Westpac Canterbury Centre, Office tower in central Christchurch, New Zealand
The Westpac Canterbury Centre was a 55-metre office tower of 13 storeys plus a basement at 166 Cashel Street, on the corner of High Street. Designed by Warren and Mahoney in 1981, it had rounded concrete columns at each corner, a pointed triangular roof and an elongated hexagonal plan. A connected three-storey podium held retail space.
Designed by Warren and Mahoney in 1981, the tower was built by C.S. Luney Ltd for NZ$6.4 million in 1983 for Canterbury Savings Bank, later Trust Bank. Westpac acquired the bank in 1996 and used the tower as its South Island head office. Cordoned off after the 2010 Canterbury earthquake, it was further damaged in 2011 and demolished in 2012.
The structure marked an architectural transition from brutalism to structural expressionism in Christchurch, displaying its concrete frame as a design element.
The tower stood at 166 Cashel Street, on the corner of High Street. After the 2010 earthquake it was cordoned off, and it was later stranded inside the central red zone cordon. Demolition began in mid-May 2012 and took just over six months.
The tower's floor plan was an elongated hexagon, and its concrete frame was left exposed as part of the design. Demolition in 2012 used a German-made excavator nicknamed 'Goliath', imported by McGee Group at a cost of about $120,000; it had previously worked on the old Wembley Stadium.
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