Christchurch: Armagh Street 1860 - 1908 - 2008

Matching easterly views of Armagh Street from Oxford Terrace, across Colombo Street, towards Manchester Street, with Victoria Square to the Left. Not one building survived from one photograph to the next.

Christwegian Courtesans & Other Less Interesting Developments.

Subsequent to the opening of the second Railway Station on Moorhouse Avenue in 1867, Manchester Street South became the principal tram route between the inner city and the station. As a consequence, that part of Manchester Street from High Street to Moorhouse Avenue became lined with hotels, restaurants and various places of entertainment, etc.

Not surprisingly, in a tradition spanning at least 130 years, the street has been the favoured haunt of those practitioners of what is reputed to be among the world's older professions. Although probably unaware of their long precedent, Christwegian courtesans are still to be found plying their precarious trade along the more northern part of Manchester Street during the hours of darkness.


Marrying a rich widow, the dandified John Etherden Coker built his third hotel on her land. Opened in 1880, it would be far from the largest, but quite the most luxurious of the Manchester Street hotels. Pictured above is the hotel's dining room. With its marble statuary and starched table linen this room offered elaborate farinaceous repast to such notables as Rudyard Kipling and the Antarctic explorer Robert Falcon Scott. Two years after Coker's demise the hotel's public bar was reported to be the haunt of prostitutes and their consorts.


Alas all hotels have their heyday and long gone are the Terminus, Silver Grill, A1 Temperance, Railway, Manchester and Leviathan, but in much reduced circumstances, Coker's Hotel lingers on as a Backpacker's hostel. A significant part of its formerly elegant facade is now artistically rendered to represent a semi-derelict wooden shanty and the sadly dilapidated dining room (above) continues to serve a similar, but more modest purpose.

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In 1938 William Gray Young (1885-1962) submitted a Bauhaus inspired design for a new Railway Station. To be the city's largest building, construction was delayed until 1953 and the somewhat modified design was finally completed in 1960. The Railway Station survived as such for only 31 years to be sold off for redevelopment as an entertainment centre.

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Much touted as Christchurch's tallest building, the 86 metre, 23 level C1 apartment building in Gloucester Street East has been plagued with problems. Although all but four of the apartments have been pre-sold, the above photographs indicate the minimal extent of construction development between May 2008 and May 2009.

For the Record...

Photographed on the 28th of December, 2008 by 29 year old Nickmard Khoey of Auckland, this embalmed Mãori head is displayed in the Oceania rooms of the Royal Museum for Art and History at Brussels' Cinquantenaire Museum.

Mr Khoey writes,

Enbalmed (sic) and shrunken head of a 19th century Maori warrior. Maori people are the indigenous people of New Zealand (where I was born/raised).

This head was on display in a musuem in Brussels I visited but can't remember the name of it. I believe it is part of a French collection that is was on loan for a pacific (sic) orientated exhibiton.

The tattoo on the warriors face is called moko or toi moko and is still practised by the Maori people in New Zealand today. However, very few on this kind of scale.

These heads are sacred and need to retruned (sic) to New Zealand.

For the sake of the historical record it should probably be noted that the early 19th century Mãori did a roaring trade in preserved heads for guns. 

The only culture believed to have farmed its own species for fresh meat, they would tattoo the heads of slaves to give them a chiefly appearance. After removal, the heads would be given an antique patina using juice derived from the Konini tree (the world's largest Fuschia).

The guns thus acquired perpetuated a vicious circle that was only broken by extensive European settlement. 

That the often repeated allegation these heads are sacred and therefore need to be returned to New Zealand is, in our unfashionable opinion, little more than ethnocentric hypocrisy.

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Photo Credits

Top: a 2008 photograph by Nickmard Khoey of Auckland.

Bottom: Major General Horatio Gordon Robley with his collection of Maori heads, an illustration from Medicine Man: The Forgotten Museum of Henry Wellcome, British Museum Press, 2003.

