Getting Nibbled Away

It was another wonderful Autumns day.. the wind was a bit strong at times during the night and morning but calmed a bit down by the afternoon. I took a walk into the city to see how the old Millers building was coming along with its demolition. This is a blip I did on April 28th and here is a shot I took last year April 10,2013. Sure looks different now!

It was hard to know which shot to use today as I took so many good ones. As I was coming along Victoria St they were putting in the windows of a new building and that was interesting to watch. A guy was stopping the traffic as the window was being lifted up into place. He came over to me after it was safe again and asked if I was taking shots for the newspaper. I told him what I was doing and he aksed if I would take his photo.. which I did, but when I got home I found that both shots he had his eyes closed. Otherwise I would have put those ones up off the window going into place and the guy.

It looks like it isn't going to take long to get the rest of the Millers building down. In this shot you can see the spray they use to help keep the dust down. The machine there use is called a nibbler!

The building was originally designed in 1935 by G. A. Hart for the retail store, factory and warehouse Millers and was completed in 1939. It was notable for its structural design concept of beamless floor slab construction in reinforced concrete where the design loads, including earthquake forces, are transferred to the hexagonal columns by mushroom-shaped heads and drop slabs.

This concept was originated by a French Swiss engineer, Robert Maillart around 1912 and was further developed in the 1920s by the Bauhaus in Germany under the architects, Peter Behrens and Walter Gropius.

Millers was a well established retail and manufacturing business with many branch shops. The building was their head office, factory and main retail store. It boasted the first escalator in the South Island and one of the first in New Zealand. Millers Department Store was there between 1939-1979. When the building was put up for sale in 1978 the council purchased it to refurbish as Civic Offices. The Christchurch City Council moved into new premises in the refurbished former New Zealand Post building on Hereford Street in August, 2010.
For more information The former Civic Offices and Millers Department Store.