Globalisation, Entrepreneurship and the South Pacific: Reframing Australian Colonial Architecture, 1800-1850 (Hobart, Tas., 2016) (original) (raw)
Related papers
2017
In 1957, Clinton Hartley Grattan, one of Australia's most important foreign observers, wrote of the shadow of the "urban" in legends of the Australian "bush".1 He argued that the early frontiers of Australian settlement were frontiers of men with private capital, or entrepreneurs, and those frontiers thus carried more elements of the urban than is commonly realised. Such early colonial enterprises around Australia's south and southeastern coasts, and across the Tasman included sealing, whaling, milling and pastoralism, as well as missionary, trading and finance ventures. In advance of official settlements in the late-eighteenth and early-nineteenth centuries, entrepreneurs mapped coastlines, pioneered trade routes and colonised lands. Backed by private capital they established colonial infrastructural architecture effecting urban expansion in the Australian colonies, New Zealand and beyond. Yet this architecture is rarely a subject of architectural histor...
Fabrications: JSAHANZ—The Architecture of the Tasman World, 1788-1850 (29:3, 2019)
Fabrications: The Journal of the Society of Architectural Historians, Australia and New Zealand, 2019
The nineteenth-century architectural history of what Philippa Mein Smith and others have (now famously) called the “Tasman world” has long been shaped by the nationalist historiographies of twentieth-century Australia and New Zealand. Developments in the region’s colonial architecture from the 1780s onwards have thus fed later narratives of national foundations, often obscuring the more complex relationships of that world’s constituent colonies and resource geographies, both marine and terrestrial, as well as the highly varied ways in which the colonial enterprise was experienced and played out by the indigenous populations it most affected. For this issue, we invited scholars to work against that grain of what we have understood as a problematic nationalism by addressing the architecture and infrastructure of those colonial industries operating across the early colonies of New South Wales, Van Diemen’s Land and New Zealand and connecting that “world” to the economies of the British Empire, the so-called “Anglosphere,” and with architectural geographies defined by economic activity. These papers thus return to the colonial era of the South Pacific informed by the gains of post-colonial history, four-nations British historiography, studies of global colonial networks and systems, and an appreciation for “minor” forms of historical evidence and architectural practice. Over the past two decades the transnationalist agenda in contemporary historiography, beginning with “Atlantic World” studies and “Connected” histories, has dramatically reshaped how we see and understand the interconnected world in which we live. Nothing is as contained as it might first appear, especially within the borders of the modern nation state. This applies equally to the British world during the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries, including between what were initially separate crown colonies. The insights provided by these scholarly movements have spawned whole genres that have come to encompass “World” and “Global” history (with their own journals), as well as other oceanic spheres of influence besides the Atlantic, such as the Pacific and Indian oceans. The “Tasman world” that this volume inhabits is part of this wider historiographic trend, and may be seen as enlarging upon recent attempts to position the history of the built environment firmly at the heart of transnational and inter-colonial studies. Armed and inspired thus, the authors in this special issue have set out to consider the architecture of the Tasman world from the 1780s to the 1850s in its historical circumstances and to treat those decades that preceded by some time the familiar division of the Australian colonies that would coalesce into a twentieth-century nation, distinct from its trans-Tasman neighbour, whose economy was once more interdependent on that of Van Diemen’s Land and New South Wales. These papers explore architecture in three different registers: intentioned works definitively cast as Architecture; the “grey” architecture (as Bremner has named it ) of industries, transhipping and colonial infrastructure; and finally of architecture as an analogy for the relationships, systems and structures of the colonial project and its economic underpinnings. Papers move around and across the Tasman Sea, but beyond it as well, following the money, so to speak, as well as the soft capital of reputation and diplomacy. Together, the papers in this issue contribute to a post-nationalist architectural history of the Tasman colonies that figures the place of this region in the nineteenth-century British world and beyond. The terms of reference offered by Philippa Mein Smith, among others, in her book Remaking the Tasman World, published a decade ago, have been important to the way we have conceptualised this issue, so we are particularly pleased to include her work here. She begins the issue by exploring how the concept of the Tasman World and trans-colonial historiography activates the industrial architecture of sealing. She tracks the different ways in which this history can be posited as architectural history, from her recalibration of the timeline of European architecture’s first informal appearances in New Zealand to the homesteads and warehouses of sealers in Sydney and along the Hawkesbury, to those developments that rested squarely on a financial foundation built of seal furs. Stuart King then homes