Against a backdrop of so much lost heritage, St Andrew’s College Centennial Chapel celebrates the richness of memory that only time can shape, and resets it as part of a forty metre-long brick ‘Memorial Wall’. This is an exemplar of adaptive reuse, respectful of past Collegians, housing special spaces and treasured elements.
NZIA Canterbury Jury Citation 2018
“… we certainly seem to have achieved a fantastic outcome – a space that encourages contemplation, quiet reflection and a sense of community, and which allows us just ‘to be’. That’s very important in today’s world.”
Christine Leighton, Rector, St Andrew’s College
The new St Andrew’s Centennial Chapel also explodes the modernist myth that integrating new and old building elements will inevitably result in a compromised design. The finely detailed elegance of the new steel and glass structure gains richness and resonance through its juxtaposition with the traditional building materials, repurposed doors and windows and reused furnishings. Such a layering of meaning would have been virtually impossible to achieve in a purely modern design.
Ian Lochhead, Architecture New Zealand, March 2017
