Architecture in the South Pacific: The Ocean of Islands

摘要

In the 1950s the Port of Sydney visibly connected the islands of the South Pacific and the world. The great white ocean liners of the Matson Line - the Mariposa and the Monterey - would regularly depart for San Francisco via Suva. Also evident were the smaller ships of the island traders Burns Philp and W. R. Carpenter, and the dark hulled vessels of the Messageries Maritimes fleet, which linked Tahiti and New Caledonia to France. The South Pacific was settled more than eight-hundred years ago by the most intrepid sailors and navigators - firstly Melanesians, and then Polynesians - who travelled thousands of nautical miles in double-hulled sailing canoes to reach remote and previously unoccupied islands. Facing the natural hazards of the region -devastating storms and the heaving ocean floor with its volcanoes and earthquakes - they persevered to achieve new communities in idyllic tropical settings.