Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander domestic architecture in Australia
Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander domestic architecture in Australia Book Section
The Handbook of Contemporary Indigenous Architecture
- Author(s): O’Rourke, Timothy
- Secondary Author(s): Grant, Elizabeth, Greenop, Kelly, Refiti, Albert L., Glenn, Daniel J.
- Published: 2018
- Publisher: Springer Singapore
- ISBN: 978-981-10-6904-8
Abstract: This chapter examines Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander domestic architecture across the period from the onset of European colonisation to the early twenty-first century. In these two centuries, housing and living conditions reflected and shaped the often abrupt and disruptive change to the culture, health and livelihoods of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander peoples. The post-contact history of Indigenous housingIndigenous housingAustralia has been determined by government policies, informed by politics and settler attitudes to Indigenous Australians. Until the 1970s, state and territory governments, with specific legislation, exercised control over Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander lives including place of residence and access to housing. For an extended period of this history, housing choice was oppressively limited. Despite entrenched disadvantage, it is a story of cultural persistence and adaptation to an imposed architecture that expected sedentary living patterns rather than the more mobile Indigenous lifestyles. Towards the end of the twentieth century, a combination of research and architectural practice had identified approaches to Indigenous housing that could improve living conditions of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people.
- Urls: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-981-10-6904-8_2
- Publisher Location: Singapore