 I am DeSoto Brown, the Bishop Museum Historian, and this week I'm doing a show for Dokomomo Hawaii. Dokomomo, as you may or may not know, is an organization that's devoted to studying and preserving mid-century architecture throughout the world. Let's go to our first slide. Now, even though this is a Dokomomo show, I'm not gonna be talking exclusively about architecture nor about just the mid-century period. Instead, I'm talking about plagues, I'm talking about diseases and how we can learn from things that have happened in the past. So the picture that you're looking at here is a typical Hawaiian lanai. This is an important aspect of what I'm gonna talk about because this is a room which is open to the outside air. That's something that's important when we're talking about disease prevention as we are very well aware of now because we're in the midst of the COVID-19 pandemic. Let's go to our next slide. Let's go back in time now and we're going to look at some of the diseases which have affected Hawaii. Now, starting in from when outsiders first began to come to the Hawaiian Islands, which was in 1778, they brought many diseases here and they caused innumerable deaths and it was a terrible tragedy, but this is something that happened throughout the world as diseases were spread. The picture you see here is of boys who have leprosy and it looks as though the boys at the top row, obviously are very affected. The boys down below look like they're okay, but in fact, no, they're infected as well. It just hasn't shown itself yet. Leprosy was considered a particularly horrifying disease because of the way it disfigured people and because nobody knew exactly how leprosy spread, the only thing to do with people who had diseases and this is something that humans have known for millennia, even if you don't know what the agent is that spreads it, you do know that it spreads and you know the way to prevent disease spread is by segregating or quarantining people who have the disease. Next slide. And because of the horror of leprosy, see really the only thing that was known to be done or could be done was to exile the people who had the disease to a particular place. And this was the Kalaupapa Peninsula on the windward coast of the island of Molokai. And that's what this photograph shows you around 1900 or in the late 1800s. Now, initially when people began to be sent there, there were no facilities, there was no nothing. They were just simply dumped there and they had to fend for themselves. Fortunately, as time passed, more and more facilities were provided for them, life got less difficult. But as you can see, the clips that border this peninsula made it very difficult for anybody to leave, even if they wanted to. And once they were there, they were there for life. Next picture. Now, in the early 1900s, a whole new facility because things had improved tremendously there, even though it was still a very sad place because there was no cure for leprosy at the time, a whole new facility was constructed that was called the Baldwin House. And this is a picture of it. But in spite of this modern facility, it turned out to be a complete failure. And that was because this side of the peninsula has much more wet, cold and damp weather than the other side where Kalaupapa, the town already was located. And because this was uncomfortable to live in, the residents refused to stay there. And so all of this facility just ended up going to waste. This was a real misdirection and misunderstanding on the part of the people who constructed it. So the Baldwin Home just fell into disuse and fell completely apart. Literally, it's gone. There's no hint of it anymore. Next picture. But you may or may not know that this whole story of leprosy and Hawaii spread throughout the world, people knew about it all over the world because it was so horrible, because it was so emotional, but primarily because of the people who worked there and the main person who became famous was Father Damian. He was a Catholic priest. He was originally from Belgium. He went to Kalaupapa and very selflessly devoted himself to taking care of the people there. He eventually got the disease. He died of it himself in 1889. And in 2009, he became a Catholic saint based on what he did at Kalaupapa. And his story was used as this very uplifting one, particularly to tell to children. And so what you see here is a comic book from 1964 dramatizing his life, which was aimed at Catholic school children. Next picture. Now to deal with another disease, which also is terrible here in Hawaii, although not as bad as many of the ones that had existed previously, bubonic plague. And the plague came and went repeatedly over the years along with smallpox, for example. But when the plague appeared in Honolulu in 1899, this crematorium was constructed on Sand Island, specifically to cremate the remains of people who had died from bubonic plague, because it was known by then that if you didn't do something about a disease like this, it could be disastrous. So they did what they were able to do. Next slide. And it was understood that bubonic plague was spread by fleas that came off of rats. And so areas that had bubonic plague victims in downtown Honolulu were intentionally burned to kill the rats and the fleas and hopefully wipe out the plague. On January 20th, 1900, one of these fires, which was intended to be controlled, controlled burn, got out of control and caused havoc by destroying a large part of what was then downtown Honolulu. And you can see this picture taken in on Fort, not Fort Street, on King Street, looking ever. You