COLONIALISM AND THE ARCHITECTURE PROJECT

COLUMBUS 1492517 years ago today Columbus landed in the Bahamas

COLONIALISM AND THE

ARCHITECTURE PROJECT

© Tony Ward2009

For extended versions of this document visit:http://www.TonyWardedu.com

Please note that parts of this presentation are highly critical of some past and present policies and actions of the Catholic Church. This is not an anti-Church analysis. I was myself raised as a devout Catholic until I was in my late teens, and for a while studied with a view to the priesthood. I hold in deepest respect those members of the Church who work at great personal sacrifice and often die for the poor and oppressed. I dedicate this piece to them.

This critical analysis of the roles of the Church and the State in the development of Capitalism and in systems of oppression and genocide is for me a necessary part of my coming to understand my own white privilege and the histories of the peoples upon whose bodies it is built.

What follows is a history of the relationship of Architecture to the process of colonisation from the point of view of its victims. I make no apologies for voicing these suppressed views.

Who controls the past controls the future.

Who controls the present controls the past.

George Orwell, 1984.

HISTORY

ST. MICHAEL BURROWBRIDGE

ST. MICHAEL GLASTONBURY

MT. ST. MICHAEL, CORNWALL

All of these early Christian churches, dedicated to St. Michael, the Archangel are located on very ancient pre-Christian (Celtic) sacred sites.

COLONISING ARCHITECTURE?

MT. ST. MICHELE AD.708ST. MICHEL LE PUY

Such ancient places of pilgrimage have for over a thousand years been surmounted by a fortress-like churches, c l a i m i n g t h e i r dominance of the s u r r o u n d i n g community. Such sites were important in the process of hegemony. Throughout Europe, the same process occurred.Here, the famous Benedictine monastery of Mt St, Michele, built in 708. (above) stands on an island-rock that was sacred to pre-Christian peoples. And (left) the chapel of St-Michel d'Aiguilhe dominates the surrounding landscape.

ST. MICHAELWhat each of these sites has in common, is a dedication to St. Michael, who slew a dragon. The dragon (horned, winged and breathing fire) was not only characterised as Satan in early Christian iconography, but also of the Earth Spirit - the source of the pre-Christian spirituality, of the Mother Goddess cult. The symbolic skewering (By a piece of Christian Architecture) of the Earth Goddess represented the imposition of Christian patriarchy over gynocentric Europe. The Freudian symbolism is not too obscure! The Goddess was replaced, by a male deity. But she lives on even today in the re-branded guise of the Virgin Mary, the mother of Jesus.

DOME OF THE ROCK (685-691)5 years after the death of the Islamic Prophet Muhammad in 632, in a war of liberation from the Byzantine Empire (the remnant Eastern Roman Imperium that had merged with the Roman Church), Jerusalem was conquered by the Islamic army. The Dome of the Rock was erected as a statement of reclamation by the indigenous people between 685 and 691 CE. The loss of pilgrimage revenues from Jerusalem was a serious blow to Church finances as well as affront to Christian hegemony and power.

This act of reclamation was quite conscious, and sought to compete with and overwhelm the Christian buildings that has been built on the site during the Byzantine occupation. Historians contend that the Caliph wished to create a structure which would compete with the existing buildings of other religions in the city. al-Maqdisi writes that he

”sought to build for the Muslims a masjid that should be unique and a wonder to the world. And in like manner, is it not evident that Caliph Abd al-Malik, seeing the greatness of the martyrium of the Church of the Holy Sepulchre and its magnificence was moved lest it should dazzle the minds of Muslims and hence erected above the Rock the dome which is now seen there.”

THE CRUSADES1095-1291

EUROPEANCOLONIALISM

Church and StateF r o m t h e 11 t h - 1 3 t h Centur ies, successive Popes and monarchs formed alliances to wrest the Holy Land from Islam. The Crusades failed in their purpose to “retake” the Holy Land for Christ, but established an imperialist pattern that would prevail for centuries (down to none other than George Bush?)

EARLY CHRISTIAN ENTREPRENEURS

If the mountain won’t come to Mohammed.., (If the pilgrims can’t come to the Holy Land, then the Holy Land must come to the pilgrims).

St. Chapelle, Paris (1248) was built by Louis IX to house the Crown of Thorns - no doubt retrieved during The Crusades but purchased by him from the Latin Emperor at Constantinople, Baldwin II, as an investment in his move to become rightful King. He paid 135,000 livres for the relics and 40,000 livres to build the chapel. His endorsement by the Pope of the ownership of the relics was a powerful aid to his ambitions. Despite the fact that it was Louis’ private Chapel, the presence of the relics in Paris (and Louis’ own increased prestige) would no doubt have been a big draw-card to the pilgrims of the day, and an economic boost for the economy of the city and the added prestige of the King.

Michelle Obama's Chicago Olympics pep rally

The Obama’s attempt to gain the Olympics for Chicago in 2016 is just the latest example of a very old economic strategy: capital investment for regular expected returns from Tourism.

COLUMBUS 1492The processes of colonisation that had been established in the crusades was carried to a fine art in the 15th-16th Centuries by the Spanish, with the blessing and twisted legal logic of Alexander VI, the Spanish (Borgia) Pope.

After the discovery of the New World, the Pope’s papal bull Inter Cetera Divini (1493) divided the world into franchises, and established a right to colonise and appropriate resources based upon the leg i t imat ing argument of “saving souls”.

OVIEDO 1328-1528What is interesting about this picture?

It’s possible to see here the shift that happened to Spanish Church Architecture after 1492. The plain, simple, yet elegant architecture of the Gothic remains. But the Sanctuary has become an extravaganza of imagery and iconic motifs, dripping with gold.

CONQUISTADORS

The “discovery” of America, was very profitable to the European colonisers (primarily the Spanish). The amounts of gold and silver taken from the new World by Columbus and those who followed him were staggering. In the mid-Seventeenth Century silver constituted more than 99 percent of mineral exports from Spanish America, and between 1503 and 1660, 185,000 kilograms of gold and 16,000,000 of silver arrived at the Spanish port of Sanlúcar de Barrameda. Silver shipped to Spain in little more than a century and a half exceeded more than three times the total European reserves - and probably much more since these official figures are not complete.

TOLEDO ALTAROnce simple churches such as those in Oviedo and Toledo suddenly soared to new heights, expanded, and had new windows installed to let the sun pour down on the vast collection of gold and jewels from the New World. The cathedral of Toledo boasts a five-hundred pound monstrance made from the Indian booty brought back by Columbus himself.

In the Chapter House (right) this 500-pound, 10-foot high, 15th-century gilded monstrance by Juan del Arfe, a silversmith. Made of solid silver, it was gilded 70 years later, allegedly with gold brought back by Columbus. It is still carried through the streets of Toledo (left) during the feast of Corpus Christi. Cordoba, Avila and every other city in the south boast similar artifacts. Gold became so common in European palaces and churches that architects developed a novel style of decoration emphasising entering light that could illuminate the gold and make it dazzle the observer.

