 Welcome to this week's installment of Humane Architecture. My name is Laura McGuire. I'm your guest host for the week as a part of our Dakomomo mid-century modernism summer. I am a professor of architecture at the University of Hawaii and an architectural historian. And today we are going to be discussing the work of Honolulu's own mid-century architect extraordinaire Alfred Price. And today as my guest I have Timothy Shuler. Timothy is a local design writer, probably one of the only architecture critics on the island of Oahu at the moment. He knows his stuff and I'm really excited to have a chance to talk with him about Price's work. And what I wanted to do today was actually focus on something that I think some people haven't really noticed that much necessarily about Price. And that is his attention to the roof as an architectural motif and a major feature of his work. So we're going to start off looking at some architectural precedents in roofs and then move directly into looking at some of the really wonderful examples of Price's design, particularly from his residential architecture of the 1950s and early 1960s. So. I'm excited. Yeah. Good. So first slide please. So we are not in Hawaii here. Of course we are at the Forbidden City in China. And the reason I wanted to show this slide was to just talk a little bit really quickly about the importance of the roof as a major design feature in early Chinese architecture, really stretching from the medieval period up into the present in many ways. The roof dominates Chinese architecture and becomes its really primary ornamental and design motif. So we have these really beautiful swooping lines, the gold tile, all of the color on these supports surrounding. Next image please. So one of the key features of early Chinese architecture is the use of a system for supporting the roofs called the Dogong Bracket System, which basically is a system of interlocking small wooden pieces, almost like Lincoln Logs in a way, that are set together to build a roof up and out. Essentially it's a kind of cantilevered support. Next image. The Dogong Bracket System really expands throughout early Asia, expands into Japan even. And in many of these buildings, this is a Buddhist temple. We see the roof taking on this incredibly powerful, rugged kind of form. Several different purposes. Not only was the roof something that sheltered people, but it also, in terms of these broad cantilevered eaves, served to shelter the buildings themselves inside, which were often made from wood or mud brick, and other materials that are basically biodegradable. So what we see is a large eave trying to shelter that building inside of it, but then again it takes on this very strong kind of architectural expression for the building as a whole. Next slide. And as you move into Japan, you see all kinds of different iterations of Dogong Brackets. There's no really one single way to do Dogong, the higher and higher you want to build, the more articulated these kinds of structures can be. And those interlocking wooden joints really offer an opportunity for architects to play, to have fun with these buildings and to make them really exciting. I think Tim's been looking at wooden architecture and in high-rises actually recently. And I think you know something a little bit about the functional features of this in terms of earthquake resistance, things like that. Well yeah, as we were talking earlier, so much of these wooden buildings that have lasted centuries have done so, in part because the wood, far from being fragile, the biological qualities of the wood actually allows it to move slightly, the joint system allows it to move in the case of an earthquake or something like that and actually prolongs the longevity of the building as well as the wood itself also shrinks slightly, expands slightly with moisture and that also is something that's acknowledged here in the architecture. It knows, these builders knew exactly what they were doing with wood. Exactly, yeah. And that actually, I mean it raises an interesting kind of point in that looking at design that's sustainable and is going to last a long time particularly in the context of natural disasters is something that these ancient Chinese and Japanese architects were very, very aware of and were building strategies into their buildings from a very early point in time to deal with these kinds of things and maybe we have lessons that we could learn from these things. Next image. I think one of the quintessential examples of the roof in Asian architecture taking on this very dominant practical and yet ornamental form is in the famed Issei Shrine where we have a relatively small enclosure housing a Shinto shrine but then this very large dominant roof feature where we have thatch and we have these large cross braces and in fact so no one can go into Issei Shrine except for people of the Japanese royal family at the time and priests and the only thing that people can see on the perimeter of Issei are these roofs poking up out from behind the walls stating the building's presence in the landscape. Next slide. And then here in Hawaii as well, roofs are pretty important, it rains a lot. And in indigenous Hawaiian architecture which really wasn't particularly complex from a spatial standpoint, it was very complex from the standpoint of roof construction where you have series of interlocking wooden members lashed together with various natural materials in order to support an enclosure. This is a lanai, we're all familiar with