New book pays tribute to Māori architect, seeks answers for future designs

Rewi Thompson (Ngāti Porou, Ngāti Raukawa) is remembered as a visionary thinker. Image / Screenshot

Originally published by Te Ao Māori News

Rewi Thompson (Ngāti Porou, Ngāti Raukawa) is remembered as a visionary thinker who believed careful consideration of people and place was a key feature of great architecture.

A new book, Rewi: Āta haere, kia there, written by a rising star of modern architecture, Jade Kake (Ngāpuhi, Ngāti Hau, Te Whakatōhea, Te Arawa), and urbanism and architecture commentator Jeremy Hansen, looks back on Thompson’s career, including his designs, concepts and visions that came from his belief that architecture could heal the wairua and mauri of people broken “by their circumstances”.

Kake says she and Hansen had met Thompson at various times in his life, but realised the significance of his involvement in the field of architecture.

“I had met Rewi as a student, and I think we both recognise that his contribution was so substantial and so important but, outside of our architectural circles, very few people seem to understand the breadth and depth of this contribution. It wasn’t as grand as that, but we thought somebody should write something about it and perhaps that somebody could be us.”

Thompson died in 2016, but not before contributing to some of the grandest designs across Aotearoa, including the City to Sea bridge in Wellington, the series of canopies in the image of a fish over the Otara Town Centre, the Pukenga-Māori studies building at Unitech, and a number of marae in Auckland such as Ngāti Ōtara, Ruapōtaka and the pā-themed Māori mental health unit at the Mason Clinic. That was one of many projects he was involved in in the health sector; others included Kaitaia Hospital and Tiahomai at Middlemore.

Ngāwha — using environment to heal

He was a consultant to the Department of Corrections on the Northland Regional Corrections facility project at Ngāwhā and Spring Hill facility near Meremere. It provided a chance for Thompson to prove his belief that the design of a building, incorporating the natural environment and surroundings, could help heal people suffering the effects of colonisation. At Ngāwhā, Thompson pushed for porches that looked out to significant landscape features as a way of reconnecting inmates with traditional landmarks of their ancestors.

Kake says much of this aspect of Thompson’s work remains unsung and uncelebrated.

“Although we sort of take it as commonplace now, this idea of incorporating tikanga, mātauranga Māori into our health spaces, I think he was really trailblazing. It was really new at that time, and no one else had really done it before in that way.”

Decades later, there are still lessons from Thompson’s approach to architecture and design that can be applied to housing projects that make people’s lives easier, Kake says.

“Rewi was also interested in how architecture could enrich people’s lives and improve the way people lived. There are two projects in the book. One, Rata Vine [near Manukau], and also Northcote everyday homes. Those two examples are really interesting because one was much earlier in his career, and one was quite soon before he passed.

“Now, these weren’t only housing for Māori, but I think he tried to think really carefully about how people might live in community and how spaces might support that to occur.”