Unitec’s 20-year-old Samoan fale tele – or big house – has been reopened in a vibrant Pacific celebration marking its relocation to a new site at the heart of Unitec’s Mt Albert campus.
A fale tele is known as the most important house in Samoan culture and traditionally serves as a meeting house for chief council meetings and family gatherings.
Unitec’s fale tele was built more than 20 years ago and was originally located outside Building One on Carrington Road. People and materials from across the entire Pacific region contributed to its construction – from the Samoan master builder and Tongan stonemason who handcrafted it, to the New Zealand timber and kilometres of Fijian coconut fibre rope used to build it.
It was largely used as a teaching resource and classroom for Design and Architecture students and was also a treasured taonga for the wider community. A range of Design and Construction students were involved in the move to its new site near Te Puna at the heart of Unitec’s Mt Albert campus, including Māori and Pasifika Trades Training students who built the pebble path surrounding the fale.
While the fale tele has a Samoan form, different from other Pacific fale, the new location and facelift heralds a new beginning for the fale tele representing all Pacific cultures at Unitec. It is available for all members of the Unitec community—Pacific and non-Pacific— to enjoy and use.
Called ‘Lupe’ or dove, representing peace, the fale was officially reopened in a Pasifika ceremony which included a takalo or Niuean calling, lauga or Samoan welcome speech, a Fijian kava ceremony, a tau’olunga or Tongan dance finale. The fale was blessed by Matua Hare and Papa Hohepa, who formally recognised its history and significance in Unitec’s journey.
In his address, Peseta Sam Lotu-liga, Deputy Chief Executive, Pasifika, Partnerships and Support at Unitec and MIT, acknowledged the significance of the fale re-opening in light of Unitec’s union with MIT and subsequent move to Te Pūkenga.
“Lupe represents unity,” he said. “It’s a place where everyone can come together as one group, and can feel proud and welcome to be part of our great institute.
“In this season of Matariki, we celebrate the past and look forward to the future,” he said. “This includes our taonga, such as the fale. I encourage everyone to use and enjoy it – it’s an important part of our learning and our future together.”
This was a wonderful celebration of unity and ancestral remembering as we celebrated this precious treasure.
Thank-you for the invitation, the speeches, singing and dancing, cultural artifacts to our diversity, difference and similarities. Amazing food!!
I was reminded of my Cook Island Father and Samoan Mother their collective vision seen in this artifact of respect and grace.
A living testimony to the fortitude and spirit of a Nation people.
Many blessings to those who enabled this day to happen.
Thank-you,
Congratulations and thanks to all involved in ensuring the fale tele ‘Lupe’ has been moved, reconstructed, and celebrated in its new central location! I’m loving the beautiful photos of those who attended and performed on the opening day.
I think the impressive veneration of the Fale Tele told here with moving photos is about something unique. That is, I think its a story of the creation of a limitless Pasifika star studded scape set against an unfathomably beautiful Pasifika.ocean – but where the creator’s of the Fale Tele have reciprocated that interstellar world of the human mind with that of peoples drawn as if in a vast sweep of oceanic current – of people returning – of people leaving – of Unitec’s Te Noho Kotahitanga – each the worlds of great hope.