Possibilities for a Post-Colonial Architecture in Residential New Zealand
Authors:   , Blandford Joshua 
Published: November 2021

<p>The ability of architecture to mediate cultural identities, and prescribe spatial practices, empowers it as it provides an avenue through which it can persuade, legitimate, or dominate physical space; not only in terms of how it is conceived of, but also how the social interactions that occur within space are ordered. In other words architecture allows ideology, knowledge and therefore power to mediate space, both physically and culturally. This realisation must result in a heightened questioning and critique of how historic and contemporary architecture functions as a socio-spatial object, and challenge the treatment of architecture as a field autonomous from social and political influence. This is particularly important in countries such as New Zealand, that find their roots in a colonial past, where space, land, and building are at the forefront of cultural appropriation and domination. This thesis investigates the possibilities of producing post-colonial residential forms of architecture through challenging the inherently colonial practices and mechanisms of representation of modern architectural discourse. Situating the investigation within the context of the New Zealand State House, the thesis first seeks to investigate how the State House, and the mechanisms used to represent it, mediated colonial and imperial narratives of space, culture, and society. It also investigates the presence of Bhabha’s performative and Lefebvre’s lived space within the State House developments of Eastern Porirua in contemporary society, to gauge the ways in which inhabitants themselves have challenged the colonial narratives meditated by the state house, and to establish a list of criteria that is used to guide the development of the designs later in the thesis. Second, it seeks to investigate the possibilities for creating a new, what will be termed post-colonial, architectural position through challenging the colonial narratives mediated by the State House and the mechanisms used to represent it with previously suppressed social and cultural narratives. The work follows post-structural and post-colonial theories developed by Foucault, Bourdieu, Lefebvre, Bhabha, and Said, and extends their literature based concepts into design experimentation. The thesis presents two residential outcomes, both sited within the State House dominated suburbs of Eastern Porirua. Each outcome is generated through its own design experiment. The first design experiment and outcome challenges colonial mechanisms of architectural representation with the architecture of the wharenui, and, whilst located in the general area of the State House suburbs of Eastern Porirua, is not specifically sited due to the process of the experiment causing the design to be site-less. The second design experiment and outcome challenges the colonial position of the New Zealand State House through reading a State House site within Eastern Porirua through Shirres’ interpretation of the Māori spatial concepts of tapu and noa. The outcomes, despite being produced within established methods of architectural design, make three important positional shifts towards a post-colonial architecture. The first of these is that it produced a critique through alternate cultural architectural and spatial narratives, despite these narratives becoming reframed by the colonial narratives they challenge. The second is that they enacted historical and traditional narratives as forms of critique to architectural practice, removing the disjunction between architectural practice and historical critique. The third is that it incorporated evidence of the spatial practices and perceptions of lived space and the performative into the design, minimising the disjunction between the abstract nature of architectural practice and the fluid activity of everyday life.</p>