THE NEW OFFICES OF THE INLAND REVENUE

 
Is anyone, other than Gerry Brownlee, excited about the proposed new Christchurch Music Centre?

HAVING  RIPPED  down most of Christchurch's building heritage,  the Government  has unveiled a disturbing vision of the future - the proposed Christchurch Music Centre, cost $12.5 million. You won't be able to avoid it because it  will be a central feature of the arts precinct. Leaping straight out of the 1980s, this building is competent,  functional and dull, dull, dull.

We give it a C+ for effort, but only because we're being charitable.

Compare the Christchurch Music Centre with Seattle's breathtaking  Participatory Museum of Music, designed by Frank Gehey and opened in 2000. One critic described it as : 'a unique performance and a new landmark on the edge of the Seattle Centre."

Meanwhile in Calgary, Canada construction  work is well under way on the startling new National Music Centre. It will be a multi-purpose venue, housing music archives, a music centre with performance space, recording studios, classrooms, radio broadcasting facilities, artists' programs and a collection of artifacts and memorabilia from the Canadian Music Hall of Fame and the Canadian Country Music Hall of Fame.