As an architecture student in the late 1980s and studio tutor until the mid 1990s, Rau Hoskins locates the pivotal role of Deidre Brown in the development of Māori architectural education at the University of Auckland Te Pare School of Architecture and Planning, and her wider contribution to Māori architecture.
In the early 1990s at the University of Auckland, the seeds of our current Māori architecture educational approach can now – from this distance – be seen to having taken root.
While Dr Mike Austin’s PhD thesis ‘Polynesian architecture in New Zealand’ had been completed in 1976, and he continued to lecture at the School of Architecture, there had not been a broad commitment to the study of Māori architecture or dedicated support for the few Māori students in the degree programme. There were no permanent Māori staff and no plans to prioritise such appointments until 1993 when Mike Barns (Tūwharetoa ki Kawerau) was appointed as the first full-time Māori lecturer in architecture. With the bachelor’s degree being five years, few students went on to post-graduate studies in architecture and virtually no Māori did.
With valuable but sporadic Māori-focussed studio offerings by Mike Austin, Rewi Thompson and, later, Tony Ward, it wasn’t until the late 1980s that general momentum for Treaty-based curriculum change began to build at the university and at the School of Architecture. Waipapa Marae finally opened in 1988 and the new Department of Māori Studies (now independent of the Department of Anthropology) went from strength to strength in its new marae-based facilities under the leadership of Sir Hugh Kāwharu and then Dr Ranginui Walker. Finally, Māori students from across the university had a cultural home on campus and a base from which to connect their cultural identities with their academic studies.
After graduating with my bachelor’s degree in 1990 I returned to the School of Architecture to teach in the Community Design studio with Tony Ward on the Whare Wānanga ō Ngāti Awa design project. Saul Roberts (Te Ahiwaru) was a senior student at the school and, over the next two years, together we began to mobilise to form Whaihanga, the inaugural Māori architecture students’ support body. Saul had sought out Dr Pakariki Harrison, the tohunga whakairo who had led the carving of Tānenui-a-Rangi at Waipapa Marae, and gifted us the name ‘Whaihanga’, loosely translating as the ‘pursuit of the built form’. For me, returning to teaching was about unfinished business and feeling strongly through my undergraduate degree that significant structural changes were required to ensure Māori architecture was prioritised within the programme and Māori students were supported and acknowledged both in their studies and cultural identity.
At this time, we became aware of Deidre Brown who was completing her bachelor’s degree. Although we were approaching Māori architecture from quite different perspectives, it became clear that Deidre’s curiosity and painstaking research skills would be essential to growing the discipline of Māori architecture at the School into the new millennium.
Deidre’s methodical approach to progressively building a body of Māori architectural knowledge led to her groundbreaking book Māori Architecture, which firmly put Māori architecture on the map, both within academia and the wider Aotearoa public consciousness. It also paved the way for Whare Māori, the Whakaata Māori Television series, which was the first ever of its type, and that I ended up presenting in 2011.
From this seminal book Deidre has continued to write and publish extensively while assuming increasingly senior roles at Te Pare School of Architecture and Planning, as well as the Faculty of Creative Arts and Industries. The importance of having someone like Deidre as a senior figure at the School of Architecture is exemplified in allowing Māori students to see that Māori architecture and Māori academics can be valued in the institution and – by extension – so can they.
As was the case in the 1980s and 1990s, the discipline of architecture continues to attract Māori students with widely varying degrees of cultural knowledge and confidence. Many are now more readily able to find this knowledge and confidence at each of the four schools of architecture, significantly assisted by academics such as Deidre Brown.
Deidre’s tireless commitment to supporting, supervising and examining Māori post-graduate architecture students is to be commended. While many of us still try to balance our architectural practice and part-time academic roles, Deidre demonstrates the value of being a ‘pure’ academic with her ability to accomplish all her roles with aplomb.
As we look at the current state of Māori architectural education, while there is undoubtedly more to do to ensure Māori students are fully supported in their studies, Deidre’s 30-plus-year commitment to the field has ensured that those early seeds planted in the 1970s are now truly beginning to grow and flourish.
Hei oranga mo te iwi!
Rau Hoskins (Ngāti Hau, Ngāpuhi) is a director of design Tribe architects, part-time lecturer in architecture at Unitec Te Pūkenga and director of Pūrangakura, an independent kaupapa research centre.
Above: A still from Whare Māori, the 13-part Whakaata Māori Television series that aired in 2011, exploring Māori architecture, its history and relationship to community.