 ThinkTekAway, civil engagement lives here. Welcome back to our relentless search for human-humane architecture here in our tropical paradise of Honolulu, Hawaii. And wait a minute, isn't that an oxymoron or a contradiction? Because paradise is usually lush and green and non-built, and Honolulu is a city, right? I think so. So, I guess maybe. But the three of us today here on Studio love that. We're all fans of tropical urban coastlines, which blend both. At the same time, say I have a city with a beach, is an easier way to say it, isn't that awesome? And I just on my way out today in the ABC store, I picked up something here that I found pretty hilarious. And that's sort of not the way we look at it, because this is sort of trying to romanticize a big problem, which is building buildings that are hermetic and overheat. And when they get hit by the west sun here, it might look pretty, but then it gets pretty hot. And so, if we don't burn fossil fuels, it's not as pretty in there as it looks from the outside. So, we don't want to look into that, but we want to look into the heydays of these sort of tropical urban coastline paradises. And that's a sort of, we're talking about an interesting relationship between two places. One is our place, Hawaii, and the other one is Australia. And there might be some interesting similarities. We're talking both places had indigenous cultures. And so, we're not talking about them, so we're talking about the post, basically contact phase, but we're talking about the pre-fossil phase as well. And that's when they started, there was no fossil fuel involved. So, for that, I have a perfect panel here today being comprised of Maria Savimacchi, who is back. Thank you very much. She used to be my dear colleague, and she's still my friend, but unfortunately for me, but fortunately for you, you went to another awesome place, that's Australia, on the sort of east coast, northeast coast. At Bond University, you will say the full name in a little bit. And so, you will share your gold coast, and to share our gold coast here, I have Laura McGuire back. Hi, Martin. Hi, Laura. My lovely colleague and dear friend, and she will be introducing an event of Doko Momo that we're all members in one way or another. And that's what makes us sit here together and basically share our passion about Doko Momo. And why don't we start out with you? We can call you Maggie as the short version, not Maggie, as Americans say, right? And this is a really intercultural international panel here of someone who comes from Finland originally, has lived in the U.S. and now lives in Australia as an American, who I say half of you is Austrian, and you said your daughter officially is, and me being all over the place too. So this is really interesting of us, sort of aliens looking at something that's foreign to us, and that way exotic to us, and maybe that's why we're so excited about it. So again, welcome back. And why don't we go to the first picture, and you, Maggie, explain us a little bit where you ended up being and how that place is. Well, yeah. Since I moved from Hawaii a little bit more than three years ago and ended in the Gold Coast of Australia, and I was bicycling around there, and I saw all these modernist buildings, not necessarily very high class modernist buildings, but the building environment in general has been built only since 1940s, and it came into my mind immediately that this would be the logical place to have a Doko Momo chapter. There is a Doko Momo Australia, but they are very active only in Sydney and Melbourne. And for the audience who's not familiar, Doko Momo means documenting and conserving the modern movement. That's behind that complicated name. And why don't we go and you share with us a couple of projects that sort of you admire, and why don't we go to slide number two for that reason here and just walk us through and explain a little bit about the architects and the time and the zeitgeist behind. Yeah. Fitz and Meyer House is designed by a firm called Hies and Scots, and they designed plenty of houses in the Gold Coast, but also in Brisbane. And this is a good example of one of their modernist buildings. Many of these first images that you will be seeing are actually houses that have already been demolished. And that is one of the reasons why there is a call for Doko Momo in the Gold Coast. And Gold Coast is a place that changes very rapidly. Many people consider the change itself as the identity of Gold Coast, which is of course dangerous for existing buildings. So many of these Scott and Hies buildings like this one have unfortunately been demolished now. And is the next picture, isn't that next project by the same architect? The same architect designed this small little house. There you can also see plenty of influence from the California case study houses, the color scheme in particular. And American influence was very strong in the mid-century, in the Gold Coast of Australia in particular. And also here we will have a show coming up with me, Ray Turin, who is helping to preserve a house that's by Clifford Young. There's these triangular color details also in that house. So these places informed each other. And obviously America was leading with the Intensa initiated case study house program. But then it went and you showed yesterday you gave a lovely lecture at school where you had more time and gave more meat. And we're showing all these magazines that Australians were really trying to model there. You said lifestyle, it wasn't just about architecture. It was an entire lifestyle. And was going after the raw model of the United States, especially the West Coast. Yeah. Yeah. And also in the Gold Coast, the whole city development, the canal development in particular, they were done according to the Florida model. And it just didn't start with simple family residences. Why don't we go to the next slide, which introduces an all-American typology, right? Yeah. Model was a new typology in Australia in 1950s. And here again, Heisen Scott designed this one. This was the first model in the surface paradise, which is one suburb in the Gold