.

A verbal element in this context is an architectural element that implies movement, such as a window that directs one to a view or a door that allows the action of walking through a wall and into another space. This follows theory of Semiotics where elements are classed subconsciously by their function, but combined with Pallasmaa’s haptic theory, where the body experiences these actions. The stairway is such a verbal element, it directs the walker upward and is encountered directly by the body. Our steps measure its dimensions, our hands its banister. Pallasmaa goes on to discuss doors and windows, saying ‘I cannot bring a single window or door from my childhood as such, but I can sit down at the windows of my many memories and look at a courtyard that has long since disappeared or a clearing now ! lled with trees’109 The views through the windows and doors are remembered, rather than the objects themselves. Familiar elements like doors and windows then a# ect us emotionally only through what they represent. Phenomenology is based on this notion, that it is the act of entering through the door, rather than the door itself, which trigger us emotionally. These elements, however, have become rationalised says Pallasmaa, reduced to meaningless openings. Phenomenologist David Leatherbarrow agrees, saying ‘in contemporary building, both the door and the window have been reduces to meaningless openings in the wall’110 Flattening of shapes and surfaces, lack of texture and honesty of materials have created a sameness of space, and made our buildings one-dimensional. Weakening the senses, architecture’s ability to penetrate our awareness is also lessened. It is necessary to design involving chronological strata so the experience of place is heightened. This way buildings become part of our memory and identity, our body and consciousness.

Rossi uses archetypes, including windows, doors, and chimneys in the San Cataldo cemetery, Modena, Italy (1984). The San Cataldo cemetery (see ! gures 35-36) reveal Rossi as using type as an analytical instrument,111 giving rise to forms inspired from the ‘facts of the city.’112 With these forms, or urban archetypal elements, he plays with context, scale and repetition, to reconnect architecture to meaning. He also does this through connection to memory, saying ‘unless a building in some way or other evokes something remembered, it is not easy to see how it can enlist even

107 Pallasmaa, Encounters: Architectural Essays: 69. 108 Ibid., 60. 109 Stewart Brand, How Buildings Learn: What Happens After they’re Built (Italy: Phoenix Illustrated, 1997). 92. 110 Leatherbarrow, David, Mostafavi, Mohsen, Surface Architecture (London: The MIT Press, 2002). 56. 111 Peter Eisenman, Ten Conical Buildings 1950-2000 (New York: Rizzoli International Publications, 2008). 183. 112 With reference to the ! eld of Semiotics. See: ibid., 180.

62 a shred of popular interest.’113 The columbaria in the cemetery uses the formal conditions of a house, an enclosed structure with a gable and windows. It repeats its pattern around the entire cemetery design. Here Rossi recalls the house but signals absence through lack of frames, glass and mullions for the windows.114 During Post-modernism there was an interest in typology and history. Rossi represents one of many architects who design using types. It is possible to even see types being used by the ancient Egyptians in Zozer’s (Djoser) funerary complex, Egypt. Designed by architect Imhotep (27th Century BC), the cemetery contains “dummy buildings,” lining both sides of the court area. These buildings were symbolic and solid rock, though inaccessible, designed as dwellings for the spirit of the king and representations of the houses that they lived in.115 The facades had detailed engravings and recesses, giving the impressions of doors and windows, structure and materials. Doors and windows create a rhythm across facades that the passer-by recognises and is familiar with. Although it may not have been his intention, Imhotep used the symbol of these elements but without their function, creating disconnection. Today it can be recognised that both Imhotep and Rossi used play of semantic coding through archetypal elements, disrupting reading of the symbols in the eyes of the observer today.

Archetypes are strongly linked to experienced and remembered bodily reactions, and thus phenomenology. Materiality also plays a key part in prompting recall, such as ‘the feeling of rough brick, the prickle as you run your hand down along the privet hedge’.116 Architect Peter Zumthor places emphasis on the sensory experience of architecture, saying ‘the physicality of materials can involve an individual with the world, evoking experiences and texturing horizons of place and memory.’117 The texture of a building tells a story of its processes, spaces, structures and history.118 Texture is a crucial aspect to the context and experience of a building. Pallasmaa also stresses texture as creating sensory experiences that trigger memory. He states ‘all the places we visit are transferred into the memory of our body, which is created by remembering, recollecting and comparing as we experience a place.’119 Our bodies then experience pleasure and protection when we recognize a space we know. Materiality and archetypes are powerful instruments in triggering memories of buildings.120 This is acknowledged in the critical moments in both the proposed house and church design, occurring at windows, doors and stairways (see ! gures 52-59).

113 Rossi, The Architecture of the City 163. 114 Eisenman, Ten Conical Buildings 1950-2000: 185. 115 Barry J. Kemp, Ancient Egypt: anatomy of a civilization, (London ; New York: Routledge, 2006). 107. 116 Brand, How Buildings Learn: What Happens After they’re Built: 473. 117 Christchurch city previously contained a lot of brick and stone buildings. With the majority of these buildings failing structurally in the earthquakes of 2010-11, brick (especially) when used, will likely prompt recall of the quakes themselves. Adam Sharr, Heidegger for Architects (London: Routledge, 2007). 32. 118 Paul C. Adams, Hoelscher, Steven, Till, Karen E., Textures of Place: Exploring Humanist Geographies ( Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press, 2001). xiii. 119 Juhani Pallasmaa, The Eyes of the Skin: Architecture and the Senses (Chichester: Wiley-Academy, 1996). 72. 120 Chimneys were a known part of Christchurch’s cityscape previous to the earthquakes of 2010-11. After the major shock on September 4, 2010 an estimate of 17,000 chimneys had fallen, with very few remaining today. Previously part of the semantic code of the city, the loss of chimneys has meant losing thousands of vertical accents that once enlivened the " at Canterbury plain. These vertical elements were part of the visual code of Christchurch, and were linked to European heritage. Chimneys were brought to Christchurch by the British colonists, the ! rst chimney on the Canterbury plains built by the Deans brothers in 1843 for the Putaringamotu house. Up until the September 4th quake, chimneys were common in Christchurch. Now chimneys, particularly brick ones, serve as a reminder of the earthquake destruction for many Cantabrians. Chimneys were an element I intended to investigate on my third site (that was not developed beyond a conceptual stage), as neither the original house nor church building had chimneys.

63 Figs 37-38: Franco Magnani’s painting and photo of original view.

64 5.2 THE FRAMED VIEW (AND LAYERED SPACE)

The spatial image, as seen through the frame, has power over our memories. David Leatherbarrow writes that ‘architecture is not only a shelter for the body, but it is also the contour of the unconsciousness, and the externalisation of the mind.’121 In its negotiation between in- and out-side, architecture is the boundary between self and the world. This boundary is most de! nitive when achieved with a wall, used to create privacy, mystery and distance.122 Walls make layers of space, and windows within these walls make dynamic views through these spatial layers. Writer Donlyn Lyndon theorises orchards and cathedrals as e# ective spaces because of their layered spatial views, ‘diagonal views across cathedrals, where rows of columns lining the nave and side aisles appear to intersect in syncopated intervals as you move along the aisle, then at the transept crossing lead o# in several directions at once.’123 Orchards likewise create spaces such as these, where the observer’s own movement creates dynamic shiftings. This design investigation explores moments like these, creating layered spaces by framing views with windows, doors and other spatial compositions (see ! gures 52-59). This architectonic (of the views through the walls (or layers) and into space) has been de! ned in this design investigation as ‘Experiential’. The Colosseum is an excellent example of such a space,124 where walking is also seeing shifting views and multilayered cuts through space.125 Lyndon says smaller scale, domestic buildings can also achieve such an e# ect.126 Walls must provide enough thickness, and create frames with choices of alignment and shifting views for the inhabitant(s). The framed view not only provides connection to outside space, but can also connect the viewer to other rooms. This is incorporated into this investigation’s design proposal in the thickness of the walls, and openings between in- and out-side, as well as to other rooms.

Context, according to popular psychology, is a powerful cue to memory.127 Places such as buildings support our memories. Our memories are lodged in distinctive places that are associated with our movement, such as boundaries, axes, markers, and openings.128 Paintings by Italian artist Franco Magnani (1934) recreate scenes from his childhood town of Pontito.129 With astonishing accuracy, Magnani works from memory. The majority of his paintings are from views of windows or doors (see ! gures 37-38), and display framed images of the landscape beyond. The spatial image of a view through a frame contains power over our memories. The owners of this project’s two sites reinforced this theory, each of them remembering and describing particular views from windows. Framing views of the surrounding landscape and adjacent rooms is a design device used to trigger memory (see ! gures 53, 55, 56, 59) in this investigation’s design proposal. The intention is to trigger place-bound memory for the inhabitants and passers-by.

121 Leatherbarrow, Surface Architecture: 134. 122 Donlyn Lyndon, Moore, Charles W., Chambers for a Memory Palace (London: The MIT Press, 1994). 81. 123 Ibid., 90. 124 As discussed in 4.2 – Experiential Language (Layering and the Cut as Device). 125 Personal visit to the Colosseum, Rome, July 2012. 126 Lyndon, Chambers for a Memory Palace: 91. 127 The most well-known form of this is the encoding speci! city principle (Thompson & Tulving 1970). This is the superior ability to remem- ber when recall occurs in the same context as information that was learned as opposed to a di# erent context. For example, if you learn something in one room it is easier to recall it when you are in the same room. See: Radvansky, Human Memory: 137. 128 Lyndon, Chambers for a Memory Palace: 299. 129 Treib, Spatial Recall: Memory In Architecture and Landscape: 44.