MALAGA & VALENCIA

As Jack Weather-ford notes: “I first saw this wealth of silver and gold in a Holy Week procession in Cōrdoba…Dressed in their long robes of purple and white topped by tall conical hats from which hung veils covering their faces they looked like marchers in a Ku Klux Klan rally The first one carried a six foot high cross of silver. Twelve young boys…followed him, each of them carried a gold trumpet four feet long and a foot wide at the mouth. From each trumpet hung a banner of the Hapsburg eagle… Following…marched more boys with tall silver crosses and more men with covered faces. In Andalusia over 300 such processions marched during Holy Week.”

Florentine Banking Cardinals (alone):

• Medici (2 Popes)• Strozzi• Salviati• Ridolfi• Gaddi (2 cardinals)

Medici Villa Madama, Rome 1518

THE CHURCH AND THE BANKS

The banking families lent the Church money for projects (which their sibling-cardinals and popes initiated) then collected the interest from the booty.

The riches sought by Ferdinand and Isabella eventually found their way, to the banking system and the Church throughout the dominions of the Netherlands, Sardinia, Sicily, Italy, Austria, Switzerland and Germany.

Many of the great banking families of Italy were deeply connected to the Church hierarchy. Election to the Papacy was invariably accompanied by simony and bribery, because of the great power that the position wielded. These banking families lent the Church money for projects (which their sibling-cardinals and popes initiated), and then claiming their interest on the spoils of colonial conquest which the Pope had sanctioned.

The Spanish Crown was almost completely mortgaged, owing nearly all of the silver shipments before they arrived to German, Genoese, Flemish and Spanish bankers. In 1543, sixty-five percent of all Royal revenues went to paying annuities on debts. Latin American silver benefited the Spanish economy only indirectly. It ended in the hands of the Fuggers, (German bankers who had advanced to the Pope the funds needed to finish St. Peter’s), and of the Welsers, the Shetzes, and the Grimaldi, the other major bankers in the Italian and Spanish economies. It is worth noting that the ongoing expropriation of gold and silver was also partly occasioned because of the loss of Church revenues occasioned by the expanding Reformation and Henry VIII’s dissolution of the Monasteries and appropriation of their assets and revenues (1536-41).

THE CHURCH AND STATE: Phillip II (1556-1598) moved the capital from Toledo to Madrid in 1559. Reacting to the Protestant Reformation sweeping through Europe during the sixteenth century, he devoted much of his reign and most of his New World gold to stemming the Protestant tide through a new kind of Church architecture.

THE COUNTER-REFORMATION

Bernini:The Coronaro (1646)

To counter the potential loss of revenue that the Reform movement threatened, the Church threw all of its economic and political might behind the Counter-Reformation project. Much of the wealth acquired by Phillip and the Church was used to combat the austerity of the Protestant architecture. The Church adopted a specific design policy of ehat we might call Enrapturement- intended to induce perceptual ambiguity and to overwhelm the senses through a sensual and voluptuous experience that would swamp the auditory, visual, olefactory and haptic representational systems, inducing a trance-like (and transcendental) experience. Borromini, Bernini (right) at The Coronaro (1646) and Cosmos Damien and Egid Quirin Asam, Assumption (Rohr, 1720) (next slide) were masters of the art.

The process worked! Whereas in 1600 Europe was all but lost to the Reformists, by 1650, more than two-thirds of the continent was once again under the sway of orthodox Catholicism

ZIMMERMAN WIESKIRCHE 1746ASSAM: ASSUMPTION(1720)

THE COST? WHO PAID?! • In the Potosi mines of Bolivia alone, six thousand African

slaves all died of altitude sickness.

• Four out of five of the local Indians forced into slave labour for the Spanish died in their first year in the mines.

• By 1600 over three million native people were murdered or died from the results of their enslavement in South America

• In the fourteen years after of Columbus’ arrival more than a quarter of a million Haitians were murdered by the Spanish

• Historian David Stannard argues that the destruction of the aboriginal peoples of the Americas, in a "string of genocide campaigns" by Europeans and their descendants, was the most massive act of genocide in the history of the world

CULPABLE CHURCH So while the late Pope John Paul may have sought to defend the activities of the Church in the process of colonisation and the genocide of indigenous communities on spiritual grounds (right), there is no denying that the Church’s greed for gold (both to pay off growing debt and to stem reform) was also one of its motivations.

The Church continues today to support despotic dictators in El Salvador, Guatemala, Chile, Argentina, Colombia, Peru, the Phillipines and elsewhere in the interests of maintaining its power and hegemony.

ZAPATISTAS

Indigenous Mexicans still suffer from the privations caused by the original genocide. Here, in 1989, the Zapatista Mayans cluster around the entrance to the Cathedral in Mexico City’s Zoccalo in a land protest against State and Church policies toward the Mayan people, especially in Chiapas, the southernmost and poorest (and most indigenous) province. Their plight has been highlighted by the Zapatista Army of National Liberation

TERRORIST COLUMBUS

In European culture, Christopher Columbus is portrayed as a hero-explorer who brought “progress” and Christianity to native peoples. To many of these same native peoples, Columbus is seen as a terrorist who brought death, slavery, starvation and centuries of subjugation. This poster (below right) is taken from indigenous demonstrations such as the one in Columbia during the 500th Anniversary of Columbus’ voyage in 1992. Demonstrations such as this took place all across the all Americas to mark the start of their subjugation and exploitation.

Marx put it succinctly: “...(the) discovery of gold and silver in America, the extirpation, enslavement and entombment in mines of the aboriginal population, the beginning of the conquest and looting of the East Indies, the turning of Africa into a warren for the commercial hunting of black skins, signaled the rosy dawn of the era of capitalist production”..

Karl Marx

COLONISATION & CAPITALISM

1898

COLONIAL EXPANSION

The activity of the Church and the Spanish monarchy was just the beginning of a process of colonial expansion that in the next 400 years would cover the planet. So much wealth poured into Europe from South America that it fuelled a massive investment programme. Each of the European nations joined in the subjugation of indigenous peoples to increase its economic power.

BRITISH IMPERIALISM AT HOME:THE ENCLOSURES

Throughout the 17th, 18th and part of the 19th Centuries, British society and the British landscape were transformed by a series of Parliamentary Acts - the Enclosure Acts. These Acts allowed rich and powerful politicians, and landowners (you had to be a land-owner to vote) to force millions of peasants off what had been until then, common land over which they had living, grazing, hunting and growing rights. These displaced folk were herded into the burgeoning towns where they formed an immense pool of cheap labour, ready to be exploited in the factories - owned, of course, by the same land-owning class interests that had displaced them in the first place. Those caught “poaching” to feed their families were transported to the penal colonies in America and Australia.

As one example, in North Wales, Llandudno's 1843 Enclosure Act was progressed through Parliament by Edward Mostyn Lloyd Mostyn M.P. whose family consequently acquired freehold rights over much of the old village of Llandudno. Smallholders were then evicted, their fields paved over and an ancient agricultural settlement transformed into a fashionable bathing resort. A century and a half later Mostyn Estates still own and control most of our town. The town of Mostyn, to the East, was, until recently, home to a giant smelting firm owned, naturally, by the family.