Coast. And you see typical modernist features like butterfly roofs and that type of things. And then next project, that sort of typology sort of mutated even more and became even more sort of what you call this multifunctional or a mixed use. What was that, the one at the bottom? Yeah, this is one of the hotels in surfers as well. Interesting in addition to the roof is that it was a combination of a hotel, bowling alley, and gasoline station. And here, the picture at the top, there's a really funny or not connection to Hawaii once again, right? Yeah, that's what is on that side now. And the current building was designed by the Hawaii firm W80G in mid-1990s, which was the heyday of post-modern architecture. So let's remind us there's a little... A big transition. There's a little hint about Pete Wimbley, who was the founder of the firm. There's a little discovery at your part of the show that we should reconnect to. This reminds me, by the way, of there's a new development here in Waikiki and it's replacing this King's Village little thing that looks pretty much like that. Oh, steel. Yeah, well, they tear it down. And I guess our challenge is that while the general public doesn't like these old things as much as we do, so we got to raise awareness and educate them pretty much and tell them the stories. And that's what Doko Momo does in general and these walking tours are very common and specific, which we'll find out with your example pretty soon. So go to the next typology here, going even bigger. Yeah, this was the first large-scale hotel in the Gold Coast. It was considered very tall building and large in scale too. It was designed by an Austrian immigrant, Karl Langer, who then became a very prominent architect but also architecture educators, at the University of Queensland in Brisbane, and Heisen Scott, whom I mentioned earlier, were both his students. So you made another person to look at. So it was, again, like we're sitting here from all over the world. You know, it got people from all over the world being excited about these sort of exotic tropical areas and contribute and trying to sort of blend their legacy from the high-modern international style but then sort of tropicizing that and making it climatically and culturally... Sort of filters down in interesting ways over time. Exactly, and you have lots to say about that. And so the next picture is sort of the last typology you're going to share with us. Yeah, this is kind of a more positive story. Kinkabool was the tallest building in the Gold Coast. As you see, everything else is very low there. When it was built in 19... No, I have forgotten the year, but I think... Mid-century. Yeah, mid-century, yes. And it pretty much also became the precedent for condominium architecture in the Gold Coast, which is not so much urban condominium, but it's more like a resort style that they normally have with pools and things like that. But fortunately, it still exists in the upper... A photograph, you see what is around it now. So it's definitely not the tallest building anymore, but now it is added in the national register, so it is protected. And you've been good, it's still there. I recognize something that's very familiar to us here as well, that unfortunately these very... And you told me that there's a lot of influence from Hawaii, even down to terminology, that what we call a nai, is the mainlanders call it balcony. Some also call it lanai over there. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Many Gold Coasters actually call it their balconies and next lanais. So that's one of the interesting things that one word to that gave directly. And they're the easy breezy outdoor extension areas. And unfortunately, as you can see in the contemporary picture here, people enclose them to gain more square footage to make it more valuable. But they basically decrease the actual user value, the livable value, yeah, by making it hot. So that's something we've got to teach. Actually, the project I'm going to present on the walking tour is another example of that one. So education has to happen on these many levels. Obviously, on the macro level to keep the buildings around, but then also on the micro level of the details, right, appreciating them. Exactly. Very cool. And you want to introduce a dear colleague of yours as well. Yeah, or actually, my PhD supervisor also, Victoria Jones, who has been kind of enthousiast of mid-century modernism for a long time. She has a fantastic collection of all kinds of tourist memorabilia. Let's go to the next picture for that reason here. That illustrates it pretty well. And she's also very active in Instagram and in social media in general, doing a little bit what Doko Mama should also be doing, educating the public about the value of this type of architecture. As I mentioned earlier, many of these architect-designed fantastic houses have been demolished, but there is still plenty actually existing in the Gold Coast. People just don't know about it. So in addition to this type of social media pages, the walking tools in particular would be fantastic to start organizing there. Absolutely. So then let's start walking and you gave us a nice transitional image. The next picture here, which Tori basically provided and once again showing how much Hawaii is present over there, right? Yeah, this Havayana topic is very typical there. The word aloha appears everywhere. I always find it so amusing because I used to live in Hawaii many years. Exactly. And so let's go to the next picture and have you, Laura, share with us. This is the title page of the brochure of the current walking tour that you kindly are spearheading and organizing for us. And it's going to happen next Saturday on the 13th starting at 9am. 9am. And just give us a little appetizer. Well, you know, when we were first starting to plan the tour, we were kind of floundering around about which locations to use because we've used a number of them already in the past and we needed to keep it manageable and also a nice walk. And I drive down Kapa Hulu quite often and it's an area of town that I've always really liked and I