Book Chapters by Nan O'Sullivan
Commons in Design , 2023
As with commoning, the principles of equality, cooperation, and self-determination are central to... more As with commoning, the principles of equality, cooperation, and self-determination are central to the cultivation of inclusion and equity within The School of Design Innovation, Te Herenga Waka Victoria University, Aotearoa, New Zealand. Importantly and specific to our School, we are guided by The Treaty of Waitangi, Te Tiriti o Waitangi, in which our responsibilities to Māori as a principle partner, are not blended by cooperation into common-ness but acknowledged as a distinctive and equal entity. Embracing this challenge, this research asserts that understandings of people, place and space, offered from within Māori and Pasifika ways of being, have much to offer our attempts to shift design from the outmoded Euro-Anglo-American paradigms and hierarchies currently modelled, to one where we embrace more than co-operation and equity, but the intangible yet tangible tensions of commonality and contrast. I propose that the guiding principles of equality, cooperation, and self-determination highlighted within commoning, and The School of Design Innovation are better articulated when rooted in values (tikanga). I suggest that akoranga, the fluidity and longevity of reciprocity, manaakitanga the care we offer, and kaitiakitanga the responsibility ‘to’ not for people and place are central to any shifts design pedagogy or praxis takes from the central creed of universality, historically used to join us all as one, until now. This paper specifically focuses on Te ao Māori (the Māori worldview) alongside Ta-Vā, a Tongan ideology that both speak to eternal negotiations of relationships through place, space and time. By integrating akoranga, manaakitanga, kaitiakitanga in parallel to rangatiratanga (self-determination) as guides to our relationships with people, place, space and resources, I argue that the values upheld in design and within commoning, of power sharing, equality, cooperation, and self-determination are best enabled when deeply rooted in these values (tikanga). Looking to Highmore’s understanding of The Everyday as enabling solutions though place-based understandings, I propose we re-consider this as Our Everyday. This shift in preposition recalibrates how we negotiate shared and the sharing of territories, in which we seek to negotiate, knowledge, space and resources. By incorporating Māori and Pasifika knowledge we are guided towards new territories, where indigenous knowledge is not considered as peripheral but commonly valued. Our move is towards a place-based pedagogy, informed by protocols and values that hold at their core new ways of being that enable all, opportunities to thrive.
Design Struggles. Intersecting Histories, Pedagogies and Perspectives, 2021
“Māori knowledge has come out of hiding and is now in the bright light of day.”New Zealand Māori ... more “Māori knowledge has come out of hiding and is now in the bright light of day.”New Zealand Māori are the indigenous peoples of New Zealand and, alongside many others from the Pacific nations, contribute to New Zealand being a bicultural nation and a multicultural society. A particular focus of this paper is the motivations, opportunities, challenges, and outcomes of efforts made to facilitate the recognition and integration of indigenous knowledge into design education within Te Kura Hoahoa, the School of Design Innovation (SODI), Te Herenga Waka, Victoria University of Wellington (VUW) in Aotearoa New Zealand. This paper is written with an understanding that indigenous knowledge is not old knowledge or knowledge relevant to distant, now-outmoded times, and a recognition that this wisdom continues to evolve through rebellious, resistant, and resilient cultural practices. It will illustrate efforts within Te Herenga Waka (VUW) to address our commitments to Te Tiriti o Waitangi, the Treaty of Waitangi, to increase the cultural competency of both staff and students, and, particularly within Te Kura Hoahoa (SODI), to recalibrate design pedagogy to better enable our staff and graduates to engage with diversity, equity, inclusivity, and sustainability.