LEGAL THEFT

'The law locks up the man or womanWho steals the goose from off the common;But lets the greater villain looseWho steals the common from the goose.'18th Century poem

Graffiti, Auckland, NZ 1987

URBAN ENGLAND 1830s+

Salford factory town by LS Lowry 1887-1976 - the world I was born into.

STOURHEAD 1741-80

The profits from these dispossessions and exploitations was poured into the large mansion houses that now (dis) grace the English countryside.

BLENHEIM PALACE 1705-24

Blenheim Palace, “gift of a grateful nation” to the Duke and Duchess of Marlborough in return for military triumph against the French and Bavarians. The birthplace and burial place of Sir Winston Churchill. “Set in 2100 acres of beautiful parkland landscaped by ‘Capability’ Brown, the exquisite Baroque Palace is surrounded by sweeping lawns, formal gardens and the magnificent Lake.” The architect was Sir John Vanbrugh.

HARLAXTON HALL

“Some of them had been there for centuries, visible triumphs over the ruin and labour of others. But the extraordinary phase of extension, rebuilding and enlarging which occurred in the 18th century, represents a spectacular increase in the rate of exploitation, a good deal of it, of course, the profit of trade and of colonial exploitation; much of it, however, the higher surplus value of a new and more efficient mode of production. It is fashionable to admire these extraordinarily numerous houses: the extended manors, the neo-classical mansions, that lie so close to rural Britain. People still pass from village to village, guidebook in hand, to see the next and yet the next example, to look at the stones and the furniture. But stand at any point and look at that land. Look at what those fields, those streams, those woods even today produce. Think it through as labour and see how long and systematic the exploitation and seizure must have been, to rear that many houses on that scale... What these ‘great’ houses do is to break the scale, by an act of will corresponding to their real and systematic exploitation of others. For look at the sites, the facades, the defining avenues and walls, the great iron gates and the guardian lodges. These were chosen for more than their effect from the inside out... they were chosen, also, you now see, for the other effect, from the outside looking in: a visible stamping of power, of displayed wealth and command: a social disproportion which was meant to impress and overawe. Much of the real profit of a more modern agriculture went not into productive investment, but into that explicit social declaration: a mutually competitive but still uniform exposition, at every turn, of an established and commanding class power.”Williams, R., The Country and The City, Hogarth Press, London, 1985, pp. 105-106.

MR & MRS ANDREWS

Painted by Gainsborough, the landscape evokes Robert Andrews' estate, to which his marriage added property. The gun, intended to indicate a recreational interest in hunting, no doubt had a more sinister purpose. Key to these estates was the availability of cheap labour - vast pools of unemployed, hungry peasants and convicted transportees who hover beyond the edge of vision.

PETERLOO MASSACRE

The lie was given to this supposed pastoral harmony in August, 1819, when 60,000-80,000 Northern demonstrators peacefully seeking representation were charged by sabre-wielding cavalry. 15 people were killed and 400–700 were injured.

TRANSPORTATION

The prisons were overflowing and convicted felons were usually transported to a penal colony - either to the Americas, from the 1610s through the American Revolution in the 1770s, and then to Australia between 1788 and 1868.

During the late 18th and 19th centuries, large numbers of convicts were transported to the various Australian penal colonies by the British government, many for petty crimes they were driven to commit because of the poverty they were forced to live in. Over the 80 years more than 165,000 convicts were transported to Australia.

The number of transportees and immigrant workers to the new American colony was not enough to keep up with the demands of economic growth. The gap was filled by slaves. The trade in slaves was the ground upon which the economies of both Britain and United States was built.

In the Americas:• Not enough workers• Not enough Transportees• Slavery was the answer• 15 million Africans shipped• Up to 600 slaves per ship• Chained together hand & foot• Half became effective workers • 7.5M died or were crippled • Cost price: £25• Sale Price: £150 (500% profit)

British were the biggest traders• Profits financed Empire building• Development of America

THE SLAVE TRADE

SLAVERYAdditionally, much of the British economy was built upon the slave trade through the Ports of Liverpool and London. Britain had outlawed the slave trade with the Slave Trade Act in 1807, with penalties of £100 per slave levied on British captains found importing slaves. But trading continued - captains throwing their slaves overboard rather than being caught and fined. In 1823 the first Anti-Slavery Society was formed in Britain, They prevailed ten years later with the Slavery Abolition Act 1833. Internal trading continued in the United States until slavery was ended at the conclusion of the Civil War in 1865. The entire United States Economy is built on the bodies of African slaves

MONTICELLO

As the country moved from an agrarian to an industrial economy, the disposition of the slave population became a source of dispute. Approximately one Southern family in four held slaves prior to war. In 1860, about 385,000 individuals (i.e. 1.4% of White Americans in the country, or 4.8% of southern whites) owned one or more slaves. 95% of blacks lived in the South, comprising one third of the population there. With the coming of the Industrial Revolution, these slaves represented a potential source of cheap labour to Northern industrialists.

M o n t i c e l l o i n Charlottesville, Virginia, was the estate of Thomas Jefferson, the principal author of the United States Declaration of Independence, th i rd President of the United States, and founder of the University of Virginia. His power was built on slavery

AMERICAN PROGRESS 1830 - 1880

The American colonisation of the West, and the dispossession of its indigenous peoples was carried out under the ideology of Manifest Destiny. Europeans believed that they had a superior culture, and that it was their God-given destiny to occupy the land and to extinguish the culture of its original inhabitants. In this illustration, we see Progress leading the settlers across the prairie, Bible in hand, stringing telegraph wires with the other, while the “savages” flee ahead

PAHA SAPAThe Black Hills are sacred to the Sioux Indians. In the 1868 Fort Laramie treaty and, the United States recognized the Black Hills as part of the Great Sioux Reservation, set aside for exclusive use by the Sioux people. However, after the discovery of gold in 1874, the United States confiscated the land in 1877.

Thomas Jefferson wrote of the Indians in America that the government was obliged "now to pursue them to extermination, or drive them to new seats beyond our reach."Theodor Roosevelt once said, "I don't go so far as to think that the only good Indians are dead Indians, but I believe nine out of ten are, and I shouldn't like to inquire too closely into the case of the tenth".George Washington instructed Major General John Sullivan to attack Iroquois people and "lay waste all the settlements around...that the country may not be merely overrun, but destroyed", and to “not listen to any overture of peace before the total ruin of their settlements is effected". Abraham Lincoln ordered the execution, by hanging, of 38 Dakota Sioux prisoners in Mankato, Minnesota. Most of those executed were holy men or political leaders of their camps. None of them were responsible for committing the crimes they were accused of.

Mt. Rushmore is carved into the images of four presidents who were all white supremacists.

AMERICAN GENOCIDEIt is clear that the US had no intention of honouring the Ft. Laramie Treaty. Gold was not “discovered” by accident in 1874. Six years after the signing, George Armstrong Custer was in fact authorised to take his exploration team into the Black Hills specifically to look for gold."They made us many promises, more than I can remember, but they never kept but one; they promised to take our land and they took it."