thought, well, hey, you know, there are a lot of interesting buildings right around this area. Why don't we confine it to the Capuloni Park area? And as I started doing research, I started to understand how much change had actually happened in that part of the city at mid-century. Really starting from the late 1940s and into the 1950s, the entire area around the park was redeveloped. So all of the street patterns, really, that we know today did not exist until then. So it actually goes to the next page here where you nicely map for us, actually the tour and also the neighborhood and the little posts that we're going to go and walk along, right? So this is a map that you guys will use because you're all coming or watching, of course. I hope so. I'm so happy I'm still here. Yeah, it's what a reunion, right? And walk us through a little bit where you start and this is strongly related. Next picture, please. And I'm saying we try to basically have the most perfect people at each building. And this here is this sort of triumvirate of Don Hibbert and Jack Gilmer and yourself. We're working on a book about this gentleman here, Alfred Price, who's Austrian, no wonder. And so that's where you start out and as leading, you know, give your introduction talk. Yeah, so I'll be giving a short introduction in front of the zoo and then people will leave in groups to go on to the next site. Awesome. And the picture on the top left is we can say it's going to be fun because we did it already. That was last Saturday, our rehearsal tour. And we had a lot of fun, which we'll share with you a little bit as well. So let's move on to the next post project here. So this is the Waikiki Shell, which was designed by Law and Wilson in the late 1950s. It was opened in 1956. And I never had really paid that much attention to this building for a while because you kind of walk by it, but you don't necessarily see it. I haven't yet been to any events there. But I did always see this wonderful space age arch kind of peeping over the palm trees. And I was really excited to get a much closer look at it. It does use a parabolic arch and I actually have to say that this building predates Sarenan's St. Louis arch. Oh, really? It does. By about four years, actually. So Hawaii was ahead. I encourage you to go to shows. It's spectacular. Just the feeling, the outdoor feeling and you see Diamond Head and they're orchestrated. Of course, the shows start when it's still bright outside and then it gets dark. I see Bonnie Raid there. For me, it's my front yard too. So it's like people coming from all over the world to travel intercontinentally to see their stars and I'm just falling out of my bed in my front yard. This is really cool. Such an urban event space is really pretty precious for us. Let's move on to another typology that's very close to you as a mother. Yes, well, this is the Waikiki school which was designed by Wayne Owens in the early 1960s. The reason it was built is right at mid-century the city of Honolulu and the Department of Education was starting to pump a lot of money into rebuilding the public schools which by the 1950s were all mostly in old wooden buildings that were termite infested and lack ventilation and so forth. So Wayne Owens actually studied and worked with Vladimir Asipov earlier in the 1950s and I think through his education with Asipov, he came out and did this building with ventilation systems. It's directed and oriented towards winds coming from Malca so they travel all the way through the building towards the south. It's a really wonderful design and it doesn't need air conditioning. Perfect, as it should be here. And next picture is moving on to the dwelling typology here and this is again our most expert and scholar is John Williams up here who's an Edwin Bauer fan and scholar and expert and following him was Graham Hart with Brent doing a follow-up show of Volume 2 so John will be there and basically, you know sharing a building from his favorite architect but the second from the top is in fact going back to the redevelopment the sort of tragic in the 90s of whatever came out of Wimbley's firm but this is Pete Live an awesome transformation station which you wouldn't think architects would do that but back in the days the total piece of artwork they did it and they incorporated artists so there's this exquisite Edward Brownlee gate sort of thing in there It seems almost Mayan in a way to me it has a real Latin American feel So guys, that's what we will do it's not just there's a professor lecturing and this is all of us finding out things smell, look, touch exactly yeah and a multitude of typologies the next one is yeah this is a funny one because I don't really know what kind of typology to call it actually you know international style meets the first Hawaiian bank did we decide it was sandstone? I can't remember well again, that's like what we're saying it's not like we know and we educate people who don't know I mean many things we know but then we were debating actually you see Graham here and Don saying this is local sandstone I said where is that from and I think he said that's from Wainae but then we found this sort of fossil shell so we're thinking maybe there's some coral in there but the most finding for me was the top right picture because I've always had some my hoods and I appreciate the gesture and a lot of effort that usually clients would value engineer and clip off all these bellows straights right but the top one looked really chunky so we're looking and we saw this we thought why is there basically a sprinter system up there and we came to the I think understanding there might be an irrigation line that these are so big because they might have been planters and planted and that would give reason to how they look like and we stopped doing that unfortunately but again that's us local momo going to clients educating them and saying hey why don't you go back and do that and I had that experience with my dear mentor Robert McCarter when he was here we gave him a tour and we ended up at Price's church on Baritania and they had just taken off the vegetative