Creativity Following Colonisation: The Relationship Between Architecture and Literature in New Zealand
Pacific Architecture Assignment 2 Sophie Hamer 301025629
Introduction New Zealand has long labelled itself as a nation of creativity and ingenuity. The arts are disciplines which, apart from being creative, are inherently forward moving, in that they both reflect and drive societal thinking at once. This should, theoretically, result in a complex, but parallel relationship between different strands in the arts. In most overseas nations with a long history, this cohesion is visible. Impressionism was evident in written and visual forms. Surrealism gave us Guy Debord, Man Ray, and Charles Baudelaire. Moreover, key perpetrators of specific ways of thinking often move between disciplines. This allows for a creative culture of momentum, exploration, and depth. This essay explores the relationship between the specific arts of architecture and literature in the much younger nation of New Zealand. The function of the arts within any given society is based on an assumed relationship between context, culture, and artistic practices. This is seen in terms of identification of a problem, identification of a response direction, and an exposure of that response in some tangible manner. This output can then generate different problems and new responses. These processes allow artists to within a society “to provide a healthy and permanent element of rebellion: 1
not to become a species of civil servant.” This is the process of manifestation of culture, and is the way in which both literature and architecture operate. In order for artistic disciplines to then operate together, they must identify the same problems, and the same necessary responses. Beyond this, disciplines must criticise each other’s responses and move forward providing new, shared possibilities. It will be argued that due to the nature of the set of problems presented by colonisation, literature and architecture face different challenges in New Zealand, and also have different appropriate response paths set up 1
Frank McKay, James K as Critic: A Selection from his Literary Criticism,
(Auckland: Heinemann Education Books, 1978), 8.
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by this condition. Because of these disparities, there is also little establishment of dialogue between architecture and literature in New Zealand.
Post-colonial Understandings Post-colonialism encompasses the cultural identity of colonised societies, or their search for that identity. The relationship between coloniser and colonised must be understood to be constantly shifting for the purposes of this investigation. Initial responses to the ‘homeland’ and ‘new land’ inform later responses, and thus both the cultural worlds of literature and architecture are built not only of old land and new land, but also of past, present and future possible understandings of those places. Individual artists themselves are caught between being at once the coloniser and the colonised, caught in “the tension between here and there”
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In 1996, Lawrence Jones wrote that “the young New Zealand writer must be willing to partake, internally as well as externally, of the anarchy of life in a new place and by his creative energy give that life form and consciousness.” The word ‘writer’ in this phrase might just as easily be replaced with the term ‘artist’ or ‘architect’, and Jones’ articulation of the New Zealand ‘problem’ would have just as much resonance. The relationship to the ‘new place’, and the challenges it proposes give rise to initial driving aims of literature and architecture falling absolutely parallel. The idea of the ‘new land,’ however, is not static. In cultural and artistic progression, there has been a continual re-appropriation of homeland forms. This reflects an internal struggle to belong in both the old and new countries. Given that comfort is achieved through moments of recognition and relation to past experiences, re-appropriating the ‘new’ in terms of the ‘old’ is deemed necessary. This is visible in architecture, with the new land’s 2
MacDonald P Jackson and Vincent O’Sullivan, ed., introduction to The Oxford Book of
New Zealand Writing since 1945 (Auckland: Oxford University Press, 1983), xxiv
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immediate recognition of the social hierarchies being through pre-determined, predominantly British architectural statements. The Victorian cottage, for example, was seen for a long time as the image of a successful settler, and building materials of the old world, such as stone and brick, were held in esteem over timber, despite pragmatic functionality. Literature, unlike architecture, does not have an end goal in mind of comfort or ‘fit’. As they are not subject to physical constraints, authors also carry much more weight in terms of their ability to rebel and bring about change. Within this context, acts of re-appropriation function differently, denoting a response to a semiotic, rather than political or physical, context. Post-colonial literature can be seen to work through processes of ‘writing back’, ‘rewriting’ and ‘rereading’ – across a range of scales. These three steps are conceived as the default processes for the creation of art in New Zealand. Instead of identifying the New Zealand problem, identifying a New Zealand response, and thus articulating that response in a specific and individual way, these steps are always linked to the coloniser. The subject of response is their art (writing back), our New Zealand specific response is to their identification of a problem (rewriting), and there is a reinterpretation of their work in light of the New Zealand problem. The steps are always engaged in an ‘us and them’ mentality, never dealing solely with New Zealand. This results in the condition of being “a land of settlers, with never a soul at home.”
