 Good to have you back with us, the Soto Brown and Martin de Spang in our continued search for a built environment, being in compliance with the natural environment and particularly here in our urban coastal mid-century modern jungle paradise of Honolulu, Hawaii. All of that and more, right? All of that and more. That's exactly right. So while our producer Eric walks us through some jungle, you know, I want to share a story from some years ago on the Big Island actually pretty soon after I came here at the chance to drive be driving along with some colleagues in a bus with a great madam of landscape architecture, Cornelia Oberlander. She was pointing out to me the difference between invasive and exotic and invasive we know. Something from somewhere else that takes over and pushes the local stuff away, right? Exotic is also not from the place, not endemic, but it basically complements the place. So she was pointing out to the west side of the island where everything is lava, rock and nothing grows and there was some grass that only that grass grows there and it's not a native grass. So ever since I applied it with any kind of flora and fauna and these other creatures called human beings and what they create as environments, right? That's right. So plants are part of that. We're talking about buildings, but plants are a part of it, particularly for the building group that we're going to be talking about today in today's show. So is there maybe this sort of jungle that we can dwell in in these days? I think there is and let's go to the slide 5 for that. The slide that's going to tell us about that. So that one looks magically mysterious, right? And we see something in the back that we've seen before. That's right. That is the originally the Kahala Hilton Hotel built in the 1960s. And so we're somewhere close to that, but it looks like we're in a jungle, but there's some light on so that's kind of really mysterious. And you can see here, these are labeled and copyright labeled down there. And there's all taken by a gentleman with the name of Andrea Britzi and Andrea is a fellow European. He's from Italy, but has lived here for a while and these Europeans are probably particularly obsessed with living in the jungle because there is no such thing. I mean, he could have done it a little bit more in Italy, but it still gets cold in Italy, right? Even if you go to even if you go down to Sicily or something like that, right? So next slide here is Andrea in his jungle place and that he truly indulges in and enjoys, right? Absolutely. And we've got to visit it. Exactly. And so let's go to the next slide. And we want to basically already say that this building was built soon a few years after the Kahala Hotel in 1967. And it's on Kamehameha School Land. Yes. And they negotiated a lease for 60 years. So if you do the math in 2027 and eight years, that lease expires, right? And everyone is very, very afraid that that's going to be the end of this project here. And we want to move on now within the next couple of slides here. And basically one after the other organization, individuals, entities, people say, why not? Advocating for this group of buildings to be saved. And let's also point out that in this slide that we're looking at right now, there's Andrea in the upper left corner. Next to him is Julius Schulman, who is a very famous mid-century architecture photographer, documented in very important buildings. And Andrea is a fan of his and the picture on the bottom, which shows the Kahala Beach Apartments is by Julius Schulman. Absolutely. And that made, as you can tell, the postcard of the National Locomomo Symposium that we just had. It was actually an international symposium. So once again, Julius Schulman's books are owned all over the world. So there are people who come here, particularly to see that. So I think as an owner, with a more than private obligation, but a public obligation, which Kamehameha School certainly has, is obligated to basically serve this demand of culturally interested people from all over the world. Correct. And I have to say, while Andrea here, because that's basically a picture from his website. But just so we know that he says, well, due to the nature, literally, and figuratively speaking of his place, when he comes home, he does something that you just concluded one of the recent shows with and say, let's go. What do we do? We go swimming. We go, what? No, no, we strip down. We strip down, or we're talking about the nudism. Exactly. Oh, we haven't gotten to that show yet. Well, we will. But you were announcing that and closing a show recently and saying, let's stay naked. Right. So that's what he does. I do the same and basically just throws everything off. And basically, because you can do that, because this jungle provides the privacy that you might want, that you might need. And the place is so easy breezy that it's comfortable that he just like his idol Julius Schulman. And the thing on the left is basically his business card, which is the bill. And he is he is a very sought after high end photographer that shoots all over the world and all of the United States, the TWA terminal that you always wanted to visit and almost did. It was under construction. He was recently there. So that's it there. That that that Andrea chooses this his home as the visual address for his business