65 Fig 39: Project. Viewing platform and cleared site, proposed domestic building. Model by author. 66 6 Design

‘A trace is an outline, a proposal. That is taken up in an art of making or inhabiting that has no obligation to its past other than preservation of a tension between its forms and those projected out of the present.’

David Leatherbarrow, Topographical Stories: Studies in Landscape and Architecture, 2004.130

6.1 - SITE ANALYSIS AND RELATIONSHIP

The sites chosen for this proposal all contained buildings that have now been demolished, the ground where they once stood cleared. They were chosen due to my previous study and memory of them standing. I have visited them twice, before and after the building demolitions. My strong memories of the buildings, and conversations with each site owner have enabled me to connect to the lost buildings’ memory and the sites themselves. The other relationship between the sites is through the owners themselves. The church is just two lots down from where the Sherborne Street site owner works. This unexpected relationship reveals the complexity of social and memory ties that have been disrupted in the mass destruction of buildings throughout Christchurch. The sites chosen are proposed as ‘anchor’ projects for the city.

Because of the nature of the design question, to propose an architectural language, two sites within Christchurch were chosen (see masterplan, ! gure 6). These sites were of di# erent scales and occupations (though both historic and important to their local community). They test the validity and adaptability of the architectural language to provoke memory of the lost buildings. The house at 69 Sherborne St (domestic and with historical status) The Methodist Church site at 309a Durham St (community and with historical status), in Christchurch Central were chosen. As well as being of historical status, both of these buildings were important to their local communities. The Sherborne house dated back to the early 1900’s, and was of Spanish-revival style. Its arched entry-way very recognizable and visible from the street. The Durham Street Methodist church was the ! rst stone church built on the Canterbury plains. This links the demolished building to important local history and heritage. 130 Leatherbarrow, David. Topographical Stories: Studies in Landscape and Architecture (Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press, 2004). 13.

67 6.2 - ARCHITECTURAL LANGUAGE

Two architectonics have been recognised and developed as a result of my theoretical and design research to create this language. I instinctively was using both architectonics in my model-making and drawing. Through analysis of this, along with study of precedents, I developed these two architectonics.

These two architectonics are useful in relating collective and individual memory in a tangible way, but also in demonstrating the overlap between collective and individual memory. As Aldo Rossi uses mass, he also uses views through connected spaces, just as Carlo Scarpa uses layering as well as surfaces.

The Referential architectonic in this design investigation is conducive to collective memory through use of mass and REFERENTIAL surfaces. The architectonic is de! ned as working in moments where you are external to the surface or mass and it is the object (or focus). It relies on moments of silence and stillness.

Precedents I have studied to support this include artist Rachel Whiteread and architect Aldo Rossi.

Fig 40: Maya Lin, Vietnam Veterans Memorial, Washington D.C. Fig 41: Rachel Whiteread, House, London, 1993. Fig 42: Aldo Rossi, the San Cataldo cemetery, Modena.

68 EXPERIENTIAL The Experiential architectonic in this design investigation aligns itself with individual memory, using layers and the cut as creating a view through a series of spaces. In these works it is the individual that is the object, his or her dynamic experience of moving and looking through a space that is powerful. It relies on moments of movement.

This is supported by the work of artist Gordon Matta-Clark and architect Carlo Scarpa.

Fig 43: Carlo Scarpa, Fondazione Querini Stampalia, Venice, 1949. Fig 44: Gordon Matta-Clark. Conical Intersect, 1975. Fig 45: Gordon Matta-Clark, Doors, Floors, Doors, 1976.

69 REFERENTIAL analysis of own work

Fig 46: Project. Model showing Referential architectonic. Fig 47: Project. Plaster model showing surface study.

Fig 48: Project. Plaster and concrete site model of Sherborne St site.

70 EXPERIENTIAL analysis of own work

Fig 49: Project. Model showing Experiential architectonic. Fig 50: Project. Plaster model showing view through layers to Port Hills.

Fig 51:Project. Drawing showing view through layers.

71 House Moments Church Moments REFERENTIAL moments demonstrated in proposed designs

Fig 52: Reference to original house form. Fig 54: Entry to church, looking across cut in the ground, to twhere the original church once stood.

Fig 53: Moment upon entering site, views to the traces of the Fig 55: Looking through the viewing windows to the traces of the original house. original church below, and to the ground.

72 EXPERIENTIAL House Moments Church Moments moments demonstrated in proposed designs

Fig 56: From inside the proposed house, looking out through Fig 58: A stairway in the proposed church, looking through a series layers to the ground. of layers and spaces.

Fig 57: Entrance to the proposed house, and into the ground. Fig 59: Looking through the cloisters to the right of the church, a series of layers and connected spaces.

73 Fig 61: Diagram of strati! cation.

Fig 62: Project. Parti disgrams. By author.

Fig 63: Project. Model of house. By author.

Fig 60: Project. Masterplan showing line as Cutting through Fig 64: Project. House plan drawing. By author. Layers. Drawing by author. 74 6.3 - DESIGN METHODOLOGY

The relationship between these two architectonics is linked with a tension line, or a fault line, that acts at multiple scales. You can see it demonstrated as the red line in the drawings, and as the copper material in the models. It cuts through the ground, and through layers to create both referential and experiential moments in both my buildings.

In the masterplan the approach to the city is shown as a series of layers. It was useful as a parti device throughout my whole body of work, informing the designs of my buildings. As it cuts into the ground it also cuts into the buildings to create moments at windows, doors and stairsways. The resulting proposed buildings, though both using this speci! c language, are very di# erent due to consideration to the di# erent sites, functions, and speci! c memories of the site owners. This shows the richness of the architectural language, as able to be translated to produce varied design proposals.

These are steps that I followed and translated on each site. Each step was modi! ed according to speci! c site and memory considerations.

1. The ! rst step was to ‘clear’ the ground where the demolished building stood. That is, to establish the building’s footprint as a surface (or common ground) of collective memory that should remain viewable to passers-by. The plan of archetypal elements such as stairs, windows and doors, elements that were referenced in the memories of the site owners, were cut deeper into the earth or extruded.

2. Secondly the ‘parti’ diagram, as discovered in my models and drawings, was drawn in plan and section over the site. Then adapted to scale and particular site, the lines were used as cuts into space and layers, and began to establish a solid/void dialectic.

3. The Experiential architectonic was applied, particularly to the interior of the masses. Junctions and cuts through space and layers are carefully considered in order to create views and moments of experience within the sites. Conversations with people who knew these sites and buildings are referred to so as to incorporate moments of individual memory.

4. Sections were then drawn, functions were secondary and as indicated by the nature of each space in section

By clearing the ground of the demolished house on site the ! rst site, the proposed house was organised to be at the back of the section, to look over the cleared ground. This created a tension between the front and back of the site, a fragmented composition, connected with the tension line, the parti line, as translated on the site.

On the second site, the cleared ground was cut into using the parti line, as far deep as the demolished church used to stand in height. This created a dramatic section, a grand gesture, that revealed the ground as a Surface. Using the translated parti diagram, the proposed church was composed partway over the cleared site, directing views down and inwards to the ground. The resulting composition appears more complete, looking toward the future with hope.

75 Sherborne Street (domestic) site 1:10007676 6.4 - PROPOSED HOUSE, SITE 1 House site (domestic), at 69 Sherborne St, St. Albans, Christchurch.

I ! rst visited this site in January 2010. As I stood on the street I saw the gaping hole in the double- brick wall revealing the living room the way a hinged door to a dollhouse might reveal its interior. The view allowed me to intrude into a family’s personal space, where an intimate set of memories resonate for the people who have lived there during the building’s lifetime. This visual intrusion dramatically changed the house and made it uninhabitable.

Estimated to be built in the early 1900’s, this Spanish revival-styled house was damaged beyond repair in the September quake, despite being earthquake strengthened by its loving owner. The owner has received resource consent (December 2010, between the two major quakes) for an exact replica of the house to be built back onto the site due to insurance requirements. However since the February 2011 quake the owner has been unsure about how to proceed.

Fig 65: Author’s model of Sherborne Street house before quakes. Fig 66: Sherborne St house after September 4, 2010 quake. Fig 67: Author’s drawing, interior revealed of Sherborne St house. 77 Plan drawing of house site (drawn over by author), Christchurch City Council, 2001. Drawing located from building ! le, Christchurch City Council.

78 Meeting with the owner of Sherborne St house, 26.04.12 I met with the owner of the site in April 2012 and discussed her memories of the house.

By meeting with the owner of the Sherborne St site I attained an understanding of the recent history of the house, and the owner’s personal memories of living there. After the house was demolished in December 2010, the owner went through the resource consent process to gain the rights to build a replica. Because of the recurring quakes she is uncertain as to whether this will go ahead.

Having owned and lived in the (now cleared) house, the owner has many memories of living there. She, in particular, described views from windows, doorways and stairways. She described to me the view of the Port hills from the front window, how from the upstairs kitchen you could open a door out to the roof, and how the stairs had been changed by the previous owners, leaving traces on the wall. These memories, and others, were considered in the design of the proposed house (see sections for detail).

(Note: name and transcipt of interview have been omitted for privacy reasons).

Fig 68: Site panorama from street view. Photo by author.

