Abstract:
This research examines the ideological, social and cultural world viewpoints of people within the Auckland and Northland regions of New Zealand during the 19th and early 20th century as expressed in rural homesteads and urban domestic dwellings. The Georgian Order Theory, as applied to the study of the design of domestic housing by historical archaeologists is a theoretical perspective that assumes a dominant structural order emanating from a cultural schema or ideology. However, there are many more factors arising from historical contingency and human agency, both conscious and unconscious, that also affect this ideology and how it is materially represented in domestic dwellings. This thesis examines 10 dwellings which were investigated using buildings archaeology in a critical appraisal of the Georgian Order theory with a focus on how these other factors are expressed in the design of these domestic dwelling.