For the fourth year in a row, the annual Open Christchurch Architectural Festival included several University of Canterbury buildings, including our very own Puaka-James Hight! As always, this event was a great opportunity to show off our collection of architectural drawings held in the archives (as well as some other cool things like 3D printed models of PJH, and our enduring concrete award!).
We ran the event similarly to previous years, with the self-guided tours being particularly popular! We saw a total of 142 people over the course of the day, which was a large increase compared to last year, where we saw 87 people come through. We had a mixture of visitors, including current students who were keen to jump into a tour group to see their own building in more detail. We also had a visit from one of the carpenters who had worked on the building when it was under construction!
This year was particularly special because it is our building’s 50th anniversary of opening! To celebrate this, we had a memory wall where people could write fond memories of their time in the building on a postcard and add it to the wall. This year was also unique as we were promoting Erin’s ‘Drawing Connections’ exhibition currently being shown at Tūranga, exploring the architectural legacy of Cecil Wood.
Overall, it was a great day, and we look forward to hopefully doing it all again next year!
The display will be between the elevators in PJH for a little while longer, so do pop over and have a look before it ends!
Thanks to everyone who has helped with this event!
Aroha nui,
Isabella, Erin, Roman, Zina, Hui, Ryan, Sarah, and Laurie.
