Deidre Brown: Inaugural professorial lecture
Dr Deidre Brown is the head of the School of Architecture and Planning at the University of Auckland. She will be celebrating promotion to the distinction of professor with the inaugural lecture on 19 November.
Professor Deidre Brown (Ngapuhi, Ngati Kahu) was named the head of the University of Auckland School of Architecture and Planning last year, and was the first indegenous woman to ever lead an architecture school anywhere in the world. She’ll give her inaugural professorial lecture on Tuesday, 19 November from 6:30 to 8:30pm titled Nga Toi Morehu: The Arrival, Survival and Revival of Maori Art and Architecture.
Brown will reflect on 25 years in which she has explored how whenua (land) and tikanga (values) are manifested in our buildings and objects, in periods of strength and in times when those principles are under threat.
She will be acknowledging the people, places and events that have shaped her academic career. She will also be encouraging young people and aspiring researchers to get their PhD, preferably earlier rather than later, and consider an academic future.
“You need to go through the PhD experience to get the license to be an academic. It’s a test of your mettle, and your understanding of high-level research, but it’s also a chance to spend at least three years considering one important question. You’ll never have another opportunity like that in your life.”
She continues, “You can go out as an architect and change the world one building at a time but as an academic, you’re changing it with 100 architectural graduates a year. If you want to have a significant effect, and this is important for me as a Māori academic, teaching is the way to go.”
The lecture is free to attend and open to the public. Register for tickets here.