in on the timber industry of Van Diemen’s Land (today’s Tasmania) and its import for a geography spanning from the Swan River Colony in the west to California in the other west. How did timber move around the island and across both the Bass Strait and the Tasman Sea? To what ends was it put to work? What kinds of claim does this allow for a Tasmanian architecture? Harriet Edquist then considers the role of the Vandemonian Henty brothers in the settlement of Western Victoria, tempering a celebration of their pastoralism by recalling the displacements and disruptions wrought by their arrival, and recalibrating the chronology of the settlement of Port Philip when that chronology is read through an industrial or resource driven lens. A paper by Robin Skinner then pursues the matter of representation in his treatment of Burford’s dioramas of the three colonial “capitals” of this period: Hobart Town, Sydney, and Kororareka and the Bay of Islands. He considers the content portrayed by Angus Earle and amplified through its representation for British audiences in London. Mechanisms of control and surveillance, race relations, resources, religion and culture all draw visual comment, conditioning the way the Tasman Sea colonies were understood in their infancy. Bill Taylor’s consideration of the informal “industry” of pilfering reads port structures and the sites of labour and the distribution of resources through their permeability. Offering a way to read the relationship between the Australian ports and their counterparts across the British Empire (not least, Calcutta and Canton), he shows how these sites enacted a transactional stability between the dues accorded work and the value of those goods distributed through the Commissariat. This issue of Fabrications originated with a SAHANZ-sponsored session at the fifth biannual meeting of the European Architectural History Network, held in Tallinn, Estonia, in June 2018. It grows, in turn, from a long-term discussion around global enterprise and the South Pacific, staged in 2016 and 2017 in Hobart and Edinburgh (supported by RMIT, the University of Tasmania and the University of Edinburgh), and which has, in part, evolved out of the EU-funded COST Action “European Architecture Beyond Europe,” chaired by Mercedes Volait at INHA and Johan Lagae at Ghent. All five of the papers delivered at Tallinn in 2018—by Harriet Edquist, Stuart King Philippa Mein Smith, Robin Skinner, and Bill Taylor—have been revised and amplified for this thematic issue, responding both to the discussion we enjoyed in Tallinn and the comments offered by our expert reviewers. At Tallinn, we were included in a conference-long track on “the world of Europe’s peripheries,” which introduced an immediate an obvious tension into our discussion that remains live in these papers. Is this ultimately European or British architectural history at a remove? Or Australian architectural history that draws authority from the gravity of the centre? Or does it have value in its own terms? The more we have pondered this question, the clearer it seems that the proper answer lies in a balance wherein historic episodes tell us both of the eighteenth and nineteenth-century architectural history of the Tasman world—a geography with its own conditions and history—and of the history of the worlds with which the Tasman intersects, not necessarily as a periphery, but also respecting the realities of trade and travel in these decades that placed Port Jackson or Fiordland at a remove from many of the world’s commercial and cultural hubs. Note: this is the pre-production text of the editorial for this issue. Contents: Philippa Mein Smith / The Sealing Industry and the Architecture of the Tasman World Stuart King / The Architecture of Van Diemen's Land Timber Harriet Edquist / Portland Bay and the Origins of European Architecture in Port Phillip 1828-1836 Robin Skinner: "Dreamt of, but Utterly Unknown!": The Earle Panoramas of the Tasman World William M. Taylor / Pilfering and the Tasman World: Convict Commerce and the "Securitisation" of Space in Early Colonial Sydney
"The Architecture of the Tasman World 1788-1850" EAHN Conference,Tallinn 2018
2018
The nineteenth-century architectural history of what Philippa Mein Smith (among others) has called the 'Tasman world' has long been shaped by the nationalist historiographies of twentieth-century Australia and New Zealand. Developments in the region's colonial architecture from the 1780s onwards have thus fed later narratives of national foundations. The call for this session invited scholars to work against the grain of that problematic nationalism by addressing the architecture and infrastructure of those colonial industries operating across the early colonies of New South Wales, Van Diemen's Land and New Zealand, and connecting that 'world' to the economies of the British Empire, the 'Anglosphere', and architectural geographies defined by trade. These papers thus return to the colonial era of the South Pacific informed by the gains of post-colonial history, four-nations British historiography, studies of global colonial networks and systems, and an appreciation for 'minor' forms of historical evidence and architectural practice. Armed thus, the papers in this session consider the architecture of the Tasman world from the 1780s to the 1840s in its historical circumstances, exploring architecture across three different registers: intentioned works definitively cast as Architecture; the 'grey' architecture (after Bremner) of industries, transhipping and colonial infrastructure; and as an analogy for the relationships, systems and structures of the colonial project and its economic underpinnings. Papers move around and across the Tasman Sea.