79 Referential

House section a-a House section b-b 1:100 1:100

80 Experiential

inaccessible inaccessible space space

House section c-c House section d-d 1:100 1:100

81 In the original I’ve still got building, you all the interior came in the porch doors... They From here, where We used to go and then the stairs were really the front windows out onto the roof. went up here... great doors. were., You can It was really good Big, heavy. see the Port hills.. there. I used to go You could see out and smoke where the steps cigarettes. had been altered because they had left trace marks on the wall.

Referential

inaccessible space

House longitudinal section 1-1 1:100

82 It was dark downstairs, I A family of wild cats were living in thought it was haunted.... the back yard when I fi rst moved in

inaccessible space

83 b a _ _ c d _ _

1 1 _ _ a _ c b d _ _ _

House plan, ! rst " oor 1:200

84 b a _ _ c d _ _

1 1 _ _ a _ c b d _ _ _

House plan, second " oor 1:200

85 Durham Street (church) site 1:1000 86 6.5- PROPOSED CHURCH, SITE 2 Durham Street Methodist Church site (community), 309a Durham St, Christchurch.

I visited this church community in January 2011, and talked to a member of the parish board later in April 2012.

This church was the ! rst stone church to be built on the Canterbury plains, opened on the 25th of December, 1864. Victorian Gothic in style, it was a heritage listed (‘Historic Place – Category I’) building. The church was near collapse after the September quake, and fell, killing three people, in the February quake. The Methodist community is saddened at its loss, and undecided on the future of the site.

The area opposite is proposed as a place of cultural celebration (a Te Puna Ahurea Cultural Centre) in the current blueprint of the city. With a vibrant attraction close by, at least it remains certain that the Durham Street church site will be a desirable location.

Fig 69: Drawing of Durham Street Methodist Church. Fig 70: Interior of church, towards historic organ. Fig 71: Remains of church after February 22, 2011 earthquake. 87 Original church plan drawing (drawn over by author), Lawry and Sellars, 1965. Drawing located from building ! le, Christchurch City Council.

88 Meeting with Digby Prosser (from the parish board of the Durham St Methodist Church), 25.04.12

Digby Prosser and his wife had been attending Durham Street Methodist Church for the last six years, since returning to Christchurch. The church numbers have dwindled to about 70, all elderly people, semi-retired or retired. The parish board now faces a tough decision and a lot of responsibility with what to do with the land. The church hadn’t been functioning since the September quake. Though there were e# orts being made, engineer reports being prepared and interest from the Historic Places Trust, it was going to cost millions to make structurally stable. Originally the church accommodated a worship meeting area, an art gallery that wrapped around it and a choir stand. The building next to it was the central mission and admin base. It also is to be demolished.

Digby Prosser recalls it being cold inside, never feeling full, and very high ceilings. There weren’t really any views, with the building designed inwards to make the pulpit the focus. No windows towards the front, just a big front door. You could catch glimpses of the outside through the high stained glass windows. Some of the elderly people still attending sat in the same pew for their whole lives. People in the larger community remember larger events there, the famous choir that once sung from inside it. The historic organ was in the process of being removed when the February quake occurred, and the church crumbled, taking with it the lives of three men.

The inward focus of the demolished church building has been retained in the proposed design through the cut in the ground of where the church stood., The original placements of the stained glass windows have been used to create the procession of spaces along the side of the site.

Fig 72: Site panorama from street view. Photo taken by author.

89 There weren’t It was musty. really any views, Timber " oor. with the building And up the big designed inwards steep stairs at the to make the pulpit back… they had a the focus. No choir assembled. windows towards I remember " oral the front, just a big services there. front door. When I was a little kid I remember the Salvation Army came in with big banners.

Church section 1-1 1:1009090 Just over there is where I sat every Sunday morning for the ! rst 20 years of my life.

You could catch glimpses of the outside through the high stained glass windows

Church section a-a 1:100

91 1 _

a a _ _

Church plan, ! rst " oor 1:200

9292 1 _ 1 _

a a _ _

Church plan, second " oor, 1:200

93 1 _ Project. Final House model Project. Final Church model

94 6.6 - PRESENTATION LAYOUT

REFERENTIAL: EXPERIENTIAL: _ b _ _ c a a _ d _ _ _ c b Reconnection to Site in Christchurch: Architecture for the Rememberer d _ Collective Individual Abigail Michelle Thompson

ABSTRACT

Loss of life and buildings due to the devastating and continuing earthquakes in Canterbury 1 1 1 1 (since the 9th of September 2010) have created a need to examine the issue of memory _ _ _ _ with concerns to architecture, in a New Zealand context. This thesis was initiated with concern to addressing the cleared (destroyed, demolished) buildings of Christchurch and architecture’s role in reconnecting Cantabrians mnemonically to the vacant sites in their city. 7KLVLVDQLQYHVWLJDWLRQRIDUFKLWHFWXUH¶VDELOLW\WRWULJJHUPHPRULHVWRVSHFL¿FDOO\DGGUHVVWKH disorientation experienced by Cantabrians subsequent to the loss of built fabric in their city. The design intention is to propose an architectural method for reconnecting people’s

memories with site, which will have with implications to other sites throughout the Colombo St Sherborne St Manchester St FLW\ RI &KULVWFKXUFK &RQVHTXHQWO\ WZR VLJQL¿FDQW VLWHV RI GHVWUXFWLRQ KDYH EHHQ chosen, the Methodist Church site at 309 Durham St (community) and the house at 69 Sherborne St (domestic). With the only original material left on these blank sites b _ _ a d _ _ _ c b being the ground itself, two issues were apparent. Firstly, that ground should play a d _ c _ a _ VLJQL¿FDQWUROHLQVXEVWDQWLDWLQJWKHPHPRU\RIWKHVLWH V DQGVHFRQGO\WKHQHFHVVDU\ task of designing a mnemonic language without tangible links (other than ground). +RXVHSODQ¿UVWÀRRU +RXVHSODQVHFRQGÀRRU Collective memory is examined with regards to theory by Maurice Halbwachs, Piere Nora, 1:100 1:100 and Peter Carrier. Design exploration of mnemonic language was developed with concern to issues of collective and individual memory. Individual memory theory of Gaston Barchelard, Marcel Proust and Frances Yates are discussed. This research resulted in two similar but opposing design strategies, one that is referential and conducive to collective memory through use of mass and surfaces, the second strategy experiential, aligning with an idea of individual memory by use of layers and the cut as an analytical tool. These strategies, along ZLWKWKHYLHZRUIUDPHEHFDPHHVVHQWLDOWRWKHGHVLJQSURFHVVDQG¿QDORXWFRPHV7KH UHVXOWLQJDUFKLWHFWXUDOLQWHUYHQWLRQVDUHVLJQL¿FDQWLQDGGUHVVLQJXVHRIPQHPRQLFODQJXDJH to (re) orientate Cantabrians to site in their central city, with the potential for application to other sites, to cleared reconnection to cleared sites throughout the Canterbury area.

Plan view of Sherborne street site model, showing collective: referential architectonic Early model exploration of views through layers, showing individual: experiential architectonic Bealey Ave

Sherborne Street (domestic) site 1:1000

Experiential

Referential

Parti diagrams

,QLWLDOVWUDWL¿FDWLRQGLDJUDPDQGDSSURDFKWRGHVLJQ Rachel Whiteread, House, 1993 Carlo Scarpa, Fondazione Querini-Stampalia, Venice, 1963 Gordon Matta-Clark, Conical Intersect, 1975 Aldo Rossi, San Cataldo Cemetery, Modena, 1984

House section c-c House section a-a House section b-b House section d-d Reference to original house volume Entrance to the proposed house, and into the ground 1:50 Early house model, from above 1:50 1:50 1:50

In the original building, I’ve still got all the From here, where the We used to go out onto It was dark downstairs, I A family of wild cats were you came in the porch interior doors... front windows were., the roof. It was really thought it was haunted.... living in the back yard when and then the stairs went They were really You can see the Portland good there. I used ,¿UVWPRYHGLQ up here... great doors. Big, hills.. to go out and smoke heavy. cigarettes. You could see where the steps had been altered because they had left trace marks on the wall.

Referential

Original Sherborne Street house (prior to Sep 2010) Own drawing, research in January 2011 View from original house after earthquake damage

Street photo (domestic site empty, in centre) House longitudinal section 1-1 1:50 Moment upon entering site, views to the traces of the original house From inside the proposed house, looking out through layers to the ground

Christchurch masterplan 1:12500 1 _ 1 _

Durham Street Methodist Church drawing, 1864 Photo of inside Durham Street Methodist church Durham Street Church, after February 2011 quake

Blueprint plan, for the future of Christchurch, 2012

photo (church site empty, towards right)

a a a a _ Destruction to city fabric after 2010-11 earthquakes _ _ _

City fabric prior to 2010-11 earthquakes 1 _ 1 _

Early plaster model &KXUFKSODQ¿UVWÀRRU &KXUFKSODQVHFRQGÀRRU 1:100 1:100 Entry to church, looking across cut in the ground, to twhere the original church once stood A stairway in the proposed church, looking through a series of layers and spaces

There weren’t really any ,WZDVPXVW\7LPEHUÀRRU You could catch glimpses Colonial grid, imposed by Edward Jollie in 1850 views, with the building And up the big steep stairs at of the outside through the designed inwards to make the back… they had a choir high stained glass windows the pulpit the focus. No assembled. I remember windows towards the front, ÀRUDOVHUYLFHVWKHUH:KHQ just a big front door. I was a little kid I remember the Salvation Army came in with big banners. Just over there is where I sat every Sunday morning IRUWKH¿UVW\HDUVRIP\ life.

