For someone who thinks the church is irrelevant you clearly do have a lot to say about us ! We thrive on persecution so keep those cards and letters coming ! But to turn to the more substantive part of your comments, first we had our delapidated hall – that no-one in the supposedly well informed Napier architectural or historical community ever took any notice of until now – compared to other properties of significant heritage value both in Napier and around the country. Now we have the hall compared to the Buddhas in Bamiyan and the Angkor Wat ! I hope you are not suggesting that the Cathedral community should pay for these as well ! And that’s the point. The buildings actually belong to the church and we have to pay for them. And no number of architects or heritage know-it-alls in Wellington are going to have to bear that responsibility. (The Historic Places Trust urged us to sell the hall so we talked to the only possible buyers – developers, who told us that it would not be commercially viable for them). We already pay for the Ormond Chapel and for the Cathedral itself and are happy to do so. The Napier community enjoys these facilities. The hall on the other hand is dangerous and its demolition will open up new possibilities not for car parks but for a new community centre more in keeping with the urban fabric. I can assure you there is plenty of support for this move in Napier. And you know what the Cathedral was full on Sunday with three baptisms ! That’s the future of the Cathedral and its faith community !

But I do however despair that some of the more important examples of built fabric are in the hands of an out-dated and dying institution. It is not a problem just restricted to St Johns or St Marys either – i’m talking about the world over, not just Wellington or Napier. All over the globe, Christian congregations in developed nations are dying away, with more and more grey heads and bald heads replacing those who would formerly bring children to be indoctrinated. And all over the world, Church coffers are running bare, with not enough to finance upkeep on the Architectural heritage that we all enjoy as a happy side effect of other’s waning religions.

The great lofty cathedrals of Europe, the inspiring domes of mosques across the Islamic realm, fantastic synagogue architecture in Jerusalem and New York, great statues of Buddha in Asia and Afghanistan. All of them cost money for upkeep, and are run on a shoe string in many cases, especially in the West where we have forsaken our founding religion. But what is important to the rest of the secular population is that the architecture remains, long after the religion has faded away. Adaptive reuse of church buildings is a growing and surprisingly creative business – and far better for the continuation of an architectural history than the demolition of an outmoded structure. The actions of the Parish and the Dean in destroying the former church hall are not that dissimilar to the ignorant members of the Taliban who blew up the Buddhas in Afghanistan – they didn’t want the old structure, and so removed it – in much the same way that the removal of the hall will forevermore negate the chance that someone else may ever want it again.

As Margaret Alington wrote in the original post:
“The argument for replacing the pews maintains that to halt declining numbers and ensure a future for St Mary’s, a more flexible seating arrangement is required in order to accommodate the needs of the young people. But for this or any congregation, it might be that discussion of global issues of concern to people of all ages could provide a focus beside which questions of seating would pale into insignificance and seem like wasteful self-indulgence”

St Mary has voted to replace their pews, and with that, the original architectural coherence is gone for good. The older congregation will soon follow. A new, happy, clappy, replacement congregation, will probably not.

Stephen, we down here in the Eye of the Fish know a lot more about the situation in Napier than you think we do. Our fishing net is cast wide, and people report in to us from around the country. Architects and historians in Napier are appalled at the actions of the cathedral committee. World Heritage Status is a very serious and carefully debated over process, and the cities around the world that have managed to secure such a status have only managed to do so after long and careful deliberation. Any reduction in the heritage building stock is to be avoided in a heritage city – do you think the temples at Ankor Wat should be demolished as they do not have a current use? No: heritage is something not just for now, but for the future.

The infantile action of the Cathedral committee in voting to demolish one of the few pre-Earthquake remains (however compromised it may have been) is a seriously retrograde action, not at all befitting the role of the church in trying to support the local people and the Art Deco status of the city. Napier has a small, but intensely vital collective of heritage buildings from the Deco period, and a tiny collection of pre-Deco city buildings. The Church Hall was, repeat WAS, one of those: and deserved to stay intact, or adapted to a new use.

You may have noticed that at present the world is undergoing a massive credit crunch, and that the exploits of developers all over the world are being curtailed, but especially in small countries in New Zealand. It is no wonder that the 2 developers you say the Parish approached were not interested – and its not their job to be visionaries. If you want to see possibilities and vision, talk to an architect. The decision of the committee to demolish is an ill-informed decision, and will go no way towards the creation of the new church hall you say is necessary. Who, pray tell, is this church hall for? The massive amounts of teenagers that have already deserted the church?

