Wine. E hiahia ana tatou ki te wāina?

Mikaere orders the ‘Mathilda’, a 2020 Man O’War Kulta Chardonnay, as it exhibits a “toasty complexity with smoky undertones along with charred citrus rind and fresh stone fruit. It has a rich and textural palette, weighted with layers of ripened fruit and the impact of fermentation kinetics.” Aunty thinks the language of winemaking has cultivated a vocabulary that is as verbose and nuanced as the language of architecture.

He kai rangatira. So here we are at Te Kaahu, helmed by Māori-Samoan chef Nancye Tuisaula-Pirini (Te Whānau ā Apanui), on the top floor of Te Arikinui Pullman, a short walk from the Auckland International Airport terminal. As a new five-star, nine-level, 311- room hotel, Te Arikinui is 50 per cent owned by Tainui Group Holdings. The hotel’s name, meaning supreme paramount chief, was gifted by the late Kiingi Tuheitia and the location, representing “the merger of indigenous culture with architectural design”, is fitting since we are dining with Te Kāhui Whaihanga NZIA’s first Perehitini, Huia Reriti, who quips: “the venue is a great example of pūtea from Te Tiriti being used well by Māori. And, I also see architecture as cuisine, with materials as building ingredients.”

Starters. Kai tumutumu. Velvety kina dip with kūmara chips (GF)¹. Pāua fritter brioche and yuzu mayo. Kai timatanga. Ika mata raw dayboat-caught fish with coconut panna cotta and salted cucumber (DF)².

Kia ora H. Things appear to be looking increasingly bright for Māori in contrast to 30 years ago when we first met at the School of Architecture in Auckland. Our class then included Rau Hoskins and Albert L Refiti, with the indigenous project present as a subtext to our learning. But first things first: can we talk about your mother, Dame Aroha Reriti-Crofts?

Huia Reriti (HR): My mother was the single biggest influence on my life in terms of me finding my own tikanga. Whilst she had scant regard for architecture, she immersed us in the architecture of culture. And Mum loved everything Māori. From age seven, she was involved in kapa haka and, years later, became the world poi champion, having set an endurance record for one 30-hour, 19-minute performance. She was also active with the Māori Womens Welfare League for 52 years, supporting wāhine Māori in business, and serving, also, as Perehitini for two years. This led to her Dame Companionship award. As a former chair of Matapopore, she ensured Ngāi Tahutanga and Ngāi Tūāhuriri values were embedded in the redevelopment of post-quake Ōtautahi. Like Prince, she was partial to purple — a colour representative of Ratana, Royalty and Rarity. And a Reriti she became. I didn’t see my dad until I was 16 and so, until then, she fulfilled both parental roles. I also had my tāua Metāpere. I have been forged from wahine toa matriarchal powerhouses. Today, my wahine is Wendy. We have been happily unmarried for 44 years and our moko brings me more joy than any building. This is my life.

“Of course, there have been other formative whakapapa influences, such as Professor Te Maire Tau. In The Death of Knowledge: Ghosts on the Plains, Tau writes about my people (Ngāi Tahu), yet the lesson applies to all Māori who remain ghosts on their whenua during the era of colonisation. As Māori impose the traumas of the past onto the landscape, the landscape establishes the boundaries for the ways in which Māori perceive the present and how the future can be written. Yet our collective memory should not be the ‘gravedigger of the present’, as Nietzsche puts it.”

Mains. Kai matua. Pork belly boil-up in broth with doughboy focaccia and sautéed watercress. Savannah’s six-hour braised beef cheek with smoked horopito, kūmara gratin, sourdough crisp and enoki mushroom.

Mikaere, Aunty and I are returning tonight from a papakāinga wānanga with Whakatāne hapū. Some significant issues were raised, like whānau living in mid-rise apartments to better connect with the awa and moana. So, what does the future of Māori housing look like to you?