Renaissance

Barry King bought Christchurch's oldest bicycle shop for $200 in 1945 and continued to operate the business until 2008, when it was offered for sale by the 83 year-old as a potential redevelopment site.

Situated on the north-eastern corner of Barbadoes and Armagh Streets, the historically significant circa 1875 building has been remodeled rather than conserved. 

Close to half a dozen backpacker hostels, the shop reopened in February, 2009 as the "funky retro" Beat Street Café.  Case Ornsby and Tobin Smith's Form Architecture + Design Ltd now occupy the upper floor.

Airport Terminal Demolition

Plans have been announced for the replacement of the 1960 Christchurch International Airport terminal building. Designed by the modernist architect Paul Pascoe (1908-1976), the New Zealand Institute of Architects awarded him their Gold Medal for this building.

The $208 million redevelopment is scheduled for completion in late 2010.

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Christchurch Architect Peter Beaven reminisces about Paul Pascoe for the Architecture NZ magazine (article link opens in a new window).

"Well, one day during the early part of the war we were down in Sumner and I saw this bloke standing there – Paul Pascoe – and there he was, big tie, looking out to sea like Milton or something, you know, seeing poetry ... and he said to me, “Ah, young Beaven, what are you thinking of doing?” and I said “Well, I don't know really, I'm trying to be told”. He said “Come in to the office with me”. So we got on the tram and went in to his office and within two hours talking Paul Pascoe somehow made clear what I'd seen, who I was, what I should do.

Two hours with Paul, that was it. Pascoe was the one. He was a charismatic fellow who knew something that architects are not taught: that architecture was a mystery and a huge psychic need that people had to have. It's a performance. I can remember that I ran into Hedley Helmore who is another good old architect – you see Christchurch used to be good, now it's shattered of course, but that's another matter..."

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Comment from an expatriate Architect, now living in Australia.

I have recently come across your rather excellent blog on Canterbury Heritage. Being an ex-Christchurch resident now located in Melbourne, it is great to be able to keep up with the great achievements of individuals intent on keeping at least some of Canterbury's heritage known and discussed. Though, I have noted that your recent posts have failed to pick up on the imminent destruction of the Christchurch airport domestic terminal. 

Considering the new proposal is by Warren and Mahoney; the once great, though now utterly terrible, modernist architects, it appears some ethical debate regarding the destruction of a modernist legacy by an ex-modernist-still-pandering-their-wares-as-a-modernist has yet to be taken up by the local architectural fraternity let alone by the New Zealand Institute of Architects. 

After Sheppard and Rout's rather elegant extension to the international terminal, considering the difficulties of an airport, you might have thought it would have encouraged the airport authorities to once again reach further afield than a tabla rasa corporate identity. Here's hoping the recent economic woes can slow them down.

A further Architect's comment:

It's worth going out to the airport to see the rather confusing affair - brought about by the building of the new control tower (somewhere between the Chalice scuplture and a slipped disk) and the sudden proportions of the carpark building. 

Considering the way things are going in Christchurch - the revealing of, then cowardly destruction of the Tivoli Theatre, the replacement of the neo-Gothic prison at Addington for a future slum, the almost too close to call gutting of the museum, the populist stink that is the new art gallery, Cashel Mall's hopefull redevelopmet only to be turned into little Brisbane, the inevitable flop that will be the new City Council chambers and the current lot of high-rise towers now plumbing their foundations into the earth.... 

One must ask; what will the current generations built legacy be? A recent book that came out was Long Live the Modern on Modernist NZ architecture, as well as Sir Miles Warren's autobiography. Both great and important books to have, if somewhat incomplete, and lacking a foundation text. Maybe a post speculating on future built heritage would be interesting, especiallly if you can get other readers involved?

