The Arts Centre of Christchurch

The Arts Centre is one of Christchurch's most significant historic and cultural attractions and a Christchurch must visit.

The Arts Centre buildings, built between 1877 and 1923, were occupied by the University of Canterbury until it was forced through lack of space to move to a far bigger campus at Ilam.

Once the site of Canterbury University, these distinctive Gothic Revival buildings house more than thirty art galleries, craft studios and shops. You can also find Rutherford's Den where the great physicist carried out some of his first experiments. Architects, Benjamin Mountfort and Samuel Hurst Seager were principally responsible for the coherent set of Gothic Revival buildings which give the Arts Centre its character. Mountfort designed the clock tower block and the Great Hall on the corner of Worcester Boulevard. Hurst Seager, the other very prominent architect of the time, linked the buildings by cloisters and quadrangles to resemble the layout of a traditional English university.

The complex was damaged in the earthquakes and and has been repaired in stages. The website has the up to date details of this major exercise. The restoration programme is claimed to be the largest heritage project being undertaken in the world today. By a stroke of good fortune the Centre's insurance was increased before the Christchurch earthquakes. The story of the rebuild is told here.

Between 1937 and 1945, as a lecturer at Canterbury University College, acclaimed philosopher Karl Popper wrote an important book, The Open Society And its Enemies.The book defends liberal democracy and attacks the intellectual origins of totalitarianism. He made the paradoxical statement, " If we are not prepared to defend a tolerant society against the onslaught of the intolerant , then the tolerant will be destroyed and tolerance with them**." A plaque at the Arts Centre commemorates him.

CHRISTCHUCH REBUILD TOUR

Image Credit: Antony Gormley Statue Celia Walker