There is no money in the Anglican church for a new youth club at an inner city cathedral. There is no need for additional carparks on a Sunday morning in a city awash with tarmac. There was no need for the petty action in demolishing a disused building, and further cutting off the church from the urban fabric that it so needs to sit among. A church building doesn’t so much belong to the current Dean, as to the people of the city, and as such, the Dean is only a temporary guardian, and should not abuse that trust. The Parish already has a massive empty space – the Cathedral is only full on 2 occasions a year now, so I am told: at Christmas, and on Art Deco Weekend. The rest of the time, it is an empty, soulless void.

If you think Napier’s World Heritage bid depends on the Cathedral hall you are seriously deluded ! I am starting to wonder if your venom about the Cathedral has really more to do about your own feelings about the church. But be assured you’re not the first person who has persecuted us and you certainly won’t be the last. If you went back to church you might find we are less concerned about hellfire and eternal damnation and more about helping people.

John

I think Guy Natusch probably does know a lot about architecture but he’s not the one who has to pay for the maintenance of the historic Ormond Chapel on Napier Hill and the Cathedral downtown. These responsibilities are met by the Cathedral community which has voted unanimously to proceed with the demolition of the hall. Mr Natusch and members of the local HPT Committee never showed any interest in the Cathedral hall until the church decided it could not leave an earthqauake risk to continue to stand in the city centre. The church owns property all over the country – rather than continuing to attack and slander us I would have thought those interested in the preservation of heritage would have seen value in dialogue with the church about what the priorities and criteria for preservation and demolition should be.

Architect decries hall loss

08.10.2008
KIM DE LEIJER
Former architect Guy Natusch is “appalled” at the demolition of St John’s Cathedral hall in Napier.

Destruction on the interior of the pre-earthquake hall started on Monday after the Napier City Council granted a demolition permit.

The New Zealand Historic Places Trust also granted an archeological permit allowing the work to proceed.

Mr Natusch, 87, said the loss of the hall was significant in a wider context for the city of Napier.

“We must protect as much as we possibly can in the interest of heritage … each time we lose a little bit of heritage, it diminishes the significance of Napier’s heritage.”
The architectural heritage consultant tried to prevent the ruins of St Paul’s Church being demolished in 1951. The brick church had survived the 1931 earthquake with only the roof and spire destroyed. However, the ruins were demolished to make way for a church hall.

Now Mr Natusch believes the same mistake is being made with Napier’s only Gothic style pre-earthquake building.

“Expediency is destroying heritage,” he said “It doesn’t matter what they say about it – it’s too good to bowl over … I’m appalled at the demolition.”

Earlier this month, councillors unanimously voted that the hall should not be included as a Category I building protected under the district plan. The NZ Historic Places Trust had given the hall the listing after doing a report on it and finding it to be of historical significance.

Another report by architects Salmond and Reed listed the hall as being of “moderate historical significance” – an assessment the city council agreed with in their analysis of the building.

Napier mayor Barbara Arnott said the hall had only come up as a significant historical building since the cathedral made the move to demolish it.

Cathedral dean Helen Jacobi is pleased the demolition is now under way on the hall which had been vacant since September last year. She said the hall was no longer of use to the parish and two developers had examined the building but both declined to make offers saying it was not commercially viable. The church planned to build a Waiapu Centre but car parks would be installed as an income-earner in the interim.

“Demolition of Bay hall may block Unesco bid
BERNARD CARPINTER – The Dominion Post | Monday, 06 October 2008
Napier’s chances of becoming a world heritage site could be set back by the demolition of St John’s cathedral hall, the Historic Places Trust says.”

http://www.stuff.co.nz/dominionpost/4716955a6045.html

“The city is hoping it can generate a tourism boom by having Unesco recognise the art deco quarter as a world heritage site. The hall is not an art deco building but the Historic Places Trust had given it a category 1 classification and central region manager Ann Neill said there had been a lot of support for its preservation.

“While the building’s heritage value is our primary interest, the wider issue about the hall’s demolition is that it could have implications for Napier City Council’s move to seek recognition from Unesco as a world heritage site,” she said. “Napier is rightly proud of the protection offered to some of its historic places, thanks to the council’s district plan. “However, the loss of heritage buildings in the area that survived the 1931 earthquake could affect the city’s chances of earning this internationally coveted recognition.”

