blablablarchitecture is talking buildings. In Soundbite 3, we learn about talking to a building.

Maori architecture offers European architecture a  unique perspective. In maori culture the whare whakairo, the carved meeting house, as per 072hin_Hinemihi, transcends the European construct of representation in the sense that it is not, as Michael Linzey has written, “like an ancestor, it is the ancestor”. The whare whakairo being the ancestor, means it has a gender: Hinemihi is a woman. The whare whakairo is spoken to and the Maori comportment of ‘speaking to architecture’ is “alien to European-educated ways of thinking. Europeans are permitted to speak to one another, but may only talk about architecture. The respective linguistic comportments, ‘speaking to’ and ‘talking about’ are distinctly different ways of seeing and understanding architecture.” Furthermore Linzey states that Europeans dare not to speak to objects, such as buildings, for the fear of looking, like Dr Doolittle who spoke to the animals, of completely ridiculous…

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