Papers by Nan O'Sullivan
Counterfutures
This paper provides a recipe for Kai-dness, as designed by staff and students from Te Herenga Wak... more This paper provides a recipe for Kai-dness, as designed by staff and students from Te Herenga Waka, Victoria University of Wellington’s Faculty of Architecture and Design Innovation. It sets out both the ingredients and the method for Kai-dness. It celebrates the associated lessons learned and the agents of change who combined as ‘the Kai-dness Crew’ to facilitate conversation and collaboration through commensality, the sharing of kai. The plate this was served upon was the fifth Social Movements, Resistance, and Social Change Conference in November 2020. This paper suggests that there is power in the sharing of kai to aid the social transitions required in moving towards more positive futures.
Māori knowledge has come out of hiding and is now in the bright light of day." 1 New Zealand Māor... more Māori knowledge has come out of hiding and is now in the bright light of day." 1 New Zealand Māori are the indigenous peoples of New Zealand and, alongside many others from the Pacific nations, contribute to New Zealand being a bicultural nation and a multicultural society. A particular focus of this paper is the motivations, opportunities, challenges, and outcomes of efforts made to facilitate the recognition and integration of indigenous knowledge into design education within Te Kura Hoahoa,
Back Story Journal of New Zealand Art, Media & Design History, 2017
It seems remiss that while New Zealand’s design prowess continues to impress globally, the indige... more It seems remiss that while New Zealand’s design prowess continues to impress globally, the indigenous and cultural knowledge that has for centuries inspired and informed aesthetic languages worldwide has not been recognised for its contribution. Forgotten, or perhaps conveniently ignored, is the praise of both the New Zealand Māori and Pacific people’s use of nature’s harmonies to achieve beauty in aesthetics made in 1852 by education and aesthetic reformist, Owen Jones (1809 -1874) in his seminal and determinative work, The Grammar of Ornament. In order to reinstate Jones’ claim, this paper asserts it is critical that we revisit design’s history from a less Eurocentric perspective. This offers an opportunity to debunk the counter-claim that indigeneity was counter-productive to the development of modernity. By recalibrating design’s history with a more accurate and culturally orientated compass, the contributions made by indigenous knowledge to the endeavours of some of design hist...
This study investigates the roots of interdisciplinary architectural and design education and met... more This study investigates the roots of interdisciplinary architectural and design education and methodology in Europe and the United States during the first half of the twentieth century. In particular this thesis is concerned with the establishment of the principles of a universal visual language within this context. Walter Gropius' (1883‐1969) efforts to propagate a universal understanding of architecture, art and design at the Bauhaus is a central focus of this study along with the use of a universal visual language to facilitate such an ideal. This thesis argues that the instigation of the Bauhaus preliminary course, the Vorkurs, developed by Johannes Itten (1888–1967) and matured by Bauhaüslers Lázsló Moholy‐Nagy (1895‐1946) and Josef Albers (1888‐1976) offered vitality, integrity, creativity and longevity to Bauhaus pedagogy and posits that the beliefs and practices of the Vorkurs contributed significantly to the translation of European modern design education in the Unite...
Educational Philosophy and Theory
This research parallels Tongan academic Hūfanga ‘Okusitino Māhina’s assertions in the 1994 Contem... more This research parallels Tongan academic Hūfanga ‘Okusitino Māhina’s assertions in the 1994 Contemporary Pacific article Our Sea of Islands, that ‘People are thought to walk forward into the past and walk backward into the future, both taking place in the present, where the past and the future are constantly mediated in the ever-transforming present’ alongside those of Professor Terry Irwin and fellow Transition Designers in which they discuss the use of Indigenous Wisdom to enable designing for the Long Now as defined by Brand in his 1999 book The Clock for the Long Now: Time and Responsibility. In the 2015 Transition Design Monograph Irwin asserts that, ‘Transition Design draws on knowledge and wisdom from the past to conceive solutions in the present with future generations in mind’. This paperdraws on the pre-industrial wisdom of indigenous knowledge, specifically that of the Pacific regions, Moana, who have lived and designed sustainablyin-place for generations to illustrate the value it holds for the formulation ofsustainable and sustaining futures.
