It\u2019s become of one of Christchurch\u2019s most famous landmarks online, but why? Alex Casey steps through the portal of the brutalist Timezone.\u00a0<\/p>\n
Summer read \u2013 originally published February 17 2025.<\/p>\n
Ask anyone what Christchurch\u2019s most iconic building is and you might expect to hear some of the dusty old classics like the Cathedral, or the Town Hall, or the Arts Centre. But for a growing number of locals, and hundreds of thousands of people obsessed with weird-looking buildings on the internet, a dazzlingly dystopian challenger has recently entered the arena: the \u201cbrutalist\u201d Timezone entrance on Hereford Street.\u00a0<\/p>\n
A hallucinatory neon portal piercing through a 28-metre-high wall of concrete, the entrance to the central city Timezone arcade appears to elicit a powerful response in all those who encounter it. \u201cI walked past this high as giraffe balls once and almost had a panic attack. Brutalist excellence,\u201d recounted one visitor to the city. \u201cI find this building deeply unnerving,\u201d mused one CBD-dweller who works nearby. \u201cIt\u2019s giving prison,\u201d said another.\u00a0<\/p>\n
A viral Reddit post from last year<\/p>\n
Frequently popping up on TikTok<\/a>, Reddit<\/a> and Instagram<\/a> accounts dedicated to dystopian spaces, even those who have never seen the brutalist Timezone in real life are transfixed and unnerved by the facade. \u201cDamn, that\u2019s liminal,\u201d mused one Instagram user. \u201cI need the name of the town bc I must go to this,\u201d one Redditor wrote. \u201cSci fi movie production designers couldn\u2019t do better,\u201d added another. \u201cMaze Runner III \u2013 Timezone escape\u201d.\u00a0<\/p>\n Just as many comments wonder who \u2013 or indeed what \u2013 is responsible for the design.<\/p>\n \u2018It\u2019s accidental architecture\u2019<\/p>\n Although he is \u201chonoured\u201d that the building has captivated so many around the world, architect Richard Dalman has a confession to make about the brutalist Timezone \u2013 it was never part of the original plan for the building. \u201cI can\u2019t sit here and say, \u2018yeah, look, we spent weeks, months, years thinking through that exact patterning\u2019,\u201d he laughs. \u201cBecause the truth is that facade was meant to have another building placed up against it and you were never meant to see it.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n The original plan for the building, which is largely used as a carpark, was that the Timezone would form a small part of a longer arcade that would run through the ground floor, all the way to Hereford Street. But when Timezone took over the entire ground floor tenancy, and the site in front of it remained empty, a makeshift \u201cportal\u201d was designed. \u201cSo this is all the result of the building in front not being constructed, because the demand just hasn\u2019t been there.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n Even if it is the byproduct of the sluggish rebuild and a slow market, Dalman says the Timezone represents a kind of transience that is interesting in itself. \u201cIt has created this opportunity for the Timezone entry portal to exist in a place and space that it was never supposed to, and for those walls to be exposed which were never, ever supposed to be exposed,\u201d he says. \u201cIt\u2019s a kind of accidental architecture, which is really quite pleasing.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n Dalman encourages people who are drawn to the Timezone to also look at the more \u201carchitecturally articulated\u201d facades which are just around the corner \u2013 AKA the ones that were actually designed to be looked at. \u201cWe\u2019ve got these curving black metal panels which are inspired by the eels in the Avon,\u201d he explains. \u201cSo it\u2019s really interesting that people are picking up on the plain concrete facade, and not the one that we put all our time and effort into.\u201d<\/p>\n Regardless of whether the Timezone was intentionally part of the creative vision, the facade has already influenced artists working in other disciplines across the city. The debut album of \u014ctautahi noise band Les Fuzz Minou, released this month, has a Tagalog title: \u2018Fuza \u2013 Naknampucha Gumuho Na Naman Ang Kalawakan Dahil Sa Deputang Brutalistang Timezone Na Yan\u2019. Broadly translated into English? A Cosmic Trip to the Brutalist Timezone.