Rewi: Āta haere, kia tereMassey University Press
Rewi: Āta haere, kia tere is a tribute to the late architect Rewi Thompson (Ngāti Porou, Ngāti Raukawa), a visionary thinker who believed that great architecture is crafted through careful consideration of people and place. This book brings together a breathtaking range of his projects, from conceptual dreamscapes to one-of-a-kind homes. Rewi is one of our foremost contemporary Māori architects, but he is often overlooked. This book puts his work and thinking into the spotlight, offering a timely addition to the conversation of architecture in Aotearoa. We were tasked with designing the book.
In true Māori fashion, Rewi transcended the boundaries of Western architecture. He was a radical thinker, philosopher, poet, caring educator, and a loving father and husband among many other things. This is seen through the incredible wealth of interviews, drawings, photos, letters, emails and sketchbooks that were gathered for the book. Additionally his work almost always wrestled with Aotearoa identity. Because of this, our approach was to ignore the typical architecture tome, and instead create an intimate and iconic portrait of Rewi, unleashing his imagination for all of Aotearoa to appreciate.
A key graphic aspect to the book is Rewi's own handwriting and sketching. His written name adorns the cover, screenprinted in fluoro pink, referencing his signature use of pink highlighter markers. Rewi's hand flows fluidly through the 450 page book, offering up direct glimpses into his mind, and creating an organic juxtaposition to the structural typesetting throughout. The bright blue cover references the joyful use of colour in his architectural drawings. The natural fabric wrap sets the tone for the intimate and personal mood of the book, and the warm cream text pages carry this warmth through. Pink and blue continue to surprise and mix with the colourful world of Rewi's sketches and layouts shift between focussed reading and a more lateral exploration of the page depending on the section. All of these queues work to give the overall impression of a truly creative man with a deep passion for people and place.
Rewi’s imaginative world was further brought to life with the exhibition KOHA: The Speculative Worlds of Rewi Thompson at Objectspace in Tāmaki Makaurau. The exhitibtion, designed by Michael McCabe included a vast array of Rewi’s spectulative drawings and models, some at a huge scale to create an immersive, three dimensional reimaging of the book. The colours of the book were strongly embraced as a signature for the exhibition, with walls glowing in fluro pink and the bright blue used for furniture and frames.