the lanai, these were workspaces areas where people needed to get things done out of the wind and out of the rain. Next image. And we can actually see in some reconstructions of these buildings how incredibly complex these systems really were. Simply the number of pieces of lumber involved needed to support these structures especially in wind and sea air and those kinds of things that offer an incredible stability within the tropical climate. Next. And then also in the traditional Hawaiian holly, this is a reconstruction actually right across from my apartment building which is at the Center for Hawaiian Studies where they've done this really lovely faithful recreation of how these buildings were actually constructed and you can see the complexity of the systems of lashing throughout the structure. And if you ever go down to this building and I recommend that everyone does at some point just to take a look at how all of this is put together, one of the things that really comes to the fore at least in my mind is those connections of the members, the way that they're tied together, it's a functional building. But these take on a kind of aesthetic feature. Do you have any thoughts about that? I mean I think something that's fascinating here is something I think you said too which is that the roof really, the roof becomes the entire structure here and I think illustrates kind of a lot of what we're talking about. I was also going to add that the Center for Hawaiian Studies itself has some amazing dramatic roof. So if you want to go to Dole Street and check that out, it's an amazing place just to walk around and kind of understand this kind of connection between modern architecture in Hawaii and the way that they've tried to kind of take that as inspiration in a very literal way but to kind of explore that vernacular. And the roofs are by far the dominant feature of that whole center. I completely agree and I think it's really one of the better examples, at least on Oahu, of taking inspiration from indigenous forms and transforming them as you said into a piece of modern architecture. Absolutely. But like Issei Shrine or some of these other buildings that we've just talked about, those roofs are what you see when you walk by on the street. So the roof's central importance to the indigenous architecture of Hawaii really I think can't be overstated. Yeah, sure. Yeah. So next slide. Mid-century modernists on the mainland and elsewhere, we're not unconcerned with roofs. This is Mies van der Rohe's Farnsworth House, of course. I think many people are familiar with. And in this iconic example of mid-century modernism, Mies also makes a roof line a dominant feature with this white planar form, particularly creating an indoor-outdoor living space on that porch. We have this very intense cantilevered projection. But what we don't necessarily see is anything having to do necessarily with height here. The roof itself simply becomes a flat plane very much like all the rest of the flat planes in the building. It's not becoming a dominant feature in and of itself. No, it's not the thing people remark on in this project at all. Go to the Farnsworth House and say, man, look at that roof. So next slide. There are some mid-century modernists, though, that did really begin, I think, to begin to play with the different ways that roofs and ceilings could be articulated in buildings. And one of these was Richard Neutra, who, in his regional California designs, was very interested in integrating architecture with the landscape. And I think that the ways that he creates all of these different levels and interiors is an effort to echo the cliffs of California. This is a house that's sitting on a cliff. And we see these kinds of stepped features in the ceiling that echo the different levels in the landscape as well. Next slide. Now, getting to Alfred Price, what I think is something that makes Alfred Price really a fascinating architect is the extent to which he incorporates the roof as one of the most critical motifs in his mid-century design. This is really interesting because Price was not an architect from Hawaii. Price was an architect from Vienna, where at least in the 1930s, among the modernists, those flat roofs with not much articulation were all the rage. But Price moves here in 1939 as a refugee fleeing the Nazis. And I think he really begins to pay attention to some of the indigenous traditions in the environment, as well as traditions stemming from Asia and Japan. Which were popular. Japanese architecture was popular already in Vienna at the time, so he would have been familiar with it from both sides of the world. From both sides, yeah, exactly. Primarily an interior design, not necessarily an exterior. But yeah, so he's very aware of those influences. But when he comes to Hawaii in 1939, he's confronted with an entirely different landscape. And climate. And climate. Then he's used to in Central Europe. And at least I think that he maybe begins to explore the idea of the roof, the idea of the ceiling, and their importance in architecture that's already here and to inject it into modernism in a really innovative way. Yeah. The zoo is a perfect example of that, I think, in that you can see the influences of Hawaii's architecture dating back centuries. But also, it's clearly completely different. He's not trying to copy anything. The forms are completely different. The slopes and the angles and the lines that he's playing with are modern, but not something you would ever do in some place