Pacific Island Style by Glenn Jowitt and Peter Shaw

I quite like watching the ABC program Grand Designs. It shows people with far too much money constructing impressive, innovative and sometimes beautiful (and sometimes rather ugly) homes in Britain. When I lived in the Solomons there were many beautiful buildings that i was priveledged to visit, many of them traditional. Pacific Island Style is a coffee book title that showcases traditional housing forms throughout the Pacific. There are chapters dedicated to different Island groups including the Solomon Islands. I was delighted to find a picture on page 47 of the St Martins Training Centre church in Guadalcanal, showing the intricate woven cane patterns in the church walling. Wow! I remember that place at Tenaru. I went to a couple of services there and my husband was a regular, being a student at the training centre.

Pacific Island Style (Lothian, 1999)

   This book is lovely to browse through. The photographs are mostly of buildings, but the people and their arts and crafts are also depicted. It has sparked my interest to visit the Cook Islands one day. I want to buy a tivaevae!