Reconstructing Remnants: Encountering the Memory of Lost Materiality

Abstract

Our urban fabric is a bricolage of materials, engaged in a perpetual cycle of renewal through the construction and deconstruction of buildings. As architecture attempts to transcend time, there is a growing need to connect people, buildings and natural processes to mitigate the dichotomous relationship between architecture and its context. Auckland’s continuously changing urban environment has led to the demolition of many culturally significant buildings. The current state of architecture is often reduced to representing a commercialised commodity where flatness, transparency and speed neglect embodied encounters, history and weathering processes. Drawing upon temporal maturity, ephemerality and the socio-ethical responsibilities of architecture, this thesis engages with the temporal aspects of architecture through materiality, memory and the palimpsestic value of trace. By questioning preservation and reuse within architectural discourse, this thesis provides a framework to extend the life-cycle of selected materials once buildings have consented for demolition. It begins with the proposal of a charitable trust (Auckland Preservation Trust) and the recovery of tactile material fragments. Materials are reinterpreted as the manifestation of temporary ‘Recollection Pavilions’ on Albert Park Bowen Avenue extension. Recollection Pavilions reflect the material heritage of lost Auckland buildings, experienced as public encounters to engage and interact with. The proposal focuses on three temporary pavilions: together, they demonstrate approaches for transforming recovered material fragments from selected buildings. Recollection Pavilions shuttle between remembering and forgetting over their three-year life span, exploring the tensions between revealing and concealing, light and shadow, surface and depth. They emphasise the temporal experience of time, receptive to ageing through the intricacies of light, shadow and water. Residual fragments are left to season post-deconstruction: their sediment layers accumulate over time to be incorporated in future pavilions. Concerned with how lost buildings are transformed into recollection spaces, this thesis reinterprets notions of the museological: allowing people to observe, speculate, probe, question and reflect upon their city’s texture. With a focus on material weathering and trace, this thesis emphasises the importance of haptic encounters and sensuous materiality within Auckland.