London is particularly associated with the turn of the millennium through a series of high profile architectural projects, among them, the Millennium Dome, the Millennium Bridge, the Great Court at the British Museum, the London Eye and the Tate Gallery of Modern Art. Such landmark projects supposedly embodied and represented international relevance, profile and success, and they encouraged tourism as well as cultural and financial exchange. 

In Auckland, architects were demonstrating a range of aspirations, from Noel Lane’s attempt to represent geographic and cultural identity in his renovation of the War Memorial Museum, to the urbane and savvy sophistication of Andrew Patterson’s Site 3. Other architects teased out the tension between local identity and global awareness, in individual buildings and in urban renewal strategies. This session invites papers that explore, from historical perspectives, architecture and architectural issues that were topical at the end of the twentieth century and the beginning of the twenty first. This does not mean a focus on landmark projects: all encounters are welcome, from the unknown to the iconic as well as feminist, postcolonial and decolonising initiatives, and developments in sustainable design, digital design, urban design and heritage conservation.  

Papers may focus on practice-based or theoretical issues, and on the originality and newness associated with modernity or on the pluralism and diversity of the postmodern condition. The question to be asked is, what informed and characterised the architecture of that particular historical moment, and how might such initiatives be understood today? Papers on southern hemisphere topics are particularly welcome. 

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• Session convenor: Julia Gatley, School of Architecture and Planning, the University of Auckland
• Submit paper proposals to: [email protected]