Hospital chapel shift proposal raises division Clarion objections may fall among rubble

Press, 13 May 1989, Page 25

Hospital chapel shift proposal raises division Clarion objections may fall among rubble

By

CHRISTOPHER MOORE

LIKE JERICHO, the walls of Christchurch Hospital’s Nurses Memorial Chapel are unlikely to tumble without an unholy row. Peace, perfect peace is a quality somewhat lacking as the Canterbury Hospital Board and the Historic Places Trust engage in vigorous verbal skirmishing over the future of the 62-year-old brick building. While the board proposes to transfer the building’s fittings and main architectural features into a chapel area inside the new main hospital block. The trust has stated flatly that the building should be left intact on the present site or moved to another area.

The interior of the Nurses Memorial Chapel remains an outstanding example of the arts and crafts in full flower. Designed by J. G. Collins as a memorial to five Canterbury nurses who died in World War I and during the 1918 influenza epidemic, the chapel gradually became a memorial to the lives and work of several generations of women actively involved in medicine, the arts, an social work. The foundation stone was laid by the Duke of York; the chapel’s first service was held in 1927.

The bland Gothic-Tudor revival of the exterior hides a richly furnished interior. A parquet floor lies beneath a raftered ceiling. The chapel is filled with fine carving — altar table and rails, a reredos and smaller fittings. Its nine windows are arguably the building’s chief glory. If they disagree about how to save the building, both the board and the trust share a determination to preserve these examples of twentieth century stained glass. There are four windows by Veronica Whall (1887-1967). Three were designed and executed by the London firm of Lowndes and Drury. Two were originally in St Mary’s, Merivale.

Veronica Whall became a leading figure in the revival of the art of stained glass. At the age of 13, she completed her first design commission for Gloucester Cathedral. By the end of her life, she was regarded as an international artist. Her windows in the Memorial Chapel have been described as shining examples of her ability to exploit the colours and qualities of slab glass. The debate over the.- chapel’s future has involved a series of moves and counter : moves since the building’s Rolleston Avenue site was selected as the area for temporary operating theatres in 1975. The building was reprieved

from death in 1976. In 1984, the board again indicated that the building would be demolished and rebuilt in six years. It has now stated that the transplanting of the chapel’s interior will begin in September. The trust has countered by advising that it is seeking to raise the chapel’s designation from a “C” to a “B.” But it may be a race against time: the transfer project may begin before the new classification can be legally confirmed. The chapel's case also continues to highlight many of the limitations facing the trust.

The board is confident that the delicate architectural transplant operation will be successful, and Christchurch Hospital’s historic chapel will be preserved in new surroundings with the combined assistance of technology .and human skill.

Its rimu panelling, wood carvings, ceiling and fittings will be moved together, with the nine

stained glass windows widely acclaimed as one of Canterbury’s artistic treasures. After the removal of the chapel’s 10 by 18metre interior, the external walls will be demolished to make way for redevelopment. The board’s project director, Bruce Hancock, believes that the proposal reflects the board’s recognition of the chapel’s role in hospital life and the building’s cultural and historical significance. Standing firm in the face of mounting criticism, the board claims that the alternatives to grafting the interior into a new area in the new main block are simply not feasible? If it remains on its present site, the chapel would become largely separated from the hospital, when redevelopment was completed. In effect, the building would be marooned on a busy road with its floor level half a metre below the new road and ground level, and a difficult

access for visitors. “There would be major difficultures in ensuring wheelchair and bed access. The chapel’s exposed position would mean that the stained glass windows would have to be safeguarded, possibly by placing bars over them,” Bruce Hancock says. “The proposal to retain the building in its present position would, in effect, mean locking its door, barring its windows and keeping it as a chapel with no congregation, no chaplains and very little access. Perhaps the opponents of plans to move the interior would open it up once a year to the public ...” He sees a second proposal to move the entire building brick by brick to another location as equally unsuitable. “As a Civil engineer, I’m aware that they have shifted similar buildings overseas in one piece, but I would hate to think how much it would cost. It would

have to be moved on rails or a special carriage, and the area to be covered involves a two-metre fall over bumpy ground. Such a move could cost more than $1 million to complete and would still not. solve the question of isolating the chapel from the hospital community and security," he says. “The third option — shifting the interior into a rebuilt interior — faces the problem of a lack of a suitable site.” The fourth — and final — option involves the careful documentation of details of the building before removing the interior for reconstruction in the new block. It is a solution which, according to the board, overcomes the major constructional and logistical hurdles surrounding the building. “A lot of store has been placed on the fact that the chapel is a memorial to women,” Bruce Hancock says. “All the plaques and memorial windows will be moved. A small cut may have to be made to the height of the ceiling while technical decisions will have to be made on how much of the existing parquet flooring can be moved. “Rimu has the reputation of being hard to shift, but excellent technology is available today, and there are some equally excellent craftspeople in Christchurch to advise us.