card speaks again for this project. Right. Appropriately. So let's move on. Who else would endorse this at the top left? We see a place that we have heard about. We have. And the gentleman to the left, as he looked familiar. I don't know. There's there's this guy. Well, not the there's you just see the back of his head. The very left. I wonder if that. Well, there you go. Does that look familiar from this other side? That's right, because that's me. So why would this guy and his institution be interested of keeping that? Well, there are a number of reasons and we're going to be talking about those. But the thing that we're talking about in this particular photograph is there are two large painted murals that are original pieces of art. And the woman on the right is an inhabitant of these apartments. She has this 1967 issue of American Artists Magazine, which has an article about these two paintings, which were commissioned for this site. And they're both in extremely good condition, which is amazing, because they're open to the open air. They were painted in latex and they're still there. And she was coming when we were there, thanks to Andrea visiting that with a bunch of other people that we're going to introduce to you soon. And she was coming with this magazine, actually not knowing who we were and what we wanted, but approaching Andrea as a fellow resident and basically saying, look, I found this magazine and how amazing it's this. So again, there's there's also many residents who there's some who couldn't care less and they have homes all over the world and they're hardly ever there. But there are these hardcore people who basically really live the place and being there and one want this to let's point out who else is in that photograph. There is a gentleman on the left side who is who is the one one next to you. And we can jump to the next slide to do that, because here is actually on the right side, right of you, because the picture was taken from the other end as copyrighted. Andrea did this one here. And this gentleman is a late partner of the firm who was basically designing the hotel. This is Ronald Lindgren and he's a late partner in what was called at that time, Killingsworth, Brady, Lindgren and Stricker at that time. And this was a chance. He was kept so busy and we will have a couple of shows with him. And he was actually working next door. He wasn't part of the original design team of the Kahala, but he then basically remodeled it to be the Mandarin. Yes. And so he never really had the chance to see next door because he was so busy. So that was his chance here. And again, this is a book on the top right that again, we own that in the office back in Germany and in many architectural and cultural interests as people all over the world. This is the case study how serious from mid-century by Intenza. This is America at its best and many people again have that. And that's the travel guide and they travel the world and they want to see these iconic mid-century. So he just can't tear this down because then these people will be pissed. Exactly. Well, we shouldn't lose it. We should not lose it. Absolutely. So let's move on to next another gentleman here that you have known for some while, Ryan. Yeah, but I also want to say too, we're in Andrea's apartment here. We are. And we are enjoying the not only the easy breeziness, but we get to see the interior of the whole complex. And talking, you probably think about the bicycle there. So obviously he's a bicyclist. So this is a Bianchi, so it's from his culture. Yeah, right, right. But it's also very interesting because Ronald told us that he basically when he was doing the construction supervision, they basically generously offered him a hotel room in the, what is now going to be the Hale Puna, which was the Waikiki Park Hotel, which is the one Maoka of the Hale Kalani, which he designed, who will do a show about. And he chose to stay there and then bicycle all the way past your home and up that pretty steep diamond-head foothills to go all the way to Kahala. So these are pretty fit people, right? And who choose that lifestyle of not being the lazy air-conditioned dwellers going to the air-conditioned cars, all air-conditioning, they really intentionally, because none of them are actually from here, they're all Howleys, right? And this gets us to the gentleman in the middle who at the beginning of one show that I called Howleys Hawaii, he said, well, I want to make sure a disclosure that you said that and not me. And who is that gentleman? Well, he's the acting, he's the acting dean? Well, he- He's the acting dean of the architecture school. He is, but that comes next. I first want to say before he became that, he was working with you guys. Oh, historic Hawaii, that's right. And that's Bill Chapman here, who has been involved with Historic Hawaii forever, as others. And again, the two shows within one was about the Candleys restaurant, which isn't anymore around. And then the other one is the Varsity building, which we're very afraid won't be around sometimes soon. We're gonna actually do a Doko Momo walking tour with Doko Momo on the 26th of this month at 2 p.m. Please all come and let's save this building as well, right? Correct, same landowner, same landowner, which is Kamehameha Schools. Absolutely right, yeah. So next slide here, who