Renewing Christchurch & Rethinking Resilience: 4

The City Life introduction section of the Draft Christchurch Central City Plan states:

“Christchurch’s redeveloped Central City will offer diverse living choices in new communities and celebrate the city’s rich cultural diversity with inviting public spaces and new facilities, attracting people to what will be one of the great little cities of the world…”

The activities and projects described in that plan are typical of what might be expected in a developing New Zealand city, and should be supported. In regard to public art the plan states:

“Public art will be peppered throughout the streets, public spaces and buildings, adding colour, interest and creating a sense of anticipation of what awaits to be discovered…”

None of these initiatives addresses the fundamental cultural problem highlighted in this report, and that is the public responsibility to address head-on the cultural presumption that Christchurch is like a little English city that does not have earthquakes. This myth runs through Christchurch institutions and through the Draft Christchurch Central City Plan (DCCCP) like Brighton through Rock. This Renewing Christchurch & Rethinking Resilience Cultural plan recommends specific projects that address this problem, and which need to be incorporated into the DCCCP:

Project 1: Building seismic history into Christchurch planning culture. Research effort and incorporation of summary into the DCCCP of a detailed and accurate account of Christchurch and relevant North Canterbury seismic event history. Collecting, identifying and referencing photographs, paintings, poems, newspaper articles. Production of a good quality coffee-table book for wide-spread distribution in Christchurch and to interested tourists.

Project 2: Continuing management and research effort to identify and record innovation and adaptive designs for reuse of demolition sites and of restored buildings. Including periodic design competitions and international exhibitions to attract overseas interest. Maximising economic opportunities of unique proposition.

Project 3: Collection, recording and identification of all cultural expression originating or stimulated by earthquake events. Management and organisation of exhibition and use of such intellectual property under licence.

Project 4: Supported programme of productive use for agricultural purposes of vacant lots that are not being reused in the immediate future. This programme to include deposition of arable soil, provision of security, establishment of market places, and soft infrastructure such as competitions for best kept gardens, most productive, and other such public support.

Project 5: Incorporation into DCCCP and other relevant planning instruments explicit recognition of land movements in the past, and scenarios for the future, and the associated design and planning for street patterns and public place locations for safety and for gathering and for the public display of public art and other expressions of land movement information in the form of maps of fault patterns and other sculptural expressions.

Project 6: Institutional restructuring of Christchurch City Council that ensures the delivery of these projects and which treats seismic risk as both a risk and an opportunity for the city’s economic development in the future.

(This is a section of my report: Renewing Christchurch & Rethinking Resilience - A Cultural Plan. If you want the whole thing - please contact me.)