The Architecture of the Tasman World, 1788-1850 (session at EAHN 5, Tallinn, 2018)
The nineteenth-century architectural history of what Philippa Mein Smith (among others) has called the ‘Tasman world’ has long been shaped by the nationalist historiographies of twentieth-century Australia and New Zealand. Developments in the region’s colonial architecture from the 1780s onwards have thus fed later narratives of national foundations. The call for this session invited scholars to work against the grain of that problematic nationalism by addressing the architecture and infrastructure of those colonial industries operating across the early colonies of New South Wales, Van Diemen’s Land and New Zealand, and connecting that ‘world’ to the economies of the British Empire, the ‘Anglosphere’, and architectural geographies defined by trade. These papers thus return to the colonial era of the South Pacific informed by the gains of post-colonial history, four-nations British historiography, studies of global colonial networks and systems, and an appreciation for ‘minor’ forms of historical evidence and architectural practice. Armed thus, the papers in this session consider the architecture of the Tasman world from the 1780s to the 1840s in its historical circumstances, exploring architecture across three different registers: intentioned works definitively cast as Architecture; the ‘grey’ architecture (after Bremner) of industries, transhipping and colonial infrastructure; and as an analogy for the relationships, systems and structures of the colonial project and its economic underpinnings. Papers move around and across the Tasman Sea. Philippa Mein Smith begins the session by exploring how the concept of the Tasman World and trans-colonial historiography activates the industrial architecture of sealing. Stuart King then homes in on the timber industry of Van Diemen’s Land and its import for a geography spanning from the Swan River Colony to California. Harriet Edquist considers the role of the Vandemonian Henty brothers in the settlement of Western Victoria, tempering a celebration of their pastoralism by recalling the displacements and disruptions wrought by their arrival. Bill Taylor attends to the informal ‘industry’ of pilfering and looks through the lens it offers on the Australian ports and their relationships with Britain. In the final paper, Robin Skinner pursues the matter of representation in his treatment of Burford’s dioramas of the three colonial ‘capitals’ of this period. Together, the papers in this session contribute to a postnationalist architectural history of the Tasman colonies that figures the place of this region in the nineteenth-century British world and beyond. Abstracts on pp 77-81 of the published programme.
The dynamism and mobility of architects in their approach to architectural design practice provides a context that emphasises that architecture, like culture, is not static or rooted in place, but is intricately configured through the dual processes of locality and mobility – both physical and theoretical. The production of architecture in Australia, as in other immigrant-rich societies, provides a case for reinforcing the theory that architectural mobility and travel are integral to the architecture of place. This issues paper sets out to re-examine the contribution of geo-cultural influences upon Australia’s architectural lineage and considers a diverse range of themes across an equally broad timeframe; British colonial transpositions; the dissemination of Modernism in Australia; the latent contribution of mid-twentieth century European émigré architects; and the secreted history of Australia’s Asian architecture. Common to all, however, is the notion of architectural translation as a process of influences transmitted, transposed or adapted to other contexts. It uses Australia as the focus from which to consider how global criticism, ideas and theories have travelled and continue to travel transversely across time and place, from the late-eighteenth century well into the twenty-first. This paper investigates translations through narratives, processes, networks and traces of architectural manifestations and begins to draw lines of influence.
