Para-colonial – Colonial – Post-colonial. Influences and Transactions in the Architecture of Oceania (1840–1990)

ZOOM Joint symposium by Unitec Institute of Technology (Auckland, New Zealand) and Technical University Munich (Germany)

Knowledge on colonial architecture in the South Pacific is still sparse. Connections with pre-colonial settings and the post-colonial afterlife of this built legacy are often missing. In this sense, this conference unites contributions within the targeted time span c. 1840–1990, embedded in the larger South Pacific region. The contributions of this conference attempt to link their concrete architectural case studies of buildings, ensembles and urbanist projects with reflections on the influences of and transactions between locals and foreigners, colonials and colonised, and their changing allegiances, even across changing political powers.

Please contact convenors for ZOOM registration.


SCHEDULE: SESSIONS, PAPERS and SPEAKERS

29 June

Welcome and Introduction

SESSION 1: PARA-COLONIAL FORMS OF ARCHITECTURE IN AND KNOWLEDGE ABOUT THE SOUTH PACIFIC

A systematic connection: Hermann Frobenius' Study of Oceanic Building Types (1899)
Robin Skinner (Te Herenga Waka–Victoria University of Wellington, New Zealand)

Augustin Krämer, Te Rangi Hīroa and the vā of their Research Networks about Samoa
Tina Engels-Schwarzpaul & Albert Refiti (Auckland University of Technology, New Zealand)

Re-scribing Indigenous Form: The 19th Century Churches of the London Missionary Society in Rarotonga, Cook Islands
Carolyn Hill (University of Waikato, New Zealand)

Tongan-German (Siamane) Relations and Its Architecture in the Kingdom of Tonga
Charmaine ‘Ilaiū Talei (University of Auckland, New Zealand)

SESSION 2: GERMAN COLONIALISM IN THE SÜDSEE AND ITS ENCOUNTERS (1884–1914)

From Godeffroy to Hernsheim. German Corporate and Residential Architecture in the South Seas in the Colonial Period and its Reception in Germany of the Time
Hermann Mückler (Vienna University, Austria)

Submerged Systems: Colonial Governance and Phosphate Extraction on Nauru and Angaur in German Micronesia (1902–1913)
Jasper Ludewig (University of Newcastle, Australia)


30 June

Colonial Building Practice in German Samoa
Christoph Schnoor (Unitec, Auckland, New Zealand)

The Naval Station Tutuila in American Samoa and the Architectural Imaginary
Kelema Moses (University of California, San Diego)

Colonial Waves from Apia to Yap: Technoscientific Network Architectures of German Expansionism in Oceania
Clemens Finkelstein (Princeton University, USA)

German colonial architecture in Neuguinea’s Kaiser-Wilhelmsland and the Bismarck-Archipel.
Reconnecting a Fragmented Architectural History
Michael Falser (Technical University Munich, Germany)

SESSION 3: FROM INTER-COLONIAL ENCOUNTER TO POST-COLONIAL BUILDING PRACTICES

Architecturalising Missionary Space. The Steyler Mission Architecture during the German and the Australian Colonial Period in New Guinea (1896-1914-1945)
Paul Steffen (Pontificia Università Urbaniana, Rome, Italy)

Burns Philps’s Encounters across Colonial Borders: Buildings for Export and Commerce in the South Pacific
Amanda Ahmadi & Paul Walker (Melbourne University, Australia)


1 July

Tale of Two Schools: Technoscientific Networks in 1950s Cook Islands
Jeanette Budgett (Unitec, Auckland, New Zealand)

“The Athens of Tonga”: The 1960s Architecture of Futa Helu’s 'Atenisi Institute Campus, Nuku'alofa, Tonga
Bill McKay (University of Auckland, New Zealand)

Australian Architects in Melanesia: Two Case Studies in Papua New Guinea and New Caledonia, 1960s-80s
Peter Scriver, Amit Srivastava, Louis Lagarde (University of Adelaide, Australia / University of New Caledonia)

SESSION 4: ORIGINS AND HERITAGE RECONSIDERED - (POST)COLONIAL ARCHITECTURE AND INDIGENOUS LEGACIES

Two Legacies from Kaiser-Wilhelmsland: Adzes and Kulthauser. Berlin and International Exhibitions
Martin Fowler (independent scholar)

A Building as a Place of Protest: Schaaffhausen's Bandstand in Apia/Samoa
Lama Tone (University of Auckland, New Zealand)

Issues of Heritage and Conservation: the Courthouse in Apia/Samoa
Adam Wild, Krause Keil and Christoph Schnoor (Auckland, New Zealand)

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WRAP-UP DISCUSSION:
(Post) Colonial Architectures in Oceania – From Architectural History to Heritage ?