 Hello everyone, welcome to Think Tech Hawaii, and today we are saluting the work of Dokomomo. What is Dokomomo? It is essentially kind of the fan club of mid-century architecture, meaning from about 1930 to about 1980. And today on this Dokomomo-themed program, we have a guest, William Bill Chapman. As he is called, he is the Dean of Architecture at UH Mānoa. Thank you for the wild nickname. Wild nickname, Bill Chapman, we call him. And what we're going to talk about today specifically is buildings that we've lost. So these are Honolulu buildings that have been demolished from the modernist time period. Things that we want to emphasize to people, too, that while we cannot stop change, we also want to be aware of conserving things and preserving things, and being aware that buildings of this time period are worth preserving. Well, Hawaii was really blessed with a lot of modernist architecture because it coincided with the boom period of development, just around the time of statehood and afterward. And so we had a lot, and a lot has been lost, like you say. Well so, Kokos is behind us, but we're not going to deal with Kokos right yet. Let's go to our first slide, and this is what we're talking about. We're talking about demolition. And before the show started, you and I were discussing the wholesale destruction of a lot of downtown Honolulu for urban renewal, as well as the construction of the H-1 freeway, as well as the widening of vineyard boulevard. So the loss of these things is what we're... Yeah, it's a kind of paradox in a way, because what was getting lost during urban renewal was really the 19th and really early 20th of July. Yes, it was. So we lost our downtown, we lost Chinatown, really. We kept some of it. We lost our very little. Yeah. And then we lost other neighborhoods, and yet modernism ushered in vineyard and the highways. Exactly. And in a way that's always been strange to me, now in my point in my career, to preserve the... Yes. Trying to preserve the very buildings that lent themselves to the loss of these really wonderful 19th century buildings. That's exactly right. And this is something things gain charm and interest as time passes that they did not initially seem to have. Right. Okay, first let's go to our slide. Let's go to our next slide. And we're going to talk about something, a development of the post-war period when those are shopping centers. And there are a lot of extant shopping centers still with us from that time period. But here are two that are gone, completely gone. The Moanalua shopping center that you see at the upper right, there still is a shopping center in that location. But this 50s one was completely demolished. Did you... Yeah. Who designed this? Well, it was a group of architects, but it included Alfred Price and Vladimir Asipov were both on the team that designed this shopping center. And those are... Look at that wonderful graphics. Yeah. And that's something else too. We're just talking about signage, et cetera, which has all changed as well. And then in the lower corner, we've got the Kalihi shopping center. Now this is entirely gone except for a part of it, which is now a car dealership. And this opened up in the middle 1950s. And it was in an area, a small area of Kalihi that had a little boomlet of some 50s buildings, the First and Wyand Bank across the street, across North King Street. There's also a church right nearby. So there was a 50s redevelopment of this area, which had been just pretty much residential. This is one of the few shopping centers that didn't really just take off and stay in its position. And most of the other ones have. It's got an elegant entrance, don't you think? Oh, I know. And it's got these very thin metal poles and it's got the cookie skylight hole in the roof. Right. And then the kind of trees interpenetrating, it's just a terrific, terrific little center. Reminds you some of some of the schools of the period. Well, I was just going to say, I went to Punahou and the Winnie units, they looked very much like that. Absolutely. And my daughter studied at Winnie units, I remember that too. Yeah. Okay, next venture. And a shopping center that is still very much with us is Olimwana shopping center. I think a lot of people wouldn't even recognize it today. That's right. That's right. Well, this is the way it looked in 1959, when it opened. Completely dominated by parking at the time. And yet there's hardly a parking structure, it was surface parking. That's right. Well, it was, but as we talked about, when it was, it had been Bishop of the state land, Walter Dillingham bought it. He filled it via the Hawaiian dredging company, which he owned. And they started talking about building a shopping center here in the late 1940s, 1948. It was going to be a one level one, but then when they actually started it in 1957, they kicked it up to be a two level structure. This is what's called phase one. Now the basic structure is still there. Let's go to our next picture. Well, you know, William Murtaugh, who some people know, he was a pioneering historic preservationist. He said he remembers being over at La Pietra, talking to Walter Dillingham, and Dillingham said he had this idea for this new shopping center. They conceived it in the late 40s and started really doing the prep work by the mid 50s. And as you said, 58, 59 is when the construction got done. And then I guess it was Don Graham was a California developer who was brought in to kind of conceptualize the whole place. Well, the thing that I wanted