COMMISSIONERS DECLINE MUSIC SCHOOL-see more |
AGAINST THE SITING OF THE CANTERBURY UNIVERSITY SCHOOL OF MUSIC AT THE CHRISTCHURCH ARTS CENTRE.
The myth of town and gown – how will the advantages of the university re-locating to the central city manifest themselves? What civic advantage is there in the proximity of academics and civil servants? The revitalization of the central city – how will the incursion of 300 students , most of whom will spend the larger part of their study time at Ilam and most of whom are not wealthy enough to eat and park in the central city area, create life? The Polytechnic, another tertiary institution which operates in the southern corner of the quadrilateral made by the four avenues and one with around twenty-four thousand students, has had little impact on the city’s face in that area. In the latter days of the divided campus, before the university moved completely to Ilam, one of the greatest bugbears of academic life was the necessity of commuting between the two sites. Few students are exclusively music students and many are involved in other courses, law, psychology, physics for example. The siting of the music school in town would simply replicate the inconvenience, expense and risks, which were thought now to be a thing of the past. Because of the area and height restrictions imposed on the building by the site, the proposed edifice is too small to accommodate the full range of teaching a university music school should offer. The recourse to other buildings in the Arts Centre to take the overflow has been abandoned in favour of splitting the music school in two parts. The teaching of stage one is to be at Ilam and the more advanced stages in the central city. Could there be a more inconvenient arrangement for teachers, students, administrators, librarians and the devisers of timetables? One of the chief reasons for wanting the music school in the central city has been to give exposure of the talents of the music students. It is suggested that more people will be able to attend their concerts if there is a central city performance venue. The research to back up this assertion has never been published. More than two decades of audience research at the Court Theatre shows that foot-traffic and impulse ticket buying at central city performances account for less than 3% of attendances. Otherwise attendances are determined by the nature of the work offered and the price and convenience of the performance. There are also factors as to whether the performance is by day or night. The demographic research shows that attendance at presentations of theatre, ballet, opera and classical music concerts are largely by older audiences. In Christchurch these patrons come largely from the two areas of Fendalton/Merivale and Cashmere, locales that are better placed to get to Ilam than the central city. The distance, traffic density and the parking on arrival would seem to favour Ilam as destination to encourage attendance. This reason for building a large centre to increase audiences is very suspect. The notion that the placing of the concert venue at the arts centre smacks more of wishful thinking than hard nosed statistical investigation. Where is the research? Despite assurances to the contrary, (and Dr Carr’s assertions as an impresario are far from convincing) there is little likelihood that the proposed building will be in full use in the four months of the low tide of the academic year between mid-October to mid-February. This summer period is exactly the time when the Arts Centre is at its liveliest. It would be sad to have this heavy Fort Knox of a building sitting amid all this life. It is to be remembered that also during the academic year, the university has long term breaks when the tide of activity will again be low. The water-colour sketches of the proposed building, in the pamphlet circulated to promote the project, pretty as they may appear, give a questionable impression of the what the completed building may look like. The sense of ambience, sunlight and volume of the project given by these sketches is fanciful.. The grassed quadrangle cannot be nearly as expansive as it appears. The sun cannot fall so completely on the area as the pictures suggest. The edifice will be much more solid than the ethereal structure represented in the pamphlet. It is significant that any image of the Hereford Street façade is omitted. This is in effect a high wall of prison proportions and appearance. There seems to have been no public critique of the interior of the building either. Pretensions to becoming a national academy of music become somewhat dubious when the facilities are examined. It would seem that the specifications were made by those wishing to escape from the present unhappy conditions of the music school at Ilam rather than by people proposing an ideal circumstance for the teaching of music. The plans show no evidence of deep research into what makes the great conservatoriums of the world so successful. The necessity to cram facilities within the limited area and restricted height of the site has led to compromises that will create inconveniences and compressions not unlike those in the present dreary facility. For example, there are no large teaching rooms in which music can resound to its fullest, rooms with high ceilings and enough distance to create the air necessary for music to reverberate to the maximum. A theatre, which was to offer the city a unique facility with 450 seats, with modern stage apparatus and a fly tower has been reduced to an unprofitable 300 seats and had the fly tower eliminated. The stage of the theatre is on the first floor to the maximum inconvenience of theatre staff unloading equipment and of fire appliances wanting access to the place where most theatre fires start. It is amazing that the fire department has approved this in the early twenty-first century. This was designed by someone who has obviously never worked in a theatre. It would be yet another defective theatre to place beside the Ngaio Marsh, James Hay and Christ College theatres. These shortcomings, with the dubious legal and financial aspects which hang over this proposal, would seem to make it a venture that should be abandoned at once.