else? So as you already said, yes, Bill is the current acting dean of my School of Architecture. So he's my boss, as you correctly said. And we're doing this job for inspiring the emerging generation. And so what is this picture here reminding us of? Well, we've got Bruno Mars up at the top, and we've got, do we have Dwayne Johnson in there? We haven't too, yeah. Because we're hoping that those guys who came from here, and they're now rich and powerful, we hope that they will want to participate in some of these preservation activities too. And not only that, also to do the evolution of this tradition. So we have this cargo courtyard cabana project in the magic with them, right? Very good to talk about that. And so the students actually enjoyed this here as a very good precedent for their project and move on to the next slide. And what did they find out, which is really surprising? Well, this amazes me. They found out that the lanai of this unit in the Kahala Apartments is the same dimensions as a shipping container. And we talk about shipping containers being used for housing. So this is a high-end housing development that actually is using part of those same dimensions. Yeah, yeah, yeah. In high-end, we can already go to the next slide and talking about, it's actually only high-end because of its location, right? And the clientele. But as we were pointing out in an appetizer show about this, which we did a while ago, we were saying this was built very efficiently and effectively. And Ronald has basically confirmed that and they said, well, they were not making money on the hotel on this one they were because they're so sort of repetitive and they're so lean and mean design. So you could actually say they have social housing soul and just happened to be because of the location and the inhabitation there are more upscale, but from their concept they're actually not. They're almost social housing from their thinking and making. And that's why we get to Mr. Social Housing Expert, Tropicare Rockwood, and then Bandit Kanistakon, both educators and practitioners. And you had interviewed Bandit about having done the contemporary, currently best building in that tradition in the Moliili neighborhood. That's right, that's right. So all these people basically said, no, this is the best. We need this as an inspiration. We need this to stay around, right? Next slide shows us that it's not in its absolute original condition, some of the units still have the lanai being opened but at some point this aluminum window manufacturer came in and sold it to many people but Andrea was telling us when he had his daughter visiting that she sleeps on the lanai has these all opened because sort of generously there are three tracks. So you can actually open the large majority of that still and she sleeps there and watches the stars and hears the birds and feels like I'm in paradise. I'm in the jungle, right? She is. So next slide here is another gentleman you might have seen before. And so that's him. That's this guy here. And Desping architect then has been also employing the same strategy of what Ronald called structural expressionism quite a bit which we were pointing out in this previous show. And so he's a hero for us and he's an inspiration for us. And so all over the world people are just really worshiping the killings worth legacy. And this project here is a future proposal for our islands here. Next slide. And what is this project? Well, this is going to be, I believe we're talking about this is the shipping container one? No, no, that's Primitivo one. This is Primitivo one, which is the circular, those are those are sections of the circular cylindrical unit. And that's what we see in the plan on the table. And this is the engineer who made all of these things possible and sitting with you. I called him the master of mid-century marvels. This is Dr. Alfred Yee that I had the chance to meet once before he passed away at a pretty old age. They had a really fulfilled life. And there was just like magic to meet him. And you were, basically it gives you the, cements the foundation of what you're talking about. He's saying, yes, it can be done and this is how you do it. Yeah, but he was actually, this is what made him so special. He was a Da Vinci guy. He said, well, the structure is, don't worry about it, we figure this out. I want to talk about this project because it's a life and it lives. He was pointing out to Queen Emma Gardens in this project here. So he was very much a social engineer as much as a technical structural engineer, right? So next slide here is pretty much him. This is the result of the master that he was able, only he was able to make these bones so skinny, so slender, so elegant. And again, if people say, well, you know, besides where the roof is, what are they good for? Can't we value engineer them? Can't we clip them off? But it's just like my experience with that community grocery store, which is very much along the lines we've been talking before, is like, if you're saving money elsewhere and making them so repetitive and rigid and efficient and effective, then you have some money left over that you can spend. Then we can do one thing for this. Because actually the cubic footage of the extra concrete is really not worth mentioning, right? So with so little more, you create so much as you, before the