Ever increasing numbers of design institutes note the merits of cultural diversity within their p... more Ever increasing numbers of design institutes note the merits of cultural diversity within their pedagogy and practice. Rather quixotically, however, Eurocentric modernist ideals remain dominant within design curricula. This ambiguity results in non-Western social, cultural and creative practice, remaining side-lined, albeit while still being lauded as of great value. Critical of this duplicity, this paper introduces the Pasifika ideology of Tā-vā (tā meaning time and vā meaning space), the concept of teu la vā, as a sacred and unbreakable connection, and te ao Māori (the worldview of New Zealand's Indigenous people), identifying a number of correlations and contradictions these offer to the establishment and implementation of Bauhaus pedagogy and subsequent examples of modernism adopted beyond Europe. This study asserts that Indigenous visual spatial languages have much to offer design's call to broaden its scope of inquiry by expanding the field's understanding of both literal and ideological connections through time and space. By recognizing Indigenous visual spatial languages, values, and strategies as a part of design history-as well as its contemporary use and as a powerful tool of change-the shifts so fervently sought within the discipline are more likely to be achieved.
Cumulus 2019 The Design After _ proceedings , 2019
Everyday life is a negotiated territory of space, time and resources. Encouraged by the recent re... more Everyday life is a negotiated territory of space, time and resources. Encouraged by the recent renaissance of Buckminster Fuller’s Spaceship Earth and Victor Papenek’s critiques, renewed rhetoric of design’s capacity and capability to contribute to the development of more positive futures has emerged. This paper references the responsibilities imbued in Fuller and Papenek’s views and presents the emergent provocation Transition Design. Utilising the tangible and intangible interconnectedness of social, economic, political and natural systems, Transition Design seeks pathways to more positive futures for humankind’s health, well-being, territories and resources. Transition Design proposes that the tenor of relationships cultivated within Indigenous Wisdom has much to offer the design of sustaining and sustainable futures. Borrowing Highmore’s understanding of The Everyday as place-based lifestyles in which solutions to global problems can be designed, Transition Design further asserts the connections to people, place and space offered from within Indigenous worldviews are key to the development of environmental, social, and economic health and well- being. This paper specifically focuses on the worldview of New Zealand Māori (te ao Māori) alongside models from the Pacific region to illustrate cultural approaches to environmental and social health and well-being that use reciprocity, guardianship and self-determination to guide their relationships with people and place.
Guided by Transition Design this paper offers ka mua, ki muri - walking backwards into the future, as an approach that enables Indigenous knowledge and practices to inform design’s capability to facilitate equitable and inclusive negotiations of space, time, resources and responsibilities.
Journal of Educational Philosophy and Theory , 2018
This research parallels Tongan academic Hūfanga ‘Okusitino Māhina’s assertions in the 1994 Contem... more This research parallels Tongan academic Hūfanga ‘Okusitino Māhina’s assertions in the 1994 Contemporary Paci c article Our Sea of Islands, that ‘People are thought to walk forward into the past and walk backward into the future, both taking place in the present, where the past and the future are constantly mediated in the ever-transforming present’ alongside those of Professor Terry Irwin and fellow Transition Designers in which they discuss the use of Indigenous Wisdom to enable designing for the Long Now as de ned by Brand in his 1999 book The Clock for the Long Now: Time and Responsibility. In the 2015 Transition Design Monograph Irwin asserts that, ‘Transition Design draws on knowledge and wisdom from the past to conceive solutions in the present with future generations in mind’. This paper draws on the pre-industrial wisdom of indigenous knowledge, speci cally that of the Paci c regions, Moana, who have lived and designed sustainably in-place for generations to illustrate the value it holds for the formulation of sustainable and sustaining futures.