to say is that Alamwana, the basic structure is still with us. So in the lower picture, you can see the mall on the opening day in 1959, in August of 1959. That basic structure is still there. But what we have lost at Alamwana are the other accoutrements or the facades that were very much of the time. So the top picture shows you this fresco bar relief, modernist, abstract picture of Honolulu, which was on the Maoka wall of what was the McInerney store. And as a little kid of five or six years old, looking at that one, it opened. I thought, wait, is that supposed to be Honolulu and which building is which? Because I'm still very literally trying to figure out what that was. Well, all of that's been lost, as you said, because of these. Now, is this at the, see, I didn't live in Hawaii at that time, but is this at the Sears End then? Well, this is the phase one end. So this McInerney store was right where the center part is today, where the stage is. That was just, so this was at the Diamondhead end of that, on the Maoka side. OK, OK. Well, next picture, we see two other things that are gone. Right, well, certainly that piece of art is gone in the pool. We do see that, we do see the Alamoana building. And that's certainly, and we still have the revolving restaurant that no longer revolves. That doesn't revolve. Well, the lower picture shows you a fountain that was located in the center part, which now, of course, is, it's kind of where Neiman Marcus is now. Right. And exterior fountain, the center portion of the mall was not covered at that time. And in the top picture, this was, Longs is the only store that's still there. This was the side of the Longs drug store where there was a planter box that had this ceramic fifties abstract tile pattern on it. And it also had the open ceiling of the open roof with the with the slats in it, too. You know, to my mind, what probably the only really distinctive piece of not first phase, but early second phase, is Liberty House itself. Oh, yeah. That's really the only thing you see of the period today. That's right. Well, let's go to the next picture, because here's phase two. And this is what you just were mentioning, the part that was opened in 1966. The mall, the fountain in the center, of course, has been changed. The overhead part has been changed. It's been enlarged from two stories to three stories. And at the very end, this is the Liberty House end where Shirokia was and where the Conrad Jewelers was. There was this soaring structure with the circular holes in the ceiling. Wonderful again, isn't it? With the coming down to these tapered columns. Yeah. Oh, yeah. Very, very typical of that time. It's like it's like the state capital building. It's like it's like other things, too. And this is, again, all wiped out. The travel later was a an escalator that you can see that was flat. I didn't have steps. I always remember hearing the story about the earlier series that the Sears building, which I think was on baritain. Yes, it was. And that was the first escalator in town. And it actually brought people out. No, you're wrong. The first escalator was in the Mitsukoshi Department Store in 1941. I understand that the one at the Sears was a big deal. Oh, I want to see one. OK, well, next picture. Let's see what else we've got. OK. Oh, right. The Hawaiian Village Hotel. What a place, huh? What a place. The Hawaiian Village Hotel opened in 1955 and it was built by Henry J. Kaiser, who we were talking about earlier, just was a huge industrialist very well to do, and he just said, build it. I want it built right now. Build it. And people did. And from 1955 to 1960, the Hawaiian Village changed dramatically. They constantly were building stuff. Very little of the original 50s Hawaiian Village is still there. This is a picture of an amazing thing which was there. It's a swimming pool, as you can see, but it had a retractable cover. So on the left-hand side, there are the people standing on the retractable cover. So during the day, it's a swimming pool. And next picture, by night, it's a dance floor. This is an interesting story, because this was one of these old Hawaiian estates. Yes, right. It was a John Ina estate. Yes. It became a hotel. The mana. The Niumalu. Niumalu in 1928. Yeah. Modest wooden buildings. Right. And then this would be replaced by Henry Kaiser's vision. Right. He had another California developer working on this one, Brits Byrne. Brits Byrne says correct. That's correct. And he had this idea of creating this little village. I think there were 70, not individual unit cabins, but 70 rooms. That's all. And I think some of them may have shared the same little. They did. They were the same. They were like a duplex. They were like individual houses, essentially. It's what they looked like. And it was right around the corner from a place that you and I both loved, that Tahitian and I. Well, exactly. Which had a lot of the same scale and stat style to it. It was a lovely place. And I don't know how they got around the fire code and issues like that. Oh, that's a very good point. Well, something else that was at the Hawaiian Village Hotel, which was very notorious in our next picture, is the Kaiser aluminum dome. What a thing we had, right? I know. And this was used as an auditorium. And it was partly a publicity stunt for Kaiser brand aluminum, which Henry J. Kaiser owned. But it was also this Buckminster Fuller design was what we all thought we were going to be living in in the distant future in the year 2000. He had been an