 And welcome to Think Tech Hawaii and Human Humane Architecture. I'm DeSoto Brown. I'm this program's co-host. And joining us live from Germany, where he is currently stationed at, is our host, Martin Despang. And does Martin want to appear on screen? There he is. Hello, Martin. Hello, DeSoto. Hello, Hawaii. So what are we doing this week? We, as we promised in the last show, which was about our way of therapeutically dealing with the, unfortunately, soon-to-be-raised, e-raised Princess Kailani hotel, we promised to look at other hotels who might be keepers, right? Glenn, if we can get the first picture up here, please. At the very top left, you see when we were out there in this next project that we're going to talk about today, looking at the Princess Hotel, and it's using a methodology which you see at the very top right, which is a show with Timothy Schuler, our journalist colleague. And he uses a very interesting way of researching, which is walking. So on Kalakala Avenue, rather than cruising down in your convertible, where you can see things, but not things like we're going to talk about today. So what you see here is something I saw when, at some moment, I was looking up and I started to be intrigued. And you had told me, since it's being conceived, you have, you admitted you had never seen that the way we talk about it today. Exactly. I've never looked carefully at this building to be able to really analyze it the way we are about to do. Okay. Let's jump in because I was so curious. So I try to get up there. And next picture is me pretty much scavenger hunting here and sort of reaching out in a scary way here, flying over that little bell straight. You can see in the back are our favorite Pete Wimbley's Bank of Hawaii building. And at the very top right we referred to last week's show where, within that sort of international rationalism of the Princess Hotel, what gives it a sexy touch are these curvy, benign geometries, right? Which are pretty obvious, but what we're talking about today is less obvious, but nevertheless intriguing. And you can see that here that they went through the effort of basically casting this front with the panels. They're very, very subtly and cavely curved in shape. And try this today, good luck, because that's port-in-place concrete, the foam work, it needs skill, everything we talked in many shows we don't have unfortunately these days anymore. So let's look closer, go to the next slide here, because where I'm standing is on these little anise and they're using, implementing another very typical for the zeitgeist of the mid-century, the breeze block here. And next picture, it's done in a very sort of simple way here. These are not concavely curved manufactured, but they're just applied in this linear way and then sort of polygonally having this sort of breaking point. So that didn't take much to do that, but a very effective appeal. Next picture, what was your response to that? I was saying that there's a strong difference between the day and the night view here. What we're talking about is the exterior emergency stairs. And as you pointed out, every building has got to have those. These really are a feature, however, of this facade of the Outrigger Hotel, particularly at night when they are lit and the rest of the building kind of falls away and doesn't look as clear as it did during daylight. So between daylight and nighttime, the Outrigger Hotel has these two different views or different appearances based on just this one vertical stripe that's in that part of the facade. Exactly. And derived, as you said, from a very utilitarian sort of background and not blinked or bedazzled as they like to throw things on buildings today that make little sense functionally, but just try to catch your eye. So let's move to the next slide here to the next picture. And then as we know, in building codes, you need to have another egress. This is on the other end of that sort of double-loaded corridor organized building here. This is an internal staircase, probably few people ever see that one, but as you can see, there's some nice attention to detail. There's a sort of dark stained concrete in black and the guardrail is very simple but delicately done. It reminded us because our show is pretty much a play to you about, as we said, keep this one, don't tear this down or alter it in a way that it wouldn't do justice to its sort of initial sort of character. And the same, you know, we said that a couple of shows ago at the very top left here to my employer, U.H. Snyder Hall with similar features of breeze blocks and these sort of welded rebar guardrails, don't tear Snyder down, U.H., please. Right. So next picture. Most people will experience it this way in this hallway here. It is a double-loaded corridor. So it's a very generic American type of rooms on the left and on the right. Reminded us of top right are a show about the Kahala Hilton with similar features. But nevertheless, again, they went through the effort to widen the corridor in front of the room so you get more space there. And they were sort of soft edging it in this case here. So there's there's some subtle sexiness to even to that sort of very unsexy type of a double-loaded corridor. Next picture page here. And then you go down and we, you know, selected