show, you were like, again, expressing your love, made a lot of declaration towards these, right? Oh yeah, the aesthetics of this entryway, the soaring high quality is something you'd never see again. Yeah, and let's go to the next slide here because we're having the tourist industry because there's a hotel. We were talking, well, maybe they could keep it, but then basically make it luxury suites for the hotel. And then there is our exotic escapism expert, Susan, who basically says, no, don't do that because this project was innovative because it was foreseeing a trend that we now have even more that you don't wanna create hospitality ghettos or resorts, the keyword is mixed use, right? And you mentioned another lady. Yeah, and Kimberly Pine, who I believe she's either a representative or a senator in the state government, and she just recently introduced a bill saying, people who are incoming to the Hawaiian Islands should be signing an agreement saying that they will respect this environment and treat it as though they were residents here. Same type of mentality. Yeah, yeah, yeah. And before we now actually have, we speak on behalf of the architect or Ronald, let's do one more thing here, thank you, which is the environmental check that we always do. Well, the hotel is strategically, as Ron told us, facing south towards the ocean, Makai, and then Malka to the north because at that time, they weren't able to handle it differently even if air conditioning wasn't able to handle anything else. So they had to do that. But the apartments are turned around, which is usually a no-go. We tell the students, don't face west, but here because of the dense pecking and then the landscaping is basically self-shading and it works very well. And you pointed out the trade winds too. And we've got strong trade winds in this particular location. In fact, in the hotel itself, sometimes it's a little too windy, but there's always air movement, almost always going through this and helping keep it comfortable. So we're now, let Ronald talk through us and we have our producer Eric basically walk us through the project one more time, actually from sort of, you know, Makai to Malka. And so we're gonna switch and basically alternately basically say what is the wonderful. We thought we'd just have to share that with you guys. So another angle is considering saving the apartments from destruction before 2027 is that it was very much a partner with the original Kahala Hilton Hotel. Some of that statement is rather obvious. Both themes were designed at roughly the same time by an extremely talented architect who was at the very height of his creative powers. And the architects love this man who wrote this for the original Kahala Hotel is tied up with how avowed modernity was enriched with elements of classical planning, especially touches of axiality and symmetry. The warmth of the traditional was used as a pleasing contrast with the modern setting. Wood louver panels, art glass chandeliers and light fixtures, a beautifully curving stairway whose wooden handrail is a masterpiece of the carpentry arts and soft, pleasing paint colors over all the exposed concrete. Both structure and walls add to this the respectful touches of tropical Hawaiiano. Black lava stone wall, festooned with colorful orchids as it wrapped around the curving stairway, lush plantings everywhere. And as I've just recently, this display of a museum piece, example of ancient Hawaiian bird feather crowning headdress and cape in the very epicenter of the entry lobby pavilion. But as Ronald says, the apartments that we're talking about here are even more starting a classical and plan layout. The buildings over their 5.5 acres are completely symmetrical. The major classical axis runs through the very centerline of the outdoor reception lobby through a jungle garden, there we go, across a long midline of a classically oval swimming pool that we have seen out over the beach and far away into the ocean. Cross axis through all four apartment buildings shorten the corridor experience and brings welcome, natural, side lighting to the experience of traversing the long though relatively wide corridors. There is no more traditional experience so well incorporated into a modern building in all of Hawaii as the two enormous new baroque murals that face each other over a soaring entry space that is hung with a bravura art chandelier. When the arrival of Kamehameha and the bird of Hawaii were first unveiled to the Oahu public, the local art world was truly incensed at what they considered a retrograde and black siding artistic endeavor completely out of place with its time. So that's to be argued. Yes, to be argued. The truly breathtaking and absolutely free gift that was lavished by Ed Killingsworth on both adjacent properties together is the soaring vertical proportions of applied columns and cantilevered beam ends and we've been seeing that very clearly. They are simply perfectly proportioned in my mind, in the mind of the architect. One looks at these and one is invariably and helplessly pleased with the active looking. Even more so, those exposed structural elements brought another lavishly and totally free gift to both the hotels and the apartments, simple flat facades, the enlivening humanizing and just plain mesmerizing play of constantly moving shadows throughout a