Early drawing, layer exploration, from inside to out Early plaster models, view through plaster model layers Maori Urupa and hunting trails, 1250 A.D.

Experiential

Experiential

Kilmore St

Referential

Land, prior to human occupation

Chester St

Church section 1-1 Church section a-a 1:100 1:50 Durham St

Armagh St

Christchurch masterplan, showing layers of history Durham Street (church) site Looking through the viewing windows to the traces of the original church below, and to the ground Looking through the cloisters to the right of the church, a series of layers and connected spaces 1:1000

95 Fig 73: Final Critique.

96 Conclusion

This thesis investigated architecture as being able to reconnect rememberers in Christchurch to cleared site(s). The proposals confronted the necessary task of designing a language without tangible links to the past, using a language of two architectonics to reconcile Cantabrians to their city’s ground. The proposed buildings support reconnection of Christchurch residents to site(s) through both moments of collective memory (Referential) and moments where individual memories are triggered (Experiential). The ground substantiates the memory of the sites, particularly through use as a Surface and a Mass. In the both designs the ground is used as a Surface to look at and a mass that is cut through. The proposed architectural language has been demonstrated convincingly on two cleared sites, with potential for further application to other sites, so long as consideration to di# erences and particular memories of the cleared buildings are part of the design process.

This thesis also has implications for a readdressing of memorials in the context of Christchurch and in New Zealand, by suggesting an architecture that is not a ‘memorial’ in the traditional sense but one that continues in its day-to-day function. The proposed house and church act as a reference to layers (of memory) to the particular sites, and as anchor sites for the city of Christchurch. With so many buildings, or reference points disappearing, the place of the central city is disorientating and being questioned by many individuals. This unapologetic and immediate destruction of buildings has created not only disorientation for the people of Christchurch, but also the need for research that moves away from traditional ideas of memory as being preserved through tangible materials. This thesis proposes an architectural language without tangible links, that triggers memory in the everyday use of architecture, speci! cally designed for reconnection to cleared site in Christchurch.

97 98 7 Appendix 7.1- INTERVIEWS WITH CHRISTCHURCH EXPERTS

Richard Dalman (Director of Dalman Architecture, Christchurch), interview by Author, April 27, 2012.

AT: What I’m looking at doing is developing strategies or a methodology for providing a link to the like the Napier earthquake rebuild, the art deco didn’t just come from a desire to build in that style, past. I’m looking at elements, archetypal elements like doors and windows, and how you can play it came largely from economy, they were cheap to build. There was no money around after the with that, and negative and positive forms to provide that architectural link to express what was lost. earthquake in Napier in the 30’s to rebuild, and same here. You can see a style, or an approach to building coming about. But each of those buildings have just been designed by individual architects RD: Good. I’m glad someone is looking at that, because I’m afraid there is not a lot of that sort of on individuals, with not too much thought about how we should be building in the city generally. thinking going on in Christchurch. I think we are relying on the schools for thinking at that level, so There needs to be thinking at that level, and I don’t think there has been, certainly not by the council its good. or CERA at this stage. What the architects have tried to think up as a group (and we did that last year) now, after we haven’t really been listened to that much and as we are all getting busier I think we’ll all AT: What are your feelings about building in Christchurch now, after the earthquakes, what go back to designing individual buildings on our own sites to suit the client and that site. What do we has changed? relate to? To some extent we are designing in a void, but we’re not, we’ve got the memory, the history, the climate, we know the environment that we’re designing to, but we may not have any buildings that RD: Well we still have the river, we still have the grid, the diagonals and squares. We still have a few are near us that we’re keying o# . To relate to. That’s the di% cult thing. buildings and whole infrastructure there. So it’s not a tabula rasa, we have things which exist. Plus we have got the memory of what was there, individual and collective memory within the city. But AT: Are there any key methods or design devices in the past that you’ve used, and that you’ll look having said all of that, we have whole blocks that are just land now. And it is a bit disorientating, even at using now? for someone like myself who lived in the city pretty much all my life and know it architecturally. Let alone other people, the general residents who ! nd it even more disorientating. So what do we use RD: Yes and I think a lot of them relate to where we are in the world, we live in a temperate climate as a basis for designing in the future? That’s a really good question and something that I’ve been so the climate has a role in determining what we do. Christchurch is " at, so the building facades are pondering and haven’t had to ponder it too much because I’ve only looked to design, at this stage quite important, and the roofs can be important. Because you don’t get above to see down, you don’t one building within the central city area. So how do we go about that? see buildings in three dimensions quite as much as you do in the hills of Wellington and Auckland. The easterly wind that blows, is a key factor. The idea of creating courtyards out of the easterly, but You’ve probably seen the buildings in the NZ Architecture magazine presented there from about still in the sun, which is a very Christchurch thing, I think is important and a number of architects eight di# erent ! rms that were asked. You can certainly see a theme in the way things are being have picked up on that. But of course if you’re building a really small building you can’t create a designed. And the theme seems to be square boxes with a lot of glass. The square and box-ey courtyard. One of the buildings we’re doing is only 4.5m wide, so no space for a courtyard. How do comes from modernist or neo-modernist style that’s prevalent at the moment, but also from an I approach that façade? Well the client said the guy next door is doing a glass box, and I don’t want e% ciency to build. Square is cheaper than round, and there is not a lot of money around. It’s a bit glass I want something more solid, so I built it out of concrete, because its cheap and to give the

99 building some presence. But I tried to do it in an interesting way that has a bit of scale and texture to it that pedestrians standing next to it can relate to. I was also in Europe last year, and saw a few Carlo Scarpa buildings so there’s a bit of Scarpa in it, because that happens to be where I was, what I was thinking at that stage.

AT: I’m looking at Carlo Scarpa.

RD: Yes. I guess that brings an individuality to it as well. For some other architect that’s doing it, you bring something else to it. I brought something, the client brought something, the site brought something. I can show you a picture of it if you like. But it is a very fundamental question. What do we use as a design basis for designing the city? What do we key o# ? And if it was a new town on clean land like Rolleston then I think we’d have more di% culty. But because we’ve lived and worked here, and we know about how to build in the city, and what materials are available, what suits Christchurch. And then you bring into that what materials and construction methods might suit Christchurch now post-earthquake, which could be di# erent. Like LVL timber framing, do we start showing the structure now more than we did before so people feel safer when they can actually see it? Do we bring in energy dissipaters, post-tensioning, other earthquake preventive devices? Maybe we will see a number of buildings where you can see the structure. That might become part of the architecture of the buildings.

AT: Do you think that architecture has the potential to trigger to memory? To what extent?

RD: Oh yeah. No doubt. But how much of that happens, how much of that will happen… there is certainly the potential to do that.

AT: Do you think it’s important?

RD: I think it’s important that the collective memory of the city is retained and continues. I think it’s more than just having a plaque saying ‘this is where the cathedral once stood’. I think that by keeping the grid system, the fundamental layer of the city intact, that goes a long way to that collective memory. So the urban design of the city does that. Buildings themselves? We’re doing the new Salvation Army building on Colombo and Salisbury Street. There are houses on the site at the moment and we’re doing part of the building in concrete. I wanted to take the weatherboards and timbers o# the existing houses and use them as the shuttering for my concrete. So there was a memory of what was there before. However that’s been engineered by the project managers who say it’s too di% cult to do. So there is an opportunity of the memory of the site that has been lost. Welcome to the world of architecture! You would have it in your studio project, I would have it in the concept design, but it doesn’t always end up in reality as ! nished buildings. So that was a lot of continuing that memory of that site that may have triggered something in the subconscious of somebody in a very subtle way. I don’t like the idea of copying buildings. Or there is the potential to use parts of buildings that were there on the site before. What was there before is always, for me, can lead to ideas for the new building. Its just one of the many things that architects use, in part, to design, a new building. Along with what the client might want, what the public might want, what the climate is like, what the soil conditions are like. An overseas trip where you just saw Carlo Scarpa’s work, that might come in and inform the project.

100 Ashley Hide and Nich Faith (Ath! ield Architects, Christchurch), interview by Author, April 27, 2012.

AT: As an architect, what is the di# erence between designing before the earthquake and after? NL: Before the boundary was just like another building. If there were 10 little lots stacked in a row, it made sense and you could see them as separate buildings. But its one big parking lot of gravel. Its hard AH: That’s a good question. The principle thing is realizing the consequences of structural performance to imagine that they are actually little parcels, little boundaries. more than previously. It changes your approach to a number of materials that would have been acceptable and quite desirable previously. People’s perceptions of those materials are going to be AH: I think that’s one of the comment that comes out a lot, that people don’t know where they are di# erent now. because there’s no reference apart from the shingle. AT: And that’s exactly what my thesis is looking at, it is about how to reorientate people. I’m watching NL: Things like brick. Normally you would quite easily look at using that material. But with the public these people walk around their city, and they’re going ‘oh, that building’s gone! What used to be there?’ perception now… and they don’t remember…

AT: Bricks are seen as scary. NL: That’s really frustrating too, even if its one you’ve walked past every day...

AH: It is our English heritage, probably. And you can’t help thinking we might need a slightly more South AH: It’s hard to place what was there, isn’t it? Paci! c approach to the materials we use. Though I think we will persevere with mass construction because it does have a number of advantages. Sustainability and thermal performance, things AT: So I’m looking at ways to develop methods or devices to trigger memories. What kind of methods like that. or devices can you think of that might be useful to re-orientate people?