three probably sort of privileged views of what people see in the in the hotel. This is on the sort of upper level, the podium level, not on the ground floor, but elevated one floor above that. And this is here, you know, has a typical sort of ordinated carpet, pretty literal of these days. This is obviously new. All the interior is not original anymore. And what do you think the canoe you told me might refer to? Well, certainly, I think and I think you agree that this is a reference to the hotel's name, which is the Outrigger Hotel. And it's because it was built on the side of the original Outrigger Canoe Club. And this right here as an art piece in the middle of the lobby is an Outrigger Canoe. Therefore, they are literally referring to their name. Yeah, as everything is pretty liberal, jump to the next one. We found something that is at least a little bit referring to some sort of which tourism likes to refer to more to sort of pre-contact and what we're interested post-contact context. And here they're using lava rock. They're using some wood, which is probably once it looked like gold. Probably it isn't. And there's some ancient pictures here. And of course, it's the Hula Grill because Hula is, you know, what you highly well upon and brand tourism, what lures people because it has this exotic pressure here. We don't have luskers. It's freezing cold here, by the way. You know, that's why people from Germany and other parts of the world come by. And another reason is next picture here is the stunning climate and the view to Diamond Head. This is pretty plain and simple. It's unfortunately exclusive. It's sort of a VIP lounge. I was sort of, you know, spying through the window in the door here, but it's got a glass front that reminded you of how probably the hotel sort of has been looking in the past because it was about the view, right? It wasn't about the interior and about the decoration, but it was more really taking advantage of what Hawaii has to offer. A spectacular climate spectacular view. Yeah, next picture, we are now looking at a little elevator because as you pointed out yesterday, this project is squeezed in between the two first hotels, the Royal Hawaiian and the Moana Surf Riding. And it's squeezed in there so the lot is confined and these constraints basically inspire the architect to have this sort of soothe balcony style where you basically tilt the window to give people a good view. It's all about the views these days. And so that and then there was sort of semi-curving the Lanai slab. So you get this sort of more attractive way of outdoor experiencing. And this has been featured not so much a building, but the sort of role of surfboards has been featured by the by the monocle publisher in their city guide about Honolulu and also Will Bruder was intrigued by sort of the the syntax and the rhythm of surfboards being lined up. So again, the hotel is next picture. Is sort of have been dwelling upon that sort of being in between modernism and and the exotic. And these are treasures from your archive, the solo. Yes. And tell us a little bit about how you see the hotel was sort of sold and branded to the customer. Well, in 1967, when the other hotel opened, it was a time when Hawaii was being shown to be modern, swinging up to date, not old fashioned, not overly romantic, but someplace that was just as lively as any other place any other big city. So they wanted you to think the Outrigger Hotel, as you can see, is where it's happening. And that is a totally 1960s slogan. And the illustrations here really also showed you that there's nightlife. There are cocktails. There's entertainment. There are well dressed people. There's the surf. It's got everything happening there. It's Hawaiian, but it's also up to date and happening. Absolutely. And next picture. And while we're pointing out some earlier hotels, even by modernist by Edwin Bauer or by Pete Wimbley, they were trying to do tiki things and alluding more to the pre-contact here. It's purely this is America, right? Yeah. But it has America with a very exotic and we can add erotic touch. Right. Look at the woman at the very bottom right. Yes. And what does she wear? Look at the dresses. What is she wearing? What are you going to tell us about what she's wearing? I think she's wearing Itzi Pizzi, Teeny Weenie, Honolulu, Stran-Pikini, and that's the German version of that famous American song, right? Itzi Pizzi, Teeny Weenie, I love to talk about bikini. Yes. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. So in the German version, and you're a fan of these kooky German songs, dreaming about this tropical, exotic place in Hawaii, and they were saying Honolulu, Stran-Pikini, and Stran-Pikini is obviously the Yubikini on the beach. So you also see that sort of the Yaloa shirt isn't really the, you know, the high end. It's more like what I call the early, like Hilo Hatti, more synthetic things and the flowers, you look fake. So it's sort of a, you know, a very Hawaiianized American tropical dream and sort of living that dream for these few days of vacation that you can afford. That's really the next slide here because it doesn't just stay on the outside, but on the inside. Here is a postcard comprised of a couple of pictures and I cropped out the interior rooms and let's