This year’s 100th anniversary of the Santa Barbara earthquake has brought to my mind the two devastating quakes that struck Christchurch, New Zealand, one in 2010, the other in 2011.

For more than a decade, my husband, Phil, and I have been spending two to three months a year in Christchurch, a city of about 410,000 in the Canterbury region of New Zealand’s South Island.

“So you get summer all year around,” our friends like to tease, since New Zealand’s seasons are upside down from those in the Northern Hemisphere.

Technically, I suppose that is true, but Christchurch — which shares a lot of geographical and geological (think of those earthquakes) similarities with Santa Barbara — also has a comparable climate.

I often say, summer down under is a lot like winter in Santa Barbara.

But, back to the earthquakes. (Phil and I were lucky enough to be in Christchurch between the two big quakes, not during them.)

Although 85 years and a world apart (6,858 miles to be exact), the Santa Barbara and Christchurch disasters share a host of similarities, to say nothing of the influences Santa Barbara’s experience have had on New Zealand.

Like the Santa Barbara earthquake centennial, Christchurch’s 2010 temblor is coming up on its own milestone anniversary. Sept. 4 will mark 15 years since the first of two back-to-back shakers crippled the city.

The good news in 2010, if there was any, was that while buildings, homes and other properties suffered major damage, the 7.1 Darfield quake struck at 4:35 a.m., when most locals were tucked safely in their beds for the night. The epicenter was some 40 kilometers from the center of Christchurch.

Amazingly, no lives were lost.

Five months later, on Feb. 22, 2011, Christchurch and its residents were not so fortunate.

The shallow 6.3-magnitude quake (centered in nearby Lyttelton Harbor, and likely an aftershock from the September event) clobbered the city at 12:51 p.m., when many Cantabrians were out and about shopping, enjoying the summer weather or grabbing a bite of lunch in the CBD (Central Business District).

The timing could not have been worse. In the wake of the February disaster, 185 people perished.

There were 3,129 people reported injured and 100,000 properties sustained damage, with a total dollar amount at the time estimated at $30 billion, according to Christchurch Earthquake Study Case.

The recovery cost was later put at $40 billion (NZ), according to the Insurance Council of New Zealand. That’s $24,074,841,446 in today’s U.S. dollars.

A Damaged Church

Reminiscent of the Santa Barbara quake that ravaged the Santa Barbara Mission, among the crumbled buildings in Christchurch was the iconic Christ Church Cathedral.

Built between 1864 and 1904 by Sir George Gilbert Scott, a leading British Gothic Revival architect, Christ Church Cathedral had been at the top of the city’s must-see attractions, so its demise from the earthquake/s was a hit to the city both culturally and economically.

Today, 14 years and myriad controversies later between church and state over what to do with “The Cathedral,” it has yet to be fully restored. The walls have been shored up to keep it from tumbling down any farther, but much of the money for a total redo (whatever that will look like) remains in the wind.

As of August 2024, the rebuild was put on mothballs because of an $85 million shortfall from the projected $219 million restoration price point, Radio New Zealand reported.

In addition to having their respective main churches pummeled by nature’s wrecking ball, there are correlations as well between Christchurch’s and Santa Barbara’s overall rebuild efforts, and how those forever changed the local architectural landscapes.

What Rebuilding Looks Like

As Noozhawk’s Daniel Green wrote in his informative article “How Buildings Became Safer After 1925 Santa Barbara Earthquake”: “After the 1925 earthquake devastated Santa Barbara and a portion of State Street, the survivors were left with the decision of how to rebuild and how to do it more safely.

“One of the most well-known effects of the disaster was the decision to rebuild much of downtown with the city’s signature design style — Spanish Colonial Revival.

“The city began requiring — and still requires — builders in certain parts of the city to adopt the Spanish style. The move helped create Santa Barbara’s image as the tourist destination it is today.”

In Christchurch, vulnerable unreinforced masonry buildings, and even some of the stronger reinforced masonry, were either destroyed or damaged in the 2010 and/or 2011 temblors, and many have been swapped out for structures of glass and steel — lots of glass and steel.

The result has been a distinctive transformation of the city’s image to a much more contemporary look.

“Steel structures generally performed very well during the Christchurch earthquake series of 2010 and 2011,” was the conclusion of a lengthy report by the Journal of the Structural Engineering Society New Zealand Inc.

It was actually the series of movements that caused so much chaos, according to the SESNZ Journal. “This earthquake series comprised of 6 damaging events. The cumulative duration of strong ground shaking was some 60 seconds,” the journal reported.

Also falling victim to the double-whammy shakers were 140 heritage buildings of Gothic Revival and Victorian Gothic Revival style, among them a large stone apartment complex, circa 1876; the 1880s Excelsior Hotel; and the Catholic Cathedral.