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New Zealand authors and architects applied these processes to the interpretation of well-known work from the homeland. It is this moment in which the slip from objectivity to subjectivity occurs which can be seen to result in the apparent disjunction between literature and architecture in New Zealand. Given the same information, within the same sphere of influence, it is the interpretation and perspective on that image which define the scope of 3
John Gordon, ed., Out of Town: Writing from the New Zealand Countryside, (Auckland:
Shoal Bay Press, 1999)
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further ‘rereadings’.
The end point is thus extrapolated from the beginning.
Colonialism and the Native In the 1930s poet A.R.D. Fairburn wrote that New Zealand writers should 4
make a transition into native rather than colonial-derivative writing. The distinction between ‘native’ and ‘colonial’ should have blown wind through the New Zealand community. His statement proposes a new method of searching for identity, which is a return to ‘native’ literature: thus implying some extinct, indigenous literature which is buried in the bowels of the land and is ready to be dug out at any time. In reality, there is no such literature in New Zealand. Maori literature existed purely in spoken form, and consisted of mythology – something which modern literature has little dealt with. Books and written word were introduced by the European colonisers, and thus New Zealand literature finds itself inherently tied to the colonisers, and not to a concept of the native. Moreover, what Fairburn fails to recognise is that the history of New Zealand literature, including the colonial-derivative writing, is concerned with a search for the native. Thus what he proposes is not only impossible, but it is also no significant addition to understandings of literature’s function within New Zealand, and no possible means to get there. Fairburn’s comment might thus be more appropriately applied to architecture, which has different roots in New Zealand. Pre-colonisation, Maori had buildings and methods of construction which responded to climatic, spiritual, and programmatic problems of site and landscape.
A ‘native’ does exist in
the architectural realm in opposition to a ‘colonial’. The marae and pa are present in opposition to the cottage and cathedral.
4
Lawrence Jones, "'Colonial Like Ourselves': The American Influence on New Zealand Fiction, 1934-65," Deep South v.2 n.1 (Autumn, 1996):
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In essence, this presence and absence of ‘native’ resulted in two different contexts within post-colonial New Zealand.
Literature, having no precedent,
took the traditions of the ‘homeland’ as its own – being the same in rhythm, tone, verse types and even, to some extent, content. This initial banal acceptance spurred rebellion, and the movement to find the ‘native’ was imminent. On the other hand, architecture had a ‘native’ precedent which it chose to suppress and ignore, responding by imposing architectural forms and understandings of the homeland, in a mode characteristic of colonisation. Architecture was the hand of the coloniser. While both disciplines followed homeland techniques, the base level opposition of architecture meant that a desire to revive the ‘native’ and the search for ‘identity’ did not surface for a long time. Early architectural deviation from the colonial, such as the translation of gothic churches from stone to timber, are attributed to the physical realm which architecture must exist within, and to the therefore necessary pragmatic changes, rather than responding to societal ideas. This gradual, ‘necessary’ change in architecture again reduced the artist’s need to rebel. Despite this, architecture and literature can be seen to have come together in arguably the most successful such moment in New Zealand, during this early period. This moment was the writing of the Treaty of Waitangi, and the construction of the Treaty House. Fittingly, this moment is arguably the most important cultural moment in New Zealand’s history. The Treaty house, architecturally, was a fusion of the ‘native’ and the ‘colonial’ in that Maori forms were incorporated alongside colonial understandings. At the same time, the Treaty of Waitangi not only referred to the coming together of two peoples in content, but it was also written in both languages. Unfortunately, what had the potential to be the fusion of a nation, of cultural practices, and of architecture and literature did not play out. With the colonisers having and overwhelmingly large output of architecture and literature, in both fields Maori practices marginalised and sidelined. This
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occurred to the extent that Maori ideas began to be seen trivially, in the way in which people romanticise the foreign. The literary output of this phase was called Maoriland, and is described as being “a land of settlers who, having claimed for themselves the designation ‘New Zealanders’ once reserved for Maori, now feel comfortable enough about their identity and security to borrow the name of those they have 5
supplanted.” It is interesting that a writing movement might give itself a physical and geographical name, thus occupying an architectural space in time. However, there was no reciprocal ‘Maoriland’ in architecture. Instead, maori aesthetic became popularised, and was used as an adornment in a large number of European homes. However, the writing of Maoriland was seen to partake both “of nineteenth century romanticism, and, at times, anticipated twentieth century modernism. In this it is quintessentially 6
Victorian.” In this, literature can be seen to critically link to the architecture moment of the time. The problem and response angle are the same. However, the output response differs.
