Westpac Canterbury Centre

Christchurch, New Zealand

No longer standing

Demolished or destroyed.

Westpac Canterbury Centre was a 13-storey tower designed by Warren and Mahoney and completed in 1983 on the corner of High Street and Cashel Street in central Christchurch, New Zealand. Standing 55 metres tall, it represented an early shift in the city's architecture from brutalism towards structural expressionism, with its distinctive form featuring rounded concrete columns at each corner, a pointed triangular roof, and an elongated hexagonal plan that exposed much of the concrete frame. Built for Canterbury Savings Bank (later Trust Bank) and subsequently acquired by Westpac in 1996, the building housed the bank's South Island headquarters alongside retail space in its lower levels and podium structure. Following severe damage in the 2010 Canterbury earthquake, the tower was temporarily cordoned off for repairs, but further deterioration during the 2011 Christchurch earthquake—particularly inelastic deformation in the shear walls—rendered comprehensive renovation impractical, leading to its demolition in 2012.