From Heritage New Zealand, Summer 2010

by Amanda Cropp

As Canterbury picks itself up after the big September shake, owners and NZHPT staff are coming to terms with the damage inflicted on some of the region’s most treasured heritage buildings

Malcolm Duff experienced his first earthquake in Jordan and it was over so quickly there was no time to panic. But it was a different story when the NZHPT General Manager Southern Region was jolted out of a deep sleep by the 7.1-magnitude quake which hit Christchurch at 4.35am on 4 September. “I woke up with the shaking but the lights were out and the most terrifying thing was that it was pitch dark.”

Malcolm learned the size and location of the quake a short time later when he telephoned Austria where his wife was holidaying with their daughter and son-in-law. “I said I didn’t know where it was or how big it was and within a minute and a half they’d found the information on the internet.” Another NZHPT employee fled to safety, only to be doused with the contents of a swimming pool; as they opened the patio doors to escape they were met by a wave of water.

Despite their traumatic personal experiences, the NZHPT’s nine Christchurch staff members, including one whose riverside house was badly damaged, were soon busy inspecting buildings, liaising with Civil Defence and local authorities and providing updated website information on how to handle damage to  heritage buildings. Malcolm says the hundreds of aftershocks left everyone constantly on edge and physically exhausted from disrupted nights’ sleep, while witnessing the destructiveness of the quake also took a heavy emotional toll. “It has affected us quite strongly seeing so many buildings we love either being in some state of distress or in really bad shape.”

The NZHPT’s Christchurch office in Gough House was built after the 1931 Napier earthquake and, apart from a few cracks and several overturned filing cabinets and bookshelves, was in pretty good shape. Until the building was deemed safe, NZHPT employees either worked from home or were temporarily accommodated with the City Council heritage team. When I visited Gough House nine days post-quake, there still hadn’t been time to vacuum up the dirt from an overturned pot plant; the wheelie bins of Civil Defence equipment and piles of fluorescent safety vests and hard hats were evidence of where staff priorities lay.

Once Heritage Advisor Dave Margetts had ensured his own family was safe after a chimney collapsed onto the roof of his Papanui home, he cycled to Civil Defence headquarters. “The extent of damage to some buildings was pretty breathtaking – like the Carlton Butchery in Victoria Street where the front had come right off.” Inspecting inner-city buildings in eerily deserted streets is not  something he will forget in a hurry. “It was like a movie after some horrific event.”

Inspections were mostly external and when Dave needed to enter St Elmo Courts, a multi-storey office building sporting noticeable exterior cracks in its distinctive pink paintwork, he couldn’t wait to leave. “I did not want to be in that building.”

Malcolm Duff was equally nervous about clambering high up into the Christchurch Music School in Barbadoes Street. “We were damned careful. I was with an engineer up in the roof space where these big chimneys had been displaced. They had dropped and there was a gap of half a brick all the way down. I was quite pleased to be out of there, that’s for sure. I went in to the Basilica next door and they wanted me to go up into the dome, but I let the engineer do that.”

Despite the dramatic pictures of destruction beamed around the world, Malcolm says Christchurch was remarkably lucky that so many heritage buildings survived. Walking the inner city in those first days after the quake left him feeling quite heartened. “There was not the sort of damage that one might have expected. I was delighted to see the Arts Centre, the Cathedral, the Museum and the Provincial Council Chambers – all those landmark buildings were all still there and not looking too bad.”

Heritage Advisor for Building Registration Robyn Burgess visited Homebush, the Darfield homestead of the Deans family which came to epitomise the vulnerability of some old brick structures. She says media photographs didn’t show the important outbuildings which remain largely intact. “The stables and the woolshed and all those other iconic places that are part of Homebush – yes, they were damaged but they are all quite fixable.”

Some heritage-building owners have wasted no time in getting on with repairs. Ohinetahi in Governors Bay, a grand property with a famous garden, was badly damaged when gables crashed down on its central stone section and stone garden walls were shaken apart. When I spoke to the owner, renowned architect  Sir Miles Warren, a little over a week after the quake, he already had drawings prepared to replace the damaged first floor. “The best we can do is retain the northern and southern faces of the stone block up to first-floor level but everything above that is badly cracked and damaged.” Sir Miles says the state of the timber wings of the house showed just how well wood handles major earth tremors. “It just moves happily but masonry structures stand and then with a big lateral thrust they will simply crack and come down.”

Gunyah Country Lodge owners Simonetta Ferrari and William Cottrell also quickly set about repairing the devastation wrought on their weatherboard mansion when three massive chimneystacks fell. Only the night before William had fired up the ancient boiler he had just renovated. “It was brilliant and the house was toasty warm. I said to Simonetta that was the very last thing I was going to do on this place and the earthquake struck eight or 10 hours later.” They, their sons and six house guests all escaped but it was a close run when chimney bricks smashed through the roof at each end of the couple’s bed. “They took the bedroom out completely. As the internal ceiling came down it whacked me in the back and shoved me up against the wall. One second later and I would have taken the whole load of bricks.”

William describes Gunyah as “totally fixable” and wouldn’t dream of writing it off. “I restore antiques and I’m used to seeing things that are in absolute pieces and smashed beyond belief, and just thinking, ‘This is a problem, how can I put it all back?’.”

He worries that others will rush in and pull down buildings which could be restored. “They don’t have a vision for being able to do it. They just go, ‘There are too many cracks, it’s too hard to deal with, let’s just go back and start again’, and before you know it you have lost whole streets of buildings.” Brick chimneys were downed all over Canterbury and William is planning to replace his with lighter-weight replicas which will look authentic from below but be much safer in the event of further earthquakes.

My husband and I are looking at doing something similar for our 120-year-old Sumner villa which came through the initial quake almost unscathed. However, with the frequent aftershocks two of our three chimneys became increasingly unstable so we dismantled them to just above the roof line. We were acutely aware that a man had been seriously injured by a chimney collapse and it was simply too stressful knowing another decent shake could rain bricks down into our sons’ bedrooms.

Compared with other parts of Christchurch, the seaside village of Sumner escaped quite lightly but the  future of some of its character commercial buildings remains uncertain. The façade on the Ruptured Duck restaurant (an unfortunate name under the circumstances) came away from the main body of the building and the brick side walls were badly cracked. After the first quake Club Bazaar pizzeria owner Glenn Michaels saved the mortar and pestle that had stood for a century on the parapet of his former pharmacy building, but further shakes damaged the brickwork and when we spoke he was unsure how he would finance the necessary repairs. Like other older shopping centres, Sumner’s streetscape could be changed forever. As I drove around the city in the days that followed the quake, it was sad to witness the demolition of so many small suburban shops.

On the other hand, there’s clear evidence that seismic strengthening of heritage buildings is effective in preventing, or at the very least reducing, serious damage. Malcolm Duff’s fervent wish is that property owners learn from that. “There’s a message in all this: if you invest in earthquake strengthening, your building will come through much better.”