Basically Christchurch’s heritage has gone, but that does not mean that the buildings cannot be rebuilt in the same style, but better to stand up to time and mother earth.
Imagine New Christchurch, renamed as that what it will be, at every City block the glass in the newly rebuilt buildings will change to a different colour of the rainbow. So the window colours would start with red, the next block from South to North, orange, then yellow, green, blue, indigo and violet.
How a New Christchurch could look
So in the day you would see when looking east to west along a road cutting across the city you will see a rainbow of reflective coloured glass. At night in the winter though the City will change to a magical rainbow of buildings as office lights are turned on. Imagine when the city is restored tourists will come here not just for the skiing in winter, but to see the City light up. It will be one of the most photographed cities in the world.
This is a poor mock up of what the City could look like at night. Please ignore the size and height of the buildings, as it is just the look I am trying to convey
This is not the only thing that would set the city apart. As you have coloured bands of buildings you would also have bands of flowers in the hues of the blocks. In the red zone would be red poppies, red geraniums, etc; in the orange zone marigolds, orange Californian poppies, etc.
So a stranger asks you how to get to a building it could be something like, go down Kilmore until you get to Blue and then it is second turning on the left.
Buildings built after the earthquake would have the coloured glass, but any built previous would not be allowed unless they were compliant with the building standards of the new buildings. This way you could tell if a church was a heritage building as the glass would not be coloured, but a rebuilt “heritage” building would have coloured glass.
If the Cathedral is going to be rebuilt there is no reason why the others should not. They would be memorial plaques set in entrances to the buildings honouring the people who had lost their lives on the site.
An example of what a building would look like in the Blue zone
Interesting idea Steve and quite easy (so realistic) to realize.
I don’t know in what stage the plan making currently is or if there will be a public voting for plans, but I hear about the debate of rebuilding or starting all over again.
Coming from the city of Rotterdam I have an idea about what that is all about.
As the city centre was bombed several times during WWII, plans were made for the future. As most of the centre was destroyed, it was possible to rearrange the city infrastructure and building plans to the current standard (use, living and means of transport). At the same time buildings with little damage were renovated. As you can see, situations and thoughts about the future of ChCh and R’dam are quite similar. I find it quite interesting to see the process of plan making and the involvement of the inhabitants. It takes time, must be done properly, but the people want to see progress; to carry on and leave things behind.
The container shops in the centre of town indicate a way of thinking ‘out of the box’ that is needed at the moment to build the path to the future. It’s all in the name: Re.Start! And hopefully for you all out there, there will be some parts of ‘the old days’ left to enjoy and remind, but also new ideas to take you further in being ‘special’.
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