Truck. Train. Plane. The Uncanny Architecture of Mangaweka

This project began with a simple road trip. On an overcast autumn day in 2023, I was driving north with friends along State Highway One. We were in the middle of the Rangitīkei and had just passed the small town of Bulls when we were searching for somewhere to stop. It was then that we came across a small town with a side road on our left—which we unconsciously decided to pull into. Thinking little of it, we unexpectedly found ourselves on the ‘Historic Main Street’ of Mangaweka.

I was instantly captivated by how strange Mangaweka felt. We all stayed much longer than intended, trying to absorb this small, abandoned town’s eerie atmosphere. Even after we left, the presence of this place stayed with us, sparking a conversation in the car about how Mangaweka made us feel. It was an overwhelming sense of dread and sorrow—a deep melancholy. It was as though the town itself carried the weight of its history in a ruin of its past life in its current state. You could feel that something had occurred at this site for it to have resulted in how it is now, that significant events had implicated its current existence. It was as if you could see the hay bale rolling down the street and feel the ghosts hovering over your shoulders.

Small-town New Zealand can feel deeply unsettling, especially to an outsider. These places often evoke unease, a sense of eeriness or discomfort, and sometimes, even fear—it is like entering a party uninvited and finding that all eyes have turned to you. This sensation stems from an outsider’s perspective, where the lack of belonging amplifies these feelings of unease. Yet, such experiences also provide opportunities. As Fisher (2016) notes in regards to the weird and eerie, the external viewpoint allows us to see “the inside from the perspective of the outside” (p. 10). Without a deep understanding and knowledge of a location’s history or significance, the outsiders’ experiences are unfamiliar and mysterious, enabling us to reimagine their possibilities. For me, Mangaweka epitomised this sensation and more. It left me wanting to know more about its history, story, and its significance, proving that it is far from just another abandoned small town in Aotearoa.

This project aims to explore and define this distinctive feeling and then use it as a framework for reimagining the revitalisation of small-town New Zealand. Through this approach, the project challenges conventional notions of small-town redevelopments, proposing that these distinctive qualities could become the driving force in their remaking. By safeguarding these emotional and architectural experiences, we could better appreciate these spaces as a unique and significant form of architectural identity in Aotearoa. To consider designing for the strange and the uncanny, we could better represent and celebrate the identity of New Zealand’s small towns—by capturing and amplifying their unique character.