The move to demolish at least some of those historic structures was met with considerable, albeit much of it futile, public dissent.

One heritage building, the city’s Arts Centre, which is among my favorite places in Christchurch, is, thankfully, being restored. The ongoing reconstruction is definitely a slog (work is done as the funds trickle in), but much of the ornate structure that is home to artists studios, shops, a small movie theater, and of course a couple of cafes is back open for business.

Even though some of Christchurch’s old European charm has given way to stark (some say cold) geometric design, safety-over-style has been the reasoning — and it is hard to argue with that.

On the bright side, some of the new structures have adopted their own unique and pleasing look, like the rebuilt Convention Center, whose exterior walls incorporate a shiny feathery design, likely influenced by the long, flowing capes of indigenous Maori chiefs.

The exterior of the striking Deloitte office building, situated along Christchurch’s Avon River, is covered in small blue-green glass panels, creating the look of serene swells on the sea.

Turanga, the city’s phenomenal new Central Library, designed by the firm Schmidt Hammer Lassen Architects, has won numerous awards. The library’s five-level all-wood interior stairway “rise(s) through a light-filled atrium in a manner suggestive of the passage of the mythical hero Tāwhaki to the heavens,” according to “The Legend of Tawhaki.”

I don’t know about the mythology, but climbing those flights to the top level (which of course is where the fiction collection lives) provides the best cardio workout in town.

Christchurch’s Santa Barbara Style

Digging a bit deeper into quake-related architectural links between Santa Barbara and Christchurch, I found ties to the 1930s, when Christchurch architect H. Francis Willis took a page from Santa Barbara’s history in designing the Santa Barbara, a small Art Deco apartment building on Victoria Street.

Across the street from the Santa Barbara, an informational sign explains: “This Art Deco house of 1938 (possibly 1936) built of concrete and designed by H. Francis Willis, is distinguished from others of similar age by the strong influence of Bauaus Modernism.

“The curves and strong horizontal emphasis give it also a Streamline Moderne look. Its name relates it to the rebuilding of Santa Barbara, California after its 1925 earthquake.”

The sign goes on to say: “Designed as two flats, Santa Barbara represents a style of living that became fashionable in the 1920s and 1930s. Flats (known today as apartments) were considered modern and refined by the middle class professionals who lived in them. Handy to town and work, living in a flat also meant reduced living expenses and less housework.”

Santa Barbara, which I think resembles the bow of a tugboat, was turned into a commercial building in 1977.

Also in an apparent nod to Santa Barbara, H.F. Willis “designed Christchurch’s New Regent Street in the Spanish Mission style, which was popular in the 1920s and 1930s.”

The concept for New Regent Street — an entire block of small specialty shops — was a new one for the country, according to Christchurch’s City and Architectural Heritage Guide.

“Built from 1930-1932 it was one of the few large-scale building projects undertaken in the South Island during the Depression,” the guide states. “The shops suffered moderate damage in the earthquakes.”

Santa Barbara figures as well into the revival of Napier on the North Island after New Zealand’s deadliest earthquake — the 7.8 magnitude Hawke’s Bay Earthquake — struck in 1931, destroying the city’s downtown area, and killing more than 250 people.

In its work to rebuild, Napier turned to other cities that had come back from the rubble of devastating quakes — in particular Santa Barbara, authors Peter Shaw and Peter Hallett write in their book “Napier Styles of the Thirties.”

“In 1925 the California city of Santa Barbara had suffered a serious earthquake but had since been rebuilt in a predominately Spanish style, as befitted its Hispanic origins,” “Napier Styles of the Thirties” states.

“On 16 February the Daily Telegraph newspaper, under the headline ‘Buildings of a Uniform Style,’ stated: ‘The attractiveness of Santa Barbara, one of the youngest yet most beautiful cities of California, is behind the suggestion that all permanent buildings erected in Napier in the future should conform to a uniform style of architecture.

“‘A handful of enthusiasts are working … in the advancement of the proposal and have already succeeded in exciting … interest among architects in the city who share the advocacy of the Spanish style of architecture … favoured for its multifarious advantages, notably economy, simplicity and safety.'”

American-born architect R.A. Lippincott, who lived in Auckland, New Zealand, concurred that Napier’s post-earthquake problems matched those of Santa Barbara, the book states.

“Santa Barbara,” he observed, “Instead of being a heterogeneous collection of unrelated buildings, each swearing at each other, has risen from her ruins.”

Unfortunately, as often happens with “the best laid plans,” Napier’s effort to reinvent itself in Santa Barbara’s Spanish Mission image was derailed by financial difficulties due to a depressed economy.

While some Spanish Mission influence is seen in Napier, the city primarily adopted the 1930s Art Deco style and is now known as one of the world’s premier cities to view Art Deco buildings.