A journal dedicated to the scholarship of teaching and learning in the 'global south' ABSTRACT Ao... more A journal dedicated to the scholarship of teaching and learning in the 'global south' ABSTRACT Aotearoa, New Zealand, is both a bicultural nation and a multicultural society, so the need to prioritise culture in design pedagogy and practice is not only palpable but well overdue within our creative tertiary institutes. Diversities are acknowledged as highly valuable within higher education, but when they are explored as non-western cultural and creative practices, they are still sidelined as optional, or as extensions to the current teleological pathways carved out within tertiary design curricula and practice. Building on the 'Indigenous Wisdom' framework outlined in the emergent design provocation Transition Design, this research introduces how an appreciation of cultural acumen can benefit, enrich, critique, and radicalise current design thinking, process and praxis. This study will discuss both Māori and Pasifika world views and ideologies and illustrate how these can enrich and enable design education. The aim of this paper is to highlight an appreciation for the reciprocity and respect imbued within kaupapa Māori and the Pasifika ideology of ta-vā (time and space) and how these considerations can enhance the discipline when they are purposefully, knowingly and respectfully imbued in design thinking and praxis. This research specifically focuses on the establishment of connections as essential to both the discipline and the teaching and learning experience. To achieve this, this study will introduce commensality, the coming together around a table to break bread and boundaries, and place it within the framework of Transition Design. Having gained an appreciation of Transition Design, Māori and Pasifika world views and ideologies, and commensality, this research will exemplify instances where students have combined these considerations to enhance their design solutions, and also where pedagogy can be used to specifically enhance teaching and learning by enabling an appreciation of cultural identity and social connectivity within the learning space.
Journal of New Zealand Art, Media and Design History, Backstory , 2017
It seems remiss that while New Zealand’s design prowess continues to impress globally, that the i... more It seems remiss that while New Zealand’s design prowess continues to impress globally, that the indigenous and cultural knowledge that has for centuries inspired and informed aesthetic languages worldwide has not been recognized for its contribution. Forgotten, or perhaps conveniently ignored, is the praise of both the New Zealand Māori and Pacific people’s use of nature’s harmonies to achieve beauty in aesthetics made in 1852 by education and aesthetic reformist, Owen Jones (1809 -1874) in his seminal and determinative work, The Grammar of Ornament. In order to reinstate Jones’ claim, this paper asserts it is critical that we revisit design’s history from a less Eurocentric perspective. This offers an opportunity to debunk the counter-claim that indigeneity was counter-productive to the development of modernity. By recalibrating design’s history with a more accurate and culturally orientated compass, the contributions made by indigenous knowledge to the endeavours of some of design history’s most iconic contributors becomes tangible. Having made these connections, this study will introduce Māori and Pasifika ideologies of time, space and connectivity to demonstrate a pathway forward in which this knowledge can be understood, acknowledged, respected and most importantly appropriately included within design’s histories, current practices and future endeavours.
Conference proceedings. Cumulus ReDo, , 2017
From the standpoint of a design school, situated in New Zealand, where the proud and visually art... more From the standpoint of a design school, situated in New Zealand, where the proud and visually articulate Māori and Pasifika peoples who exhibit traditional skills of visual communication, storytelling and making are domiciled, one might ask why these skills and this knowledge was overlooked from the aesthetic education we offer. With diversity extolled as highly valuable, it seems incongruent that homogeny and standardization should continue to overshadow design education. Critical of this duplicity, this paper asserts the facilitation of culturally empathetic design curricula in which all students have an equal opportunity to contribute and flourish. Building on the concept of renegade knowledge, this research asserts that to REDO design education indigenous knowledge should be considered as fundamental to design pedagogy as western knowledge currently is. This study draws from the Māori and Pasifika cohorts at the School of Design, to elucidate the benefits brought about by the inclusion of diversity.
