A number of New Zealand architects have been invited to respond to the Catholic Diocese of Christchurch’s design brief as the journey towards its new cathedral continues.

Bishop Michael Gielen last April announced that, after a period of community consultation, prayer and discernment, the new cathedral would be built on the Catholic Church’s Barbadoes Street site.

Later in the year, he confirmed the name of the former cathedral on that site, the Cathedral of the Blessed Sacrament, would be retained.

In the months since, significant effort has been put into working on the first stage of the design of the cathedral. That has included drawing together community feedback from the earlier consultation and convening a series of working groups.

A diocesan delegation visited cathedrals and churches in New Zealand and Australia that have been built or substantially renovated over the past two decades.

“I have also been fortunate to have a group of key advisers who have helped me draw together the wisdom from those sources and prepare a design brief,” Bishop Gielen said.

“Those advisers have personal and professional attributes that allowed for robust, faith-filled and Spirit-led conversations that have led us to this point.”

The draft design brief, which captures some the key principles and considerations for the cathedral project, was recently shared with a group of architectural firms.

Bishop Gielen said they are all architects “that we believe have the experience and capacity to work with us in designing our new cathedral”.

The architect that is chosen will help the draft design brief continue to evolve, as it has done in recent months, leading to a final design brief.

“We look forward to choosing a genuine partner in this project – an architect that will share our aspiration to build a cathedral that is worthy of being our spiritual centre in the diocese and can be a beacon of hope for our city,” Bishop Gielen said.

The latest step in the cathedral process, which is expected to take several years, was shared with Catholics at Masses across the Christchurch Diocese over the weekend.

Find out more at www.cdoc.nz/cathedral

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