like California or Illinois. Yeah. He's essentially made the traditional Hawaiian Halei roof. He's abstracted it, basically. And in a sense, made it a little strange. This V in the bottom rather than the building itself just being straight. A straight ridge line at the top. Next image. And Price's ceilings themselves are also a really exciting arena in which he explores the possibilities of architectural space. This is the Methodist Church downtown here in Honolulu, where we see this vivid use of rafters and wooden joinery to make what is basically a big rectangular box into something really remarkable and really special. Next image. So in many of his residential designs, the roof continues to be a dominant form for him with cantilevering eaves probably drawn from Asian sorts. It's also drawn, of course, I think from the architecture of Frank Lloyd Wright, who, Tim, you're very familiar with Chicago architecture. And I'm sure that you've seen these kinds of things in Wright's houses as well. Definitely. But one thing that I think will become even more clear as we go through some of these residential projects, and we should say quickly that Price is most well known probably for the Arizona Memorial, which we're not talking about here, but that's going to be the signature project that everyone knows. But here, focusing on his houses and these residences all over Oahu, one of the things that struck me was just how much fun he had detailing these houses and all of the use of color already. We're going to see tons more color, but already here you can see that this bright red ceiling under the eve is just not something that you really see that often here. No, not at all. Even in great mid-century modern architecture. Yeah, it's true. He's not really trying to blend that into the landscape. No, it's popping it out. Yeah, it's again that statement that he's making there in the ceiling. Next image. And just to get underneath those eaves, we get a sense of again that kind of play of color and making what is essentially a utilitarian form in architecture, the thing that keeps the rain out, into an ornamental device, very much in keeping with Chinese and Japanese kinds of traditions. Yeah, next slide. Another thing that I think we'll see in the next several images as well is the way that he uses roof and ceilings as ways to demarcate space and path. So out here we're on a lanai looking down a set of stairs and through the articulation of that red roof he's showing us the path. Come here, you know, where do I go? It's almost like he's made a hallway over your head, over head, without the need of enclosing walls. And that articulation doesn't happen in the tile floor, it happens in the roof. It happens in the roof. Yeah, yeah. Next slide. With these contrasts in ceiling geometries from that red tile to that paneling below and then the rafters hanging down with the eaves, you get an incredible rich kind of spatial complexity as you take different views throughout the house. Next image. Again here, creating complexity through what's above us with the color, with the lines. We look at the floor, the floor itself is basically just flat. Yeah, it's the ceiling that draws your eye outward toward the view. It's really, yeah. And it has a sort of curious effect too that even though the ceiling itself is actually kind of low in these houses in a very Frank Lloyd Wright way, the pops of color draw your eye up. Yes, you continue to move up. And this is something that I like to talk about with my architecture students is don't just think about floor plans. Don't just think about where you're going to put rooms and things like that. Think about how eyes move across space. How can you complicate a space and make it more interesting by looking at things like just the ceiling above us? I don't know what kind of ceiling. Oh, we have acoustic tile over here. Next slide. And even one of our very, well, you could go ahead. Well, just the carport. Yeah. It's the most utilitarian space. But again, you see this heavy, even though he's using color in the posts and even though the rest is just wood, it's still very dramatic. It's still a really dominant feature with those rafters going across, breaking up the space. Yeah. Next image. Is it price? It does, I think, in the vein of someone like Richard Neutra, particularly on the houses that he has sited on hills. This particular house, I believe, is up on Mele Mele Place above Manoa is to use these very heavy roof lines as a way to articulate the hillside itself moving upwards, almost building out from the hill. Next slide. And again, using color, contrast, a certain degree of heaviness here, which really contrasts with the lightness of the view outside. Next slide. Even in his much less expensive houses, price plays very close attention to the roof. It says, hey, there's a corner. Well, it's cantilever. It's wood. I need to support it. I have to have some brackets there. But how can I do that in an interesting and exciting way of these really strong angular projections? Next slide. And then the joinery. The joinery itself. I don't know. Is there something about this, Tim, that reminds you a little bit of the Asian architecture that we looked at briefly at the beginning of the show? Well, for sure. Yeah. I mean, it's obviously completely different. But yeah, I mean, looking at it, you can see that this is not, you know, the average person is going to walk right under this and not give it a second thought. But this is complex and hard to do. And I think