Indigenising Heritage: Tāmaki Makaurau/Auckland’s Architectural Heritage – Challenging a Monocultural Construct

Abstract

The purpose of this work is to explore how indigenous heritage has been both under-represented and misrepresented in colonial and post-colonial architecture in Tāmaki Makaurau/Auckland, the largest city in Aotearoa/New Zealand. This work combines case-studies with a review of conceptual material relating to multi-cultural perceptions of heritage, and their manifestations in a modern cityscape. Included in this approach is a consideration of indigenous perspectives on the built environment. What emerges from surveying this confluence of culture and heritage is that the popular portrayal of the city’s built past is confined to the colonial era and onwards, and that this has had the effect of associating Tāmaki Makaurau/Auckland’s architectural heritage with its European history – so much so that even depictions of Tāmaki Makaurau/Auckland’s Māori built heritage occur primarily in the context of European architecture.