Built Form and Cultural Meanings of the Homes of Veneto Post WWII Italian Migrants in Australia

Abstract

This study investigates the domestic dwellings built in Brisbane by twenty first-generation migrants, natives of the Veneto region in Italy, who migrated to Australia in the post WWII period and built their houses in the 1980s and 1990s in Brisbane. The purpose of this research study is to explore whether notions of culture were present in the homes migrants constructed in Brisbane, both in the material realm (interpreted as internal and external organization of space and the composition of the façade) and in the symbolic realm (the meanings attached to these houses by Italian migrants). The project is of qualitative nature and as primary sources of data uses semi-structured interviews, associated when circumstances made this possible, to photo-elicitation interviews, and focus group discussion. The semi-structured interviews were conducted both in Australia with twenty first-generation Italian migrants, and in Italy with another ten informants who are indigenous to the Veneto region and who built their homes there. These primary data are supplemented by (4) secondary data in the form of photographs and drawings. The findings reveal that home is both a physical structure and a set of meanings where these two components are tied together rather than being separate and distinct. It shows that there were two models the Veneto migrants chose for the erection of their houses in Brisbane and these correspond to: (1) the rural houses built in the 1970s and 1980s by their family and friends in the Veneto region and (2) the villas designed for noble families by the architect Andrea Palladio in the 15th century in the homeland of the respondents.