Editorial: Age even catches up with bricks

Demolition of Taradale's oldest commercial building this week is one of several crushing reminders Napier is getting that, in New Zealand, basing a city's tourism image on architecture, bricks and mortar does have its tenuous aspects.

Unlike the days when the world's leading construction experts wore loin cloths and hauled huge blocks by hand, New Zealand buildings have never been built to last forever.

No building in New Zealand, at least nothing in times of European settlement, is yet more than 200 years old, although in most of our lifetimes we should see such a milestone, thanks to the endurance of Kemp House, a Bay of Islands landmark built of timber in 1821.

It's older, even, than our oldest stone building, the nearby Stone Store, completed in 1836.

The passing of the two-storey building on the corner of Puketapu Rd and Gloucester St, home of Tremain Real Estate in one form or another for 34 years and making way for a new domicile for the proud firm, does have its tinges of sadness.

But the reality is that such a survivor of those good old days when Taradale had its own autonomy, identified and administered by a town board (1886-1963) and a borough council (1963-68), would sooner or later have to go.

The building was just over 80 years old, having been built for baker and "pastrycook" Thomas Crutchley after his previous wooden building, which opened as Thomas Jeffares' Blue Gum Store in the late 1870s, was destroyed by fire in 1928.

It survived the 1931 earthquake, despite the near-collapse of its southern wall and other damage, but four-score years and more later it is the risk of what might happen in another earthquake - prompted by earthquakes in Christchurch over the last two years - that has prompted the decision to knock it down.

The Tremains are far from being the only building owners in Napier, indeed throughout New Zealand, facing big decisions about the futures of ageing buildings. In many cases some worry and fear for their own economic survivability.

It poses issues about how we either collectively or individually face up to life, and its inevitabilities.

Is the review of structural capabilities across the land a knee-jerk reaction?

Or is it simply hastening what would happen anyway?

And how long will it take before the wrecking ball passes through the visage that is Art Deco?