Historic buildings form an important part of how people perceive and value their local area. This is recognised in the planning regime, where they receive protection through the designation of listed building and conservation area status. Some public-sector funding exists in the form of grants in support of historic buildings, while certain institutions that are...

2016 marks the 30th anniversary of Richard Lowenstein’s acclaimed Dogs in Space, a fictionalized cinematic memoir of nominal bohemians in the Melbourne suburb of Richmond. Set 6-8 years before the film’s release, Lowenstein utilised genuine participants in the events/milieu depicted, as well as key locations, notably the house central to the film’s story.

What imbues a place with meaning, making it ‘iconic’? Can labels such as ‘icon’ fit alongside Māori concepts of place, and if so how?

In 1972 artist Robert Ingpen, writing of Swan Hill’s Pioneer Folk Museum, suggested that “seeing how our forebears lived, we discover how they fitted themselves into the new land and established a balance which we must maintain for the sake of future generations.” For fifty years, the Museum has been a key element of the...

An original component of the 1811 grid plan for New York City, Union Square has acquired an association as a place in which the ideals of American republicanism and democracy are both signified and enacted. The square is occupied by a central lawn, a series of statues, a small building to the north, and an...