Beca Heritage Week 2008
Friday 17th–Monday 27th October 2008
Welcome to Beca Heritage Week 2008, our 16th annual week of celebrating our unique social, cultural, built and environmental heritage.
Although the main aim of Heritage Week stays the same – to raise awareness of our special heritage places, and the importance and benefits of conserving them – each year the event has a different focus.
This year’s theme is RETROspective: Christchurch life, architecture and design 1940s-1970s – so get ready for some retro fun. We are excited about this theme because it is a bit different to anything we have done before. This period was an eventful one for Christchurch, contributing greatly to the character of our city today. In the 1960s in particular, the work of our local architects was receiving national and international attention. We work, live in, or pass by these significant buildings everyday, but do we really think of them as ‘heritage’?
There has been increasing international focus on acknowledging and protecting 20th century architecture, particularly buildings which represent the architecture of the Modern Movement. At the local level the Christchurch City Council Heritage Team, the New Zealand Historic Places Trust Pouhere Taonga, and DOCOMOMO NZ (New Zealand working party for the documentation and conservation of buildings, sites and neighbourhoods of the Modern Movement) are getting involved in the identification, promotion and conservation of our more recent heritage.
It is important to acknowledge the continued commitment and effort of our Heritage Week community event organisers – you know who you are! These groups work hard on conserving and promoting heritage in their communities all year, and most of them contribute one or more events during Heritage Week. The Heritage Week Steering Committee is pleased to promote these events as part of Beca Heritage Week.
We are delighted to have the continued support of our naming rights sponsors Beca, and welcome Innerwink Event Management who are producing Council funded events. We look forward to joining you for a retro October, whether it’s on the dance floor at the 1970s disco night, at the outdoor movie night, touring some of our temporarily lit central city Modernist heritage buildings, or enjoying the debate about the merits or otherwise of Christchurch’s heritage of the era.
Enjoy this retrospective of Christchurch’s more recent past.
Go retro!
