Abstraction and Artifice (original) (raw)
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The Architecture of the School of Maori Arts and Crafts
Māori architectural discourse is only emerging gradually, as there is a great amount of oral, written, drawn, photographic and physical source material to reinterpret. This article, which is an architectural analysis of the architecture of the School of Māori Arts and Crafts, deals with a brief but important period in Māori architectural development. The large volume of written material left by Apirana Ngata and the School's officials forms the basis for this discussion. It is not an account of particular buildings, but an examination of the School's historical development and approach to architecture. The School, under the leadership of Sir Apirana Ngata, deliberately formulated new design philosophies and redeveloped old concepts to suit contemporary Māori needs, create a fresh pool of trained artists, and facilitate Ngata's particular social goals.
The Routledge Handbook of Architecture, Urban Space and Politics (Vol. 2): Ecology, Social Participation and Marginalities. Eds. Bobic N, Haghighi F. Routledge, New York, NY , 2024
Without sustained struggle, neither Waipapa Marae nor the Fale Pasifika (Māori and Pacific meeting places, communal buildings and teaching spaces) would have been built at the University of Auckland-at least not in the 1980s and 1990s. Today, they are home to Māori and Pacific students, academics and their communities-and coveted event sites for others-in an institution which, for most of its existence, has considered itself as part of a European tradition stretching from medieval origins to today. The politics of place and space creating Waipapa Marae and Fale Pasifika took many modes and forms. Māori university members and local communities struggled against, operated within and were constructed by (neo-)colonial national politics. They deployed traditional forms and practices in order to resist such politics, to create diasporic spaces in the metropolis of Auckland, and generally to initiate change. This chapter examines the history of these complexes; the politics of space deployed by Māori and Pacific academic staff, students and community representatives; issues that were contended, fought over and partially settled; the role of University finance in the provision of cultural space; changes in the cultural landscapes over the last three decades; and, finally, Māori and Pacific self-determination within a future University. Through an examination these local cultures and practices of resistance, it examines how and under which conditions the institutional architectural environment of the University of Auckland was able to be transformed, and how such transformed architecture, in turn, created and enacted alternative political realities.
The End of the Wooden Shop: Wanganui Architecture in the 1890s
Architectural History Aotearoa
The 1890s was a decade of remarkable progress in Whanganui. The depression of the 1880s was over. The town became an important port and distribution centre with railway connections to Wellington and New Plymouth as well as wharves at Castlecliff and in town. Alexander Hatrick began his riverboat service on the river enabling tourists from all over the world to travel the "Rhine of New Zealand." The colonial town developed culturally. The Technical School of Design was established in 1892, the public museum opened a few years later and the library was extended. The local MP, John Ballance, was Premier until his death in 1893; his state funeral and that in 1898 of the Māori chief, Te Keepa Rangihiwinui, were defining moments in Whanganui's history. A 40-year building boom began, starting with the replacement of old town centre premises dating from the 1860s and earlier. In 1890 there were two architects in town, but only one with recognized qualifications: Alfred Atkins,...
Antipodal Architecture: Traces of the 'Other Tradition' in Piano's Tjibaou Cultural Centre
Alongside any of today’s internationally-recognized architectural practices, the work produced by the Renzo Piano Building Workshop perhaps best exemplifies Colin St. John Wilson’s notion of an ‘Other Tradition’. Grounded in contextual practicality, Piano’s work is enduring and adaptable, granting it an ability to transcend the reductionist discourses of both Modernism and Postmodernism. Refusing theoretical dogmatism, he chooses instead to poetically reveal contradictions through form, material, and construction. In no Piano project is this blend of modernism and tradition more evident than in the Tjibaou Cultural Centre in Nouméa, New Caledonia, Piano’s only completed project in the ‘developing world.’ Though at fifteen it has yet to reach the maturity of St. John Wilson’s case studies, the Centre extends the spirit of the ‘Other Tradition’ into the present millennium. The Tjibaou Cultural Centre is a valuable, postcolonial addition to St. John Wilson’s catalog for at least two reasons. First, the manifestation of the Centre was made possible by a unique compatibility between the localized, postcolonial politics of ‘the other’ and the pragmatic, and therefore politically flexible, approach of the architect. Examining the historical and political circumstances of the project reveals that many of the major architectural decisions represent as much the politics of its namesake, the local political activist Jean-Marie Tjibaou, as it does the design process of the Building Workshop. Thus, while the architect may have arrived from the colonial world, the project itself is an attempt to embody localized postcolonial beliefs and aspirations. In fact, the architectural representation of cultural identity is potentially the project’s greatest achievement. Second, the design process for the Tjibaou Centre recognized several contradictions—in this case, the dialectical struggles between modernity and tradition, global and local, individual and community, tolerance and resistance—then synthesized them into architectural form. Not only does this ‘contemporary vernacular’ harken back to St. John Wilson’s affinities for ‘an alternative philosophy’ to the modern movement, these dialectical pairings precisely match those that distinguish the postcolonial paradigm. Therefore, the Tjibaou Centre may indeed offer valuable lessons for those seeking to revitalize the project of local modernism. This essay is an attempt to extract those lessons by recounting the project’s germination, design, and construction through the lens of ‘the uncompleted project.’