Historian David Stannard estimates that almost 100 million died in what he calls the American Holocaust. What distinguished the genocide of Latin America from that of the United States was that in the former case the outcome was not the intent but rather the effect of a policy of enslavement and economic production. In the case of the United States,, the eradication, removal and assimilation of native American American culture was a stated policy. It was itself a form of production.

For a description of the spiritual significance of Bear Butte visit:http://www.tonywardedu.com/content/view/369/123/

MATO PAHA

Mato Paha - Bear Butte is the most sacred of all sacred mountains to the Plains Indians. For untold centuries they have gone their to pray and to carry out their sacred ceremonies. It lies about 6 miles from Sturgis, S.D., where, every August, tens of thousands of bikers congregate for the annual Harley Davidson Rally. The local authorities have consistently refused to grant the Dakota (or the mountain) any special status that might protect them from the visual and noise intrusion and the drunken behavior that attends the rally. The map (left) indicates (in red) the bars and concert venues that have been allowed to develop around the mountain. Were it the Vatican, offensive development would be banned.

In a simple, present day context, we might cite the example of Mato Paha - bear Butte, in South Dakota where the spiritual traditions and space of indigenous people are annually violated.

LIBERTY

(WHAT PRICE) LIBERTY? 1865-86A gift a year after the Navajo Long Walk from one supposedly libertarian regime to another when Native Americans were being dispossessed and eradicated,

COLONIALISM & DESIGNSince the 14th Century, Architecture has been complicit in the oppression and genocide of indigenous communities. Even with the advent of Modernism’s theories of the Social Good, this process not ceased. In the 1950s, Brasilia (right) required the removal of thousands of Indigenous people. It is listed as a World Heritage Site. Architecture is whore of capitalism a n d t h e h a n d m a i d e n o f oppression. Brasilia 1956

The question is, How can we turn architecture into an antiracist, anticolonial project? How can we change the role of the designer to serve, rather than oppress, the people?

COLONIALISM AND EDUCATION“The most odious form of colonisation, and that which has brought with it the greatest pain for the colonised (is) the colonisation of the mind”Franz Fanon

"The ideas of the ruling class are in every epoch the ruling ideas; ie., the class, which is the ruling material force of society, is at the same time its ruling intellectual force. The class which has the means of material production at its disposal, has control at the same time over the means of mental production...”Karl Marx

The field of Education is one of the major arenas of mind colonisation in which capitalism conducts and effects its global project. If we can transform Education, we can change the world.

CONCEPTS MYTHOLOGISEDBY CAPITALISM

Our education must proceed through the critical demystification of every idea, every concept, every theory that has been shaped and mythologised by the ruling class. Some key concepts:

• Knowledge• Education • Beauty• Liberty• History• Democracy• Individualism• Competition

• Human Nature• Responsibility• Intelligence• Development• Sustainability• Space• Time• Rationality

Decolonising ourselves requires that we demystify and decolonise these and other concepts. See:

http://www.tonywardedu.com/content/view/295/98/

BERKELEY 1970: FREEDOM OF SPEECH My own re-education began as a young Assistant Professor at the University of California, Berkeley, in 1970 around the freedom to speak out against the Vietnam War. I had a Draft Card, a Green Card and 3 children. With the Draft Lottery, I was eligible for combat duty. Some of my students had already been, others would go. We were all already involved.

The Campus police were deployed at strategic points and patrolled the Campus in separate roving platoons, all armed in the usual manner, with side-arms, but also carrying teargas and riot sticks. Checkpoints were established at all Campus entrances to make sure that everyone on campus had either staff or student identification. This was to ensure that “outside subversive elements” were not “infiltrating” the student population to sew the seeds of violence (as widely reported in the news media)

I took these photographs during one of the many anti-war demonstrations that occurred that Spring.

By this time life on Campus had become a parody of academic activity. Students were coming to class with gas-masks in their packs, alongside their books and calculators. Anti-war demonstrations were by now beginning to become widespread in all Universities across America.

TURNING POINT

The shooting was the single factor causing the only nationwide student strike in U.S. history—over 4 million students protested and over 900 American colleges and universities closed during the student strikes. It was a turning point in the Vietnam War

Not long after noon on Monday, the 4th May 1970, 28 Ohio National Guardsmen fired 61 rounds of live ammunition over a thirteen second period into an unarmed demonstration of anti-war protesters on the Kent State University campus, killing four and wounding nine. The shootings led to a mass outrage across American campuses.

THE STRIKE

My students, along with other classes, chose to strike and embarked upon an explicit programme of antiwar activity, turning the College of Environmental design into a propaganda factory. Among their most influential actions were the design-build remodelling of 6 neighborhood preschools and the addition of a new and innovative course to the curriculum.

CURRICULUM CHANGEOne of the most significant changes brought about by the strike was a change to the curriculum. We created

An experimental 12 credit whole-semester programme that allowed students to combine subjects in one major project that promoted:

• self initiation • self-time management• holistic projects• self-direction • self-evaluation. • experimental pedagogies• group work and co-operative learning• community engagement

The first intake of students, in the Spring of 1972, included a group of 8 Chicano students.

CHICANO STUDENT PROFILES

• Two years in College• No Hispanic buildings shown• No Hispanic designers noted• No Hispanic college lecturers• No role models cited• Low enrolment rates (<7%)• Low completion rates (<20%)• Low pass rates

IDENTITY AND DESIGN

Issue of cultural identity

RESULTS:The students elected to work collectively to explore the issue of Chicano Architecture in the context of a live project (a Marcato) in the largely Hispanic community of Richmond, California. The result?

• All completed the course with high grades (100%)• All completed their degrees (100%)• 5 went on to complete Masters (62%)• 3 later taught Architecture at University level. (37%)

Clearly something astonishing was going on! It was my first inkling of the powerful relationship between language, culture, identity and learning that would serve me well in my later work in New Zealand

In 1982, I moved permanently to New Zealand to take up an appointment at the University of Auckland School of Architecture.

Maori are the indigenous people.

Arrived approx. 800 years ago from Oceania

AOTEAROANEW ZEALAND

TREATY OF WAITANGI 1840Representatives of the British Crown signed a Treaty with Maori chiefs at Waitangi on 6th February 1940. There were two versions of the Treaty, One in English and one in Maori. They were not the same. In the Maori version, they ceded Governorship (Kawanatanga). In the English version they ceded sovereignty (Rangatiratanga). They would not have signed if they had known.

The Treaty was written by Samuel Marsden - a Missionary who spoke Maori. From the get-go the Crown intended to deceive Maori into signing away self-government in return for British citizenship.

The Treaty promised that the Crown would guarantee and protect Maori land, culture, language and resources.

LAND OCCUPATION

Maori land ownership patterns1860 1908 1960

From Cook’s “discovery” of NZ in 1769 Maori were dispossessed of 95% of their land through government legislation and fraud.

CONFISCATIONSOne of the primary means of land dispossession was “legal” confiscation.

Under the New Zealand Settlement Act of 1863, tribes that were deemed “rebellious” had their land confiscated by the government. The definition of “rebellious” bore striking (slippery) similarities to American Indian “Hostiles” and today’s “terrorists” - convenient labels for demonising those we oppress

When provocative Government raids of native lands were resisted by Maori tribes, they were labeled “Rebellious”, their leaders imprisoned and hung and their lands were taken.