Journal of Australian Indigenous Issues , 2016
The benefits cultural diversity offers aesthetic education are well established in the manifestos... more The benefits cultural diversity offers aesthetic education are well established in the manifestos of numerous tertiary institutions promising to graduate global citizens able to communicate across cultural boundaries. Oddly, with Eurocentric ideals continuing to dominate design curricula, non-western social, cultural, and creative practice is being acknowledged as highly valuable, yet it is side-lined. Critical of this duplicity, this paper asserts that to facilitate a shift beyond this paradigm and to enable more culturally empathetic and expressive design solutions, indigenous symbols and visual spatial strategies should be included within the current design pedagogy. Guided by 'Okusitino Māhina’s explanation of Moana culture as plural, holistic and circular, this study concentrates on the visual strategies of vā (space) and tā-vā (time and space) to explore the expression of Indigenous culture within contemporary design education. This paper will argue that the inclusion and reflection of Indigenous culture should be considered essential to the enrichment of design thinking, technological advancements, research and practice. Using examples of first year design work, this paper will demonstrate that the introduction of Indigenous symbols and visual spatial strategies can enrich design pedagogy and as importantly instigate a shift away from the homogeny currently inherent in design education, research and practice.
Conference proceedings ISEA Hong Kong 2016, 2016
To move beyond the homogeny currently extant in design, Alain Findeli posits design should broade... more To move beyond the homogeny currently extant in design, Alain Findeli posits design should broaden its scope of inquiry. I will argue that to facilitate this shift and enable more culturally expressive design solutions, Indigenous symbols and visual-spatial strategies should be acknowledged within design pedagogy. This study introduces the Pasifika ideologies of Ta-vā (time and space) and Teu la vā (sacred connections) to illustrate the relevance and opportunity afforded design when Indigenous ideologies and aesthetics are purposefully imbued. Although the use of the term ‘savage’ belies a level of hegemony, Owen Jones was one of the first to ratify culture within design when he stated, “The eye of the savage accustomed only to look upon Nature’s harmonies, would readily enter into the perception of the true balance both of form and colour.” To illustrate the relevance of indigenous ideology and to expand inquiry first year design students at Victoria University, Wellington investigate individual cultural legacies to identify and validate their heritage. Having acknowledged these sacred connections the students employ both analogue and digital media to parallel Modernist principles of composition alongside Indigenous markings of time in space in which geometry is used to create the common goal, beauty from chaos.
The benefits cultural diversity offers aesthetic education are well established in the manifestos... more The benefits cultural diversity offers aesthetic education are well established in the manifestos of numerous design institutions. Oddly though with Eurocentric Modernist ideals remaining dominant in design curricula, non-western social, cultural, and creative practice albeit acknowledged as highly valuable, are still side-lined. Critical of this duplicity, this paper asserts that to enable more culturally empathetic design solutions, Indigenous visual spatial strategies should be engrained into current design pedagogy. Guided by Māhina’s holistic Theory of Reality, this study identifies previously unrecognised connections between Pasifika visual spatial languages and strategies of vā (space) and tā-vā (time and space) and contemporary design education. This study argues that Indigenous visual spatial languages and strategies are in fact tacit within Modernist expressions of design and design pedagogy or visa-versa, and asserts these, of themselves laudable languages and approaches should therefore be acknowledged and celebrated as central to contemporary and future pedagogical structures for design.
Conference proceedings SAHANZ July 2014
"Twentieth century modernism pursued an approach to design and architecture that incorporated a u... more "Twentieth century modernism pursued an approach to design and architecture that incorporated a universal visual language to provide a shared understanding of art and architecture. Critical to the translation of this language was Bauhaus pedagogy whose aims were not merely to bring these disciplines back into closer ties with everyday life, but to make them the very instrument of social and cultural regeneration. Efforts within Bauhaus pedagogy to propagate the universal were built upon the holistic, social and egalitarian ideals of John Ruskin and his reformist colleagues, but it would be Bauhaus émigrés László Moholy-Nagy, Josef Albers and Walter Gropius that would attempt the integration and interpretation of these doctrines in the wholly different economic and political context that was America circa 1930. Within this translation, the meaning of ‘the universal’ was misinterpreted as a dogma, leading to the Bauhaus ideologies and pedagogical methods, being met with mistrust.