artist and resident at Black Mountain College in North Carolina back in the 40s, right after the war. He'd had some experience in the military during the war with building temporary buildings and things. Correct. And he came up with this geodesic dome idea. And he thought he could put these pieces together and they had tremendous strength. Because as anyone in the building trade knows, a triangle is your really most rigid form and stable. This went up in two days, two 11-hour shifts. They actually did put a column in the middle. And then they built around that column. And then they could magically remove the column. And it went up almost 50 feet, 548. So it was five stories high. Got finished in 57. His first big dome, it would later become a kind of, like you say, a hallmark for the counter culture during the 60s of your own geodesic dome. Exactly. They got very few in Hawaii because of permitting, I think. But at the time, this was the space age. This was modern. And ironically, then in the hippie era, it became kind of like a do-it-yourself down rule thing. And they made a amount of plywood. And then they rotted. They didn't work so well. That's right. Exactly. But this lasted until 99, is that what we thought? Well, see, if we go to the next picture, you'll see that the dome was a prominent landmark of the Hawaiian village property. And I still remember as a kid, I didn't see it here. But I remember when around the world in 80 days that David Niven came out. Right. Mike Todd's big extravagant thing, where he actually took the camera to other locales. Exactly. That and Zizi came out the same year where they actually filmed in Paris. Exactly. This was a big innovation. This was a big deal. Well, this famous movie around the world in 80 days, and again, Henry Kaiser loved publicity and free PR. So around the world in 80 days showed at the aluminum dome for like six months or a year or so. And I think they had a big, wide screen, right? Oh, they did. Because it was shot in SimaScope, right? And they put it, no, it was in Tadeo, which was Mike Todd's, yes, his own version. That's going to. Unfortunately, that is left. And then Don Ho, you'd use it as a venue for many years. Yes, he did. And I think in 64, you had Elvis at both, generally at the village, right? And he was there. When he first came in 1957, he stayed at the Hawaiian village, yeah. I think Sima Blue Hawaii was filmed there. Yeah, 1961, the film Blue Hawaii is shot there. Dennis, the menace comic book was there. You and I talked about it. I want to tell him again. I don't know what happened to mine. I've got mine. Hawaii Night Television Show took place there. We've got a lot of PR. OK, next picture. We are going to go to something that modestly called itself the world's most beautiful restaurant. And that was Candice Charcoal Broiler, which was at Kalakaua and Kalai Moku Street, designed by Wimberley, Pete Wimberley. Pete Wimberley and Cook at the time. They were a small group. Right, and I want to, I think I'm going to do a Wimberley show because he did so many amazing buildings. Yeah, very lovely, huh? And this was. It's like, you want to say it's Tiki, but it's really a step above Tiki. It is. Absolutely. No, you're not. Exactly. That's right. Go to the next picture, and we'll see the interior of it. And it's got this big, soaring A-frame. It's got the usual rough lava rock basalt rock contrasted with the other smoother surfaces. Yeah, exactly. You wonder how the, you know, the park naturalism, you know, seemed to have had a big influence on this as well. So the total inspiration isn't Polynesia. No. It's a little bit of the Mission 66 kind of stuff that was going on with the park service where they wanted to bring modernism into the park. Correct, and there was a lot of very soaring, pointy, big, thrusting structures. Right, big, open spaces like this, yeah. Right. Well, from this particular restaurant, we will go to another one in our next picture, and this modestly built itself as the world's most beautiful Chinese restaurant. I like this one very much. It's just checking something. This is, this is... P-Y, yeah, P-Y Chongs. Owned and built by a man named P-Y Chong, who uncharacteristically for a Chinese businessman spent way too much money and went bankrupt and had to get taken from him. Well, you and I were just talking before the show about I'd been recently in Los Angeles. And these kind of thematic shopping center, restaurant combinations were really the development of the time. And we tend to, you know, you kind of look at this and you see the obvious Chinese influences, including the pagoda tower and the gate and things like that. But it could have been, you know, done in the Spanish colonial style just as easily. So they've been, Los Angeles has a lot of these very much developments around. Los Angeles architecture had a big influence on us too. Absolutely. This was demolished in 1965 for a high rise, surprisingly enough. This was in Waikiki. And in the next picture, we can see that not only was this, there was an interior, obviously, of the restaurant, but it was a nightclub as well. Right. At an outdoor stage. And that's what I mean about having these kind of complex. Oh, absolutely. It was like a complex. So it has... You know, isn't it interesting to think, you know, Mrs. Cook rejected the tower by Bertram Goodhue for the Art Museum. It's almost like it ended up floating over here. Versus a square plan version when this one's round. But that's an eye-catching, you know, and in Waikiki at