Abstract:
The House that Politics Built: Parliament Aotearoa proposes a new kind of parliamentary architecture, one that uses satire to navigate the slippery, slimy, scandalous world of politics. A loaded site was chosen in the centre of Auckland City, one flanked by a casino, a site for a brothel, theatres and retail and Auckland’s main street: Queen Street. Political events of the New Zealand election in 2014, ritual existing in the current parliament house and concepts from international political buildings, dictated the architecture of a new parliament complex – one that sees the prioritisation of public amenity as the means to facilitate democracy. A series of publications, proposals and products support the final project and its presentation in the form of a tour: ultimately concluding at a gift store. The reproductions of the architecture and its ideas become as crucial to the project as the architecture itself, playing on the role of the occupant as consumer. While architecture is used as a satirical tool to dissect the current body politic, and humour is rife, the intent behind the project is serious. With the convergence of news and entertainment (manifesting in the tabloid journalism of New Zealand’s media), parliamentary architecture must adapt to stay relevant. The fixed parliament building (existing as both government and public facility) is contrasted by the fluid nature of the Parliamentary Folly – temporary installations that respond to political events that make headlines. This is a project that uses the tension between satire and sincerity and fixity and fluidity to stabilise the unstable world of democracy and find a way to use architecture to facilitate it.