Two other buildings worth commenting on; Peter Beaven's Port Authority Tunnel administration offices and Shadbolt House in Lyttleton; both utterly fantastic. Beaven's metabolist satirical ship building, and Shadbolt house's constructivist theatricality, provide an important legacy to our built environment.

Photographic Excellence

LARGE IMAGE OPENS IN A NEW WINDOW

An elevated northerly view from Redcliffs, across the Avon-Heathcote estuary, to New Brighton.

Photographed by moonlight on the evening of the 10th of December, 2008 by Andrew McGregor.

Lyttelton Dusk

LARGE IMAGE OPENS IN A NEW WINDOW

An elevated northeasterly view of Lyttelton, with Quail Island to the foreground, in the early evening of the 13th of November, 2008.

Original photograph by Hugh of Wellington.

New Ship for Lyttelton

Soon to be a frequent visitor to the port of Lyttelton, the largest New Zealand operated cargo ship Spirit of Endurance will arrive at Auckland on Sunday, the 9th of November, 2008 on her maiden voyage from China. 

With a service speed of 17 knots and a gross tonnage of 7,464 tonnes, the 130 metre vessel will load about a thousand containers for Lyttelton and Port Chalmers.

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Photographs by courtesy of Pacifica Shipping (1985) Limited

Christchurch 1878-2008

LARGE IMAGE OPENS IN A NEW WINDOW

An easterly view of Hereford Street from the intersection at Colombo and High Streets, looking towards Manchester Street.

The two storey building to the Right is the only survivor from the earlier photograph.

Bicycle Parking Rack Design

Finalists in New York's City Racks Design Competition.

The goal of the New York Department of Transportation competition is to create new, better-looking bicycle parking racks, and to encourage bicycle commuting in the city. Prototypes of the designs have been installed on the streets of the city.

Further reading: Cityracks Finalists Announced

Historic Waimate Building for Demolition

The 1890 Empress Flour Mill on Queen Street is category C industrial heritage building, which means that its removal is a permitted activity.

There are two plaques on the front of the building, one relating to the 118 year old structure and the other to the 1921 grain silos.

With a height of 35 metres the category B listed heritage silos are the town's most prominent landmark. They're still in use and will not be demolished.

Waimate is renowned for its Edwardian buildings, but the Empress Flour Mill building is one of the few left from the Victorian era.

Photo by Geoff Cloake

Podcast: By Design

Australia's ABC Radio tackles the topic of how today´s buildings have forged their way in the world by looking dramatically different to anything that has come before and, as a result, have been very focused on image.

Running parallel is a societal concern about the future of the environment and our concern with sustainability. A building´s performance -- its technical function -- has had to find different ways of being assessed.

Trends - Ungrand Designs This week in our regular `Trends´ segment, yes, we have identified a big trend but you´re about to meet someone who´s bucking it ... big time!

Harry Seidler's studio: a room with a view In 1948 Harry Seidler arrived in Sydney from America, where he had been schooled by Bauhaus luminaries in exile, Walter Gropius, Marcel Breuer and Josef Albers. His first studio at Point Piper, which is recreated in the Sydney Powerhouse Museum's exhibition Modern Times, reveals aspects of these cosmopolitan origins.

Function and meaning: the key to good design Artefacts (including works of architecture) play dual roles; they simultaneously perform functions and they carry meaning. For instance, columns support roofs, but while the sturdy Tuscan and Doric types traditionally signify masculinity, the slim and elegant Ionic and Corinthian kinds read as feminine.

Download the 54 minute mp3 audio file

A Century Apart

Familiarly known as "The Bottleneck" in earlier times, these are north-westerly aspects of the junction of High, Hereford and Colombo Streets.

A September, 2008 addition to the Christwegian aesthetic is a galvanised representation of a Corn sheaf at the beginning of the City Mall, which is currently undergoing refurbishment.

Provision is being made for extending the vintage tram tracks through the mall, along part of the original route, which closed in 1954.

Podcast: The Suspect Society #2

From the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation's The Best of Ideas series.

