It has been several years since Cantabrians have seen a glimpse of the Christ Church Cathedral without the large fence around it.
But members of the public were given the first chance to go behind the fence of the earthquake-damaged cathedral recently.
The cathedral has been in ruins since the devastating February 22, 2011 earthquake. In September 2017, the Anglicans voted to restore it.
Christ Church Cathedral reinstatement project manager Tim Anthon said the building would "return to its former glory, but better".
"The first step in that, is stabilisation. Making the building safe so workers can get in there and rescue what is left of the heritage items and also start the next stage which is strengthening.
"The end product will be that when you stand here, what you will see is a building that looks very similar," he said.
He said the challenge of the project is the "unknowns".
"We are dealing with a building here that is using 8th-century technology. It is built up just of stones and what we have to do is work out what happened to those stones to bring them up to standard."
The rebuild is expected to take seven to 10 years.