can see how catastrophic this fire is. Next picture. There was a whole societal thing involved with this bubonic plague and how it was treated. The people who primarily had it were not Howley. They were Chinese, they were Japanese, they were Hawaiian. They lived in wooden structures which were flammable. And because these were people who were sort of disenfranchised and didn't have a lot of political power, it was possible to simply evict them and burn where they lived. Well, during this large fire that I just showed you a picture of, here are all the refugees trooping along King Street as it crosses Fort Street. We're looking down Fort Street in this picture. And they were on either side of the street as these people were leaving with whatever they could carry, there are armed or guards, if you will, or civilians who were standing there to keep them under control so they didn't just spread out. And you can see the man standing in the foreground appears to have some kind of a bat or something with him to keep these people under control. Next picture. The refugees were settled informally in a variety of places, including the grounds of Kauai Awa Church. And that's what you see in this picture here. But notice the refugees on the other side of the wall in the tents are being guarded by a man with a gun. So this is how diseases can sometimes affect social structures. People who become diseased can be pushed aside, can be forced into certain areas, can have their power taken away from them to keep them under control. And this is something that humans do very frequently when there is a plague or a pandemic, unfortunately. All right, let's go to the next picture. Probably most of you don't think about another very important disease which used to be rife in the Hawaiian islands and everywhere in the world. In fact, tuberculosis. And this used to be, again, a terrible problem. Let me just point out here too that a number of the diseases, the diseases I've just talked about, the bubonic plague and leprosy and tuberculosis, all of them were put under control by the late 1940s with the invention of antibiotics. That's why we don't think about them very much anymore because they're not that much of a problem. But before antibiotics were developed, they were a terrible problem. The picture here, these are two very large buildings. These are two hospitals. They were both photographed in 1940. The picture on the top is the Kula Sanatorium in Kula Maui. The picture on the bottom is the Puuumaili Hospital outside Hilo, Hawaii on Hawaii Island. These were the largest hospitals on those respective islands at that time. And very importantly, they were just for tuberculosis patients. That's how prevalent TB was. It was very easily spread amongst people by coughing and sneezing. And there was, as I said, there was no cure at the time. You got put into these big hospitals and you just sat around or lay around and you were kept quiet and away from everybody else in hopes that you would recover. So you can see how big these are and how much of a situation tuberculosis was. Puuumaili Hospital was only in use for only seven or eight years before it was demolished and replaced by another hospital. The Kula Sanatorium is still there, but of course it's no longer just for TB patients. Next photo. It was understood that diseases spread by people being in close proximity. We know that today. We're living that today during COVID-19. One of the reasons that people were in close proximity was because poor people lived in housing like these pictures here. These pictures were both taken in downtown Honolulu in 1912. And there was a lot of civic attention given to clearing out slums, destroying slums, making slums healthy so the diseases didn't spread. And that was a major effort over the following decades. Next picture. And the plantations, the sugar plantations which were the main employers of most of Hawaii's workers at that time in the 20th century, provided housing for their workers. And the plantations realized that if they're gonna keep people healthy and able to work, they needed to build better housing. So here's an example of plantation housing in which thousands of people used to live. And you can see that all of these houses are separated because they understood again, keeping people apart from each other was going to help keep them healthy. So here's a picture from the 20s and next photograph. But it wasn't until about 1940 that the first public housing was created to get rid of the old unsanitary housing and put people into better housing. And the first two examples of those in Honolulu were Kamehameha housing, which was on King Street across from Farrington High School. That's still there. As well as the Kalakawa housing, which was at Kalakawa Avenue and King Street. But it wasn't until the late 50s and then in the 60s that this really took shape with the demolition of a lot of the older parts of downtown Honolulu, which is what this photograph shows due to urban renewal and next photograph. People were moved into new housing development, low income housing. This is the Kalihi Valley Homes at the top left and Mayor Wright housing in the heart of downtown Honolulu, both in the 1950s. And the way people, and again, the intent was to make things healthier. So these are not wood, they're concrete, which is thought to be easier to keep clean. But most importantly, each one of the apartments in these facilities has got its own bathroom and has its own cooking facility. So you don't have people mingling using the same facilities and thus potentially spreading diseases. Next