that, yeah, those joints are really fascinating once you start to look at them. And I think later, too, we'll see some really fascinating connections between posts and beams and columns. And it's fascinating. And he draws attention to it, too, which I think you see here. He's kind of celebrating it. And we don't have a ton of time left. So I actually am thinking the best thing to do is just to go through the rest of these images quickly so the audience can just see a few examples of all of the different things that roofs can do in a house. So next image. So here, all of those intersections of geometries, which parallel there with the floor. Next image. I love this one. It's playing with very natural, unfinished wood as a support for that intersection of beams there in the ceiling. Yeah. Next image. Again, these intersecting geometries. Also here, just using that rugged kind of staining for color, not even necessarily paint. But drawing your eye upward as much as it's drawn outward. Next image. And one of the things that Price does so well, too, is he brings the ceiling outside. Yeah. Creating almost an interior space outdoors, but not just leaving it as kind of a leftover space or an afterthought. It's very intentionally detailed here the way that ceiling continues down this outdoor courtyard or walkway, whatever it is. Yeah. It feels interior. It does. Next image. And this is a perfect example. I mean, he's essentially created a kind of garden pergola inside, outside. Is it inside? Is it outside? I mean, that's one of the wonderful things about regional Hawaiian modernism is this blurring of those boundaries between in and out. So next image. And this is where Price really, I think, begins to have a lot of fun. Yes. And many of his ceilings is just playing with cutouts. So here, okay, it's a white room. It's rectangular, somewhat nondescript. So what does he do? He just takes a slice out of it, which draws your attention to that corner and at the same time makes the room look bigger. Yeah. Yeah. And next slide. This is another great one, too. Cut out another portion of the ceiling in order to differentiate different areas of the room. Next slide. Or paint your ceiling blue and paint a supporting beam white. Just so many opportunities for really, I think, joy in his ceiling and roof designs. Next slide. And here, this is, you know, I think really taking a page from the book of Frank Lloyd Wright in terms of highlighting, even that arts and crafts architects, green and green, highlighting wooden joinery in really complex ways. Yeah, geometrically, we have these verticals. We have these kind of waffle shape patterns and so forth. Next slide. And this is one of the... We'll probably just end with this building. Yeah, we should. It's so amazing. I love this one so much. Yeah. One of the greatest examples, I think, of Price's interest in the roof where he drops the ceiling down in different levels. There's an area of rafters above it. And we have this lower section with wood finished in a really beautiful way. It looks like hung from the rafters, even though those rafters are supporting the next ceiling. And then there's even the ceiling above that. This roof is completely split. The next image will show that if we want to get to the next one too. So there, you know, you have this kind of lower roof, middle roof, and then upper roof. Next image. There's something really similar going on in this house as well with the layering of roofs and the floor is flat, though. So really all of the visual interest comes from what's above us. And this totally illustrates what you were saying earlier about the ceiling also demarcates space and it draws you through. It guides you into one space and into the next. Next image. So this is one of the last two images that we'll show, but here we can see all of those amazing intersections of lines in his ceiling. So it's an incredibly deep space above us. Next slide. Next image. And this is just a symphony. A symphony of ceiling lines brought together with this wonderful intersection with the walls as well. So I don't know. I mean, I just think that this is really one of the key things that people need to understand when they look at Alfred Price's work. That the man is a master of the roof. The man is a master of the ceiling. And that's something I'm hoping to be able to talk about more. And you are literally writing a book on price, right? I'm literally writing a book on price with my co-authors, Jack Gilmar and Don Hibbert, who's often been a guest on the show as well. So thank you, Tim. I think I talked the whole time. As you should. As you should. No, I'm just happy to be here. Thanks for having me. Oh, well, it was a delight to discuss all of this with you beforehand too. Beautiful work. I'm excited to share it with the rest of the world. Great. Well, who's on next week? I don't even know, but more mid-century modern, right? More mid-century modernism from the various board members at DACA MoMA. So we will be looking forward to that. I will definitely be tuning in. And who knows? More of Alfred Price's work may come up in the lineup, or some Vladimir Asipov or something else would be enjoyable. And Tim, you're actually working on an article on Alfred Price too, aren't you? I almost forgot about that. Yeah, it'll be out this fall. We can let people know where to get it, but yeah, maybe I'll be back on Martin's show talking about it more. Fantastic. Alright, thank you all for joining us for this week's edition of Humane Architecture. Thank you.