De-colonisation and the National. By the 1930’s, the search of the elusive ‘native’ had morphed into a search for cultural distinctiveness. This period might aptly be described as a “process 7
of cultural decolonization,” reflecting a shift in emphasis from looking back to looking forward, from looking at the homeland to looking at the new homeland. 8
This meant leaving behind the “legacy of a different century,” moving forward from the Katherine Mansfields and the Benjamin William Mountforts. In 1938 Frank Sargeson complained that because of “the natal cord that still ties us to Great Britain” and the “disasterous influence of Katherine Mansfield” the Jane Stafford and Mark Williams, Maoriland: New Zealand Literature 1872 to 1914,
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(Wellington: Victoria University Press, 2006), 12 Ibid
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7
Stuart Murray, Never A Soul At Home: New Zealand Literary Nationalism in the 1930s,
(Wellington: Victoria University Press, 1998), 15 8
Stuart Murray, Never A Soul At Home: New Zealand Literary Nationalism in the 1930s, 13
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influence of American literature had been undermined. In doing so, he turned out the inward notion of looking for the native, and suggested that identity might be found through looking overseas. His suggestion of America was based on the link of colonised people – with whom he suggested New Zealand might have more in common than its own colonisers. However, as they “sought to prove New Zealand’s distinct sense of cultural differences the writers of the 1930s did so by looking abroad for models and ideas.”
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More explicitly, he asked for a shift of the outlook of New Zealand literature away from Britain and towards America, who he saw as having similar issues, derived from colonisation.
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This same shift was seen in architecture,
visibly, as the Victorian Period gave way to the Californian Bungalow.
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This
reflected not only a rejection of the coloniser, but an acceptance of a need for a new way of living and being –- a new way which was championed by America.
At this stage it was seen as appropriate to derive a sense of
identity from other international ideas -- so long as it was not from the coloniser. However this new direction proved to have its own problems, particularly due to the culture of re-appropriation which had already been established in New Zealand cultural models. Oliver Duff, in a review of ‘The Cunninghams’ in 1949, said that “the style is as American as the production. It is a picture of New Zealand by a New Zealander working with an American brush.”
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The borrowing of style led to a direct transplantation of aesthetic, without allowing methodologies to inform the new direction of New Zealand art. This 9
Lawrence Jones, "'Colonial Like Ourselves': The American Influence on New Zealand Fiction,
1934-65," Deep South v.2 n.1 (Autumn, 1996), 42 Stuart Murray, Never A Soul At Home: New Zealand Literary Nationalism in the 1930s, 13 11 Lawrence Jones, "'Colonial Like Ourselves': The American Influence on New Zealand 10
Fiction, 1934-65," Deep South v.2 n.1 (Autumn, 1996):45 12
Charles Walker, ed., Exquisite apart: 100 years of Architecture in New Zealand, (Auckland:
Balasoglou Books, 2005), 9 13
Stuart Murray, Never A Soul At Home: New Zealand Literary Nationalism in the 1930s,
(Wellington: Victoria University Press, 1998), 15
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was recognised by Dan Davin, who perceived that “one should learn from every time and place and literature, then turn to one’s own experience and apply whatever lessons had seeped down into ones subconscious.”