Last week, the council turned down the trust’s request to list the hall as a heritage building, and demolition of the disused building in Hastings St starts today. Mayor Barbara Arnott said the loss of the hall should not impact on the move toward world heritage status, unless people in New Zealand agitated about it. “We live in a city that is dynamic and we have to move ahead,” she said.
Napier is on New Zealand’s short list of places that could be recommended to Unesco for heritage recognition.

Cathedral dean Helen Jacobi said the demolition of the disused hall in Hastings St had been held up for a year by the Historic Places Trust. “We are relieved to be finally moving ahead with this project a year on,” Mrs Jacobi said. “We have wasted hundreds of staff and volunteer hours, and spent a lot of money on professional fees. The cathedral’s ministry has been put in jeopardy.”

After the demolition, the church plans to expand its leased car parking space in Cathedral Lane and build a new, smaller hall. The trust wanted to preserve the hall because it was the only Gothic-style building in the central city that survived the 1931 earthquake – though it was badly damaged and rebuilt – but Mrs Jacobi said it was an earthquake risk. “Two developers had taken a serious look at the building and had declined to make an offer, saying it was not commercially viable,” she said.”

__________________________

Now I’m not an expert in theological matters Mrs Jacobi, but if your short-sighted requirements for a larger carpark are what is driving this for the needs of your tiny shrinking anglican population, then its not the old hall that is putting your “ministry in jeopardy”. Hellfires and eternal damnation await thee if you screw up the chances of Napier losing its Unesco World Heritage bid.

As one commenter to the Dom Post website says:
“It is unfortunate to hear that Napier will yet again be needlessly losing another of its heritage buildings, under the pretense of ‘moving ahead’.
What undignified defeat to the only Gothic Style survivor of the 1931 earthquake, to now succumb to the hands of the Cultural Vandals. How can it be justified that the loss of a heritage building for the gain of more carpark space is ‘progress’?
Being spellbound by the glamour of the Art Deco buildings should not be any reason for considering non-Art Deco heritage buildings to be any less worthy of preservation. Such irresponsibility has already seen the needless and wanton demolition of heritage buildings in Napier, including the underhanded demolition of the Napier Wool Exchange Building.
When will the Napier City Council step up to the mark, and accept its Statutory Obligation under Section 7 of the Resource Management Act to “have particular regard to recognition and protection of the heritage values of sites, buildings, places or areas”. If the Historic Places Trust is recommending to the Council that a heritage building is worthy of preservation, shouldn’t the Council be listening to such advice?”

I appreciate your comments because you have quite rightly focused the debate away from whether heritage should be protected (of course it should) but how is it to be protected. The heritage of the diocese of Waiapu comes not from a delapidated old building but from the Cathedral itself and the Ormond chapel which we happily maintain. How can the church be expected to pay for all this – as you yourself say “they cannot put their (mainly volunteer) resources onto the case of every deserving building in Napier” !! The new hall which will build with revenue from additional parking made possible by the demolition of the old hall will enable us to create a purpose-designed, safe building more in keeping with the Cathedral and at a more convenient place within the site facilitating community gathering. In this case we will indeed replace the hall with something much better.

There is a group called the Architectural Centre down in Wellington who came up with a manifesto for Architecture a few years ago, which seemed to have some good, basic, shall we say ‘commandments’ about architecture : http://architecture.dot5hosting.com/about/manifesto.gif

In it you will note the first point: Architecture must be better than what it replaces.

You can’t seriously suggest that the hall is in the same class as the Public Trust and the County Hotel ! It was always a utility building standing next to the original Cathedral. We have had advice from architects about restoration but the the church simply does not have the funding available to commercial owners. Even they say it is not viable. We have spent three years researching the options with little interest shown earlier by the Historic Places Trust. This has not been a decision made lightly.

1 Have you visited the hall on any of your “anonymous travels” – only three walls of the original building remain !
2 There is no buyer for the hall – a promiment developer who already owns much of the inner city has said it is not economic to upgrade and renovate. No-one else has approached us to date.
3 The Cathedral already happily maintains another category 1 building – the Ormond Chapel – on Napier Hill and the Cathedral itself is a modernist building of significance.
4 We don’t just want to “put up a parking lot”. As the Historic Places Trust knows (and has consistently misrepresented) the plan calls for using finance from the parking places to build a new hall elsewhere on the site. We need the hall for community gathering.
5 I am glad that you refer to me as “cultured and intelligent” – I feel better about you now.