AT: Do you see a shift in the way people view buildings around them now? AH: We’re going through an interesting exercise at the moment where we are actually replacing a heritage building. The owners have managed to recover quite a number of materials from the building, AH: De! nitely. I think anyone who has been in Christchurch for the last 12 months or so reads buildings so we’re reusing them. We’re thinking about how we acknowledge existing fabric, probably trying to and the way buildings are placed very di# erently. Even we do, we notice when we go to other cities, design in keeping with how we design at the moment. What we decided was we would let the existing we are scanning the buildings. stu# be as it was and we would design around it, rather than trying to repeat or deny it. It’s going to be an interesting balance. If you’re going to use new materials, you probably have to use them in a way NL: It’s a sort of altering thing too, because I think a lot of the time people, although they are aware of that you wouldn’t normally now. There’s a bit of a hazard in trying to repeat what has been done before buildings, though not like us who are looking at them, but often just people at ground level in shops… in a new way, you have to interpret it really well. And those are some of the challenges that designers we noticed after September people were more focused on looking up around the city, and it was almost will face. From a detail point of view. like they were seeing buildings for the very ! rst time. AT: I’m investigating things like movement, materials, archetypal elements like chimneys, windows and AT: Is there a shift in the way people treat their streets, or the boundary lines now? doors as being able to re-link people to site. Do you think that that might be useful?

AH: Hard to know because they’re not allowed near the boundary lines at the moment. Most of the NL: Well they always say that the window and door elements are like the face of a person, the things dense urban fabric is zoned out. It is hard to know how they’ll react, because they haven’t been there. that you remember. You might remember a speci! c doorway or arch that has some detail to it, or some

101 uniqueness. Chimneys are an interesting one, too… back to the square and standing there now, its still the same sort of carpet and trees… the fact that everything else around it has changed. But the space that is not a building is still there. AT: Because everyone has lost their chimneys. AH: What’s your expectation about how architecture might in" uence memory? AH: Its an amazing thing, when you look at the cityscape, its that it doesn’t have all those little interesting point of reference anymore. It’s surprising how often you use things. Like some of the larger NL: You’ve got three sites? structures, like some of the larger industrial chimneys for example are the ones you use as markers in the city. Probably the best reference is what’s left. But unfortunately there wont be much of that. It’s AT: Yes I’ve got three sites, so a residential, a commercial and a church site. And I’m looking at that grey area. You can see that the buildings still there, or its nothing. It would be nice if some of them developing one of them, and then through that looking at the methods or devices you can use for the were left as ruins, but there doesn’t seem to be much opportunity for that, from a risks perspective… other two. And how from there you might be able to employ that throughout the city, on a larger scale. I’m talking about plays with negative and positive space .I’m looking at architects like Carlo Scarpa and AT: Make safe. Aldo Rossi, looking at archetypes… and how to play on that. Not to replicate, but to key o# what was existing. Recognise it as a language, something that people read subconsciously. Or consciously, but AH: Until a new building takes over and has a reference for its own. When you think about Napier for mostly subconsciously. See where the negative and positive spaces are, and the materiality aspect as example, when that was rebuilt after the ’31 earthquake they took on a new language, which is now well. To reinterpret it in a new way to rebuild on the cleared sites. a heritage item. You might have to wait 50 years before you get that reference. So that’s another way of looking at it. What other things that are emerging… the weird thing is that probably you don’t want AH: Yeah, because we normally draw reference from what was there or around us. I suppose that’s to build too fast. You should think about building temporary structures for 5, 10 years to allow a more still appropriate even though nothing may be around you anymore. That reference, which is probably considered approach to the way the fabric is replaced, temporary stu# for a while. It’s going to be memory, it doesn’t necessarily say you’re going to repeat it though. frustrating for people who want to get on and have it all back, but it’s facing up to that reality. You’re better o# to let it grow rather than to suddenly have it there and not be happy with it in 5 years time. NL: Though somehow it does inform your thinking, even if it’s a green or brown ! eld site, even before the earthquake, you might look at what used to be there, old photos. It’s thinking about what was on the NL: And at least that’s putting people back in the city, which is the most important thing. Regardless of site. So it’s like that. What was there before? If it fell into disrepair, what was repaired? what they’re housed in, if it’s only temporary… AH: Before the earthquake we were looking at a project where we were trying to activate a very old AH: One of the things that I’ve noticed is the amazing capacity for people to be able to invent out of industrial site. Which had an industrial history, and it was going to change use, going to an o% ce and destruction. They’ve got back on their feet and done interesting things at small scale, which is a relief accommodation and higher spec retail. In doing that you did think about what had happened to those from having lost everything. Its not replacing it, its not remembering it, its just something that they’re buildings that were there and how you might use that in reference to what was there, the way you think doing in the moment that kind of spans the gap. about the way the site might operate or the use. We weren’t going to change the structure signi! cantly but we were thinking about how we were going to get accommodation and retail in there. Previously AT: Do you think architecture has the potential to trigger memory? Or to what extent, to what limitations? they were factory spaces.

NL: If you’ve lived here for a long time, or even if you haven’t, there are things about the city that are AT: In that design were there devices you can recognize that you were using, or were thinking about quite distinctive. It’s the activity more than anything else, the fact that it might be a hospital or a police using? station. And the building might change over time, but the use of it… if the activity is taken away, like for example somewhere where a school or a church might have been, and now the opportunity might AH: It was just about what was there, whether we cut holes to open up a space. How to get people be to take that over and do something completely di# erent. I think it’s the site, and its context as much access. They worked as industrial buildings, but how to get them to work as residential and retail as anything else around the building that of that memory. The use change, that’s an interesting thing. buildings, they might need to be bigger or smaller, provide more light. Those kind of things. I was thinking about the construction of it, the masonry construction. It’s the materiality that you’re talking AH: I think you’re right, its probably about pattern. People think of the central city as the central city, and about. Its funny how people respond to worn and weathered materials. That’s one aspect of it. New if it rebuilds slightly di# erently… then we’ll still have those same activities, hopefully. Like commerce on modern materials don’t seem to warm people up.…In the same way because they’re processed Hereford St, or things that have developed on Manchester St. Where learning centres are, things like and plastic. that. Architecture probably contributes in terms of the building, but they don’t necessarily control it or direct it. It’s about a bigger pattern. And the pattern already exists on the streets. There has been some NL: A lot of those sites too, the buildings that had been left there for a while, they had a certain comments such as “oh we should change the way the streets are working… get away from the grid.” relationship to the street, or are closer to the boundary lines than you would now be able to build, for Apart from the shear economics of it… it would cost an exorbitant amount of money. And there was a example. I think you might be looking to rebuild in that same sort of manner, so it sort of ! ts in the same time when there weren’t one-way streets. It’ll be interesting to see with that reverse pattern proposed space as it was before. Not because you necessarily want to repeat what was there but because you how that changes the way people perceive the city. want to take advantage of the site and the existing rights to that space, which is interesting.

NL: I guess its also the things that aren’t buildings too, like the streets, the lights and the footpaths, AH: Yeah because I can think of a number of examples where people have tried to repeat the memory the public square spaces too. We remember them, and when you go and stand in them… its like going of buildings. And it might just be the form or perhaps detail… done not so well. Because it’s di% cult to

102 do, you’re going to build in a di# erent way because you’ve got di# erent skills. So you just can’t do it AT: It’s tied to the ground. with that kind of craft, so you wont have the same quality of materials. And somehow the examples I can think of just don’t work. We probably just have to say that we are here now, it’s that usual AH: Yeah. architectural thing of thinking about what was before and what might be in front of you and you do best what you know. NL: And you’re deeply rooted here. Everyone else that you know, if they’re still living here you’re all in the same boat. NL: Think about the Napier example, even though that was the style of the time, it was cutting edge, however many years ago it was. But it was still our equivalent of tilt-slab because it was still just AH: Try and move a whole city and get them to settle with the same relationships… look at the trouble lightweight construction with plaster and it was cheap and quick. With some plaster and streamlined they’re having with the red zones, the people that didn’t want to move. I mean they’re facing up to it bits on it, but it was still cost e# ective. Which is not to say that’s what we should do in Christchurch. now, which is quite tragic but they didn’t want to move because of the community connection. They like it. AH: Will time make tilt slab a nostalgic memory? AT: They want to stay. NL: Some of its just pragmatic, isn’t it? If you had a 100m building and your insurance allows you to put back a 100m building, you’re just going to put back what was there. AH: I guess after a while you adapt, and then you forget 100 years on. If we moved every time there was a disaster I don’t think there would be enough ground left on the planet. Because wherever you AT: It does all seem to come back to insurance. All of the sites that I’m looking at, I hadn’t realized live there are going to be problems. You’ll either get avalanches or tsunamis, or the ground is going to before I came down here, but the surrounding buildings are gone or are going as well so its… move… or a " ood or a storm. People on tornado strips for example, they just get up and rebuild.