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The
production of art must be based on lessons and method, not on a presumed aesthetic outcome.
The Vernacular In the 1930s, literature saw an incorporation of and move towards the ‘vernacular’. In literary terms, ‘vernacular’ means simply dialect, or language, however in architectural terms it refers to the architectural typology of a specific place. The vernacular that John Mulgan gave New Zealand in ‘Man Alone’ was crude.
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This reflects two things: both the crude and unforgiving
language and attitudes of New Zealanders, and, perhaps more importantly, the willingness of the author to bare all and achieve a real honesty to the work - reflecting worldwide modernist trends. This honesty and crudeness is also apparent in architecture, most predominantly in the work of the the Group Architects. They called for an architectural vernacular - a new language with a deep but casual connection to place. This was articulated through ‘honest’ materials, exposure of structure, and opening out to the land.
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The relationship to literature was at
last evident, and comprehensive. This is further evidenced by the fact that A.R.D. Fairburn, a friend of Auckland architecture Vernon Brown, wrote the first significant piece on The Group’s first house. However, The Group were post-war, and thus ‘vernacular’ and ‘honest’ aims in architecture and literature, despite existing, did not run concurrently. This time lapse can be attributed to the lack of impetus for change and rebellion within architecture, as earlier discussed. Returning to the primary example of pre-1940s New Zealand Literature, Mulgan’s “Man Alone” encompasses many references to architecture. Not only Ibid.
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John Mulgan, Man Alone (Auckland: Longman Paul, 1984), 83
15 16
William Toomath, “Into The Post-War World,” in Exquisite apart: 100 years of Architecture
in New Zealand, ed. Charles Walker, (Auckland: Balasoglou Books, 2005), 44
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does he refer to it, but he actually references an ideal, which, given the honesty crudity of the writing, could be seen to mirror the New Zealand architectural dream of the time – though not the one of which architects spoke. “Settle me nice and dry and comfortable on a farm here” denotes the aims of the people of the time in relation to architecture, and to their identity within the country.
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What is important, above and beyond all this, it that literature talks about architecture. It does so, because literature needs architecture as a site for its problems, responses, and moralistic views to play out. However, architecture has only just begun to talk about literature. It wasn’t until Mark Wigley informed the world that New Zealand architecture is a snake that architecture began to pay attention to literature, and its possibilities.
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This one way flow
of attention may be a secondary reason for the way in which architectural ideas at worst do not correlate to literary ideas, and at best follow behind literary explorations.
Architecture and Literature as Islands For much of the twentieth century, authors could be seen to exist on an island within an island – they were at odds with a society which was in turn, at odds with the world. Janet Frame talked of the “rich material culture”
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and authors rejected this, choosing instead to live isolated,
vernacular lives, through which they could both cultivate and expel their inner torment. Architecture, on the other hand, has always been a dynamic part of society, and in particular has been driven by that very ‘rich material culture’ of which Frame spoke. The problem of architecture is that it depends on consumers, 17
John Mulgan, Man Alone (Auckland: Longman Paul, 1984), 83
18
Mark Wigley, "Paradise Lost & Found: Insinuation of Architecture in New Zealand,” in New
Dreamland: Writing New Zealand Architecture, ed. Douglas Lloyd Jenkins, (Auckland: Godwit, 2005), 78 19
Mark Williams, ed., Writing at the Edge of the Universe (Christchurch: Canterbury
University Press, 2004), 4
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and cannot exist without money. Furthermore, more creative architecture tends to require more money. This juxtaposes against the condition of literature. What literature wrote to preserve, architecture built to destroy, and thus there was no common ground between the disciplines. Where Frame expressed distaste towards factories and cities and promoted family rural life, Plishke build high rise apartment buildings which packed people in. From a literary mindset, the highest class of architecture were the individually hand-built huts, which were not connected to ‘architects,’ ‘designers,’ or ‘styles’. Literature both ‘talked about’ and expressed a stance towards architecture.
