| Abstract: |
Covering over one-third of the world’s surface – when one takes into account also the oceans and seas – the vast region of Southeast Asia, Australia and Oceania is historically, culturally and architecturally diverse. Its many landscapes and seascapes were strong influences on building development, since they determined the availability of building materials and the opportunities for – and restrictions upon – social contact between different peoples. The eleven countries of Southeast Asia share a tropical climate. Religious change, incorporating Buddhism and Islam, and also trade and immigration from China and Europe, had a strong influence on those countries’ evolution during this period. As a continent unto itself, indigenous Australia was divided into a set of distinct cultural regions, each with its own ethno-architecture reflecting environmental and climatic properties as well as the economic priorities of the hunter-gatherer groups. Separately diverse southern Pacific islands of Oceania were settled through a series of intentional, epic voyages that completed human settlement across the world. There are three distinct regions within Oceania: Micronesia, Melanesia and Polynesia. Southeast Asia consisted generally of a large number of small principalities organized according to a hierarchy that historians call the mandala system. Population density was low and manpower was scarce, so warfare mainly concentrated on capturing other peoples, rather than killing them and taking their land. One result of this pattern was considerable cultural diversity. However, significant cultural changes also began to take place in Southeast Asia during this period. Seaports played major roles in this evolution, which was marked by architectural syncretism between Southeast Asian, Chinese and European elements. Meanwhile, throughout the Australian continent, the landholding unit was the local patriclan, which had a set of campsites within its estate, but whose members travelled regionally for intermittent larger-scale socio-ceremonial gatherings to well-resourced locales, where camps swelled to hundreds and thousands of people in size. The peoples of the many scattered islands in Oceania were united through a shared ‘Austronesian’ culture, evident in their language and social organization. The appropriation of certain aspects of European culture, as a consequence of colonial conquest, further added to the dynamism of these communities. Throughout Southeast Asia, timber was an important building material, yet the tropical climate has ensured that few wooden structures survive. Instead, impressive monumental stone and brick structures symbolize powerful Southeast Asia dynasties. Mosques, Buddhist stupas and monasteries, palaces and shop-houses are now the major buildings left to represent this period. In Australia and the South Pacific islands, indigenous peoples constructed their built environments using readily available materials: timber, thatch and earth. In Australia, Aboriginal bands occupied a series of camps in a seasonal pattern of rotation, where kinship rules generated socio-spatial structures. Plentiful resources and inclement weather in certain Australian regions led to the development of sedentized villages, accompanied by socio-economic intensification. In the many islands of Oceania, as their societies consolidated and grew, new monumental building forms emerged to support dynasties established by powerful leaders. Cohesive systems of architecture were maintained over surprisingly large distances in the Pacific Ocean, with archipelagos populated in record time, whereas restrictive terrains enforced isolation for groups who developed unique architectural responses from valley to valley, as in mountainous New Guinea, or between desert, forests and mountains in Australia. Alongside distinctive dwelling types, indigenous peoples within this vast region developed their own architectural forms to accommodate diverse spiritual systems that had origins in, or were influenced by, external religions like Hinduism, Buddhism, Islam and Christianity.
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