The Sealing Industry and the Architecture of the Tasman World
Fabrications, 2019
This paper forms part of a collaborative project that aims to reframe the architectural histories of Australia and New Zealand by producing the first connected history of early colonial architecture in the Tasman world, a concept defined connectively as a working region of traffic across the Tasman Sea. In the early nineteenth century the Tasman world denoted a sub-set of imperial ventures between the south-eastern Australian colonies and pre(proto)-colonial New Zealand that were also linked commercially to British India and to imperial encroachments in China. Avoiding nationalist frameworks, the project expects to show how the earliest colonial architecture in ‘our’ region was an outcome of the industries that brought into being and shaped the colonial world. Seal hunting was foremost among these early European industries, providing the first export profits for the British colony of New South Wales. Yet the legacy of the sealing entrepreneurs based in New South Wales (here termed ‘sealer dealers’) and their frontier gangs of seal hunters remains unexamined in architectural history. Using historical methods, this paper argues that the sealing industry, while ephemeral in time, was foundational in place-making by establishing the Tasman world’s early-colonial built environment from the 1790s to about 1830.
Unearthed Golden Nugget: Australia in Modern Architecture since 1900
In his Modern Architecture since 1900 (1982 ff.) William J.R. Curtis attempts to present a "balanced, readable overall view of the development of modern architecture from its beginning until the recent past" and to include the architecture of the non-western world, a subject overlooked by previous histories of modern architecture. Curtis places authenticityat the core of his research and uses it as the criterion to assess the historicity of modern architecture. While the second edition (1987) of Curtis's book appeared with just an addendum, for the third edition (1996) he undertook a full revision, expansion and reorganisation of the content. The new edition, it will be posited, does present a more 'authentic' account of the development of modern architecture in other parts of the world, presenting a comprehensive view of Australian architecture. Compared to the additions and modifications of other post-colonial examples, there is scant difference in Curtis' account of Australian modern architecture between the first (1982) and the third (1996) editions. Even in the third edition (1996) the main reference to Australian modern architecture is confined to the Sydney Opera House as well as a brief commentary of the work of Harry Seidler, Peter Muller, Peter Johnson, Rick Leplastrier and Glenn Murcutt. In the years separating the two editions, regionalism in architecture was debated and framed in different ways by Paul Rudolph, Kenneth Frampton and Curtis, among others. In analysing the absence of Australian architecture as a 'golden' example of regionalism, this paper presents a critical overview of Curtis' understanding of the notion of an ‘authentic’ regionalism.
Para-colonial – Colonial – Post-colonial Influences and Transactions in the Architecture of Oceania (1840–1990). Joint symposium by Unitec Institute of Technology (Auckland, New Zealand) and Technical University Munich (Germany), 29 June–1 July, 2022, 2022
Knowledge on colonial architecture in the South Pacific is still sparse. Connections with pre-colonial settings and the post-colonial afterlife of this built legacy are often missing. In this sense, this conference unites contributions within the targeted time span c. 1840–1990, embedded in the larger South Pacific region. The contributions of this conference attempt to link their concrete architectural case studies of buildings, ensembles and urbanist projects with reflections on the influences of and transactions between locals and foreigners, colonials and colonised, and their changing allegiances, even across changing political powers.
UQ Press, 2009
Efforts to define an Australian architectural identity have often been compromised by conflicting historical affinities and geographical realities. Under the certainties and assumptions vested in the British Empire, relationships with Asia in the Australian architectural imagination were typically ambivalent. History had extended Europe far beyond its shores. The far-flung geography of Australasia was to be ignored as best as possible, the distance overcome by ever-faster transport and communications. With the formal end of empire in the mid-twentieth century, and the new geo-political and economic focus on the development of neighbouring nation states, the nature and dynamics of architectural encounter between Asia and Australasia ostensibly changed significantly. Yet, as this paper explores, modernity was in many respects just a new face to the former imperial order. In architecture as in other fields, the new institutional frameworks and agencies that emerged to aid the process of post-colonial modernisation and development still reflected the values and technocratic scaffolding of empire. Strategic new frameworks like the Colombo Plan scholarships programs brought future leaders among the first postcolonial generations of South and SouthEast Asian architects to study in Australian universities, but curricula throughout the ex-colonial Commonwealth remained tied to the old imperial core through the RIBA accreditation and examination system. Through the propagation of modern architecture strong neo-colonial North/South links were thereby developed between architectural educators and professionals in the emerging nations of postcolonial Asia and benchmark institutions in the UK and its former settler dominions, including Australia.