The struggle continues today as Maori attempt to gain redress and resist globalisation

PROJECT 1: THE WHAKATANE STUDY

©2009Tony Ward

To download a more extensive version visit:

http://www.tonywardedu.com/content/view/166/49/

WHAKATANE

NORTH ISLAND

SOUTH ISLAND

Bay of Plenty

LOCATION: Bay of Plenty North Island

POPULATION: 15,000

MAORI POP.: 30% (Town) 52% (Region) 15% (Nationally)

UNEMPLOYMENT: 8%

MAORI UNEMPLOYMENT: 30%

ANNUAL FAMILY INCOME: $15,000

AVE. NATIONAL INCOME: $54,000

MAIN INDUSTRY: Farming, Tourism,

To design a commercial development for the Whakatane D. C.

Project:

MAORI HISTORY

Site of one of the first Maori settlements in New Zealand - deeply historical and of great spiritual significance.Landing place of the Mataatua Waka (canoe) party - the origin of seven separate tribes.

”Me whakatāne au i ahau nei!”

About two hundred years before the Santa Maria arrived in Haiti the Mataatua canoe landed in what is now called Whakatane.

WAIRAKA“Me whakatāne au i ahau nei!”

“Make Me like a Man”

When the Mataatua canoe landed 800 years ago, the men climbed the escarpment to explore. The tide came in and the canoe started to drift away. Wairaka, the daughter of the captain, Toro leapt into the canoe to save it, uttering the incantation “Me whakatāne au i ahau nei!” (“Make me a man!”) because women were forbidden from paddling. She saved the canoe and now the Wairaka district (above) is named after her. It is still inhabited by her descendants.

Traditional home of Ngati Awa whose entire lands were confiscated in 1866 on the false charge of murdering a missionary. The leaders were hanged. They were later (1988) pardoned and the Govt apologised but the land was gone!

LANDLESS

TOWN DEVELOPMENTSuccessive Local Governments then began to “reclaim” the harbour, and develop a European township along the river.

MODERN TOWNSHIP

Proposed Development Site

• The modern (1988) town centre occupies the narrow space between the Escarpment and the river.

• Residential Development is mainly to the North and West• Council wanted to develop the triangle of “reclaimed” land between the

Strand and the river

Residential development Wairaka (Maori Settlement Area) is to the East

THE COUNCILThe Council had almost no Maori representation (one token member from distant Rotorua), - this despite the fact that more than 50% of the Region’s population were Maori.

The Council seemed reluctant for us to meet Maori representatives, saying they would “just obstruct the process”

NGATI AWA

What we learned changed all of our attitudes and lives. Stories were told of:

• land confiscation, • dispossession, • displacement, • racism, • political, spiritual and economic oppression, • persecution • execution of leaders • the destruction of almost all sacred sites• deep mistrust and anger

Nevertheless we arranged a separate meeting with Ngati Awa. We were met with: “If you are working for the Council we are not having anything to do with you - they have stabbed us in the back too many times already!!!”

After initial suspicion and our assurances of commitment they told a heart-rending tale of colonial oppression, pointing to specific locations and landmarks on our model of the town.

Muriwai’s Cave

IrakewaThe Heads

Wairere Stream/Falls

Munuka Tuatahi

PiripaiNumerous Pa Sites

SACRED LANDSCAPE DESPOILED

Marae

Toroa’s Wananga

PA SITEThese are just a few of the very many Maori sacred sites that over the last 150 years, the Council had destroyed or mutilated.

WAHI TAPU

Irakewa Rock (dynamited)Muriwai’s Cave (Isolated, filled in)

Wairere Stream and Falls (polluted by landfill)

For more than 150 years sacred sites had been systematically violated and desecrated by Councils, despite the pleas of the tribe. These included the three most sacred that had been cited as location markers by Irakewa to his son Toroa, 700 years ago, as landmarks for a possible settlement. Toroa was the captain of the Mataatua Canoe which founded Whakatane

Site of Irakewa rock

PIRIPAI

Ancient Urupa (burial site)

One of the Council’s plans was to open up Piripai (the Sand-spit) for residential and commercial development, despite the fact that is the site of numerous ancient burials, many centuries old.

POHATUROA - ULTIMATE INSULT

POHATUROA

Pohaturoa - the Rock - was the centre of ceremonial life. Here, mothers buried the whenua (afterbirth) and pito (umbilicus) of their newborn. In Maori, the word whenua has a double meaning. One the one hand it means afterbirth. It also means land - signifying that the spiritual connection between the person and the place is more than metaphorical. It marks the centre of one’s universe, no matter where one is. The Council built a public toilet over the spot!

Toilet

DESIGN DILEMMA

After hearing Ngati Awa’s stories, were no longer neutral but we still faced a stark choice:

• Conform to Council philosophies and ignore the pain of Ngati Awa and the cultural history of all previous developments

• Confront Council and risk the project

We collectively decided on a third alternative:

• Using the design process as a lever, broker a reconciliation between the two communities

RECONCILIATION

We supported Ngati Awa claims and opted to intervene to act as intermediaries, with the townspeople.

Clearly:

• Reconciliation was necessary.• Before reconciliation could take

place, a dialogue needed to be established.

• Before a dialogue could take place, trust needed to be established.

• Neither party trusted the other enough to initiate the process of trust-building (a vicious circle).

TRUST-BUILDINGCreating an environment of mutual trust required

that:

• We establish the trust of both parties.

• We operate a process of inclusivity

• We develop a common language

• We make no attempt to dictate the dialogue

• We continually reflect-back community concerns and issues

• We interpret, explain and mediate

• We stress common goals rather than differences• We facilitate open dialogue and community decision-making

WE LISTEN!

LINKING ISSUESWe developed 67 Patterns to guide Town Development.

They addressed not only:• economic and material concerns • employment creation• investment• tourism etc.

but also:• Reinstatement of Wahi Tapu,• A truthful recounting of history • Acknowledgment of past wrongs • Constitutional representation on Local Bodies

Our task became to demonstrate the linkages between these issues (for instance by portraying Maori culture and history as an essential ingredient for economic growth).

DIFFERENCESThe Council’s Perceptions were:

• materialistic • economic • progressive.

They were interested in:

• Town Growth• Attracting Investment.• Sustainable Development

• COUNCIL WERE LOOKING TO THE FUTURE

• N G A T I A W A W E R E UNWILLING TO LEAVE THE PAINFUL PAST

Ngati Awa were not anti-growth, but the council failed to recognise the link between the past and the future. Our task was to make that link explicit.

DETAILSFour design proposals were fleshed out with sketches, plans and a scale model designed to illustrate the proposal for the non-professional general public.

COUNCIL DISPLAY

The model, the four design proposals and all of the supporting arguments and Patterns were displayed in the foyer of the District Council offices for a week in preparation for a Town Forum that was advertised in the local press and on talkback radio. A large number of people visited the exhibition.

