Abstract:
In combination with drawing, writing has been the natural medium of architectural
historiography and theory. Architects as early as Vitruvius and Alberti to more recently
John Ruskin, Le Corbusier, and Louis Khan have employed individual literary approaches,
with their writing now continuing to inspire architecture. This connection has been
expanded to include a relationship between architecture and fictional writing through the
works of architects such as Giuseppe Terragni to Steven Holl and scholars exploring the
potential to use fictional writing to inspire new architecture with added narrative depth.
This thesis aims to understand this relationship by examining the role of architecture in
crime novels and how its portrayal aids the author in achieving their desired effects.
Dame Ngaio Marsh (1895-1982) was a well-established author in the crime genre, being
named a “Queen of Crime” alongside Agatha Christie, Dorothy Sayers and Margery
Allingham. Marsh has also been essential to developing theatre and literature in New
Zealand, bringing international interest during the 20th century for her crime novels.
This thesis examines the first three of these novels: A Man Lay Dead (1934), Enter a
Murderer (1935), and The Nursing Home Murder (1935). It asks, is architecture complicit in
Ngaio Marsh’s crime?
The thesis is concerned with design analysis and visualisation rather than design
production. Collage, hand-drawing and watercolour are utilised to explore the architectural
forms described in Ngaio Marsh’s prose, to examine their role in her novels. Key built
environments are illustrated through series of watercolour perspectives, plans, sections,
and other architectural drawing methods, demonstrating how the built environment is or
isn’t accommodating Ngaio Marsh’s crimes.
This thesis shows that Marsh’s crimes occur in a range of building types, including
country houses, theatres and private hospitals. While the building types differ, it is
nonetheless possible to identify commonalities between them, notably the typologies
being those usually associated with the upper-middle class, the scale and complexity of
the architecture, and the possibility of a stage for crime to occur brought from Marsh’s
theatrical experience.