Indigenous content in Australian Architecture Schools: Six drivers demonstrating the need for pedagogical change and teaching responses

Until the 1960s, architectural schools in Australia “…were largely preoccupied with transferring European and American modernism into local practice, and simultaneously transmitting the classical architectural history of Sir Bannister Fletcher” (Memmott & Davidson 2008: 78). Changes occurred in the 1960s as Australian Indigenous peoples took a political and public stance asserting the need for Indigenous sovereignty and equal and civil rights. In the 1970s, there was an official abandonment of monocultural government policy and the advent of self-determination. There have been various drivers that have suggested that the teaching, theoretical content or pedagogical practices of architecture schools needed to change to become more inclusive of Indigenous viewpoints and practices. Walliss and Grant (2000: 65) stated that, given the nature of the built environment disciplines and their professional practice activities, there was a “need for specific cultural awareness education” within architectural schools, to increase the architectural outcomes for Indigenous peoples. Revell (2001; 2015), Oberklaid (2008), Rose & Jones (2012), Jones et al. (2013), Wensing (2011), Tucker et al. (2018) and others have reached similar conclusions about the state of landscape architecture and planning education. Most Australian architectural schools have not been fully responsive to the drivers, and the pedagogies of many Australian architecture schools have not kept pace with the developments in the political landscape or the Indigenous arena. This paper will discuss some of the drivers that have signified the need for change and some examples of changes that have occurred in the delivery of architectural education.