picture. Now, one thing that you will frequently see in older homes in particular is here in the Hawaiian Islands, the presence of porches or lawn nines. These are something that was done to make use of our climate to make life more comfortable. But they also serve an important point in terms of keeping people healthy. So here's an example of one of these houses. This is the McGrew home of Dr. McGrew, his name was Dr. McGrew, it was downtown Honolulu. And there are those two porches that you can clearly see in a Western style home, but the one on the bottom is actually even bigger. It's a lani, it has furniture. Let's go to the next picture. And this is an example of a Hawaiian lani, not a traditional Hawaiian structure, but a Western structure that uses a Hawaiian term or a Hawaiian type of architecture. And very clearly here you can see in this picture from about maybe 1900. This is not just a porch in the Western sense, it's a much bigger space. It can accommodate furniture, it has a hammock in it. And there are two other things which are still valid for us today. On the far side, you can see there's a shade that's rolled up. When the sun gets down in the position where it might be coming in on you, you just put the shade down. And on the right hand side, what do you see? Vegetation, you see a vine that's growing there. All of those are things that we can use today in structures that we build today. Next picture. As time passed in the 20th century, you saw homes of well-to-do people like the pictures here from the 1950s and 60s that have lawn eyes. And these are true lawn eyes in the true sense. They're like a full-size room, but they're open. Of course they have a roof, but they don't have four walls. They've got furniture, they've got plush furniture like you'd use indoors. The point is you can live outdoors comfortably. Why is this important right now? Why am I telling you this? Because COVID right now requires us to be separated and it is healthier for us to be out in the open air, not enclosed with other people. Next picture. So this is the ultimate, perhaps, in a lawn eye. It's a full kitchen. This is a picture from the 1950s. Most people couldn't afford to do this now with a full kitchen, with a sink, with a stove, with an oven, et cetera, to be able to live completely outdoors for your meals. But it's something that would be healthy and good if we could do it now. Next photo. All right, what changed a lot of this? Well, one of the major things was the prevalence of electricity which began to be very popular and common in the early 20th century. And Hawaiian Electric, as you see here, was obviously the provider of electricity for the island of Oahu. Next photo. As time went on in the 20th century, Hawaiian Electric increased its capacity and increased its amount of wiring. It made more power plants, et cetera. And as it did that, next photograph, one of the things it did was advertise very actively to get people to use more electricity. So they did this with the use of this cartoon character named Reddy Kilowatt, who you see here, who urged people to install and use more electrical appliances in their home. And what is the relevance of that? Next photograph. Well, air conditioning began to come into use. And you can see in these newspaper ads for movie theaters in Honolulu from the 1940s, they emphasized that the theaters are air conditioned for your comfort. Well, that's how air conditioning began with large commercial buildings like movie theaters. And it did make the movie experience a good deal more comfortable. Next slide. But we also saw air conditioning spread into other large commercial structures like this picture from late 1950s shows the lobby of the Bank of Hawaii downtown, which originally when it was built in the 1920s had been cooled by air. It had been cooled by open windows. In the 50s, those windows were closed off. This room was enclosed. It was artificially lit and completely air conditioned. Next picture. This also spread to retail stores. And so eventually retail stores were all air conditioned. And you can see in the picture at the top the Ming's jewelry store. There's everybody shopping in air conditioned comfort. But we even saw entire shopping centers become air conditioned like Kahala Mall when it was remodeled from being the Wildlife Shopping Center around 1970. And next photograph. It took a longer time for homes to be air conditioned because it was so expensive. This is the first air conditioned home in the Hawaiian islands. It was built in 1938 on Diamondhead Circle on the slopes of Diamondhead. As you can see, it was an expensive designer home you might say. It was built kind of on spec and then it was purchased by a very well-to-do guy from the mainland. So this is the first use of central air conditioning for purely a residential situation. All right. What has that got to do with the subject at hand? Next picture. The problem with air conditioning is even though it was touted as being healthful initially, air conditioning actually can spread diseases. And we know this particularly from Legionnaires disease which was a bacteria which was discovered for the first time in 1976. And Legionnaires disease isn't just something that is prevalent in air conditioning. It actually grows in the water of central air conditioning systems and the air conditioning then spreads it throughout the building where it's located. So this is a case where the disease is actually spread by air conditioning. But we also know that we don't need air conditioning as much as we think we do because we've got a climate which is so