THE TOWN FORUM

170 people attended on a stormy night. All Councilors, Ngati Awa Trust Board members, many retailers and large numbers of Maori and pakeha members of the public came. The meeting was facilitated by the students.

DISCUSSIONFollowing a general description and explanation, break-out sessions, facilitated by students were asked to suggest:

• Five points of agreement• Five points of disagreement• Five points overlooked

Plenary Session

Breakout Session

Student Facilitation

CONSENSUS DESIGN

Based on this feedback and internal review a final design was proposed that seemed to contain the best elements of all of the preliminaries. A supermarket was included, with strenuous recommendations that it be omitted and strong safeguards for the flax-dyeing area.

THE REPORTThe Mayor concluded the meeting by saying:

“We have all witnessed and participated in a truly historic moment in the history of Whakatane in which for the first time, people with long-standing differences have come together to find common ground in the interests of the whole community.”

SINCE THEN....In the ensuing years, many of the recommendations in the Report were incorporated into the District Scheme and have had a major impact upon the quality of life in Whakatane.

HERITAGE TRAIL

The proposed Cultural Heritage Trail has been completed. All sites have been included. Signs with Maori versions of historical events, critical of past Council actions, are prominently displayed

Irekawa

Muriwai’s Cave

Wairere Falls

PIRIPAIRecommendations on the need to preserve the un-built nature of Piripai have so far been successful, but the pressure for development remains. The struggle continues

THE TOILETS.

The offensive public toilets (right) have been removed and the area landscaped.

REPRESENTATION

Whakatane District Council is now considered one of the most culturally sensitive Councils in New Zealand. A Maori Liaison Committee has been appointed. This Committee comprises 12 members:

• The Mayor• 11 Tribal representatives from different Iwi and Hapu in the region• 2 Councillors

The Committee has only an advisory capacity, but its voice is increasingly heard by the Council as a whole.

© Tony Ward2000

A more detailed version of this presentation is available at”

http://www.tonywardedu.com/content/view/189/49/

PROJECT 2: TE WHARE KURA O HOANI WAITITI

In 1982, concerned about their disappearing language and culture, leaders in the Maori community got together to develop a program of language reclamation. They proposed a system of Kohanga Reo - “Language Nests” in which fluent speakers of the language - grandparents, aunts and uncles would establish Maori-language kindergartens. At first they did so without government funding, but the system was so successful that eventually the government “bought in”. Three years later there emerged from these Kohanga a large group of Maori-fluent children, and the Maori community pressured the government to initiate a parallel system of kura kaupapa Primary Schools. The first was at Hoani Waititi Marae in West Auckland. Seven years later, in 1993, a phalanx of culturally strong adolescents emerged from these schools and once again, the Maori community demanded a culturally-specific post-primary school system for their children. This is the story of that first kura kaupapa Maori High School - again at Hoani Waititi Marae. It was designed by Maori students at the University of Auckland School of Architecture.

The notice announcing the project (left) made it clear that preference would be given to Maori students. This caused some tension with other faculty and students who labeled the prescription “Apartheid”. It was explained that this was the first opportunity for Maori students to explore their Maori identity through architecture. The one non-Maori student member was a fluent speaker of te reo Maori, and was invited by the Maori students to participate.

BEGINNING

SCHOOL OF ARCHITECTURE MAORI1993

• The Maori population of NZ is about 15%

• Number of Maori students in the SOA (1990) - app.15 (5%)

• Maori student completion rates (1990) <30%

There was a real need to do something to support the Maori students.

THUS

Formation of Whaihanga - Maori student support group in January 1993 by Senior Lecturer Tony Ward and Rau Hoskins and Saul Roberts, two Maori Graduate students.

We determined to initiate this support with a joint project, including Maori students from all years.

In agreement with the Ministry of Education, we would design NZs first Kaupapa Maori High School.

Dr. Pita Sharples - now Minister of Education (right) with Elder Frank Paul and Senior Lecturers Tony Ward, Mike Barnes with Tutors Rau Hoskins and Saul Roberts with the students of Whaihanga design team - the Maori Architecture, Engineering and Planning Support group

Appointed by the Board of Trustees, and working directly with the Ministry of Education, twelve Maori and one Maori-speaking Pakeha undergraduate students (all members of the recently formed Whaihanga Maori student support group) undertook and completed this historic project on time and within budget.

THE TEAM

The project began with a weekend hui at Piritahi Marae on Waiheke Island. (The Marae had been designed by previous architecture students and was considered their home Marae) The weekend i n v o l v e d t e a m - b u i l d i n g exercises and lectures and seminars with Pita Sharples (Kahungunu - right) about the principles of Kaupapa Maori education and the difference in Maori Learning Styles.

RETREAT - HUI

SCHEDULEThe students took immediate ownership of the design process, by developing a programme schedule (below) designed to meet specific Ministry of Education timelines. Theirs was the responsibility for maintaining the Schedule and project managing the design process.

The design process began with a comprehensive survey of the site.

Beginning with a detailed brief (left) the students completed the geophysical and topographical survey of the site, detailing its flora and the context of existing buildings. This context included an existing wharenui, whare kai, kohanga reo and kura kaupapa primary school, as well as kaumatua flats and administration offices. A contoured model of the site and buildings was built as a design tool and studio reference.

wharenui

Whare kai

Kaumatua houses

Administration

Kura Kaupapa

Kohanga reo

FRAMING THE PROBLEM

The Hoani Waititi briefing document outlined a theory of education as a cradle-to-grave experience centred around the Marae. The Marae is the centre of Maori cultural and spiritual life. It is to the Marae that the infant is taken at birth, and it is from the Marae that he or she departs into the spirit world. In between, all of the important rituals and transition points of life (puberty, marriage etc) are celebrated at the Marae. The students therefore saw the Marae as the beginning and end point of learning, and therefore as its centre. The idea suggested the growing ponga or tree fern which involves an unfolding from the centre.

VISION SEEKING

CONCEPTUAL BEGINNINGSThe concept was gradually developed (left to right) taking in the different elements of existing infrastructure, landscape and buildings. The idea of linked but separate centres became increasingly clear, with each of these subsidiary centres (linked to the different stages of growth and development of the individual as an individual and as a social being with a life centred around whanau (family) and Marae.

Gradually, a site development plan emerged (right) from the conceptual diagram (left). In the plan, the small creek along the Eastern boundary of the access road became the linking element, the spine, of the proposed design. Off this spine, different centres evolve with their own identity

Conceptual Diagram Transformation Initial proposal

TRANSFORMATIONS

This initial proposal the went through a process of several further transformations, in detailed consultation with the Hoani Waititi Board of Trustees and the Ministry of Education. From the rough conceptual diagram, a more definite site plan emerged (left) locating the proposed Whare Kura as one of these centres,to the east of the creek, but overhanging it and integrating it into the building design.

Overall Site Plan Whare Kura Site Development Building Locations

DEVELOPED DESIGN

All of these building designs were modeled on the base model that had been constructed earlier and discussed with the Hoani Waititi community as well as with the Ministry of Education. Detailed cost estimates were developed for each building proposal as well as for the development of the site as a whole.

Library

Whare Tapere

Admin.