Fabrications, 2018
Far from being a dusty trawl through the attic, or in this case the basement of the Architecture Archive the centenary exhibition, The Auckland School, 100 Years of Architecture and Planning 1917-2017, was a rewarding sampling from this precious store. The survey show drew on other sources but a large proportion of the work, arranged by exhibition designers Michael Milojevic and Lucy Treep, came from the Archive established in Auckland in 1975. Provided with more material than they could possibly exhibit, dictated some delicate editing. Co-curators Milojevic, Treep, Andrew Barrie and Julia Gatley, all staff of the Architecture School, sought to frame the school "as a site of research, speculation and radical aesthetics" 1 asserting the intellectual ambit while also affirming the social dimension of the project: "the school was a place of dialogue and strong connections." 2 They wished to show the rich net of relationships and community, and this warmth permeates the exhibition. In the foyer of the Gus Fisher Gallery, the Auckland University's own art gallery, vitrines of memorabilia contained fascinating material and showed early entre-preneurial flairyes how did Dorita Hannah, a student of the school, convince Marcel Marceau, the famous French actor and mime, to open the "Gone to Kiwi" student conference in 1983? University staff were acknowledged with a number of engaging portraits and long serving technical staff who supported the culture of the school were recognised too. Film technician Anna Soutar's short film showed artists Pat Hanly and Claudia Pond-Eyley discussing their landmark mural to the School's entry and conveyed long-ago conversations into the gallery. The Salon-style hang of the main gallery hit the right note with a generous profusion. Drawings, framed for the exhibition (double layers of glass for tracing paper), ascended the four walls. The work was accompanied by captions with a wealth of detail (occasionally requiring binoculars!). A long central table in the main roomjostling with exhibits, models, vitrine cabinets for visual diaries, fragile letters, and memorabiliaprovided reading spaces for poring over the wealth of publications on display. Stacks and layers of material pervaded this main room and the evocation of a richly productive studio encouraged the visitor to settle in for a closer look. While the exhibition broadly privileged expressive and critical drawings by students and tutors from 1917 to the present day, the professional work of tutors featured too and was at times not easily distinguished from their students' work. This raised for me the question of what a productive relationship between drawings by architectural students and those of the profession might be. What are the implications of the
Architectural History Aotearoa
This decade can be noted for several distinct approaches to Māori architecture, reflecting a variety of nationalistic impulses. This paper offers a brief overview of the diversity of Māori architecture and ideas in this period. Pākehā, in the search for national identity, and also reflecting the interests of the global Arts and Crafts movement, were enthused by the local example of the carved and decorated whare whakairo, native timbers, Māori adzing techniques and local flora and fauna. This can be seen in the work of architects such as JW Chapman Taylor, as well as the symbolism and trademarks of popular culture, and the pattern of museum acquisitions. By the twentieth century Māori were seen as a culture that could soon become extinct and this is reflected in the images of artists such as Goldie ("The Calm Close of Valour’s Various Days"), Lindauer's interest in preserving ersatz records of tradition and custom, and Dittmer's interest in myth and legend. Parliam...