sunny day and a full moon evening. Now comes a touchy part for me as an educator. Why haven't architects more amply provided such free gifts as deeply human proportions and the play of light in their architecture? There is a simple answer. The skill for creating pleasing proportions isn't been developed in architectural education, oh-oh, or in architectural practice, ooh-ooh. When one talks of deeply satisfying human proportions in buildings, one is skating too close to the concept of beauty. Architects are uncomfortable with this concept, possibly because they can't recognize it as the driving need that is most certainly is within a fulfilling life. It said that beauty was the promise of happiness. Can they no longer make people genuinely happy with their architectural settings? The miracle of Albert Choi's landscaping is especially evident at the apartments. After all, these are, quote, four shoeboxes setting out to sea, unquote, as Ed ironically described this major residential creation, all faced each other closely across dimensions as small as 30 feet. How could any reasonable degree of privacy be achieved from unit to cross unit? The answer is both simple and extremely difficult at the same time. It simply required a lush tropical landscape design from Albert Choi, who I pointed out to you, my parents knew, and who did landscape work for them, who was both a master landscape designer and the most knowledgeable plantsman in the island. It brought the difficulty of the need for constant and expensive maintenance, meaning trimming, cleaning, replanting, feeding, watering, et cetera, to create a consistently private and beautiful, there's that uncomfortable concept again, tropical paradise for the apartment's lucky denizens. Now for a discussion of a less obvious partnership, a symbiosis between the apartments and the hotel, especially in their early years of such close adjacency. The owners of the 196 apartment units had spacious residences. That is true. However, they used the hotel as their semi-private living room, source of lively entertainment, dining room, and guest facilities for visiting family and friends. And that is what exotic escapism experts and us is today even more necessary in the future. Today and in the future. They were apartment residents who rarely ever cooked, choosing to simply stroll to their gracious and delicious hotel dining experiences. Indeed, in the early partnership years, the hotel kitchens provided room service to the apartment. Once the hotel had become successfully busy with their own fully occupancy guests, this practice was gradually curtailed or could be reactivated. To Ron's mind, the original hotel and the apartments are the unblemished left facial cheek and the right facial cheek of a single beautiful woman. He did like to talk about that. He does. Please forgive the bold and histrionic romantic sentiments. But a successful intoxicating romanticism is what was created here in these closely related architectural achievements. As perhaps never before, modernism, traditionalism, classicism, and a warm touch of authentic Kauaiana were superbly combined to create the unique and piercingly beautiful romanticism of tropical living that was shared by both short-term hotel guests and long-term apartment residents. This was done so well that it deserves to be maintained for many future generations. Perhaps it has never been done better anywhere in the world's tropic and subtropic regions. It certainly deserves an unmitigated love directed toward preserving it, not just a stale and impartial consideration of the merits of what surely exists today as a human community of the highest order. And let's also just point out that Ron is very experienced in building in many tropical environments because he had done a great deal of that. He told us that. He gave me a list of 222 projects all over the world. So that is very experienced. And that's for him to say that with his experience. Absolutely. So thank you, Ron, for that. No one could have cut this more perfectly. Exactly. We phased out here with quoting you, DeSoto, and of the architect of your youth, because we were saying, well, the landowner can say, well, who says that? Obviously, are we. But is there an example where that has basically been able to work out? And so what is that project? And the example is the IBM building, which is also designed by Vladimir Ossipov, a very important local architect. And the Howard Hughes Corporation was made to understand that that was a building worth keeping. And they fortunately did take the step to do it. That's their corporate headquarters now for their local operations. And it's been saved in the midst of an area of tremendous redevelopment. So as you said, we understand that we can't keep everything. But there are certain buildings that we must focus on, and we must keep. And this building is a zeitgeist zibling, because it was built in 62. And the hotel's one and a half, two years later. So it's definitely, again, please come here at school. The message is clear as the name of the show. Kahalas, Killingsworth, Condominiums, Keeper. So please, please, please. And with that, we're at the end of the show. Hopefully, we hope to see you again soon for one of our next shows addressing the same issues. And until then, please stay troppy, hearingly, treatextually tropical. Bye-bye.