News
Seeing ‘Our Faces in Our Places’
Posted 26 10 2018
in News
Te Tau-a-Nuku update
Nā Damian Powley i tuhi
As another large cruise liner the Majestic Princess docks alongside Auckland’s waterfront, it’s a glorious spring morning and I can’t help but ponder the excitement and thoughts of those travellers aboard, and ‘their’ sense of arrival as they are greeted here in New Zealand’s largest city, Tāmaki Makaurau.
Mixed with anticipation and perhaps a bit of respite from the sea, they will soon dis-embark and explore a modern city on the edge of the world, confident of itself and its mix of modern convenience and sunny [today at least] South-Pacific charm.
Not unlike those travellers, I have the envious commute each day to work, riding aboard the Waitematā on a ferry from Pine Harbour. My commute is peppered with a rich and prominent reminder of our history and volcanic past; instantly recognisable are the islands that dot the Gulf as I go – Motukorea, Motuihe, Motutapu and Rangitoto. As we travel closer to the inner harbour, I look to the isthmus, and orientate to Ōhuiarangi, Maungauika and Takaparawhā; and the Sky Tower.
As a commuter, I am lucky enough to ‘confront’ our unique landscape each day, and engage in our wider collective landscape identity about what is uniquely ‘us’. Docking and unloading our ferry right next to that big cruise liner, I arrive downtown to finish the rest of my daily ritual on foot, suddenly asking myself the question ‘do we carry that same element of identity, uniqueness and quality into our built form, and is it as apparent as it might be for those same travellers arriving here from around the world?’
Seeing ‘our faces in those places’
Whether it may be our first time, or our every day commute, we have that ever-present opportunity to be reminded maybe subtly, maybe a little more forcefully, of our sense of place and identity. Taking a challenge to turn off my headphones and actively question the ‘identity’ embedded in our built form around us, I ponder on whether it is reflective of our place as I walk by, along with everyone else about my day – haerenga ki mahi.
Finding our ‘identity’ was harder than I had anticipated… Harder in the sense that here were a throng of new visitors to our shores; and as I searched for what I thought might be the instantly recognisable and not so subtle, and instantly distinguishable to our weary travellers in comparison to all of those other cities their voyage had taken them – that they would say to each other ‘yes - here we are in Tāmaki Makaurau’.
It wasn’t apparent, it wasn’t obvious – but it was there, perhaps subtler than I first hoped for. As I consider Auckland’s continuing move towards embracing its ‘Tāmaki side’; scratch that little bit deeper, and it begins to ‘reveal’ itself more often than not – even for a commuter who does the same trip every day. It was affirming to know, and to see this side emerge, that as Landscape Architects, Tāmaki – and as I suspect with Ahuriri, Pōneke, Whakaraupō, Ōtepoti and more – our cruise line destinations, towns and cities, are slowly revealing their unique layers to our first time visitors, and everyday commuters alike, each with its own mix of narratives, manawhenua, landscapes. flora and fauna
Words and images by Damian Powley (Ngāi Tai). Damian is a Landscape Architect with Isthmus in Auckland.