The House of Two Faces

The increasing complexity of the global landscape presents challenges in navigating the multicultural layers and narratives that shape our identity, particularly for individuals with parents from diverse cultural backgrounds. Born in New Zealand with Western and Eastern genealogy, I find myself with conflicting sentiments, feeling both rooted in New Zealand culture and detached from, yet invested in, the rich cultural heritage inherited from my Gujarati/Indian and European roots. This thesis investigation explores how speculative architecture can effectively participate in representing and enhancing a sense of place and self within a multicultural context.

French philosopher Michel Foucault delivered a lecture to architecture students in 1986 titled “Of Other Spaces”, where he reflects upon issues of the search for identity, through a philosophical lens. He proposes the concept of the mirror as a space that exists in contrast to, or outside of, the normal and everyday spaces—the placeless place. As a way to provoke new ideas for architecture students for interrogating place and self-identity, Foucault articulates that the mirror represents our inherent sense of placelessness—a space where one’s identity dwells in a liminal condition, witnessing fragments of self from two different perspectives. This design-led research investigation proposes to use Michel Foucault’s article as a philosophical provocateur, interrogating how his themes of the placeless place, mirror, and self can be re-presented as a speculative architectural project to enhance and recognise the multifaceted nature of place and self-identity within the built realm. To achieve this goal, this thesis proposes to use my cultural background from both my mother’s and father’s sides as a lens to interrogate Foucault’s central themes. The research adopts a methodological approach whereby rituals, symbolism and philosophy from my mother’s Gujarati culture are extracted and rigorously interrogated through a contemporary architectural lens. Simultaneously, it interrogates the applicability of psychoanalytic theory, from my father's background, for its applicability to architectural theories of fragmentation, liminality, and dualities/oppositions. The collected fragments from both sides are reintegrated and converge into the design of a speculative architectural dwelling: The House of Two Faces.

The ‘house’ aims to engage with rituals, and symbolism, that can be understood universally and transcend personal narrative by reflecting our collective unconscious. This speculative dwelling is envisioned as a dynamic entity, continually evolving to mirror the understanding of both the cultural and psychoanalytical selves.