Audioguides Christchurch

Christchurch was established in 1856 on the Canterbury Plains at the eastern edge of New Zealand's South Island, and its founders modelled it on an English cathedral city with deliberate intention. Gothic Revival buildings designed by Benjamin Mountfort went up through the late 19th century: Christ Church Cathedral, Canterbury Museum, the old University of Canterbury buildings on Rolleston Avenue, all in Oamaru stone that aged to a warm grey. The Avon River, replanted with willows by early settlers, wound through the centre and gave the city the particular quality of a place trying to remember somewhere it had never been.

On February 22, 2011, at 12:51 in the afternoon, a magnitude 6.

3 earthquake struck 10 kilometres southeast of the city. The shaking lasted ten seconds and killed 185 people, including 115 in the CTV building, which collapsed while people were inside taking English language lessons. Ground acceleration recorded in the city centre was among the strongest ever measured in an urban area anywhere in the world. The cathedral spire came down. Thousands of buildings were demolished. The city went through years of red zones, earthquake exclusions, and the strange experience of watching its own centre become a car park.