Fragile Foundations: Images Of A Crumbling City

“Fragile Foundations,” a thought-provoking photography exhibition by Antony Kitchener and Simin Littschager, is currently showing at Thistle Hall. It brings into focus the earthquake-prone buildings (EPBs) of Wellington, a city that knows the ground beneath it can shift at any moment.

"Fragile Foundations" serves as both a visual celebration of Wellington’s architecture and a social commentary on evolving building codes and political risk appetites in response to past earthquakes. The exhibition documents a period marked equally by inertia and change, capturing the aesthetic and precariousness of Wellington's built environment.

The exhibition showcases some of Wellington’s iconic earthquake-prone buildings. They are a part of our daily urban landscape and have been chosen for their personal, aesthetic, historical, and architectural significance. Some of them are vacant, some of them are still in use and deemed safe enough to occupy until strengthened; some of them are construction sites, others in the process of being demolished and replaced.

The images were captured over the last two years on black and white medium format film with a Mamiya 645 camera and hand-developed. Following the traditions of both documentary and architectural photography, the black and white images highlight the strength and beauty of these buildings — the textures, the lines, the way they have stood test of time, each with its own story of resilience and risk.

"Analogue photography is a perfect medium to document the architectural resilience and structural challenges of our city," says says the creative team behind the exhibition. “It reflects the enduring yet vulnerable nature of Wellington's architecture, as photographic film also has its own imperfections.”

Through this exhibition, they hope to inspire a conversation around Wellington's unique character and the need for seismically sound buildings. “Given Wellington lies on an active fault line and many earthquake-prone buildings are on reclaimed land prone to liquefaction, the situation sometimes feels like a ticking time bomb. At other times, it feels like a terrible joke that everyone has gotten used to. And yet, the challenges, financial and otherwise, are undeniably significant. As Wellingtonians, we cannot ignore them. We need to reflect on how we can deal with the risk of earthquakes as a community.”

Currently, there are over 500 EPBs in Wellington, including some of the city's most recognisable buildings, such as the City Library, the Town Hall, or St Gerard’s Church and Monastery. Recent assessments have added beloved venues such as the Michael Fowler Centre and the Opera House to the list of EPBs. Despite being considered safe enough to occupy for the time being, question marks hang over their future. Controversies have arisen around cost blowouts and delays in strengthening key structures, the proposed purchase of land beneath the Reading Cinema complex, the demolition of buildings on Civic Square, and the proposed demolition of the City to Sea Bridge. In April 2024, the government extended the deadline for strengthening EPBs by four years, acknowledging the high costs and complex heritage rules involved. And yet this extension offers merely a temporary reprieve for building owners rather than a solution. Big questions remain, not the least of which is the unpredictable nature of the ground on which we all stand. It might not be the diggers that spell doom for some of these buildings.

Exhibition opening times: 21 - 26 January, 12 - 7pm at Thistle Hall, 293 Cuba Street (https://www.thistlehall.org.nz/exhibitions)

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