Whare Hui

Specialist Classrooms

Atea

Classrooms

Marae

Whare Kura

Kaumatua Housing

Kura and Kohanga

Marae

Creek

Whare Kura

Marae

MODELING

View across the Atea from Whare Nui Specialist Classrooms on left, Whare Tapere distant right

TE WHARE KURA O HOANI WAITITI

Working drawings, specifications and tenders were completed, and several students were employed in the process. Two years later, the school was f in ished including the Administration Building (below).

Administration Building Plan

Administration Building

REALISATION

The Whare Matauranga was altered substantially from the original design. However, its relationship to the creek, was retained and its bush outlook - the main design intention in the original. The interior, has the same lofty feeling of the original.

WHARE MATAURANGA

The specialist rooms (Art, Science and Engineering) are grouped together and clustered around the small creek. Native vegetation - Ponga, cabbage trees and harakeke (flax) were retained, providing summer shade pleasant outdoor learning spaces adjacent to decks.

SPECIALIST CLASSROOMS

Specialist Classrooms

• Total cost: $3M+ • No. of students: 14• Students who graduated: 12 (86%)• No. completing Masters: 2• No. teaching at University level: 3• No. at Practice Director levels: 4• No. at other senior levels: 6• Maori speakers at start: 3• Maori speakers at end: 7

The project was an outstanding success, all opf the students went on to distinguished professional careers, with several of them now occupying prominent positions in Maori cultural affairs and politics. We are all still good friends.

CODA

PROJECT 3: THE PARIHAKA PROJECT

© Tony Ward 2009

A downloadable and extended version of this presentation is available at:http://www.tonywardedu.com/content/view/231/49/

Another Whaihanga Project

In the 1860s and 1870s, the European invasion of the Waikato and the crossing of the Waitara River in 1860 in violation of agreements with Maori led to stiff resistance. The New Zealand Settlement Act of 1863 paved the way for the illegal confiscation in 1865 of 1.5 million acres of Taranaki land (the area coloured blue in the map below right.) For a long time after the passing of the Act nothing happened - because of the geographical remoteness of the region.

CONFISCATIONS

Taranaki Maori naturally assumed that the Act had been a matter of little consequence and went back to their daily lives with assurances from the Government that peaceful existence would ensure their continued occupation. To further allay the fears of Maori, and prevent further resistance the Government promised that ample Reserves would be set aside for Maori occupation. This never happened.

TE WHITI AND TOHUTwo Taranaki chiefs, Te Whiti-o-Rongomai and Tohu Kakahi e s t a b l i s h e d a p e a c e f u l community at Parihaka. They and their followers were devoted to the principles of non-violence and passive resistance later made famous by Mahatma Gandhi and Dr. Martin Luther King. The community at Parihaka Pa, became a centre of resistance as members of other dispossessed tribes migrated to Parihaka where peace still existed.

Te Whiti o Rongomai

Tohu Kakahi

PARIHAKA 1870-80By 1870, a prosperous settlement

• 1500 inhabitants. • its own vegetable gardens • wheat fields • three flour mills• piped water• electric street lights.

Europeans were always welcome. The community was peaceful, hard working and orderly.

Parihaka in 1981

Gradually, roads were built by the armed constabulary and were approaching the Parihaka community (top right). Surveyors arrived in 1879 to survey the area for European occupation. Te Whiti and Tohu directed them to leave until the promised Reserves had been established. They left but returned. On May 25th 1879, Te Whiti sent his ploughmen to plough symbolic furrows into the land taken from them at Oakura. (below right).

THE SURVEYS

The Ploughmen

Armed road-builders

THE ARRESTSTe Whiti’s ploughmen were arrested. Within a week, more than a hundred were in custody, many were sentenced to hard labour in the Dunedin gaol. None of them were ever tried. The Government passed new laws

• The Maori Prisoners Trial Act - suspending habeas corpus and allowing Maori to be imprisoned without trial.

• The Maori Prisoners Act prevented any lawmaker from bailing or releasing untried prisoners.

• The Maori Prisoners Detention Act ensured that Maori from Parihaka who fenced across roads were to be held under the same laws as the ploughmen.

• The West Coast Settlement Act allowed that Maori could be arrested for on suspicion of gathering to engage in acts of civil disobedience,

On 26th June, ploughmen who had caused 5 shillings worth of damage to were sentenced to 2 months hard labour in Dunedin gaol, with sureties of £600 to keep the peace for one year, or to serve 12 months hard labour in Dunedin. All of this without trial.

(Sound a bit like the Homeland Security Act & Guantanamo?)

THE INVASIONIt was into this context that early in November, Parihaka Pa was invaded by a force of 945 volunteers and 644 armed constabulary all armed to the teeth and supported by m u n i t i o n s - l a d e n p a c k animals. Inside the pa there were very few weapons - mostly old and inoperative. The people were under clear instructions not to engage in acts of aggression but to remain always polite and welcoming

Invasion Day, Nov. 6th 1881.

The invaders, November 5th 1881

6th November, • Village was invaded and pillaged. • They were met on the path into the

village by two lines of children - one of boys, singing, the other of girls, kneeling and doing the poi (a dance performance using balls on the ends of flax strings).

• The women of the Pa had baked 500 loaves of bread for the advancing soldiers.

• The pa was searched and only a small handful of old and minor weapons were found.

• A six-pound artillery piece was installed overlooking the village.

• 2000 people sat quietly awaiting their arrest.

• They made way for the troops who moved in and arrested Te Whiti and Tohu.

THE INVASION

Te Whiti being taken from Parihaka

• Following the invasion of the Pa, • continued resistance and imprisonments through to the end of the

century.• Occupation remained in place for two years. • Women were raped, gardens, crops and houses destroyed, • hundreds of livestock were slaughtered, • precious artifacts were stolen and looted and public meetings were

forbidden.

THE OCCUPATION

THE RECONSTRUCTIONIn March 1883, Te Whiti and Tohu were finally released and arrived back at Parihaka. They were still unable to hold meetings for another 17 months, but quickly set about rebuilding the pa.

• New houses were built around the Marae. • Roads were built and improved, • A bakery and butchery were built. • A good water supply was installed, • as was electric lighting - before even

Wellington could boast the same. It was not until 1897-8 that the majority of the prisoners returned from Dunedin. Many had died there. The return of the prisoners was greeted with celebrations, singing (below). But:

• the promised reserves of 25,000 acres were reduced to 5,000 acres “as punishment”.

• Even these reserves were not returned, but were instead vested in a Public Trustee and leased to Europeans at peppercorn rents in perpetuity.

The continued poverty of Parihaka was thus guaranteed.

THE LEGACY

In 1995 the Community Design Studio was invited to help the people of Parihaka develop planning guidelines to revitalise their economy, and develop designs for Te Whiti’s ageing Council House, Te Tae Pae. This involved the surveying of the village - a task that their ancestors and been imprisoned and died for resisting some hundred years earlier. It was thereforea task we undertook with great humility.