that time was all low-rise. It was an eye-catching building. Okay, next picture, we go to another restaurant and this is remarkable because this was on Kalakawa Avenue. It was demolished, it was built about 1960-61. Yeah, it was on the Makai side. And it was where the Cheesecake Factory restaurant is today in the Royal Hawaiian Shopping Center, but it looks like a home. It's amazing. Looks like a private home. Vladimir Asipov. And it looks like one of Vladimir Asipov's homes. And it is, as if you've transported it. And that kind of copper coloring and everything. The whole thing has a really strong kind of righty and feel. Very horizontal. Yeah, very much in the spirit of that. And this wonderful sort of screen wall on the left of what we always call Moss Rock here. Yeah, but it's lava. Lava's a terrific place, huh? And again, look at the writing. The script is so snappy, right? Yes. Well, speaking of snappy script writing, let's go to the next picture because this was one of my favorites. And if you look in the upper picture up in the top, the littlest kid in that picture is me. Oh, that is so cool. And that's me at the age of five at a top restaurant. I missed tops. I missed tops. I didn't see it ever. Well, this was open in 1956 at Alamoana and Ina Road. And across, it was diagonally across from the dome. So we had two really 50 structures right next to each other. And this was designed by a famous architectural group in Los Angeles called Armay and Davis. And they specialized in what is called Googie architecture for this type of coffee shops. And there's a lot of differentiation now, you know. What is Googie? What is programmatic? Programmatic, I guess, is when it actually literally imitates the product. Oh, correct. So you actually had hot dogs, giant hot dogs, that's all hot dogs. Right, this is not programmatic. This is more spacey. This is very spacey. And very modern, you can see this diamond-shaped structure that was composed of smaller diamond shapes, which, again, is a little kid. I thought, what is it there for? Well, it was just there to catch your attention. Exactly. But look at those diagonal braces there. It's like Talleus and West. Yes, it is. It's so much like that, right? It's a pop culture version of it. It's a pop culture version of Frank Lloyd Wright. This was demolished to build a high-rise in 1970. This building only lasted 20 years, from 56 to 76. Next picture, another restaurant. And this is very much like what you were just mentioning about Los Angeles influence. This is the Kaukau Corner Drive. It's the old 30s version, right, before they built the 1960 version of the placement. So this actually was built in 1941. And it, again, the rounded facade and the rounded base of the building. And this must have been built just before the war. Just before the war. And it was. This was a major hangout for GIs during the war. In fact, Kaukau Corner had that very famous sign. Famous sign, exactly. The directions of how far away Tokyo was and how far. Let's go to the next picture, because there is the famous sign. Oh, terrific, yeah. And this neon sign was located on busy intersection of Kaukau Avenue and Copilin Boulevard. What a shame now, there's nothing really to mark that. You have nothing left anymore. And this was, everybody had their picture taken there. And I can't believe. There are scores of pictures. I can't believe with the convention center being right next door, that somehow we haven't managed to create some urban space that brings this back. That nods to this. I think it should come back. I agree with you. This is what, basically, for our viewing audience who don't necessarily quite know where this is, this is Hard Rock Cafe. Well, it's actually now Honolulu Coffee Company. The Hard Rock Cafe moved out of the building. I knew that. They moved over to Kaukau as well. But that's where Hard Rock's building was. We go to the next picture. So in the 1950s, Kaukau Corner looked like this. And it's the typical archetypal, you know, Sock Hop, malt shop. And they actually did have serving young ladies. Yes. And I got taken there. I only remember going once in 1960 before it closed. And seeing how the tray got put on the car window was astonishing to me. And I didn't have that experience. I only had once. But you've got to remember that just up the street near where McKinley is, it was an outdoor theater, right? Oh, no, no, down the street, down Kopiwani, this is. Is there was a drive-in theater? This was all linear strip development, exactly. There was not a lot of houses yet. So in 1960, Kaukau Corner closed. And if we go to the next picture, this building that you just saw was just remodeled with a facade over it to make it really quick. And once again, we get the tall yes and kind of ribbing on the outside. Yes, exactly. And this is we've gone from a drive-in, which was one archetypal American restaurant to the 24-hour coffee shop, the other one. And then when this got demolished in 1986, what was built, the theme, the chain theme restaurant, the Hard Rock Cafe, all at that same location. OK, next picture. Now, we're going to have to go through some theaters very quickly. We're dipping back into the deco period, really, right? But this is the time period when there were neighborhood theaters in abundance. This is before television. And this was when, particularly in the 30s, there was a big explosion in local theaters. And so small towns. This is 31, I know. This is 1931. The Hollywood Theater was demolished in the late 70s, early 80s. 80s, I