Fabrications issues

34.3 (2025)

Across Australasian and Pacific scholarship there has been an uneven history of interest in First Nations architecture. In Australia in recent decades there has been a long overdue acknowledgement of the millenia of architecture, land stewardship, history, and family connections to Country by First Nations people, which has slowly gained acceptance in the academy. Some of this has recognised the work, skills, knowledge, and experiences of First Nations people as designers and creators of their own living environments prior to colonisation. Another strand has emerged from academic research into pre-invasion First Nations architecture and the responses First Nations people had to the brutal colonisation of their Countries, including creative and canny strategies to house themselves and their families and to enable the continuation of their communities. In Aotearoa New Zealand and Moana Pasifika, there is more advanced architectural research of Māori and Pacific people’s building and place making activities across both pre- and post-colonisation or contact with Europeans eras. Likewise, in the decades since then, there has been an increasing body of architectural history scholarship that explores the ways in which the economic and governance structures of colonisation (in all its varied forms across Australia, Aotearoa New Zealand, and the Pacific) take hold and grow through the built environment. This is an important element of working towards the reckoning of this traumatic era in our region. The editors’ themed issue asked authors to consider the history of the building types and styles designed specifically to accommodate First Nations communities, whether by them or by others, including those from colonial and European-contact eras such as missions and reserve buildings and precincts; and the governance relationships and engagement of First Nations communities that have affected the architectural outcomes.

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