ArchiCulture Cafe number SIX

The lecture given by Carroll Go-Sam of the Aboriginal Environments Research Centre outlined the kinds of concepts, issues and difficulties involved with designing and realising a Cultural Centre in Musgrave Park.
It was eye opening to me to realise the complexity of the difficulties which can arise when dealing with a particular cultural group. Of course there are obstacles to tackle when working with any design brief but the issues and problems that were detailed by Carroll seemed a bit nightmarish to me. Having said this, I would have relished working on such a rich and complex design challenge. Collaboration with the Indigenous people as well as having to consult with the other cultural groups on the site would be a very interesting process and would provide an amount of frustration. However, I tend to think that solving the causes of this frustration would result in a rewarding outcome. The fact that you would have to solve the causes before the building could be built is being put aside for this reflection.
Also dealing with a committee of Indigenous people who are not the traditional owners of the site would mean that the set of boundaries, requirements and things to consider would be completely different to if you were dealing with the traditional owners. It strikes me as odd that the committee wouldn't have any traditional owners and if this was the case, then would that mean that the traditional owners would be opposed to anything built on the site?
This complexly woven fabric of difficulties and issues makes me consider the question of the interdependent relationship between architecture and culture. The amount of boundaries and concepts to adhere to with regard to this site and design brief seems ostensibly to feed only one side of the relationship - the cultural group has already been defined by centuries of existence and is now defining this architectural outcome, without informing further the definition of the cultural group. However, as a result of digging deeper in my brain, the thought arose that the Indigenous peoples rely on gathering and family groups as a main defining concept and that the site would help to redefine the way these gatherings and family groups come together in contemporary times.
Which leads me on to a concept presented in the reading Contested Sites of Identity and the Cult of the New by Kylie Message. The "juggling of tradition and modernity" makes me think of this idea of bringing traditional practices to a contemporary setting. In addition to this similarity, I noticed that the Centre Culturel Tjibaou draws on cultural aspects to inform its materials and conceptual framework. This makes me think of the question if the architectural result has been designed by persons outside the cultural group, can it really be considered architecture from that particular cultural group?
The other aspect of the reading I found of note was the description of Jean-Marie Tjibaou's cultural philosophy. His ideas that the Kanak people should not become "black Frenchmen" but instead define themselves seperately from the French - holding a 'self-confident identity rooted in culture and history'. To me it seems that these ideas have a parallel nature to the Australian Indigenous peoples and therefore the architecture which arises from this particular cultural group (and any person of European descent who wishes to design for the Indigenous people) would form part of the continuous redefinition of contemporary Indigenous peoples.