Memorialising memory

Abstract

The 2010 and 2011 earthquakes in Christchurch caused mass damage to architectural form in the city. The city’s rebuilding now faces an on-going struggle to address relationships between what was physically lost, what physically remains, and how to rebuild the city. These pragmatic struggles are sited within a social context of emotional and psychological memory that is influenced by architectural decisions made in the rebuild and is influential to the success of the rebuild. This thesis explores the research question: can architecture respond to both mental and physical relationships to memory in Christchurch as a means of supporting the rehabilitation of architectural memory within the city’s CBD area? This research question originated from a concern for a loss of cultural heritage in Christchurch heightened by the sudden demolition of built form in the CBD. In response it explores a process based research by design methodology focused on translating theoretical memory research and Christchurch specific memory references into an architectural design investigation which politically comments on relationships between old and the new, past, present and future architecture of the city. The architectural design produced addresses the past by creating a formal expression of missing architectural heritage in the city. It activates the present by encouraging a performative engagement between people and architecture. It is catalytic of the future by using architectural form to inspire different perceptions of architecture. This thesis is split into five sections. The first section establishes the theoretical framework and design approach using precedents; it will talk about how this thesis will approach memory by design. The second section explores a theoretical understanding of how memory works in an urban and architectural environment and does so by establishing a theoretical framework derived from the writings on memory by Maurice Halbwachs, Walter Benjamin, and Christine Boyer. The third section looks at how architecture could and has responded to urban memory through a series of case study investigations. The fourth section uses the precedents of the first section to explore processes of deconstruction and reconstruction of architectural memory in Christchurch. The fifth and last section finishes with a final architectural design process that looks to both reference memory and retain acts of memory in a new building in Christchurch. Overall, this thesis produces a porous, framing, and orientating architecture which houses the programmes: museum, archive and library. The thesis creates an architecture which simultaneously creates an inward and outward looking environment which is catalytic to the exploration of what Christchurch City was, is, and could be.