Speaking To and Talking About: Maori architecture
Interstices: Journal of Architecture and Related Arts, 1990
When a New Zealand Maori orator standing to speak on a marae addresses the meeting house in the same breath as he also addresses the assembled people-this. may be taken as prototypical of a surprising comportment towards architecture within a traditional society. The Maori intuition that the iohare tohakairo, carved house, is a living presence is richer than any mere simile, it is beyond the idea of metaphor or representation in a European-educated sense. The house is not like an ancestor, it is the ancestor. In European-educated terms this issue may appear peculiar but it is susceptible to phenomenological attention. The Maori comportment of 'speaking to architecture' is alien to European-educated ways of thinking. Europeans are permitted to speak to one another, but may only talk about architecture. The respective linguistic comportments, 'speaking to' and 'talking about' are distinctly different ways of seeing and understanding architecture. We set out to contradict the common racialist myth that the architectural comportment of the Maori is more 'primitive', while the European-educated perception of objective profanity is more 'advanced'. It is argued on the contrary that Europeans are excluded by prejudice and a certain linguistic prohibition from a potent world of architectural meaning. But to access some of the nourishing possibilities of the indigenous architecture it is necessary to confront impeding myths within the European-educated outlook-certain philosophical attitudes which prevent us addressing architecture in its imaginative fullness. PAPER TALK This paper talks about a peculiar aspect of the New Zealand Maori dwelling experience-that Maori people directly address and include the carved house, tohare tohakairo in the rhetoric of tribal occasions and public gatherings, that a work of architecture is a living presence in the hearts of people. In ceremonial greeting for example, when one group of people come to visit another on their traditional land,
Being moved by artful architecture - Wits Rock Art Gallery, pages 10-17
Arch SA 96 - Journal of the South African Institute of Architects, 2019
Rock art and the new Origins Centre Rock Art Gallery at the University of the Witwatersrand share a fundamental characteristic: intention. They are examples of artefacts that record what was meaningful to their makers at the time and guided the purposeful process of making. While there is no precise record of the intention guiding the ancient rock artists, this essay reveals the intention behind the new and unique gallery that is home to the largest rock art collection in the world by exploring the hidden meaning, thinking and events that led to its creation. It traces Mashabane Rose and Associates’ design rationale within a much longer story of artistic expression and cultural documentation, thereby contextualising their new contribution to Johannesburg’s urban identity on the university’s public edge along Enoch Sontonga Avenue. This essay shows the connection between past events and ideas, and present-day responses and uses the notion of connection as a tool to describe the historical narrative and the design. An aspect of the design that the gallery space incubates so well (and which this essay endeavours to transmit) is that it invites deeper thinking and further questioning: to try to creatively engage with diffcult questions about origins, identity and how we want to be in the world now, and in future.
Theatres of Architectural Imagination, 2023
Theatres of Architectural Imagination explores connections between architecture and theatre, encouraging many varieties of imagination (including ethical, narrative, social, historical, poetic and creative imagination) in the design, interpretation and teaching of architecture, cities, landscapes and public places, and in the role of theatre, performing arts, and civic festivals and engagement, in shaping the architecture and meaning of the world. In its breadth of scope and detailed depth of inspiring examples, it will delight and provoke thinkers, makers, doers and teachers in theatrical and performing arts, as well as in many interrelated environmental disciplines, including architecture, landscape architecture, and urban design. As such, it aspires to expand the already wide open field of architectural agency, while also attempting to ground that field in ethical and dramatic modes of action and interpretation. Imagination is arguably the architect’s most crucial capacity, underpinning memory, invention, and compassion. No simple power of the mind, architectural imagination is deeply embodied, social, and situational. Its performative potential and holistic scope may be best understood through the model of theatre. Theatres of Architectural Imagination examines the fertile relationship between theatre and architecture with essays, interviews, and entr’actes arranged in three sections: Bodies, Settings, and (Inter)Actions. Contributions explore a global spectrum of examples and contexts, from ancient Rome and Renaissance Italy to modern Europe, North America, India, Iran, and Japan. Topics include the central role of the human body in design; the city as a place of political drama, protest, and phenomenal play; and world- making through language, gesture, and myth. Chapters also consider sacred and magical functions of theatre in Balinese and Persian settings; eccentric experiments at the Bauhaus and 1970 Osaka World Expo; and ecological action and collective healing amid contemporary climate chaos. Inspired by architect and educator Marco Frascari, the book performs as a Janus- like memory theatre, recalling and projecting the architect’s perennial task of reimagining a more meaningful world.
2023
Landscape Architecture is still disconnected from the realm of cultural identification. Specifically Māori Architecture and the authenticity of cultural landscapes. Representation and education methods within the architectural profession has shown little interest in unravelling the complexity of indigenous consideration. Since the introduction of the ‘Te Aranga Principles’ and ‘Te Kawenata o Rata’ in 2006 and 2017, architecture lacks in associating ‘tikanga māori’ alongside architectural designs. The disassociation between mainstream practice, academics and students in partnership with tangata whenua remains a significant barrier in addressing issues of awareness and ill-mannered consideration in which māori involvement is disregarded. How the misappropriation and misrepresentation is an outcome of the lack of partnerships, knowledge and educated component in the profession. Although these themes remain evident in practice by the help of misunderstood Western theories, introducing a focused problem that begins to examine how we can design authentic māori landscapes when applying māori values of spirituality alongside the physical. This thesis examines the relationship between physical representation and spirituality. How we can begin to explore and bridge both the sensory and the visual to create a more authentic and unique sense of place within our landscapes. It begins to asses existing methods of techniques and valued-based methods, questioning how the physical and spiritual can translate into design. This thesis focuses on the value of spirituality when designing for māori, highlighting the sense of traditional and contemporary Māori architecture in Te Arawa Waka. This thesis aims to capture the significance of how translating spiritual values into Te Arawa landscapes encapsulates how mainstream practices can transform māori concepts into the physical reality of contemporary māori architecture in order to represent māori authentically. By highlighting spirituality in Te Arawa, western notions, Te Noho Kotahitanga Marae, a project that works on techniques that combines traditional and contemporary methods that centres around revealing historical relevance, provides the focus on the research.