AH: Yeah every day there are more disappearing. It was just in the papers today that the IRD building AT: Just all the time. has been given up on. Its just been hammered so much they’re going to take it down. AH: Yeah. So that’s probably the primary reason for why we rebuild. When you " y over Christchurch NL: We didn’t have a chance to really register it. And a lot of these buildings were barely ! nished you realize that there is a huge amount of real estate left. before… NL: All the parks and the river and hills, they’re all still there. AT: …they had to come down. Do you think the quality of housing will improve? AH: You just have to step back and be patient. Realise we’ve had this big jolt in time, and we are going AH: Personally I’m a bit nervous… in terms of construction quality or in terms of design quality? to need time to sort it out… you just gotta let it happen. There’s going to be quite a small contribution from architects. If it’s a new build it’s going to be built by group builders aligned with project managers, who are tied into the insurance companies. Any housing AT: Everyone seems to be looking at what everyone else is going to do. development block where they are accommodating new development, it’s going to be more of the same. I think it’s going to be pretty bad actually, particularly on the hills because a lot of houses on NL: That’s true actually, people that make the ! rst move are going to be looked at very closely because the hills have been smashed. They will be replaced under insurance contracts and done by approved its important. builders, by project managers. And they have their standard solutions for that, so they’ll try and put it on a sloping site. I hope I’m wrong. But it doesn’t ! ll me with con! dence at the moment when I see the AH: There are a whole lot of di# erent ways of looking at memories… we could add some pretty good way the market is going to respond. ruins, which would be perfectly safe. You don’t have to put a gravel band-aid there, you could leave those last bits to allow people to decide what to do next. NL: The only positive thing, from a functional point of view, is that they’ll be built to today’s standards, properly insulated. They’ll be new. AT: Would the spaces have a function? Or would they just…

AH: They’ll function very well physically. But in terms of contribution to the landscape, we’ll just have AH: They’d allow people to adjust, I think. to wait and see… planning doesn’t seem to control that sort of thing. And probably neither it should. NL: Kids can play in the ruins. AT: Lastly, why do you think people are so determined to rebuild on the shaky ground? AH: It allows imagination… the thing that will save us is imagination. AH: I think if you look at the history of any disaster around the world, people will always resettle where they always were. Whether they live on a river mouth or near a tsunami. Look at Japan, they used to have stones generations old, indicating don’t build beyond this line, and they didn’t. People will always just settle where they were, because there is so much…

I think it goes back to what Nick says, the memories and what people have done, how people behave…

103 Jasper van der Lingen (Principal of Sheppard and Rout, Christchurch), interview by Author, April 27, 2012.

AT: As an architect, will you be approaching sites di# erently to before the quakes? the di# erences. It might just be the architectural critics that pick up on it, and I suppose there is a continuum between that. That’s the hard bit isn’t it? Where do you pitch it? How much do you make JvdL: Yes. I think its fair to say that I would. I think each site is di# erent, each client is di# erent, each it the same? I suppose back in the 80’s they did do replicas of cornices and arches, and I don’t know job is di# erent. So its very hard to make blanket statement that we will do it one particular way all the if you want to go back to that. Its tricky. time. There are a number of jobs we are doing in the inner city at the moment. One of them we are doing a replica of a facade so that’s very straight… AT: So you think architecture would have that potential to trigger memories for people?

AT: That’s what the client wanted? JvdL: To some extent, yes. Maybe its fragments, maybe its something you see at ground level, that you touch and interact with. Maybe something like a doorway… JvdL: That’s what the client wanted. The client is actually the Christchurch Heritage Trust. Their whole raison-de-tra is to restore and retain heritage buildings and its actually a replica of a façade, AT: Something tangible? its all propped up on Manchester Street at the moment, and they want to try and replica the Excelsior facade into High Street so that its more a three dimensional building. So that’s one extreme I JvdL: Tangible, yes. Possibly. But there are all sorts of strategies that you could use. suppose, of actually wanting to totally replicate history. Other jobs you would try to pick up on some of the heritage sort of features in a contemporary way. So I suppose we’re aware of it, but whether it would be that di# erent… I suppose the importance is greater now than it ever has been. In our practice we always try to look at context and history, try to use it as a basis for design

AT: Are there any design devices you’ve used in the past to do that?

JvdL: Its things like following through heights, if you can or with adjacent buildings on the street front. You might want to keep parapet heights, if the building is stepped you might want to do a transition, follow through with straight lines or windows. Proportion would be another thing. Lines of verandahs, materials, colours, those sort of things. But not to be slavish, to key o# them.

AT: What I’m looking at is movement, and archetypal elements like doors, windows and chimneys to reconnect people to site. Do you think that would be helpful?

JvdL: I think it would be very helpful. I think that would be good. It’s a tricky one though, I mean how faithful? One extreme is the Excelsior, that’s one example, that is the total replica of an 1870-something building façade. That’s one extreme. And then you’ve got the other extreme where do it in a very abstracted way, and arguably some of the public will never pick up on it or understand

104 Jenny May (Principal Consultant Heritage Adviser, the Historic Places Trust, Christchurch), interview by Author, April 27, 2012.

AT: What for you was the biggest loss? In terms of what was destroyed. JM: At the moment the value seems di% cult to achieve because it’s a political ! ght. And it’s a JM: If you want an overall answer to that, the biggest loss is naturally the character of the city, in terms reality. Not sure if we’re ! nished with these earthquakes yet, I mean they’re rumbling away all of how it was de! ned by its built environment. But its also not just the buildings, it’s the contextual nature the time, from minor to major. They measure the amount of energy that has been expended, of that. You might have lost individual buildings, but you’ve also lost the context in which they stand in and it’s still the expectation that there is quite a lot of energy to be expended. So we can expect terms of a wider landscape. It also means you’ve lost precincts. I mean I feel really sad about the loss another couple of big ones. It’s like living on a time bomb. So people aren’t going to reinstate of the whole High Street precinct because that was the last major project I worked on for the council. those buildings yet. But it’s about being sure we bring them up to code in the way in which we prop Naturally I feel very sad about that. But the biggest loss is still to come, isn’t it? them…

AT: The cathedral? It’s important to keep some of the buildings for this generation, for my own generation and the rest of the time we have living on this earth, for my children’s generation, but less so for my JM: The cathedral. That would be my biggest loss. In terms of heritage, the Park Royale, has probably grandchildren’s generation. Because they’ll grow up in a new city. So its really important for the been my biggest loss in terms of an iconic building. The overall loss of all the Warren and Mahoney existing generations. What becomes important to the generations that don’t totally know about it architecture… just really eats at me. They made the biggest stamp in terms of our modern memory. yet is going to be that link to the past. That they will look for, that’s not there. It would be good for what you’re doing to talk to one or two elderly people who still remain from the Napier earthquake. AT: So how do you think losing a house is di# erent to losing a public building? AT: I have looked into the Napier earthquake. JM: I’ve lost my house, and a public building, and my o% ce… so how would you like me to answer that objectively instead of subjectively? Its pretty hard… JM: Have you spoken to anybody? There are still a few who were children around. I was listening to a woman who was in her 90’s who was being interviewed by the Napier earthquake. And that AT: You can be subjective if you like. was total devastation.

JM: In terms of a loss of a house, that’s a greater for people than a public building. I mean public But I think that the issue of looking beyond buildings, to landscape, to context… now that the city buildings can be rebuilt, but memories are greater for a lot of people in houses. Some people might be plan has been developed to rethink the city in a di# erent way. That’s also going to take away the really happy to see some of the big old public buildings go. Not everybody is in love with architecture familiar. That’s why people are clinging onto maybe the impossible with the cathedral. Because it’s like people like you and I, some people might be mildly happy that their houses have gone… who the biggest icon to go, but it also leaves cathedral square… every building bar two will have gone. knows… but for the general rule, from people I’ve talked to, the loss of house, the destruction to family life, to friends, to neighbourhoods, to being able to actually pick up your life and continue on has been AT: Do you have a vision for the future? hard. For most people it’s not only the loss of the suburban areas in which they lived, but the loss of all that memory. And houses can be rebuilt… but again that’s long term memory and collectability. JM: At this stage, the answer is no. Because I think, while there is a team of people looking at a vision for the future, our team are working too hard and are probably too buried in the now. Our AT: What value do you see in restoring the buildings that can be saved? vision for the future is of course… is that there will be some of the old building stock that will tell