The Surveillance Society. The Age of Paranoid Politics. These terms, and many others, have been used to describe how the political ground has been shifting under us, particularly since 9/11. Terrorism and national security have become obsessive anxieties.

A world-wide initiative has developed that combines a growing machinery of surveillance, assaults on civil liberties and increasing censorship. We are living in what IDEAS producer Mary O’Connell calls “the suspect society.”

Right click to Download The Suspect Society - Part Two

Please note: podcasts are archived for 4 weeks only.

Recent History

LARGE IMAGE OPENS IN A NEW WINDOW

History, of course, is only as far away as yesterday. And bearing that in mind we monitor the 'nets photography and auction sites for images that we think should become part of our historic record. It usually means evaluating about 1,400 photographs each week, of which barely more than 1% make it to the archive.

Most of those images record changes in streetscapes, but occasionally we find subjects that either represent photographic excellence or reflect our cultural values. Such an example of the latter is the above photograph taken by John Morton at a Spring wedding in the Christchurch suburb of Cashmere.

Akaroa Visit for French Warship

The French patrol boat La Moqueuse will visit the Banks Peninsula township of Akaroa on October the 10th, 2008 to take part in the annual French festival.

The festival marks the July, 1840 arrival of 53 French and German settlers aboard the emigrant ship Compte de Paris.

The 450 ton La Moqueuse, which visited Lyttelton in June 2004, is based in Noumea with the French Pacific Fleet. With a length of 54 meters and a top speed of 23 knots she is well equipped for her patrol role. She carries a crew of 4 officers, 11 petty officers and 13 seamen. The vessel has a large aft deck and can land a helicopter if necessary.

Moqueuse = female Jester, one who mocks.

Editorial: September, 2008

Six months have now elapsed since the inception of the online presence of the Canterbury Heritage Journal.

In a self congratulatory paean, unrestrained by false modesty, this journal can now claim a somewhat wider provincial readership than the combined circulations of both the Heritage New Zealand and New Zealand Memories magazines.

While the circulations of those periodicals continues to remain static, in the last Quarter an average monthly increase of 16.2% in this journal's readership has been recorded. Accordingly, it will not be without interest to ascertain how long it takes before twenty-first century developments filter down to this sector of our Media industry...

The most read article in the August issue was the Edward Jollie Memoir.

Editor

(The above illustration is our suggestion for an alternative to the current neo-brutalist design proposal for Christchurch's ailing Sydenham Square development).

A Different View...

Detail from an elevated southerly view of the Christchurch CBD from the roof of the long derelict Christchurch Women's Hospital on Colombo Street.

From a Slackninja photographic essay, the accompanying text is not without interest either:

"...the place is a lot bigger than it looks, although you can move through it exceptionally fast, after wandering through wards and consulting rooms (which makes up the bulk of the complex) we found our way into the admin block and stared in amazement at the largest number of spent 9mm marker rounds I have ever seen in my life and more spoons and pins from practice grenades than you can shake a stick at, we then went rapidly through more wards and misc staircases and made our way to the roof, which was awesome, in the fact that it spans the three largest buildings..."

Solar Trees for Garden City?

Solar powered LED street lighting on the streets of Vienna by Welsh designer Ross Lovegrove.

The solar cells on the tree are able to store enough electricity in spite of receiving no direct solar light for days at a time because of the clouds.

Christina Werner from Cultural Project Management, Vienna reports that they show that solar trees really are a practical form of street lighting.

We hope that not only Vienna but the city of Christchurch will see the merits of using renewable energy for street lighting.

Down and Nearly Under

Built in suburban Shirley by a former drain layer and tree feller, one of these dwellings is currently owned by a pig magnate, but rented back to the builder, who was brought up in a state house.

The Green alternative is situated amidst more spacious grounds in nearby Bromley.

Further reading

Developer's empire unravels: The Press, 26 July 2008