sun shading and they were complaining about they need to do something you were like well how was it originally why did you bring it back and grow stuff again it's really about education a lot so let's move on to a next grade important neighborhood typology this is the Waikiki public library and it has a lot of influences I think going on here but one of the things that strikes me about it is how much it relates to local domestic typologies it's kind of sending across a certain message like this isn't just a public institution this is also a home it fits in very well to the rest of the construction and the neighborhood it does have this nice mixing again with local stone with this very international style glazing in the front but then surmounted by this wide eaved Hawaiian roof so it's really a mixture of different impulses that's an early Frank Haynes and his partners also the architect of our lovely Sincla Library which we would have left to get in but now thankfully we should say students get in there but not our students but university students so this isn't and also the little picture I took here this is Tonya Moy and John again being wearing appropriate tropical things and their tropical hats and so you're saying yeah I should mention too that after having done the test run of this we realized it's pretty hot we will be leaving an hour earlier than we left on the test run but if you do end up coming please bring your hat, your sunscreen your sunglasses we will be providing some water but if you want to have additional water you are welcome to bring it I think it's such a residential community please show us one more school next image yeah this is the Jefferson School and it was built really piecemeal through the 1960's and 70's there were arguments about where the roads were going to intersect most of these school buildings in the area were taken by an eminent domain but there was a lot of legal wrangling that spanned almost 10 years before they could acquire the sites two of the buildings here though are really interesting because they were actually designed by someone who was a student who trained with Franklin Wright actually I have his name Hideo Murakama was his name and I would actually imagine that he might have been one of Wright's earlier Japanese American students very cool alright since we are on the Gold Coast and it booms and you know as all on steroids there must be a high rise type policy here as well so next picture and that's where I will stand I'm going to let Martin talk about this one I love this building it's really one of my favorites it is we already sort of must have known because we referenced to it the middle picture is a previous show that we did about tropical circulation so easy breezy open staircases this one is nicely sheltered by the breeze block and I took this picture on the left of that picture that shows that and the picture above that is a show about another project by the same architects that were park associates and they confirm my theory that for a while actually the non-architects the engineers have been the better architects and I keep believing that shouldn't say that maybe to the scale of engineering I should say that and this is the place that our past president Obama grew up in with his grandmother that's a building and another one is one of the most lovely buildings in Waikiki in the heart of Waikiki on Kawakawa Avenue that we will do a show about that is the Waikiki Circle Tower so the firm hired an architect for a while and this architect basically did this building here and we will talk about it what we won't get, only get stuck sort of in the past we also want to look into the past for the future and learn from the past for the future and we'll not be afraid talking about touchy stuff and the very bottom picture there's a little picture in that picture as reference to a show that DeSoto and I did that was about tropical tectonics or in that case the absence of it because they've put a single story denny's that's a pretty hilarious, cheesy thing put that next and this is both from an urban point of view from an architectural point really a crime and so again we don't want to get stuck and be called only sentimental you know but we love good design and good design basically was the mainstream way back and we want that to be the mainstream again so I think it's very important you know history as we tell our students all the time in the Doco Momo Gold Coast Australia we have seen exactly the same idea that there is no need to be sorry about the buildings that have already gone but we are looking at the modern east concepts and how those could be applied in architecture today and urban planning today so while phasing out where do we conclude the show because we only have a minute left but where do we conclude the tour next picture and final picture well this is the really fun part of the tour besides the going around and poking buildings part we are going to be having a catered reception at the Queen Capulani right in front in their newest patio bar area so yummy snacks some Doco Momo themed cocktails it should be quite an experience and Maggie smiles because that's her hotel right now so convenient all stars aligned I would say and with that the last picture please up and just to thank you very much both of having had this excellent panel and sharing our passion about Doco Momo and advocating for our activities and hope you all come we all come obviously on Saturday and I left this if we can get the last picture back one more time I left that top right square empty for you Maggie in filling that in the future with your exciting activities and walking tours and please stay in touch and do more shows definitely and I will send you an image of a Gold Coast walking tour very good I would be very welcome all right well thank you so much so hope you see us next week next week is the long expected final episode of the architecture of the University of Hawaii Manoa and it's called the fall and potential re-rise I hope this is exciting enough and mysterious enough and until then please keep our coast golden bye bye