Javani Govender Past versus Present: The Fort District Pavilion

Finalist
Credits
  • Tauira / Student
    Javani Govender
  • Kaiako / Lecturers
    Sue Gallagher, Ceili Murphy, Chris Bentley
Description:

When traversing the streets in the Fort Lane District there are glimmers of previous occupancies of the site through remaining elevations of heritage architecture. However, these elevations are increasingly concealed by faddishly-changing surfaces which conceal what narratives lie beneath them. My pavilion project seeks to augment the intersection of Fort Street and Fort Lane with imagery of previous occupancies and restore in the public memory of what was once there. At a macro scale the pavilion blurs the view of the current site and the buildings are ghosted. At a micro scale, glimpses of the past are activated, from an immersed and embodied perspective. The orthogonal form of the exterior of the pavilion gives way to a contoured interior. Etched into the metallic sheets are textures and imagery of historic Auckland. Looking through the reflective contoured layers specific views of Fort Lane District are afforded through a series of miniature screens. This view of the current site is doubled with the overlay of historic imagery embedded into the pavilion structure itself. Looking towards the pavilion the public witness the audience within who themselves ghosted between the etched metallic sheets. The pavilion as a cinematic apparatus, both archives and erases, recollects and rewrites our urban imaginary.