Christchurch Railway Station. Oct.2008. AjrYesterday, quite by accident, I found myself outside
Christchurch’s new Railway Station. It’s just as well it was an accident for I’m sure if I’d gone looking for it intentionally, I’d never have found it – and basically I thought I knew where it was; I’d been there before. But in the years since Christchurch architect,
Thom Craig designed it (in the late 1990s when he was still with
Warren & Mahoney), this delightfully fresh piece of architecture has all but been ‘subsumed’ by the dreadful Tower Junction shopping complex (an architectural nightmare) and, across the rails, the vast, uninspired acres of Turner’s Car Auctions. Furthermore,
the place was totally deserted – not one passenger; not one single attendant; no trains. It was as if all the life had been sucked out of the place. It’s a real pity that it now wallows in this modern suburban wilderness – especially when compared to the striking prominence of the former railway station on Moorehouse Avenue (now home to
Science Alive).
www.thomcraig.com
ACC Building, Christchurch. Oct. 2008. Ajr
This is the very blue ACC Building in Christchurch, designed by Christchurch architect, Thom Craig. When it first reared its flashy façade I shied away from it. I thought it looked….well….flashy, or rather, FLASHY. But it’s grown on me. Maybe I’m once again won over by the superficial – the swaying reflections of the giant Avon-side poplars that flicker across its front. I sat there a few days ago and took immense pleasure from that. Arrh yes, the pleasures of time-wasting! We should all be made to do it more often.
