The terrain on which the Tjibaou Cultural Centre stands today is significant as the site where the festival Melanesia 2000 occurred in 1975. The complex occupies 8188 square metres and is situated on an impressive eight-hectare site approximately ten kilometres from Noumιa, the capital of New Caledonia. The ten towering structures or ‘house-forms’, which spectacularly dominate and define the complex from afar, are disposed along a two hundred and thirty five(235)-metre spine across the Tina Peninsula, facing the ocean side of its lagoon precinct. These imposing formations (the tallest reaches 33 metres skyward) are irregularly grouped to create three ‘villages’.The dominant element of a typical Kanak village-the principal idea of the project, is an elongated communal open space, terminated at one end by the chief’s hut. All the other huts are set back from this space and largely hidden in the vegetation, some of which has been specially planted with species that convey messages such as marking the bounds of personal space or welcoming visitors. Such symbolism was important as a pre-liberated culture; the Kanas invest their memories in things rather than writing. Memories and stories are thus projected into both natural and man-made objects, and to best convey a narrative the latter are made so that their parts are related in a clearly legible and easily understood manner.