Christchurch

A magnitude 6.3 earthquake struck Christchurch on February 22, 2011, killing 185 people and severely damaging or destroying much of the city's historic center, including the original ChristChurch Cathedral, a landmark that had anchored the city's main square since the 1800s. The disaster, following a larger but less deadly quake the previous September, reshaped Christchurch fundamentally, and the rebuild that followed has continued for well over a decade.

That rebuild produced some genuinely inventive architecture rather than simply replacing what was lost. Japanese architect Shigeru Ban, known internationally for disaster-relief architecture using unconventional materials, designed a temporary replacement cathedral built primarily from large cardboard tubes reinforced with timber and steel. Completed in 2013, the Cardboard Cathedral remains in active use today, more than a decade after it was meant to be a stopgap, and has become a genuine architectural landmark rather than a mere placeholder.

Re:START, a shopping precinct built from repurposed shipping containers in the aftermath of the quake, gave the city a functioning commercial center again within months rather than years, and while much of it has since been replaced by permanent construction, it stands as one of the more widely cited examples of creative, fast disaster-recovery urban design anywhere in the world.

Christchurch functions as the practical starting point for the TranzAlpine train, a rail journey across the Southern Alps to Greymouth on the West Coast that's widely regarded as one of the great scenic train routes anywhere, passing through dramatic gorge and mountain scenery that would be difficult to reach by road in a comparable timeframe.

Before the earthquake, Christchurch was known as the "Garden City" for its English-style architecture and extensive parks, and the Botanic Gardens and the Avon River, still punted by traditional flat-bottom boats through the city center, preserve that older character alongside the newer, more experimental architecture that's emerged from the rebuild.