Christchurch Arts Centre guided tour with Lady Pippa Blake

André Lovatt gives Lady Pippa Blake a guided tour of the Christchurch Arts Centre restoration project

By Megan Gattey

Lady Pippa Blake walked and talked with André Lovatt around the Christchurch Arts Centre this afternoon on what she called a “special and unique” trip to the city.

Lady Blake, artist and wife of the late Sir Peter Blake, was visiting Christchurch Arts Centre chief executive André Lovatt, a 2015 recipient of the Blake Leader Awards.

The award, which the Governor-General presented at Auckland Museum on Friday, celebrated Lovatt’s leadership in New Zealand and his dedication to the restoration of the Arts Centre.

Lovatt said he took on the chief executive role in October 2012, after returning to Christchurch from Singapore with his family.

“We’re back because we want to make a difference, we want to see Christchurch succeed and we’re believers in how awesome it can be,” he said.

“I’m from Christchurch, my wife’s from Christchurch, and our family was badly affected through the earthquakes. So we had empathy for what was going on here but we were optimistic about the future.”

Lovatt said he was still in shock after receiving such a prestigious award.

“It’s a tremendous honour, and it’s slightly uncomfortable for me that the focus is on me because everything that I’ve ever done is about the team. And you can’t do what I do with one person.

"One of the great things about the Arts Centre is the fact that it’s a community project. So we stand in front, but there’s a whole community behind us.”

Lovatt said the Arts Centre project was going well.

“By the end of this year, we will have completed over half of the build area of the site - fully restored and ready to open.

“Don’t forget that this is a project that people thought would take twenty years, so we’ve been busy."

He said the aim was complete the restoration, “subject to money and nothing going wrong, over a seven year period”.

Lady Blake said it was very special to meet Lovatt, who she said was very deserving of the award.

“Now that André has become one of our Blake Leaders, to me it’s all part of a greater Blake family in a way. And now we have about 77 alumni from when the Blake Trust started 10 years ago.

“The wonderful thing about it is that they’ll all keep in touch with each other and help each other and reach out further into New Zealand society.”

Lady Blake said she could not wait to see what was next for the city, calling the rebuild “phenomenally exciting”.

Lovatt showed Lady Blake around the construction site, telling her the history of the buildings and explaining the restoration process as he went.

He said they had tried to retain as much of the original Arts Centre as possible.

The original doors from the Arts Centre buildings had been kept in storage, and he said “the intention is that all of them will go back.”

The trees within the quadrangle were also a priority, he said.

“A lot of effort goes into preserving the trees.”

The Sir Peter Blake Leadership Awards have celebrated New Zealand’s top leaders for the past 10 years.

The Sir Peter Blake Trust awarded six leadership awards this year, with the remaining five going to Brendon McCullum, Sita Selupe, Claudia Batten, Tina Porou and Dr Michelle Dickinson.

The Blake Medal went to Rob Fenwick.

ENDS

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