Transitional Cathedral

The February 2011 earthquake wrecked ChristChurch Cathedral in the square, and the diocese needed somewhere to worship. The Japanese architect Shigeru Ban, who had built emergency structures from paper tubes after disasters elsewhere, designed a replacement: an A-frame of ninety-eight cardboard tubes, each about six hundred millimetres across, coated and set on shipping containers, with a triangular stained-glass window at the front derived from the old cathedral's rose window. It seats about seven hundred, cost a fraction of a conventional building, went up in 2013 and was intended to serve for around fifty years. It is a working cathedral, not a monument, and services run. The building has become a fixture of how Christchurch talks about the earthquake - a practical, temporary thing that people became fond of. The old cathedral in the square is under a long, contested reinstatement and remains fenced.

What you actually see

• The cardboard tubes - ninety-eight of them forming the A-frame.
• The triangular window - derived from the old cathedral's rose window.
• The container base - shipping containers as the structural walls.
• The working use - services and events, not a museum piece.

When to go

Any time outside services; check the schedule if you want to see it empty. Free, with donations invited.

Honest expectations

It is a functioning church - services take priority over sightseeing. It is smaller inside than photographs suggest. The old cathedral in the square nearby is still fenced and under repair.

Nearby

Cathedral Square and the old cathedral are a few minutes away; New Regent Street is close.