<\/p>\n Les Fuzz Minou bassist Robin remembers his first encounter with the Timezone, which popped up sometime in 2023, very well: \u201cMe and some of the guys were just walking down Hereford Street, and suddenly there was this little tiny Timezone right there in the middle of this giant concrete wall.\u201d Entranced by its \u201cmystical qualities\u201d that evoked \u201ca time gate to Soviet Russia\u201d, the band knew: \u201cWe should use it for an album cover some time.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n Local artist Dark Ballad,<\/a> aka Joe Clarke, jumped at the opportunity to immortalise the brutalist Timezone for Les Fuzz Minou. \u201cI think it is probably the coolest-looking thing in Christchurch at the moment,\u201d he says. \u201cIt\u2019s very dreamlike to have this huge concrete wall and then this little cut-out of something which feels like it is from the past buried in there.\u201d Because as futuristic as it looks, Clarke says there is a feeling of nostalgia lurking beneath it all.\u00a0<\/p>\n \u201cI used to go to the old Timezone on Colombo Street everyday to play pool and Street Fighter,\u201d he adds. \u201cAnd after the earthquakes, it was just all gone.\u201d<\/p>\n Playing on those themes of the past and the future, Clarke created a woodcut design of the brutalist Timezone for the album cover. Printing a limited run of 50 copies by hand in his New Brighton home, he says each rendering of the Timezone will look slightly different to the last. \u201cAnd if you look closely, you can actually see there are things inside the Timezone. In my vision, it is this dark and mysterious arcade that has been abandoned for years and years.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n While \u201cthe brutalist Timezone\u201d has become shorthand for the Hereford Street entrance, architectural historian Jess Halliday says there \u201cis a heck of a lot more than just bare concrete\u201d to the movement. \u201cIt\u2019s so awesome to see this engagement with the city but, to me, it\u2019s not actually brutalism,\u201d she laughs. \u201cYes, concrete is a feature of that period of architecture, but just because you\u2019re wearing a woollen coat, it doesn\u2019t make you a sheep.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n Halliday says that the brutalist movement, which influenced the design of many Christchurch buildings during the middle of the 20th century, was \u201clargely about expressing a building\u2019s architectural essence \u2013 its structural truth, its material truth, and the truth of its internal organisation.\u201d These expressions can be found nearby in the \u201cbig chunky exposed frame\u201d of the civic building, or the \u201csoaring columns<\/a>\u201d of the Town Hall.\u00a0<\/p>\n Even if it\u2019s not technically brutalist, Halliday says the Timezone has the movement to thank for legitimising concrete as a material. She also has no doubt that it has cemented its place in \u014ctautahi\u2019s architectural history. \u201cWe\u2019re coming up to the 14th anniversary of the big earthquake, and we\u2019ve still got this city that is constantly shifting and moving, and now the Timezone is a part of that experience of being in this transitional city,\u201d she says.\u00a0<\/p>\n Dalman agrees. \u201cIt\u2019s not an intentional experiment, but it is an opportunity to see our city in a different way, with buildings being demolished and being built all at the same time. It\u2019s also an example of how the earthquakes have changed our view of the city \u2013 we get to see big sides of buildings which normally wouldn\u2019t be seen at all.\u201d And while he says there is a \u201cgood chance\u201d something will be built in front of the entrance soon, things can always change.\u00a0<\/p>\n \u201cWho knows,\u201d he adds. \u201cThe council might decide to buy it and turn it into a park, all because there\u2019s so much demand from overseas tourists coming to look at the Timezone.\u201d<\/p>\nThe Dalman plans for what would become the brutalist Timezone (Image: Supplied)<\/p>\n
The \u2018eel\u2019 facade around the corner (Image: Supplied)
\n\u2018We should use it for an album cover\u2019<\/p>\nClarke\u2019s handprinted album covers drying (Image: Supplied)<\/p>\n
Timezone, immortalised. Image: Supplied
\n\u2018More than just bare concrete\u2019<\/p>\nA view of the Timezone from Google Street View, not long after it was installed.<\/p>\n