HR: Architects often find themselves designing things they have little lived experience of, such as affordable housing. I grew up living in poverty as my mum was a single Māori woman with four kids. We were Housing NZ clients and I lived in a state house for 14 years. Today, I still live in a state house — one that I bought 30 years ago and refurbished. For many Māori, homeownership is a long-lost dream; it peaked in the 1930s at 71 per cent while, today, it is more like 45 per cent. So, most of the whānau rent and this is normal. I didn’t want to waste time designing and building my own house, given there’s so much for me to do elsewhere. For economically deprived Māori, housing is not a commodity to be flipped. It’s about community, not climbing housing ladders, although it could be, if we were monied. This is how I have been brought up. I am currently advising the NZIA’s F. Gordon Wilson Fellowship for Public Housing, and only one other advisor, Kay Saville-Smith, has lived in social housing. Architecture won’t solve the housing issue; it cannot buy food or nourish whanau. That design can drive social transformation is an architectural pretence if proffered by those with little interest in the lives of others. Māori architecture welcomes the substantive power of human connection. If we nourish whānau before whare, then architecture will arrive, naturally.

I remember staying with you in East London 10 years ago, on Cranbrook Estate, designed by the Soviet émigré, Berthold Lubetkin. That modernist monument to brutalist housing comprised six 10-storey-plus towers. It’s 1.5 times larger than Le Corbusier’s Unité d’Habitation and there’s nothing of that scale — 529 flats — here in Aotearoa. Māori housing will inevitably embrace new emergent models of co-living as the strategic view of Māori is long term, transgenerational. This aligns well with, say, iwi-led developments such as Build-to-Rent housing because the iwi, as a holding company, can facilitate the longterm devolution of housing ownership from the iwi authority back to hapū.

This doesn’t mean that there is universal agreement and harmony. One opportunity that the NZIA presidency affords me is to show that Māori have multiple voices, and that non-consensual views are common not just to Māori but to all peoples. Critical regionalism, design that mediates between social scales, exists in Māori architecture, too, as iwi and hapū! The fear of me doing nothing transformative is the constant driver for my tenure.

Desserts. Ngā wainene. Triple milk cake in kawakawa milk syrup with passionfruit sorbet and a green tea sponge (V)³. Feijoa and mānuka honey blanc mange with macadamia white chocolate crumble suffused with olive oil frangipane and feijoa gel.

The architects of Te Arikinui are Warren and Mahoney. So, e hoa, you worked for Sir Miles for 12 years; what was that like?

HR: Miles had a mischievous mind. I remember seeing his Student Union Building at Auckland University for the first time, and his local take on brutalism with smaller-scale elements was like NZS 3604 ‘on concrete’. Whilst Miles had little interaction with Māori, Māoritanga provided the emotional send-off (beyond hymns and choirs) at his tangi with a rousing haka from the entire Christ College cohort to their illustrious old boy. After the retirement of Maurice and Miles, I left to set up +MAP in 2001 with Kerry Mason and, later, Thom Craig and Simon Elvidge. I am proud that, during this time, I designed and built two marae: Arahura for Kāti Waewae hapū near Hokitika and Tuahiwi marae for Ngāi Tūāhuriri in Ōtautahi where my pōua is from. These places were funded from Waitangi settlements and, again, represent the ways in which such funds help readdress Te Tiriti trauma for the public good.

Kua tae mai koe Uber.

You mentioned Prince earlier. If you weren’t an architect, you would have wanted to be a musician. Play tell.

HR: “With a head nod to Kawerau where you’re from and, so, I visited, your man John Rowles’ croon on Ten Guitars resonates and is revered by older Māori. I own 10 guitars. My favourite is a Gibson Les Paul Gold Top, like the one Slash from Guns N’ Roses plays. And, speaking of iconic guitars, Billy Duffy plays a White Falcon Gretsch. I look forward to hearing his thick power chords, steeped in rich chorused delay and filthy feedback-laden solos, whilst catching up with you at The Cult, the night before the 2024 NZ Architecture Awards.” Kerchang-a chank chank.

References:

^{1 Gluten free.
2 Dairy free.
3 Vegan.}