Hilgendorf Building

The Hilgendorf Building was constructed in the mid-1960s and opened in 1968. It was usually referred to as the Hilgendorf Wing, in honour of Professor F. W. Hilgendorf, pioneer New Zealand botanist and plant breeder and Professor of Agricultural Botany at Canterbury Agricultural College 1930-36 and prior to that Lecturer in Agricultural Botany. He was also Acting Principal of CAC on several occasions.

In 2009 the building received an award in the Canterbury Architecture Awards in the Enduring Architecture category as a "brutalist classic". The building's "significant contribution to the Canterbury brutalist tradition of its era was still clear" said the judges. The architects were Trengrove and Marshall, who later designed the Bums Wing.

The building was damaged in the 2010-11 Canterbury earthquakes and deconstructed in 2015-16. The vacant space in the image above shows the site of the Hilgendorf Building being prepared for the new science research facilities to be constructed. Scroll down to access the collections of images that have been archived, and the time lapse videos of the deconstruction. Further images of this building can found among the collection of images recording the Canterbury Earthquakes.

Audio Clip of the opening ceremony of Hilgenor Wing, 1968