During this tenuous time American Modernists, clearly irritated by the Europeans openly criticized Bauhaus émigrés for not disseminating a methodology but selling a commodity and considered the credit Russell-Hitchcock and Johnson had afforded the Europeans to be overstated and even erroneous. In this paper I will demonstrate that although Gropius held tenure at Harvard and Moholy-Nagy, at the New Bauhaus in Chicago, was the most propitiously positioned of the émigrés to translate their ideals, it would be Albers through his drawing and painting that would encounter the most successful translation of Bauhaus ideals into American modernist architectural pedagogy. I will reveal the duplicity of the adoption of fundamental Bauhaus principles into the famed educational tenets of the Texas Rangers led by American Modernist Harwell Hamilton Harris, who himself, a vocal critic, attempted to refocus architectural education through the development of both rigorous analysis and a new universal visual language.
"
“The job of critical designers is to be thorns in the side of politicians and industrialists, as ... more “The job of critical designers is to be thorns in the side of politicians and industrialists, as well as partners for scientists or consumer advocates, while stimulating discussion and debate about the social, cultural and ethical future implications of decisions about technology made today.” Considered to be the ‘most famous experiment in art education of the modern era’ the Bauhaus, an early twentieth century German design academy, strove to, ‘close the broad gulf that existed between art and industry.’ It sought not merely to bring visual arts back into closer ties with everyday life, but to make it the very instrument of social and cultural regeneration.” Its pedagogy was built upon the ideals of the late nineteenth century reformists and continued to attempt to remove artistic elitism. In doing so it provided twentieth century modernism a common key to the understanding of the visual arts. These efforts resulted in an approach to design and architecture that incorporated a universal visual language. Mid-20th century attempts to translate these tenets in America, resulted in the misunderstandinging of the universal, culminating in its loss. Amidst the interdisciplinary teams that now characterize the art of making and building dramatic transformations in technology are prevalent once again. I will assert that the Bauhaus approach, predicated upon notions of equality and shared understanding to bridge the divide between, design, technology and society is critical once again.
http://victoria.lconz.ac.nz/vwebv/holdingsInfo?bibId=1507630
This study investigates the roots of interdisciplinary architectural and design education and met... more This study investigates the roots of interdisciplinary architectural and design education and methodology in Europe and the United States during the first half of the twentieth century. In particular this thesis is concerned with the establishment of the principles of a universal visual language within this context. Walter Gropius' (1883-1969) efforts to propagate a universal understanding of architecture, art and design at the Bauhaus is a central focus of this study along with the use of a universal visual language to facilitate such an ideal. This thesis argues that the instigation of the Bauhaus preliminary course, the Vorkurs, developed by Johannes Itten (1888–1967) and matured by Bauhaüslers Lázsló Moholy-Nagy (1895-1946) and Josef Albers (1888-1976) offered vitality, integrity, creativity and longevity to Bauhaus pedagogy and posits that the beliefs and practices of the Vorkurs contributed significantly to the translation of European modern design education in the United States. Although Bauhaus pedagogical translations were refuted by some and misunderstood by others in the wholly different economic context of the United States, this study proposes that the translations of the Vorkurs methodology, by the émigré Bauhaüslers, Moholy-Nagy at the New Bauhaus in Chicago, Albers at Black Mountain College and Yale and Gropius at Harvard contributed to the codification of modern twentieth-century design education, and as such continues to offer relevance in current architectural and design pedagogical environments.
