Naomi Vallis’s ‘architectural monster’ colludes Mughal and Gothic architecture to create a strange, layered effect
Naomi Vallis
School of Architecture and Planning, University of Auckland, New Zealand
Using Marco Frascari’s notion of the ‘Architectural Monster’, Vallis hones in on ‘how the migration, transportation, and integration of Mughal tectonics to New Zealand has conceived “monstrous” building traditions that represent two different cultural contexts.’ Vallis attempts to capture the final moments of this historical assemblage (her ‘monster’), ‘showing the extraction, comparing and assembling of various architectural forms from South Asia to New Zealand [exemplifying similar traditions] through the collision of Mughal and Gothic arch, pergolas, masonry towers, polychrome brick tectonics and terraced forms dismantled and reassembled to create the culturally hybrid representation we see.’ Kucharek enjoyed ‘the almost Klee-like qualities of the assemblages’, while Begum was drawn to a complex mingling of manual and digital representation to create a strange, layered effect. Fernie liked ‘the way she introduces narratives through different colours [and] human figures that engage with the architecture’.