Tonga Has A Design For It

This house is nos being pulled down—it is being put up. Any where but Nukualofa, Tonga (where the photograph was taken in late July), the local citizens would probably shudder at the thought that such an architectural has-been—reminiscent of the early Ameri can mid-west or Australian outback—could actually be built anywhere in mid-1958. But Tonga doesn’t shudder. The Kingdom has been building this kind of thing for so many years now that it has become kind of used to it. The box-like proportions, the iron roof with the fancy bits along the eaves and the inverted vee in front, are standard building practice in Tonga. Houses just like this, with a sameness that includes the same degree of rust on the roof and the same quantity of peeling paint, line the roads out of town — imparting an odd character to the natural scenery of waving palms and coral. Virtually all are native occupied. The Kingdom of Tonga has many good points—but architecture is not one of them.