"The Canterbury Cathedral, and the Iconography of Britishness in the Colonisation of New Zealand
... more "The Canterbury Cathedral, and the Iconography of Britishness in the Colonisation of New Zealand
In September 1888 “the most destructive earthquake since the Canterbury Pilgrims landed” struck Christchurch, New Zealand – a city founded by Royal Charter as an English colonial settlement only some thirty years earlier. Contemporary reports described, “ shortly after four o’clock this morning, the bells of the Cathedral were made to toll by the rocking of the spire, immediately afterwards part of the spire came crashing to the ground.” The spire, considered a landmark for every Cantabrian and a mariner’s beacon, “no longer cut the sky.” Considered Christchurch’s architectural pride and one of the most important ecclesiastical connections to Britain, fears for the Cathedral’s conditions were widespread. Much relief was felt upon realisation that “the graceful shaft although truncated was erect.”
Sent half way around the world to establish a Church of England Settlement in New Zealand the Canterbury Pilgrims reserved a central area of Christchurch’s town square on which to build Christchurch’s Cathedral Church, the heart of the colonial community. Sadly today we find Christchurch’s Cathedral Church again failing “to cut the sky.”
What, if any, relevance do the ideals of the Church of England, the Canterbury Pilgrims and Gothic Revivalism have in rebuilding this iconic place of worship in a city considered “more English than England” and in a country defined as part of the Commonwealth but where the “warm relationship between the victor and the vanquished,” is now considered by some to be more tepid than convivial."
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Book Chapters by Nan O'Sullivan
Papers by Nan O'Sullivan
Guided by Transition Design this paper offers ka mua, ki muri - walking backwards into the future, as an approach that enables Indigenous knowledge and practices to inform design’s capability to facilitate equitable and inclusive negotiations of space, time, resources and responsibilities.
During this tenuous time American Modernists, clearly irritated by the Europeans openly criticized Bauhaus émigrés for not disseminating a methodology but selling a commodity and considered the credit Russell-Hitchcock and Johnson had afforded the Europeans to be overstated and even erroneous. In this paper I will demonstrate that although Gropius held tenure at Harvard and Moholy-Nagy, at the New Bauhaus in Chicago, was the most propitiously positioned of the émigrés to translate their ideals, it would be Albers through his drawing and painting that would encounter the most successful translation of Bauhaus ideals into American modernist architectural pedagogy. I will reveal the duplicity of the adoption of fundamental Bauhaus principles into the famed educational tenets of the Texas Rangers led by American Modernist Harwell Hamilton Harris, who himself, a vocal critic, attempted to refocus architectural education through the development of both rigorous analysis and a new universal visual language.
"
In September 1888 “the most destructive earthquake since the Canterbury Pilgrims landed” struck Christchurch, New Zealand – a city founded by Royal Charter as an English colonial settlement only some thirty years earlier. Contemporary reports described, “ shortly after four o’clock this morning, the bells of the Cathedral were made to toll by the rocking of the spire, immediately afterwards part of the spire came crashing to the ground.” The spire, considered a landmark for every Cantabrian and a mariner’s beacon, “no longer cut the sky.” Considered Christchurch’s architectural pride and one of the most important ecclesiastical connections to Britain, fears for the Cathedral’s conditions were widespread. Much relief was felt upon realisation that “the graceful shaft although truncated was erect.”
Sent half way around the world to establish a Church of England Settlement in New Zealand the Canterbury Pilgrims reserved a central area of Christchurch’s town square on which to build Christchurch’s Cathedral Church, the heart of the colonial community. Sadly today we find Christchurch’s Cathedral Church again failing “to cut the sky.”
What, if any, relevance do the ideals of the Church of England, the Canterbury Pilgrims and Gothic Revivalism have in rebuilding this iconic place of worship in a city considered “more English than England” and in a country defined as part of the Commonwealth but where the “warm relationship between the victor and the vanquished,” is now considered by some to be more tepid than convivial."
Guided by Transition Design this paper offers ka mua, ki muri - walking backwards into the future, as an approach that enables Indigenous knowledge and practices to inform design’s capability to facilitate equitable and inclusive negotiations of space, time, resources and responsibilities.
