Zoran Rakovic - A Bureaucratic Blueprint: Woke Architecture Meets Soft Totalitarianism

The NZRAB’s latest Schedule NZ Consultation Briefing Paper arrives not with the dignity of an architectural manifesto but with the hesitant shuffle of a government department having just discovered adjectives. Drenched in the warm bathwater of consultation rhetoric and spiritual deference, it proposes the introduction of new “performance criteria” that would see architecture in New Zealand surrender its compass to a cultural worldview—Te Ao Māori—not as a complementary influence, but as a central moral axis. The tone is more missionary than managerial. The intent? Ostensibly noble. The implications? Chilling, if we still take the Bill of Rights Act even half-seriously.

Under the BORA, every citizen—yes, even architects—is entitled to freedom of thought, conscience, religion, and belief. The document guarantees freedom of expression, not expression-so-long-as-it-passes-through-cultural-filtering-so-as-not-to-upset-anyone’s-sacred-traditions. Yet here we are, with a state-mandated professional body flirting with spiritual compulsion by suggesting that professional registration may soon hinge on demonstrating fluency not in physics, materials, or structure—but in the cosmological narratives of a single indigenous tradition. Imagine if we required engineers to commune with Neptune before designing a dam.

There is a difference between appreciating cultural narratives and being doctrinally tethered to them. The NZRAB seems incapable of distinguishing the two. To “genuinely embody Te Ao Māori values and principles” is no longer a creative choice. It is presented as an ethical requirement—one that would determine who gets to build in New Zealand. We are no longer in the realm of architecture; we are somewhere between catechism and compliance. Architects are not just to consult Māori communities but to become, in effect, their narrative vessels. And if an architect believes in a secular, humanist framework—say, that a building is for all people, not to advance spiritual worldviews—then one suspects they will be quietly pushed aside as culturally “insensitive.”

Where, one wonders, is the architect’s right to dissent?

Not even Richard Dawkins, a man who likely regards temples as misplaced biology labs, could have imagined that rational design would one day be yoked to metaphysical obligations. Nor could Yuval Harari, though perhaps he’d find it predictably Orwellian. In Harari’s world, all systems trend toward myth-making to maintain cohesion, even if it means abandoning the Enlightenment. And this consultation paper is myth-making with PowerPoint. You can almost hear the click of ideological manacles in the phrase “ethical integration of Indigenous knowledge.” If ethics are culturally defined and non-negotiable, then dissent becomes unethical by definition. Voilà—an open-air prison of professional obligation.

It is also worth asking: what does this do to architecture itself? Frank Lloyd Wright saw architecture as the mother of all arts—a manifestation of space shaped by function and freedom. Le Corbusier spoke of houses as machines for living. Zaha Hadid bent geometry itself to unshackle form from tradition. None of these minds were summoned to pass cultural obedience school. They were, if anything, iconoclasts. They would fail this proposed criteria for not “respectfully and ethically integrating” sacred narratives into their concrete dreams. Even in the Soviet Union, architects were expected to glorify the state, but rarely did they have to channel ancestors while laying a foundation.

This is not to belittle Mātauranga Māori. Like any cultural worldview, it can enrich architectural practice, especially in a land so intimately tied to its indigenous stories. But enforced reverence is not enrichment—it is appropriation by coercion. There is no architecture without freedom, and there is no freedom if registration depends on spiritual alignment. A secular liberal democracy cannot sanctify one cosmology in professional standards without undermining pluralism.

Now, the consultation document pretends to be participatory. There will be hui. There will be raised hands and Teams meetings and careful summaries of key themes. But do not be fooled. The meetings are not for questioning the premise—only for refining its delivery. It is consultation as performance art, where the real message is: submit now, or later. The machinery is moving; you are welcome to comment on its colour.

If NZRAB wants a bold future for architects in New Zealand, it should begin by unshackling creativity, not swaddling it in mandated deference. Let architects be challenged by ideas—not required to affirm them. Let culture inspire—but never command. And let the profession be governed by the freedom to think, speak, and design boldly, even sacrilegiously, if the form demands it.

Zoran Rakovic is a structural engineer with nearly 30 years of experience, who has helped design and strengthen buildings across New Zealand—particularly in Christchurch’s earthquake recovery - while balancing life as a dad, granddad, and outdoor enthusiast. He blogs HERE.