This
is not about music. This is about branding. Once,
the reputation of a university was based on teaching excellence, research
innovation and alumni success. But tertiary institutions have become education
supermarkets. Advertising and celebrity are as important as pedagogy and
publication. In the recruiting of students and the attracting of funds,
universities have been forced to become blatant hucksters. What
we are witnessing in the University of Canterbury’s attempt to build a music
school on the Arts Centre site, is not a passionate championing of the art of
music nor a profound concern for the re-vitalization of the city but an
exercise in corporate image making. It’s
the old Harvard Business School ploy of selling illusions. As
someone who has spent a lifetime selling illusions to the willing , I easily
recognize a bill of goods being sold to the unwitting. This is the kind of
financial prestidigitation at the core of the recent Wall Street melt-down. For
example, when I suggested to Rod Carr, the vice chancellor, that it might be a
shade pretentious to rename the fifth largest tertiary music school in the
country, the National Conservatorium of Music, he replied that the title was
“aspirational.” “Delusional” was the word I repressed. Nostalgic
nonsense about “town and gown” and “homecoming” looks foolish in the world of
motorized students and email. You cannot rebuild the past. Technology, urban
tides and deep changes in social thinking defeat that. The
University’s earlier attempt to reestablish itself in town at Bellamy’s did not succeed and here is its second
putsch. And this is not all. The University has
acquired the right of first refusal on vacated rooms in the Arts Centre. Is
this not part of a larger plan to re-establish the University in the Arts
Centre and thereby destroy the very nature of this gloriously successful
enterprise? When I asked Carr about this he rejected it as paranoia. However,
there is already a real concern among long-term tenants that the University’s
re-colonization of the site has already begun. What other reason could there be
for the University’s search for space? Since
the Miles Warren design for the music school appeared five years ago, the
University has known that this proposed building is too large for the site and
too small for its purposes. It has blithely brushed aside concerns about the
extreme inconvenience to students and teachers in dividing the school into
Stage One Music at Ilam and the rest in town. It has ignored advice on the very
defective design of the interior spaces, especially the theatre. The observation that for the four
months of the university’s summer “vacation”, the building would be inert, has
been countered with daydreams about audiences that all demographic research
contradicts. Yet it has cynically persevered with what they know to be a dud
construction, monstrous aesthetically and crippled functionally. This
is the Versailles syndrome. It is a palace to glorify its occupant, not
facilitate an art form. If this were truly about music, there would be a
building, on the magnificent site already set aside at Ilam, with large rooms,
a small opera theatre, and space to accommodate all music students for the next
fifty years. Its design would also be freed from cramping height and space
restrictions and the need to conform to its gothic neighbours What
we have instead is a severe case of the edifice complex. But
whatever the very great aesthetic and functional concerns about the building,
there is one salient aspect which should deeply trouble those to whom
democratic process is important - the subterranean process by which this
project has been pushed forward. Lack of openness has almost become sinister. One
would have thought a mayoralty, already tainted with suspicion of financial
folly and worse, ( Ellerslie and Henderson are shorthand here} would have done
everything to restore its reputation by making its involvement in the music
school as transparent as possible. However,
on the very questionable grounds of commercial sensitivity, a ploy too often
used by the present administration, the arrangement with the University was
stitched up behind closed doors. Had
it not been for a small band of alert and concerned citizens, this financial
deal would have escaped scrutiny. It would already have become a “done deal”,
as one well-known councilor has recklessly proclaimed in public. Does not this
imply corruption? Three
times, I have heard Dr Rod Carr justify the rather arcane process by which
council money, our rates in fact, would be used to build the school but I am
still left asking why ratepayers should be bankers for the a state-funded
University? Also
deeply troubling is the conduct of the board of the Arts Centre. It seems to
act under the illusion that it is a private entity. The Arts Centre is the
property of the citizens of Christchurch. The Board is the servant of its
owners. Surely,
with the prospect of such a major change to the physical appearance of the
precinct and the dramatic change of policy about the nature and use of the Arts
Centre this implies, consultation with its owners should have been immediate
and deep. Not
a bit of it. Again the negotiations have been covert. Attempts to silence
members of the board, who are opposed to the music school, by invoking conflict
of interest and other specious strategies, have been made. All efforts to get
minutes of board meetings have been thwarted by delay or defeated on grounds of
sensitivity. Deputations to express contrary views have been turned away. Dr
Carr’s citing the trust deed to justify the return of the University to the
Arts Centre , ignores the fact that this historic site is not zoned for
tertiary education. But a compliant Council, a supine Arts Centre Board and the
old- boys network could soon fix that. No problem. Is
the Arts Centre, a most beautiful and organic success, to be irrevocably
changed and probably destroyed for what is in effect an advertising campaign? From Cr Chrissie Williams