“The majority of the hospital staff want to see the chapel continue as part of the hospital’s daily life. There is no way that it could fulfil this role if it is left on its present site.” While weddings and christenings are not usually held in the chapel, it retains its role as an area of meditation and prayer for patients, staff and relatives. Despite its role as a memorial, it is also a working part of the hospital’s daily life.

“The medical staff like to see sick patients being moved, and attending Sunday service in the chapel can be an experience for the individual who has been in hospital for weeks. By placing the existing interior in the main block, patients can be easily transported to and from services,” Bruce Hancock says. The Friends of the Chapel reply by questioning whether the chapel’s existing interior can ever be “faithfully” relocated in the new block. The existing beamed roof could not be designed to fit into the low ceiling area and the lack of exterior lighting would reduce the artistic and aesthetic impact of the stained glass, according to the group’s spokesperson, Fiona Ciaran, a stained glass historian and restorer.

Artificial illumination of the windows would be a disaster, she adds. “Fluorescent lighting is hopeless behind stained glass, especially during the day.”

The existence of the windows also raised important issues about criteria for Historic Places Trust classification. Past trust reports have rarely mentioned windows or their makers. The only trust classification criteria applicable to stained glass was whether the building embodied some particular trade or craft skill.

Fiona Ciaran believes that an-

other sub-category should be introduced to cover buildings which contain or incorporate particularly significant works of art.

A trust advisory officer, John Cattell, says that the artistic/ historic merit of stained glass windows had been taken into account by the trust in a few recent cases.

“Hopefully this will become more common practice,” Ms Ciaran says. “We believe that the chapel should be retained as it is, where it is. We do not support dismembering the building. We

consider plans for its relocation to be a euphemism that has given the public the mistaken impression that the building is to be retained,” Fiona Ciaran says. “Assuming that stained glass windows can be moved easily from a building is fallacious. Removal and reinstallation is stressful, and New Zealand has a bad record for the treatment of stained glass windows. It is an oversight to assume that stained glass windows are a minor architectural detail. They have a powerful influence on an architectural environment. “The Veronica Whall windows in the Memorial Chapel are a small part of New Zealand’s collection of excellent pieces. Many other arts and crafts windows in Canterbury are representative of the cream of New Zealand’s twentieth century arts works.

“We are witnessing the destruction of the finest chapel in Christchurch,” says an architect, Don Donnithorne. “There is no criticism of the skill which could be applied to the reinstallation of the various components. I’m criticising the need to do it at all. The hospital could have been planned around the chapel rather than it just being an item of no concern.”

Bruce Hancock’s office looks down on one of Don Donnithorne’s conservation projects — the renovation of Pegasus House. Mr Hancock points to the board’s own plans to transplant the chapel interior as evidence of its determination to preserve and safeguard a unique building in the hospital’s heart.

Wea had been released earlier.

Wea bitterly resisted the linking of the prisoners to the accord, but he was ignored by Tjibaou when he wanted to take part in the peace negotiations. The FLNKS failed to act over the Ouvea people’s major damands, such as an international inquiry into allegations of atrocities by the French military. Wea was deeply bitter about the treatment given to his father and uncle by French authorities. His elderly father, Gogny Wea, died shortly after last year’s hostage crisis. He had been beaten and left tied up out in the sun by the French military. He was regarded as the “twentieth victim” of the Ouvea massacre.

Djoubelly Wea’s uncle, Maki Touet, was reportedly put in a cage and displayed as a cannibal in a Paris colonial exposition in the 19305.

After first meeting Wea in 1981, after the assassination of French-born “white Kanak” Pierre Declercq, I recently met him again in Manila. I shared a hotel room with him during the Asia-Pacific Peace and Development Conference.

He passionately discussed New Caledonia several times, and he stressed his bitter opposition to the Matignon accord, but he never gave any hint of the explosive anger that would lead to the assassinations. ' r

During Wea’s last discussion with me, he said that last November’s referendum on the Matignon accord — overwhelmingly endorsed over all in the French republic — showed that most settlers in Noumea rejected the agreement and Kanak independence. “For us this raises the question of whether the accord has already been broken. These caldoches (settlers) are already coming up strongly — racism and fascism are growing and will continue to grow.”