THE PARIHAKA PROJECT

© Tony Ward 2009

A downloadable and extended version of this presentation is available at:http://www.tonywardedu.com/content/view/231/49/

THE SURVEYDuring the Winter of 1995, staff and students regularly traveled the 6 hour drive to Taranaki to survey the Pa (often in freezing conditions) and to begin construction of a scale model. Readings were taken from the top of the hill where the 6 pound artillery piece had been situated during the invasion of 1881.

In a great irony, we discovered that because part of the civil disobedience in Te Whiti’s time had included the removal of survey pegs none could be found to which the new survey readings could be related. This meant that it was impossible to locate any of the readings of buildings or topography relative to known geographies. Consequently the electronic data could not be plotted to produce the contour map needed to make the model.

Aerial View of the 49 acre Pa 1994

BUILDING THE MODELOnce the survey was complete we were able to draw accurate topographical maps of the pa site and from these to construct an accurate 3 dimensional model. The children from the community assisted us in constructing the model, placing the houses and integrating the vegetation. The elders, too, were always available to tell their stories and to help us to locate these with accuracy. The model became an indispensable aid to our knowledge and understanding

In addition to the survey, model and development plan, we were also asked to develop designs for the rehabilitation - Te Whiti’s old Council building. Though much loved, it was quite dilapidated and too small for the increasingly large groups that gathered there for the 18ths.

Nga Puna Waihanga Hui 1994 (Gil Hanly)

TE PAE PAE

Te Pae Pae 1994

PRELIMINARY PLANS

Preliminary Ground Floor Plan Preliminary First Floor Plan

The need to significantly increase the space available in Te Pae Pae, coupled with site restrictions imposed by the Atea to the West and the stream to the East suggested a need to add a second storey. Since the sleeping capacity of the existing whare was only marginally adequate, it made sense to make this new space available for sleeping. This raised serious issues of tikanga, since it would locate sleeping areas above food areas. There was extended debate among Maori student participants about the efficacy of this (based upon their own tribal-tikanga understandings). In the end, it was clear that Parihaka operated on the basis of its own kawa and tikanga, and the students came to accept this as a viable solution.

CULTURAL LANDCAPEThe new spatial organisation of Te Pae Pae was configured around specific directions and points of reference in the historical and cultural landscape of the Pa. In this way, the building itself, through its orientations and outlooks provides a constant reminder to resident and visitor of the significant aspects of the Parihaka story.

Whare Puni roof and Taranaki Entrance points to Te Whiti’s Tomb.Tohu’s Grave site

Te Niho

Te Raukura Te Pae Pae

Mahi KuareToroanui

Rangi KapuiaTe Whiti’s Tomb

Tohu’s Grave

Taranaki

Te Whiti’s Tomb

Te Pae Pae

Toroanui

Te Raukura

Te Niho

POINTS OF REFERENCEThe heart of the Parihaka Pa remains intact. The whenua is the reference for the history and heroism of the people. There, lie all of the major features that weve together the story of Parihaka. And the story is told, for us, in the organisation of the building, which points to and acknowledges this sacred history.

MEDIA COVERAGEThe story of the Parihaka Project became nation-wide news in mid-1996, as TVNZ film crews arrived to film the final stages of the process. The final stages of the model-building were filmed (below and right), the residents and students were interviewed and the programme went to air on Marae on 25th June.

THE DESIGNAnd so the project came to an end. The models and all documentation were given to the Trustees to use as they wished. Later, they would form the centrepiece of the Exhibition Parihaka: The Art of Passive Resistance which opened at Te Puke Ariki, the New Plymouth Art Gallery and Museum, after exhibiting in Wellington and Auckland.

DESIGN MODEL IMAGESBelow are a number of general images of the design model in its final form.

THE DREAMOn the last day of the project, I was taken aside by an elder. As we climbed up the steps of the ruin of Te Raukura, he told me of a dream he had had as a young child. He was in his late 80s now, and not quite old enough to have known Te Whiti.

When he was five, he had dreamed that he was standing on the edge of a very large crowd, surrounding Te Whiti who was sitting on the verandah of Te Raukura. Slowly he wriggled his way to the front of the crowd. As he got closer to the front, between the legs of the adults, they tried to hold him back. But Te Whiti had seen the child and told those present to let him through. He climbed the steps to stand in front of the old man. Quietly, he told me that Te Whiti said to him, “Child, I will soon die, and Parihaka will decline. But one day it will return to its former glory. You will not see the day of its full greatness, but you will see the dawn of that day - the beginning of that rebirth!”

On the spot where Te Whiti had sat, the old man turned to me with tears in his eyes and said, “ I believe that this is the day that Te Whiti told me about.”

INDIGENOUS PEDAGOGIESThe world is in a mess. Part of the reason for the mess is capitalism and its colonising project. The world of Education has contributed to that mess and assists in the ongoing colonisation process. To bring about real change (and to save the world) it will be necessary to radically transform education.

Precolonial, pre-capitalist indigenous pedagogies offer some important pointers to how we might make Education an instrument for social change.

What follows are a series of guidelines culled from 30 years of working in the Maori community in Aotearoa-New Zealand. Many are shared with other Indigenous cultures.

ASPECTS OF MAORI PEDAGOGY • Maori tend towards a holistic approach to education with subject connections,

rather than divisions, stressed • Learning in groups is favoured over individual learning

• Knowledge belongs to the group and is to be used in service to the group rather than individual ambition.

• Individual achievement is less important than learning to be an acceptable group member

• Where possible, learners are integrated into existing groups comprising a range of expertise

• Much important knowledge is gained in the peer group where information is pooled.

• There is emphasis on the learner LOOKING, LISTENING and IMITATING with a minimum of instructional words

• Maori adults tend not to prepare learners for problems beforehand and do not warn them about possible mistakes

• Much significant learning takes place ad hoc and when needed, often after a crisis situation, when emotions are high.

• Learners are encouraged to learn by DOING tasks in the proper setting

• There is emphasis on the learner LOOKING, LISTENING and IMITATING with a minimum of instructional words

• Maori adults tend not to prepare learners for problems beforehand and do not warn them about possible mistakes

• Much significant learning takes place ad hoc and when needed, often after a crisis situation, when emotions are high.

• Learners are encouraged to learn by DOING tasks in the proper setting• Maori teachers avoid singling out individuals for praise or blame in public.

• Memorisation and rote learning have an important role in transmitting culture and values

• Storytelling is an important learning-teaching medium

• The relationship between “learner” and “teacher” is very important.• Education involves the heart as well as the head.

• Learning in the context of community needs is critical

• Accretive learning in a collective situation is the preferred mode• Talking circles are conducive to better communication

• Teachers model behaviours for students• Learning takes place within a cultural framework (tikanga)

• The spiritual has an important place in learning• Mutual dependency between students increases learning depth

• Building, maintaining and healing relationships is the most important design activity

• Supportive communication enhances learning

• Acknowledgement is a crucial aspect of communication• Good decisions are recognised by their consensus value

• Taking the time to arrive at consensus is more productive and sustainable• The process is more important than the outcome

• Ritualised learning processes are very powerful• Learning is deeper when it integrates mental and physical activity

Not all of these are unique to Indigenous cultures but I have found in my experience that collectively, they are able to produce transformative educational outcomes.