Architectural Phenomenology: Building an urban sanctuary on Auckland's original foreshore

Abstract

Our surrounding environment, built or unbuilt, serves as the catalyst for sensory stimulation in human beings; not only giving birth to emotion, but affecting cognition, memory and spatial perception. The quasi-rational formation of today’s urban environment seeks to provide an ever-densifying society with instrumental structures which, by nature, are void of mental meaning for the purposes of utility and economy. In turn, sensory experience becomes secondary to rationalism within an urban environment. Consequently, this thesis argues that philosophical underpinnings are deeply rooted within the architectural discipline. Phenomenology, a subset to philosophy, describes the study of the development of human consciousness and self-awareness. All sensation is spatial, therefor the memories we retain, even in our deep subconscious, are evidence of a point in space and time. It follows from this, then, that environment; therefore architecture is synonymous with sensory experience; therefore memory. The formation of such a relationship should be addressed in architecture dedicated to contemplation, such as an urban sanctuary. The intended project site is located between Fort Street and Shortland Street in Auckland’s Commercial Bay and carries a neglected historical significance. In the year 1840 the chief of Ngāti Whātua-o-Ōrēkei, Ahipahi Te Kawau, invited Governor Hobson to establish a new capital in Auckland. With the arrival of migrant ships trade grew exponentially and Fort Street became the heart of Auckland’s economy. Prior to the expansion of its ports in the early 1850’s, Fort Street - formerly Fore Street - represented the original foreshore of the southern Waitemata Harbour coastline. Subsequent reclamations have altered the topography of the land and the original foreshore has been forgotten. This thesis attempts to conceptualise this historical narrative, through a phenomenological lens, in order to manifest the past into a present day memorial which offers the urban dweller a place to escape the clutches of a monotonous and overwhelming cityscape. Issues surrounding sensual experience, the subconscious and inherent human tendency will be explored through close examination of the works of Edmund Husserl, Martin Heidegger, Juhani Pallasmaa, Daniel Libeskind, and Alvar Aalto.