Abstract:
New Zealand currently has a taste for neo-modernism that has considerably limited the wairua (spirit or soul) of New Zealand’s contemporary architecture development.1 Rewi Thompson is of Ngati Porou and Ngati Raukawa descent and is a highly regarded architect in Aotearoa and abroad. Thompson explores architecture from a bicultural perspective and points out that architecture highlights the differences of cultural values.2 Thompson’s design process has led to site becoming whenua, and from a Maori cultural perspective whenua is culture. How does New Zealand contemporary architecture respond to this? The English translation of whenua is ‘land’. This is evident in the 1840 Treaty of Waitangi. Two versions of the Treaty of Waitangi were used during this event, one English and one Maori. It was assumed by the signatories that the English text held the same meaning as the Maori text. This was simply not the case and the English text took priority. Whenua pronounces the relationship between the human body, place, and wairua. Whenua is defined as a connective entity that engages in the holistic ecology of the living and designed world in this work. In his book Exploring Maori Values, John Patterson points out that the purpose of Maori narratives is to highlight the wairua between human body and ‘land.3 Maori narratives reflect cultural histories not scientific evidence. This relates to Thompson’s architectural perspective of whenua as a reflection of a culture and its people. Maori has always been a culture with a strength of oral intellect. The karanga is an example of this. The karanga is formally known as a ceremonial call that invites the visitors onto the marae. The kuia (female elder) performing the karanga is at that point sacred. Cleve Barlow, an anthropologist, suggest that the karanga extends the kuia beyond the physical world. This implies that the kuia now occupies a spatial threshold that intersects both the living and spiritual world. The karanga supports and expands on Patterson’s concept of Maori narratives. This work examines whenua through the oral narratives of Maori culture. It has consciously taken on a more intangible approach to the design process, giving wairua an authority and allowing the fruition of whenua to take place in New Zealand’s contemporary architecture. Waikohu: a Story of Whenua in contemporary New Zealand Architecture will explore and develop the concept of whenua as a means of engaging and representing a sense of wairua in New Zealand’s contemporary architecture. The proposition is a Treaty Settlement Station sited at Portage road, Otahuhu, Auckland. This work draws from traditional and contemporary works from Maori and non-Maori artists, writers, and orators as a means of compassing a spatial dialogue that is intimately connected by body, place, and time.