think, 84 or so. And it was a big over the weekend community. There's a lot of protests. People are really upset about it, because there's a lot of stuff going at that time. And it was really a local part of the community. Next picture is a really forgotten theater in Kahului. I know. And it has that kind of like the style of Puneho Chapel that kind of a. Yes, Dillingham. It looks like the Dillingham. Yes, and it's got this roof over the front. I didn't mean the chapel, but the performance center. Correct. And this was the one. That was Bertram Goodhue. And this is just probably a Goodhue knockoff. I think you're right. Something of the feel of the Southwest, right? I think you're right. Yeah, this was demolished for a shopping center in the 1950s. Next picture, we've got a theater that's still standing, although not as a theater anymore. It's part of a retirement community. What a funny schizophrenic building. You've got a little bit of what we were talking about about the California Exposition in 1915. The California Panama Exposition in San Diego, which Bertram Goodhue was the architectural coordinator for. And you've got a perfect signature of that on the top. Then all of a sudden, it goes to this modern look. Yes, it does. Yes, it does. And if you look on the far left, it's just a wooden structure. Exactly. So this facade is just there to make it look more grand. Well, it's still standing along. It doesn't show houses for a long time. It's a lobby of an old people's home, right? Is that appropriate to say? I should say so for the people who used to go to it. Next picture, we've got another theater in the city of Hilo. This opened in 1940. And unlike all the other ones, it wasn't demolished because of urban renewal or economic pressures. It was badly damaged by two tsunamis, one in 1946. And after the one in 1960, it closed for good, and it was eventually demolished. But it was very much like the Varsity Theater in Honolulu, which we've also lost. Yeah, this is great. Look at that. The Hall of the Star, the way they used the horizontal banding and then the light. And the lighting is very important. The exterior of neon lighting. Do you know the architect for this? I don't know. It's a terrific building, isn't it? I know the Varsity in Honolulu, of course, became a kind of rep house toward the end. And that was C.W. Dickey as he moved in a more modern style in the post-war, in the Jeffrey War period. Had to, yeah. Yeah, it was very interesting. But the plan of it was similar to the Toyo or the Waikiki, also C.W. Dickey theaters. OK, well, we've got to rush through the last few things. We've got our next picture is of another theater, and this is the Toyo Theater. It's C.W. Dickey, mainly Chinese, a little Japanese. Originally, I think, showed Japanese films. It did. Go to the next picture, and you'll see the very ornate interior of it. I think some of it resides in our mutual friend of ours house at this point. I hope so, I don't know. Our next picture is of another major theater. This is the C.W. Dickey, you know. Then it's just in time for the war, didn't open in time for the war, because the Navy requisitioned it, and then opened in 45. And I remember when it went down for Nike Town. It was a shame. That was a lovely place. It was a beautiful place. We've got several more pictures. Let's go quickly through our Waikiki theater. And our next picture. Absolute tragic thing. They took it apart in bits and pieces, so you never really had time to protest the whole thing. No, that's true. That's true. Next picture. Yeah, Waikiki theater. Had a wonderful fountain, which had metal plates with movie star signatures on it from the 1930s in the courts. You had the usherettes. Usherettes, oh, yes. Little pillbox hats that they ran around. They had, there were usherettes, because it was a reserve theater. They had this wonderful scenographic interior. And as the lights would fade, you'd see the clouds and the sky and the stars would come out. It was quite wonderful. It was magical. And I remember Bob playing the word. Oh, the Lady Organ. That's true. Yeah, it was great. OK, next picture. We've got our last thing. All right, good. The pineapple. This is the pineapple. I think a lot of people are fond of the pineapple. I was very fond of it. It was a real icon of Honolulu. It was atop the Dole Canary. It was the water supply for the emergency fire sprinkler system. It did not contain pineapple juice as I thought as a kid. And it was demolished in 1993 because it was falling apart. Well, apparently the original idea from this came from CW Dickey, who was related to James Dole. Who was the Dole company. And Dickey had designed other sorts of sign things. And he said, this would be a good idea. And then eventually it got built. And there was a guy named, what was his name? I wrote it down here. Sims Thurston Hoyt was the engineer who actually put it together. And then there was this Canadian guy named Coxcombe, I think his name was. And he would periodically repaint it because it was in a very harsh and marine environment. Yes, it was. And there was hope when they finally took it down that they would put it back up and they never did it. Well, folks, thank you very much for joining us. And we are very happy that you were here to join us for the Dole Momo show. That was super fun. So thank you. Well, I will be seeing you again in our upcoming shows for Dole Komomo as well as Think Tech's human human architecture. Till next time, everybody. Thanks and aloha. Thanks. That was great.