From facial tattoos to TV stations, young Māori are enthusiastically embracing tribal cultural identity in Aotearoa New Zealand. Now a new wave of Indigenous architects are making their mark
A bright red ribbon of metal buckles out of the ground in suburban Auckland, ramping up at a sharp angle before cranking over in a lopsided arc. It frames a big glass wall, folded in a diagonal crease, whose striped surface is covered in a riot of patterns, with abstract motifs of waves, fish and stars swirling together in a polychromatic frenzy.
This is Taumata o Kupe, a new Māori meeting house and education centre for the Mahurehure community, and one of the brightest beacons of Aotearoa New Zealand’s burgeoning contemporary Māori architecture scene.
“It’s quite hard to miss,” says Wayne Wharepapa Asher, an elder member of the community. He recently moved into an apartment in a new terrace next to the building, where the homes open on to a pedestrian mews and a shared deck faces a lush babbling brook. “It feels like a different world here now. It has given us a fabulous place to share our culture with visitors from all walks of life.”
