Between Two Eras

“Something so beautiful to have risen from something so tragic,” the Kiwi attendant said to no one in particular.

The aftermath of the 6.3 earthquake was indeed tragic. I had not prepared for the shock.

Leaflets lay abandoned on tables and chairs. Their covers exhibited brightly coloured images of the new transitional cathedral that stood before me. Revolutionary, they called it. Revolution felt like cardboard when I reached out to touch the exterior.

Staring up at the only solid structure for miles around, I realised in sorrowful reflection that the historic hub of New Zealand’s third largest city had moved to a new era. An era in which a city levelled by natural disaster regrouped and rebuilt through the sheer existence of cardboard infrastructure.

The interior of a cardboard cathedral would likely be of interest to those philosophically inclined to the modern. I did not find out. My historical count had risen above all else during such reflection.

A "City Centre" sign overhead pointed up a previously busy street now occupied by vacant blocks and crumbled concrete. Cracks ran like scars up the asphalt road. I parted ways with the myriad of visitors and followed them.

It was not long before I spotted the old cathedral in the distance. Knobbly stone walls rose proudly from a shaken ground. The city’s most celebrated edifice, with over 100 years of history lining its foundations, was still alive.

I stood alone on the viewing platform, accompanied only by the remnants of another time period.

Much of the old cathedral remained, yet its base was shrouded in scaffolding like a heavily bandaged patient. A gaping hole in the front revealed its most prominent wound. Black, empty space behind resembled a mouth open in protest at its new wheelchair.

Once hosting the city’s most important events, the old cathedral was now host to the city’s flora and fauna. Greenery spilt from every crack and crease and pigeons nested along the jagged tooth line of the open mouth.

The grandiosity remained however.

These two cathedrals each yearned to be crowned the epicentre of a city not yet built. Their futures’ dependent on a battle of stone tradition versus cardboard modernity.

People used to ask what Christchurch would be without the “church.” Now it has two; its existence caught between two eras.

Come and discover which Christchurch era resounds with you more.