105 the history. You’ve got to remember this is only the European history of this place. What the loss function ideal. That really doesn’t exist much now… of some of these buildings do do is open up some of the land that was the wetland, the Makai area that got Europeanised, returns to its original… if I had a vision, one of the things I would like to see AT: Is there a particular style that has been lost mostly throughout the city? is greater recognition of the area we know as Te Pohue, the river area. Allow it to return back to how it’s used to be… we’ve got plenty of photographs of them, we know what they looked like. And it’s not JM: Just in terms of the central city, we’ve lost the work of Collins and Harmon. We’ve lost a lot of pretty in landscaped European terms, it’s just a wetland, and you can’t even see the river in some JC Madison’s work. There’s a whole series… we’ve lost the examples of the Venetian Gothic that we places. It was just a little stream overrun by " ax. But it was rich, really rich. In wildlife. It was just a had. I can’t think of o# -hand anything that has survived. Most of our 19th Century classical buildings stream with lots of di# erent tributaries. You’ve got to remember the Avon River has been widened, have been lost. We managed to secure a big box stones of the Christ College’s and the Art Centre it’s had banks put on it, it’s been turned into a European picturesque type stream. I’d like to see parts museum, and hopefully the rebuilding of the Provincial buildings. of it go part to what it was, and not look over landscaped either. There has been a bit of a wholesale, in my opinion. Cleansing. I think it has been an opportunity for AT: Do you think that links to the old buildings of Christchurch will be important to reorientate people insurance companies and building owners to think ‘this is too hard’. It’s too expensive to ! x so it just in the future? goes… I just feel that there are buildings that could have been saved that haven’t, de! nitely. I could name a whole lot of them. That’s come about too by a loss of faith in 19th century brick. JM: I think for a start when it opens up it will. I’m in there virtually every day, and I can’t remember. I have to close my eyes and rethink what things are. Links are really important, and we’ve looked and AT: And stone. discussed lots of di# erent ways. There was a move very on to put just a small interpretation panels on each site with photographs of it so that we understood what was there. On some of our more JM: Yeah. Though there aren’t that many stone buildings in Christchurch. People think of important heritage sites I’m trying to make it a permanent condition of consents for buildings that go Christchurch as stone, but they’re nearly all brick. And those that are stone are stone clad. there to have interpretation. They may have parts of the old building that was there because we’ve spent a lot of time gathering parts up. Pleading, begging, borrowing. Not stealing, but pleading, AT: I guess I’m thinking about the Durham Street Methodist church. begging and borrowing, to make sure that we had signi! cant carved pieces, foundation stones, stained glass windows. And we’ve got it all stored and marked where we’ve been able to get it. A lot JM: Yeah but that was only one of them. There were a few that were stone, the Durham Street of it is now on trademe, or went to Auckland… you’d ! nd a lot of it up there because it’s part of the church, and its relative in Sydenham, which also came down. They were big stone buildings. The demolition process, there’s nothing illegal about it. It’s how the demolition companies make their Provincial buildings were stone… but most of the cathedral, because it was built over time was all money. So a lot of it has disappeared. We’ve tried to keep the really signi! cant things… so through brick. Most of the art centre was brick with stone cladding. So they’re not actual stone constructions. interpretation… I think it’s going to be vital to have interpretation. Absolutely vital. A lot of the city has Things of true stone construction just came down, that all there is to it. And the Durham Street opened up now, and there is nothing there to tell people… just big empty space. Because it hasn’t Methodist church took with it three lives. And that is something that can’t be replaced. At the end of been done. But there has been a discussion. Then there’s the cost involved in doing that. And at the day if you weigh the whole thing up, loss of life compared to the loss of your house, business, is the moment… while it seems a very important part of people’s psychological health to understand the one thing that can’t be replaced. A lot of us, including myself, lost family members so… you sort where people are… it’s not a priority. of weigh it up a bit more coldly.

AT: Do you think spatially you might be able to do that? Do you think there is a potential for AT: I can understand that. architecture to provide that link? JM: But life goes on. And you have to think about what form that might take. JM: The latest Architecture NZ magazine has some proposals, and there are some nice things there. But there’s nothing that links it… except for one building in cathedral square. One Warren AT: Do you see a tangible link as really important? and Mahoney building, the new rural bank, and it links to the one building that will remain, which is the old Camelot hotel that was by Miles Warren. Very much in that modernist phase of bear- JM: Its hugely important, because new buildings that go into that site, we are hoping they will allow faced concrete with absolutely even fenestration, recessed, set back in blocks because it was built areas for display of what was there to tell the story. That’s hugely important. The other thing is originally as an o% ce building. Set the Northern face back within quite a big recess. And the new that if that doesn’t happen we’ve got a huge collection… what we’ve got, we know who the stone proposal plays homage to that. Lots of the links in buildings happened over the 150 odd years that masons were at the time, that did that. They are works of art in their own right. They’re not just a the city was growing has gone. Every generation, people build to the existing buildings around them. decorative element to a building, they’re also about a technique and a craft that’s dying. So a lot So it’s a scramble to record all of that. I mean the areas are just so devastated, and it comes down to of that we’ve kept, and hopefully that will become museum exhibits for the loss of the very major money at the end of it to do good architecture. And what do we mean by good architecture? buildings. Tangible examples. Some one will always write the book, someone will tell the story, and there’s probably Masters theses and PhD theses for several generations as there has been with the AT: I would say… it’s something that has meaning or that tells a story, that’s what good architecture Napier earthquake. That records it all, but those tangible pieces are important. That’s been a big is. part of what we’ve been doing.

JM: I would agree with you. If we look back at the buildings that we treasure heritage wise, we know AT: Is it because you can… hold them? what they are because we can read them. By their form, because of that really strong form following

106 JM: No, I don’t think it’s because they’re touchstones at all. Without tangible evidence…human beings are tactile, you’re quite right, but people aren’t going to be allowed to touch them… because they’ll fall to pieces. But they are a three-dimensional representation. They’re not a photograph. You can have a photograph behind you and think ‘good heavens, that came o# that building and it survived, it’s there.’ So it’s about the emotional link to that. It’s also about preserving the craft and skill of the mason, of the carver, the joiner, of whoever created that and of the architect who might have designed it. You just can’t do that in a sketch or a photograph.

AT: Agreed.

JM: You can look as many architectural plans as you like of what might have been a building, but that doesn’t replace the fact of when it’s there. Equally, photographs and drawings don’t really represent the reality. I’ve looked at enough architect’s plans with elevations because they’re to scale, that gives you a reasonable idea of what it looks like, and perspectives complete with landscape and what it might look like from the street that bears absolutely no resemblance to when you see it. And I’m not knocking a profession I’ve been involved in for all my life, but I’m stating a reality. To just preserve those drawings is not enough.

For a lot of these sites, people are rapidly forgetting, as you say, what was on those sites… I think it is important to realize that if individually any of these buildings had had demolition proposed for them before the earthquakes there would have been a human cry. But the earthquake did that. And maybe parts of it could have been saved and rebuilt. But the expense was huge and a lot of it would have been replication. The decision was to take it out. Now it’s about what goes back there, that’s what worries me. We can only expect so much philanthropy in a way in terms of what heritage gets retained out of building owners when it’s going to cost them more than building a new building. Equally a lot of the building owners now are ! nding life very tough. So they’re not perhaps… going to be putting huge amount so money into putting up a new building. They’re going to be putting a new building up that will give them a quick return and get life back into the city. And that I fear is going to have a toll on good architecture, whatever that means. But we’re going to have utilitarian buildings. I think it will take a couple of generations before we know exactly what the full form of the city will take on. Unlike Napier.

AT: That was very di# erent.

JM: I think we work in a di# erent world, a di# erent building act, we have a resource management act, we have a whole di# erent set of rules and structures now. Napier… I mean largely Louis Haye, the architect. They went in with an overall plan, said it was going to look this style. Smaller city, but this is what it is going to look like. And here was the opportunity to build everything in one style that was to very fashionable at the time. You tell me what the style is right now that is so totally fashionably, and it’s not, its individual. Its eclectic. So I’m not sure what it is that we will do.

I think when you’re writing up your work, I do think its important to remember that point I’ve just made about there being only so much philanthropic gestures that we can expect from our heritage building owners. Because the di# erence between keeping some of those heritage buildings and bringing them up to acceptable code, the length of time it takes to do that, of going down that path and the reality of insurance is millions of dollars. You can’t just expect building owners to do that… so this is where we are trying to raise funds to meet that gap… We’ve lost a lot of buildings because we haven’t got the money.

107 108 7.2 - INITIAL MODELS AND DRAWINGS

For more initial models and drawings see blog: http://myarchitecturethesis.blogspot.co.nz

Early models, exploring layers and the domestic site.

109 Initial models, exploration of surfaces and translations.

110 Models at mid-year crit, house design. Note both Layers and Surfaces being used, before they were recognised and developed as two architectonics.

111 Early models and iterations of domestic site design.

112 Parti diagrams

113 Sectional elevations of house design at mid year, exploration of layering and form. 114 List of Figures

Fig 1: Project. Surface study model by author. Fig 13: The Berlin Wall Memorial, Berlin. Photo taken by author.

Fig 2: Project. Surface study model by author. Fig 14: Slurry Wall of the Hudson River, World Trade Centre site. Wikipedia. Accessed September 10, 2012. http://simple.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:World_Trade_Center_Slurry_Wall,_Eric_ Fig 3: Christchurch City within its landscape. Christchurch City Council. Christchurch Central Ascalon,_9-4-02.jpg. Recovery Plan. Christchurch, 2012, 2. Fig 15: The Jewish Museum, Berlin. Photo taken by author. Fig 4: Christchurch Cathedral, after the February 22nd quake, 2011: “Tikanga Pakeha”. Accessed September 2, 2012. http://www.anglicantaonga.org.nz/News/TIKANGA-PAKEHA/Cathedral- Fig 16: Michaelerplatz, centre, Austria. Photo taken by author. coming. Fig 17: The Berlin Wall Memorial, Berlin. Photo taken by author. Fig 5: Digging of the Gestapo Terrain, Berlin, after WII: Till, Karen E. “The New Berlin: Memory, Politics, Place.” Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press, 2005, 53. Fig 18: Te Papa Museum, Wellington. SHAHANZ. Fabrications.

Fig 6: Project. Christchurch masterplan. Drawing by author. Fig 19: Auckland University’s 1991 Venice Bienalle entry. Interstices 2.

