Manchester Courts

The Manchester Courts building was commissioned under the management of the New Zealand Express Company , a transportation company headquartered in Dunedin and offices throughout New Zealand. This company was engaged in customs matters, freight forwarding, regular and express delivery. By the beginning of the 20th century, the company became the main employer of New Zealand ^[1] .

The New Zealand Express Company hired architects from to design a new building in Christchurch , which was supposed to house the company's headquarters. ^[2] Sydney and Alfred Luttrell have been living in New Zealand since 1902 and have established themselves well in presenting the style of the Chicago School of Architecture in New Zealand combined with elements of ^[1] The Lutrell brothers also worked on other buildings for the New Zealand Express Company , including the New Zealand Express House (1908). Today, this building has much in common with Manchester Courts, known as the . It is located on in Dunedin and is considered the first urban skyscraper ^{[3] [4]} .

Since 1991, the building has been managed by the New Zealand Historic Site Protection Fund and has been classified into Category I historic buildings. In the period from 1986 to 1987, the building was renovated, and its parapet was lined with steel ^[1] .

The Manchester Courts building, the structure of which was reinforced with steel, was considered the first building in Christchurch erected using this technology ^[1] . The basement and two lower floors of the building were made of reinforced concrete. On the upper five floors, external load-bearing brick columns were constructed, made without reinforcement. Inside the building had a steel frame ^[5] .

Manchester Courts was seriously damaged during the September 4, 2010 earthquake . The brick columns of the building cracked heavily at the level of the third and fourth floors, the integrity of the brickwork was broken. According to the engineers of the New Zealand Earthquake Engineering Society, this happened as a result of the transfer of load from reinforced concrete to columns without reinforcement and the loss of lateral support at two floors on the south side of the building. Diagonal cracks on the top floor of the building indicated damage resulting from torsion forces ^[5] .

The Manchester Courts building was considered unsafe and became one of two historic buildings in the Christchurch city center , proposed by the City Council for immediate demolition on September 7, three days after the earthquake ^[6] . However, this decision was canceled several hours later, when the owner of the building proposed to carry out dismantling of the building within a few weeks ^[7] . Around the building was formed a security zone 60 meters wide ^[8] .

The fate of the Manchester Courts building has attracted the attention of the media. TV One TV channel made the story about the decision to demolish the building a key one in the evening news release ^[9] .

Enthusiasts of preserving the historical heritage and other members of the public opposed the demolition of the building, citing the fact that brick columns can be reinforced with steel, and the Council should receive its own engineering report and not rely only on the report provided by the building's owner company. This report provided evidence of subsequent damage caused by repeated tremors and urgently needed to proceed to the urgent demolition of the building because there were signs of the final destruction of the building soon ^{[1] [10]} .

However, on October 6, 2010, members voted with ten votes in favor and two against that the building poses a security risk and should therefore be demolished. At the same time, the Chief Executive Officer of the Council was empowered to issue a demolition order, which avoided the usual approval procedure, which can take up to 18 months ^[8] . The issuance of such a demolition warrant is governed by Section 129 of the Building Act 2004 ( English Building Act 2004 ), which states that a warrant may be issued in the event of “an immediate threat to human security”. Consequently, a reconciliation procedure for the demolition of Manchester Courts was not required ^[11] .

The dismantling of the building began on October 19, 2010 ^[12] and was almost completed in January 2011 ^[13] . The building, significantly weakened after dismantling the key load-bearing elements, survived after several large repeated seismic shocks, and did not collapse.

During the dismantling of the building, the demolition opponents stated that they had photographs at their disposal, which showed that the building did contain a significant amount of steel reinforcement. However, the owner of the building said that in fact the reinforcement was found to be less than expected, and the mayor of Christchurch remained in his decision to dismantle the building ^[14] .

• Hardwicke Knight, Niel Wales. Buildings of Dunedin: An Illustrated Architectural Guide to New Zealand's Victorian City . - John McIndoe, 1988. - P. 154-155. - 269 p. - ISBN 0868681067 , 9780868681061.
• McLean, Gavin. 100 historic places in New Zealand . - Hodder Moa Beckett, 2002 .-- P. 148. - ISBN 1869589203 , 9781869589202.

• Proposed demolition of 160 Manchester street . Christchurch City Council. Date of treatment October 18, 2014. Archived September 27, 2013.