incredibly conducive to comfort that it really isn't necessary to do this as much as is done particularly because at this time enclosed spaces with air that keeps getting recirculated can also spread diseases. Next picture. Well, how do you deal with this? Well, in the past what happened was that homes were built with free air movement. And you can see by these two tract homes and suburbs in the 50s and 60s, this was done by the use of windows that could open but also jealousies, louvers. These are installed at the bottom of these exterior walls as you can see. Fixed picture windows but then beneath them louvers that you can open and close to get the trade winds to get the outside air. Next photo. Well, the reality of course is that most people on Oahu and certainly in Honolulu don't live in single family homes. Most of us live in condos with this is Honolulu is a land of high rises. We have many hundreds of high rise buildings here. And unfortunately as time has passed more and more of those residential high rises have been built with as hermetically sealed boxes. In other words, the windows are fixed. You cannot open or close them. They're always there and their central air conditioning. And that's the type of apartment you see in the photograph at the bottom, which is from the 1970s. And unfortunately lots of people expect that today. They expect to have a house or a condo that is fully air conditioned. Not only are you using a lot of energy and not only are you stuck if the power goes off and you have no air circulation, but you're also confining things like COVID-19 inside. Next image. So one of the things that my friend Martin Despang and I both advocate is that tall buildings, high rises need to have La Nines. They need to have exterior access. They need to have something for you to go out on. They also need to have sliding doors that you can open and close. You can close them if the weather is chilly, if it's windy, if there's too much rain. You can open them when the weather is nice and the weather is nice here, a great majority of the time. Not only is that healthier in terms of air circulation because we know that moving air out in the natural world is one of the ways that you disperse COVID so that if you are outdoors, it's far less likely that you can get this disease if you're out where the air is moving and you're exposed to sunlight and you're exposed to heat and humidity. All of those things can help kill the COVID virus. So the more we're outdoors, the more we're in the natural environment, the better for us at this time of the pandemic. And one of the ways we can do that is if you live in a condo, being able to go out on your La Nine, where you actually are safer than you are indoors if you've got other people around you. Next picture. So the question now is can we really do that these days? Is that something that modern architecture or architecture of that's going on right now in 2020 can deal with? And the answer is yes, of course we can. Here's the Honolulu Airport. And the Honolulu Airport is an excellent example of what I'm talking about. Now, the airport that we use today was actually built in the first section of it or the first iteration of it was built in 1962. And it wasn't air conditioned. It was considerably remodeled and enlarged in the 1970s. It's still being enlarged today. But even when that remodeling occurred, they left the original situation in place of most of the public spaces being completely open. So if you go to the airport today to check in for a flight in the main terminal, you will come to these big huge open spaces which have open doors along the Malca side of the building. There's free air circulation through these big public spaces. So we save energy and we also are healthier because we're not exposed to stagnant unmoving air that can contain COVID. So yes, it is possible for us to build this way. The original Blaisdell Center meeting hall space was also completely air-cooled by just natural forces. Now today it has been air conditioned and air conditioning as I said, can lead to various problems. So that's the bulk of what I wanted to say to you. I think what I want to also point out is that there are lessons from the past and that's how I want to end this. There are things that we can learn from how people dealt with things in the past. We can learn from the architectural styles that they had. We can learn from the buildings they created. We can learn from the techniques that they used for cooling before they had air conditioning and before they used as much electricity as we use today. These are things we should be particularly mindful of as we are dealing with the COVID-19 pandemic because humans have gone through many plagues, many pandemics, many epidemics, many deaths and sicknesses in the past. We tend to forget about them because they don't seem to be as much of a threat today until another one pops up and then we have to start all over again and figure out what the heck we are trying to do. Okay, I hope that was informative. I hope you can see how we can again use the lessons of the past to live in the present and to cope with what we're dealing with right now. At this time next week, I'll be back with my host, Martin Despang, for another episode of Human Humane Architecture. And of course, we'll be thinking about COVID in that show as well. But that brings us to the end of this show. Thank you all for watching. Hope to see you again. Again, I'm DeSoto Brown, the Bishop Museum Historian. Thank you for watching and I'll see you next time I am on Think Tech Away. So until then, hello everyone.