Fig 7: Edward Jollie’s 1850 plan for Christchuch: Christchurch City Council. Christchurch Central Fig 20: Project. Model showing Referential architectonic, by author. Recovery Plan. Christchurch, 2012, 12. Fig 21: Project. Concrete and plaster Site model of Sherborne St, by author. Fig 8: High St, Central Christchurch, aerial view after the February 2011 earthquake. BeckerFraser. Accessed 21 February, 2012. http://cera.govt.nz/ross-becker-photos. Fig 22: Rachel Whiteread’s sculpture House, London, 1993. Accessed February 22, 2012. http:// www.artdesigncafe.com/Rachel-Whiteread-House-1993-4-library-2010. Fig 9: World Trade Centre Site, New York: “Cityscapes”. Chicago Tribute. Accessed August 30, 2012. http://featuresblogs.chicagotribune.com/theskyline/2011/08/ground-zero-master-planner- Fig 23: Project. Model of layers through to Port Hills, by author. praises-911-memorial.html. Fig 24: Project. Model showing Experiential architectonic, by author. Fig 10: Temporary Memorial o# Oxford Terrace, Christchurch, 185 Empty Chairs, Oxford Baptist Church. Accessed May 10, 2012. http://www.christchurchdailyphoto.com/2012/02/21/185- Figs 25-26: Alice Aycock’s Maze 1972. Hobbs, Robert. Alice Aycock: Sculpture and Projects. empty-chairs/. London: The MIT Press, 2005, 53.

Fig 11: Dachau Concentration camp, near Munich, Germany. Photo taken by author. Figure 27: Drawings by Carlo Scarpa. Schultz, Anne-Catrin. Carlo Scarpa: Layers. Stuttgart: Edition Axel Menges, 2007, 21. Fig 12: Typography of Terrors, Berlin, Germany. Photo taken by author. Figure 28: Brion Tomb, Treviso, Carlo Scarpa 1969-73. Accessed September 22, 2012. (http://

115 interiorcouture.blogspot.co.nz/2009_07_01_archive.html). Fig 52: Reference to original house form. By author. Figure 29: Castelvecchio Museum, Verona, Carlo Scarpa, 1973. Photo taken by author. Fig 53: Moment upon entering site, views to the traces of the original house. By author. Fig 30: Gordon Matta-Clark. Conical Intersect, 1975. Diserens, Corinne, Ed. Gordon Matta-Clark. New York: Phaidon Press, 2007, 46. Fig 54: Entry to church, looking across cut in the ground, to where the original church once stood. By author. Fig 31: Cutting through layers. Drawing by author. Fig 55: Looking through the viewing windows to the traces of the original church below, and to the Figure 32: The Colosseum, Rome. Photo taken by author. ground. By author.

Figs 33-34: Film stills, The Wings of Desire,1987, Wim Wender. Fig 56: From inside the proposed house, looking out through layers to the ground. By author.

Figs 35-36: The San Cataldo Cemetery, Aldo Rossi, Modena, Italy, 1984. Arnell, Aldo Rossi: Fig 57: Entrance to the proposed house, and into the ground. By author. Buildings and Projects, 93. Fig 58: A stairway in the proposed church, looking through a series of layers and spaces. By author. Figs 37-38: Franco Magnani’s painting and photo of original view. Accessed July 22, 2012. http:// francomagnani.com/Memory.aspx Fig 59: Looking through the cloisters to the right of the church, a series of layers and connected spaces. By author. Fig 39: Project. Viewing platform and cleared site, proposed domestic building. Model by author. Fig 60: Project. Masterplan showing layers, drawing. By author. Fig 40: Maya Lin, Vietnam Veterans Memorial, Washington D.C. Andrews, Richard, Bearsley, John, Weshler, Lawrence. Maya Lin: Systematic Landscapes. New Haven: Yale University Press, Fig 61: Diagram showing strati! cation. Wikipedia. Accessed March 10, 2012. http://en.wikipedia.org/ 2006, 9. wiki/Harris_matrix.

Fig 41: Rachel Whiteread, House, London, 1993. Townsend, Chris, ed. The Art of Rachel Whiteread. Fig 62: Project. Parti disgrams. By author. London: Thames & Hudson, 2004, 14. Fig 63: Project. Model of house.By author. Fig 42: Aldo Rossi, the San Cataldo cemetery, Modena. Arnell, Aldo Rossi: Buildings and Projects, 93. Fig 64: Project. House plan drawing. By author.

Fig 43: Carlo Scarpa, Fondazione Querini Stampalia, Venice, 1949. Schultz, Anne-Catrin. Carlo Fig 65: Project. Author’s model of Sherborne Street house before quakes. Scarpa: Layers. Stuttgart: Edition Axel Menges, 2007, 49. Fig 66: Project. Sherborne St house after September 4, 2010 quake. Fig 44: Gordon Matta-Clark. Conical Intersect, 1975. Diserens, Corinne, Ed. Gordon Matta-Clark. New York: Phaidon Press, 2007, 68. Fig 67: Project. Author’s drawing, interior revealed of Sherborne St house.

Fig 45: Gordon Matta-Clark, Doors, Floors, Doors, 1976. Diserens, Corinne, Ed. Gordon Matta- Fig 68: Project. Site panorama from street view. Photo by author. Clark. New York: Phaidon Press, 2007, 69. Fig 69: Project. Drawing of Durham Street Methodist Church. Durham Street Methodist Church. Fig 46: Project. Model showing Referential architectonic. By author. Accessed March 12, 2012. http://durhamstreetmethodist.wordpress.com/history/.

Fig 47: Project. Plaster model showing surface study. By author. Fig 70: Project. Interior of church, including historic organ. Photo sourced from Historic Places Trust archive, Christchurch. Fig 48: Project. Plaster and concrete site model of Sherborne St site. By author. Fig 71: Project. Remains of church after February 22, 2011 earthquake. CERA. Accessed March 10, Fig 49: Project. Model showing Experiential architectonic. By author. 2012. http://cera.govt.nz/photo/all-thats-left-of-the-durham-street-methodist-church.

Fig 50: Project. Plaster model showing view through layers to Port Hills. By author. Fig 72: Project. Site panorama from street view. Photo taken by author.

Fig 51: Project. Drawing showing view through layers. By author. Fig 73: Photo at Final Critique, taken by Mikyla Greaney.

116 Bibliography

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118 Reynolds, Donald Martin, Ed. “Remove Not the Ancient Landmark” : Public Monuments and Moral Values. Australia: Gordon and Breach, 1996. Reynolds, Donald Martin, Ed. “Remove Not the Ancient La ndmark” : Public Monuments and Moral Values. Australia: Gordon and Breach, 1996. Rice, Geo# rey. Christchurch Changing : An Illustrated History. Christchurch: University of Canterbury, 2000. Rosenfeld, Gavriel David Munich and Memory : Architecture, Monuments, and the Legacy of the Third Reich. Berkley: University of California Press, 2000. Rossi, Aldo. The Architecture of the City. Cambridge: MIT Press, 1982. Schultz, Anne-Catrin. Carlo Scarpa: Layers. Stuttgart: Edition Axel Menges, 2007. Sharpe, Emily. “Christchurch’s Heritage Faces Demolition.” Conservation, no. 230 (December 2011 2011). Sharr, Adam. Heidegger for Architects. London: Routledge, 2007. Sorkin, Michael, Zukin, Sharon. After the World Trade Center: Rethinking New York City. New York: Routledge, 2002. Stuart, Ian. Quake: The Big Canterbury Earthquake of 2010. Auckland: HarperCollins Publishers, 2010. Thompson, Abigail. “Memory, Heritage and Identity: In Relation to the Damage to Christchurch’s Architectural Environment by the September 4, 2010 Canterbury Earthquake.” Edited by Michael Linzey: the University of Auckland, 2011. Till, Karen E. “The New Berlin: Memory, Politics, Place.” Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press, 2005. Townsend, Chris, Ed. The Art of Rachel Whiteread. London: Thames & Hudson, 2004. Treib, Ed., Marc. Spatial Recall: Memory in Architecture and Landscape. New York: Routledge, 2009. Turner, Gwenda. Buildings and Bridges of Christchurch. Dunedin: John McIndoe Limited, 1981. Ward, Janet. Walls, Borders, Boundaries : Spatial and Cultural Practices in Europe. New York: Berghahn Books, 2012. Wenders, Wim. “The Wings of Desire.” Berlin: Road Movies 1987. Whiteread, Rachel. Rachel Whiteread. London: Haunch of Venison, 2002. Wiedmer, Caroline Alice. The Claims of Memory: Representations of the Holocaust in Contemporary Germany and France. Cornell: Cornell University Press, 1999. Wilson, John. City and Peninsula: The Historic Places of Christchurch and Banks Peninsula. Christchurch: Rainbow Print Group, 2007. Woods, Lebbeus. Radical Reconstruction. New York: Princeton Architectural Press, 1997. Woodward, Christopher. In Ruins. London: Chatto & Windus, 2001. Yates, Frances A. The Art of Memory. London: Routledge, 1966. Yonge, Melanie. Government Buildings: Christchurch 1909-1996. Hong Kong: Everbest Printing Co., 1996. Young, James E. “The Counter-Monument: Memory against Itself in Germany Today.” Critical Inquiry 18, no. 2, Winter (1992).

119 120 Interviews

Richard Dalman (Director of Dalman Architecture, Christchurch), interview by Author, April 27, 2012.

Ashley Hide and Nich Faith (Ath! ield Architects, Christchurch), interview by Author, April 27, 2012.

Jasper van der Lingen (Principal of Sheppard & Rout, Christchurch), interview by Author, April 27, 2012.

Jenny May (Principal Consultant Heritage Adviser, the Historic Places Trust, Christchurch), interview by Author, April 27, 2012.

Note: All interviews have been printed with written permission from interviewees.

121