As a City Councillor I have to vote on 23 July 2009 whether the Council borrows funds to build a National Conservatorium of Music at the Arts Centre, to on-lease to the University of Canterbury. This is a complex issue with many passionate Christchurch players advocating their various positions and views. A number of institutions have some role in making the decisions regarding this proposal; there are other organisations and individuals who have a vested interest in these decisions. The key decision makers are the University of Canterbury Council, the Arts Centre of Christchurch Trust and the Christchurch City Council. The University Council has already made the decision that they need to replace the School of Music facilities, and their first preference is for the site at the Arts Centre. The public have not been apprised of the process they went through to select this site and what other locations were considered. The Vice-Chancellor at a recent public meeting was adamant that the only central city site they will contemplate is the Arts Centre; if not there, they will revert to building at the Ilam campus. The University occupied the Arts Centre site from 1873 until 1974. A new site at Ilam was provided by the government in 1950 and since then the University strategy has been to develop an integrated campus at Ilam. This current proposal seems to be at odds with that strategy. While some see merit in the University returning to have a presence in the central city, others have expressed concern about re-splitting the University across two sites as was the case in the 1960’s and 70’s. Some students at the time were disadvantaged in having to commute between the two sites to enable their choice of subjects. This situation could reoccur with those wanting to mix music with other subjects having to travel between the two sites, with no direct public transport link and difficult parking at both ends. Assessing the potential for this to happen, and the impact for future students, is the responsibility of the University Council. The Arts Centre of Christchurch Trust is also an important player in these decisions. The Arts Centre was gifted by the Government to the Trust who are bound by their 1978 Trust Deed. They consider that accommodating the building for the Conservatorium meets the objects of the Trust, including the object “to foster, promote, facilitate and encourage the interests of arts, culture, education and other related interests, in particular through the provision of accommodation for such activities”. The question remains whether that object really sanctions a Government funded tertiary education department. There has been some criticism that the Arts Centre Trust does not have a current Strategic Plan, so there has not been adequate analysis whether the Conservatorium is the best use for the ‘vacant’ area on Hereford Street, currently used as a car park. Despite this the Trust has agreed to lease the proposed site to enable the University building to proceed. The prospect of considerable income for the Arts Centre from land rental was surely a contributing factor in this decision. One recent letter writer noted that the University owns the land at Ilam, whereas locating at the Arts Centre will have a higher lifetime cost with the University having to pay a lease for the land over the 50+ years. The third player in these decisions is now the Christchurch City Council. The University has approached the City Council asking them to lease the land from the Arts Centre Trust, to invest in the construction of the building, and to lease it to the University under a long-term rental agreement. Interestingly in the Vice-Chancellor’s presentation at the public meeting he more than once referred to the City Council as a property developer. I do not believe that the City Council has the mandate to be a property developer, particularly on land that they do not own, although it should be noted the Council has done this before. In 2003 the Council borrowed to construct the jet engine test-cell facility at Christchurch Airport. To enable this, Jet Engine Facility Ltd was established as a 100% subsidiary of Vbase Ltd which itself is 100% owned by the Council. JEFL leases the jet engine facility to Pratt & Whitney Air New Zealand Services. The key to the University’s approach to the City Council is the Council has a very good AA+ credit rating so can borrow money more cheaply than the University. It has also been suggested that the University does not have the capacity to add further debt to its balance sheet. On 23 July the Council will make the decision whether to be the banker, developer and landlord for this project. The Mayor has stated this venture will not put a cost on ratepayers, but the opportunity cost of the Council borrowing millions of dollars for this project has not been properly assessed, and the Council will be required to pay for the resource consent applications. The Council will also have to decide the capital structure for the arrangement and whether the Council itself owns the building, or whether the existing company, Civic Building Ltd, becomes the owner. The reason given for using subsidiary companies is for taxation purposes. The other Council role is under the Resource Management Act to decide whether or not a resource consent for the proposal can be granted, no matter who owns the Conservatorium. A panel of Commissioners would be appointed to hear the resource consent and judge the merits of the building against the objectives, policies and rules in the City Plan. Comments in a number of letters to the Press have referred to the bulk and form of the building, how it fits in the heritage context, and possible construction effects. Whichever decision the Commissioners make there would be a high probability of appeals to the Environment Court. Some of the other organisations which have a strong interest in the proposal are the NZ Historic Places Trust as the Arts Centre is on the NZHPT register as Category 1; the Christchurch Civic Trust which aims to "care for the beauty, history and character of the City of Christchurch"; lessees and occupiers of neighbouring buildings at the Arts Centre who will want to comment on the effect of the building on their activities; and those involved in music, arts and theatre will have strong views about whether and where a Conservatorium of Music should be established in Christchurch, and if an additional 250 seat theatre is required. I have a sense of déjà vu with this Arts Centre proposal. Five years ago controversy raged over the Canterbury Museum Board’s plans to expand and alter the museum buildings. The plans for the revitalisation were rejected in a 2006 Environment Court decision which declared the plans non-complying activities that would disrupt the heritage values of the buildings. The museum debate created deep discord in the heritage community of Canterbury, with two court cases, claim and counter-claim in Christchurch’s Press and lingering resentment on both sides. In Christchurch we seem to have the ability to re-write the same plays over and over again, with the same actors speaking the same lines. I wish we could find better ways of channelling the energy and initiative of these people to find a solution that is likely to have some agreement. But instead plans are well-developed before they are presented to the community and the only option appears to be for people to take up their traditional opposing positions and start throwing verbal grenades. As well as deciding whether to fund and develop this building the Council really needs to consider whether they have a role in providing a building for Tertiary Education use, and whether the Arts Centre is the best place for this building if central city revitalisation is a priority. The report to the Council will be available on Monday 20 July at http://www.ccc.govt.nz/Council/Agendas/2009/July/. |
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