Internationalism The 2004 anthology of New Zealand literature, entitled “Writing at the Edge of the Universe,” Mark Williams comments on Manhire’s phrase which gave him his title. His comment is that while the phrase locates New Zealand, and thus New Zealanders at the edge of things, “this is not seen as lamentable or disadvantageous, as it was for poets of the mid-twentieth century. Distance, smallness, marginality have…become unalarmingly ordinary and even universal.”
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‘Manhire’s school,’ which centres round the
International Institute of Modern Letters in Wellington (International, not National) brought the poets’ attention to the ordinary. This appreciates a coming to terms with the nation, and with what it means to be of this place, thus being able to allow isolation and the identity crisis to seep into the background, and for new simpler subjects to emerge. It acknowledges an acceptance, and a realised identity, which says we’re just like everyone else.
Manhire’s school is typical of the later half century poet, who turned nationalism on its heels for internationalism. Having defined national and regional identity, the new challenge was to make the world aware of such things, and to merge a New Zealand understanding and international trends. This change in direction was promoted by Bill Pearson, who suggested that New Zealand artists should “concentrate on the provincial and vulgar, and 20
Mark Williams, ed., Writing at the Edge of the Universe (Christchurch: Canterbury
University Press, 2004), 5
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develop them to a point where they mean something to people outside New Zealand.”
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While crude and superficial in its aims, this comment shows the
beginning of a degeneration of the hierarchies of national over international, or internal over external understanding and recognition. The outcome of this shift is largely visible in the fact that “twenty years ago critical debate about New Zealand verse centred on ‘content’,” whereas today’s verse freely encompasses a large range of subjects, with the focus on expression through literary techniques. Internationalism is in the process of architectural realisation. There was some effort towards internationalism in the introduction of an international design competition to design the national museum, Te Papa.
However, this
competition was essentially undermined by the desire to have the national museum designed by a New Zealander. A representation on an international level would’ve been more forward looking, and there was also more opportunity for quality. However, the obsession with nationalism prevailed. In fact, in the 1990s, architecture looked “to root itself in mid-nineteenth century traditions”
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Traditions which were full of post-colonial unravellings and
colonisers’ languages.
Conclusion The colonisation of New Zealand can be seen to have influenced the nature of creative growth within the country. Literature and Architecture found 21
Mark Williams, ed., Writing at the Edge of the Universe (Christchurch: Canterbury
University Press, 2004), 3 22
Douglas Lloyd Jenkins, ed., New Dreamland: Writing New Zealand Architecture, (Auckland:
Random House, 2005), 54
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themselves at very different starting points within the colonial framework, and thus the artistic spectrum was delineated by a series of varying responses to a similar issue: identity. New Zealand Literature has followed a more energetic, fast-paced forwardmoving progression. It is more forceful in its motion, and has thus been able to take ideas and movements to their full extent. Architecture, on the other hand, has been creatively held back by pragmatic necessities of the new country, and has been slow in its push and pull of movements. This result is a creative climate in which Architecture either doesn’t respond to Literary explorations, or follows tact a long time late. While this is put forward as a style of relationship which should be minimised, the outcomes of a singular exploration strand between Architecture and Literature cannot be known in this society. If Architecture had more closely followed Literature, Te Papa might have been internationally designed. If Literature had followed architecture, there might have been no Janet Frame. Given that New Zealand understands colonisation, the way forward might be termed ‘re-colonisation’ – whereby the fields of architecture and literature colonise each other and are able to co-exist and yet retain their individual identities at once.
Bibliography
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the 1930s. Wellington: Victoria University Press 1998 Stafford, Jane and Mark Williams. Maoriland: New Zealand Literature from
1872 to 1914. Wellington: Victoria University Press, 2006. Walker, Charles, ed. Exquisite apart: 100 years of Architecture in New
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