¹University of Auckland School of Architecture, Private Bag 92019, Auckland, New Zealand

Correspondence: Diane Brand, Tel: +64 9-373-7599 Ext. 88498, Fax: +64 9-373-7694, E-mail: dj.brand@auckland.ac.nz

Abstract

At the end of a 300-year period of colonial expansion, Britain established four cities in the Southern Hemisphere; Sydney, Adelaide, Wellington and Auckland. This paper analyses the figure/ground condition of these cities in the early years of settlement by using maps and survey plans drawn between 1788 and 1848 sourced from archives in Australia and New Zealand. A close representational reading of the images reveals a progressive dissolving of the city as a legible object in three-dimensional space. These graphic shifts encapsulated a changeover in urban design sensibility from a city with a collective identity and physical presence, to one of individual association and aspiration occupying a dispersed horizontal terrain in the pre-suburban era.