During this tenuous time American Modernists, clearly irritated by the Europeans openly criticized Bauhaus émigrés for not disseminating a methodology but selling a commodity and considered the credit Russell-Hitchcock and Johnson had afforded the Europeans to be overstated and even erroneous. In this paper I will demonstrate that although Gropius held tenure at Harvard and Moholy-Nagy, at the New Bauhaus in Chicago, was the most propitiously positioned of the émigrés to translate their ideals, it would be Albers through his drawing and painting that would encounter the most successful translation of Bauhaus ideals into American modernist architectural pedagogy. I will reveal the duplicity of the adoption of fundamental Bauhaus principles into the famed educational tenets of the Texas Rangers led by American Modernist Harwell Hamilton Harris, who himself, a vocal critic, attempted to refocus architectural education through the development of both rigorous analysis and a new universal visual language.
"
In September 1888 “the most destructive earthquake since the Canterbury Pilgrims landed” struck Christchurch, New Zealand – a city founded by Royal Charter as an English colonial settlement only some thirty years earlier. Contemporary reports described, “ shortly after four o’clock this morning, the bells of the Cathedral were made to toll by the rocking of the spire, immediately afterwards part of the spire came crashing to the ground.” The spire, considered a landmark for every Cantabrian and a mariner’s beacon, “no longer cut the sky.” Considered Christchurch’s architectural pride and one of the most important ecclesiastical connections to Britain, fears for the Cathedral’s conditions were widespread. Much relief was felt upon realisation that “the graceful shaft although truncated was erect.”
Sent half way around the world to establish a Church of England Settlement in New Zealand the Canterbury Pilgrims reserved a central area of Christchurch’s town square on which to build Christchurch’s Cathedral Church, the heart of the colonial community. Sadly today we find Christchurch’s Cathedral Church again failing “to cut the sky.”
What, if any, relevance do the ideals of the Church of England, the Canterbury Pilgrims and Gothic Revivalism have in rebuilding this iconic place of worship in a city considered “more English than England” and in a country defined as part of the Commonwealth but where the “warm relationship between the victor and the vanquished,” is now considered by some to be more tepid than convivial."
Guided by Transition Design this paper offers ka mua, ki muri - walking backwards into the future, as an approach that enables Indigenous knowledge and practices to inform design’s capability to facilitate equitable and inclusive negotiations of space, time, resources and responsibilities.
Although acknowledged as highly valuable to design and design education, diversities when explored as non-western cultural and creative practices are still side-lined within design curricula and practice. Quixotically, this space remains dominated by Western, hegemonic and linear ideals. This paper asserts that to navigate thinking and praxis through this partisanship a more culturally calibrated compass would serve design well. In solidarity with the ‘indigenous wisdom’ framework outlined in Transition Design, this research introduces Kaupapa Māori, (Māori values) and the Pasifika ideology of Ta- Vā, (time and space) to illustrate the relevance and opportunity afforded design when indigenous knowledge and understanding is purposefully, knowingly and respectfully imbued in design thinking and praxis. This research illustrates the many tangible and intangible connections to the past and the future imbued in these ideologies and further argues the contribution of this cultural acumen to a change in human behaviours towards more sustainable, equitable and holistic futures than the one we currently see in front of us.
During this tenuous time American Modernists, clearly irritated by the Europeans openly criticized Bauhaus émigrés for not disseminating a methodology but selling a commodity and considered the credit Russell-Hitchcock and Johnson had afforded the Europeans to be overstated and even erroneous. In this paper I will demonstrate that although Gropius held tenure at Harvard and Moholy-Nagy, at the New Bauhaus in Chicago, was the most propitiously positioned of the émigrés to translate their ideals, it would be Albers through his drawing and painting that would encounter the most successful translation of Bauhaus ideals into American modernist architectural pedagogy. I will reveal the duplicity of the adoption of fundamental Bauhaus principles into the famed educational tenets of the Texas Rangers led by American Modernist Harwell Hamilton Harris, who himself, a vocal critic, attempted to refocus architectural education through the development of both rigorous analysis and a new universal visual language.