jump to the next picture and you again recall what we're talking about in the last show already. Yeah, we've got two things interesting going on in this view. In the first place, we've got the screen, which is not literally any particular design, but it is very modern. So it's got these incised or cut out patterns in it, but also the major difference between then and now is that rooms at that time were made very colorful, very exotic, really punch you in the eye with bright colors and lots of patterns. And today we've shifted to where hotel rooms are now bland. They are blonde colored things and light colored things. And you have a plain white bedspread, not a patterned one that and not a patterned colored floor either. So we've shifted from riotous color to a very restrained palette for hotel rooms. Very less playful, very less exotic, erotic these days, right? Right. And our tropical tourist expert Suzanne has touched on that in her show a little later on. So let's jump on to the next picture here. Again, bottom one from your archive, the top one, all the pictures we're showing now are either from your archive or they are from a display, a glass display case that's on that upper podium in the hotel. And that top one is showing the pool and notice the pool isn't is primarily a rectangle, but then they went through the effort to give the narrow end the same in this case concurved sexiness than the hotel has. So again, corporate geometry here we can say. Move on to the next slide. Again, on the left postcard from your archive on the right from that glass box, trying to sell at the end, given all the efforts that we recognize and appreciate, but it's still a pretty American, you know, generic hotel box downloaded corridor. But they try to brand it and sell it as as being exotic erotic. There's the correct. And also with an outrigger canoe in each picture. So in again, playing off the name of the hotel, we're showing you an outrigger canoe in the in the foreground here to get across to you that it's Hawaiian. Exactly. And the lady on the right is dressed less, you know, the way wines used to be dressed. And then, you know, in the 60s, where it was, you know, America free and and and basically emancipating itself, people were stripping off things and then going and that's right. Let's try next picture and move on to the next slide here. The previous one basically said something about deluxe sort of quality of and this is this is a card from you that basically goes more specifically and says luxury with economy. And we wanted to point out while the outrigger chain was more for the middle class, unlike its immediate neighbors, the Royal Hawaiian and the one I'm so proud of, right, are more high and but within the outrigger chain, this one was the most high. Yes, right. So relatively speaking, let's move to the relatively is the point because as we talked about earlier, this was the high end outrigger hotel, but outrigger hotels in general, as you said, were meant to be for middle class people who accommodate them to be able to come all this way to the Hawaiian Islands. So next one here, next slide. Let's go very briefly, we should probably dedicate an entire show to that. But in two sentences, the soda tells a little bit how it all started with the outriggers. Okay, this is Ray and Estelle Kelly. They moved from California in the late 20s before 19 before the World War II. Ray Kelly was an architect. He first worked with Charles Dickey and then he was out on his own. He designed a number of small, concrete apartment houses in Waikiki before the war. And then in 1947, he developed his first hotel and that's in the picture on the left, which is the Islander Hotel. And that was the beginning of the whole what is now called the outrigger hotel chain. Exactly. So very interesting example of what we call the architect as a developer. Right next picture here, showing us basically all the hotels, the bottom one is from you. It shows either all the one that he built or that he purchased and later, you know, made part of his empire. And at the top right is from that glass case. And the top left is from you again, which you were keen to point out, look at the heart around the building because they were thinking it's in the heart of everything. And sort of is location-wise, it's a prime location. Right. Let's move to the next slide, where we basically see that postcard on the left again shows the main outrigger ones. And the right one, we took a picture of one on Covio Street that has now been purchased by Hilton, like the Garden Inn or something like that. So it's an empire in transition. Next picture that has also ventured out, this is from their poster wall in the hotel, where they were showing to which other exotic places in the world they're all ventured out, like people with the outriggers way back. So the voyagers picture. And we want to, with the next picture, start out to phase out and make some suggestions how to go with this in the future. This is a shot we took like in the later afternoon where the street is shaded and the hotel is sort of sticking out and tracing the sun and the views. Next picture. And but you don't see it that way. Usually you see as in the next picture here, you see the podium. We get the next picture please. There we see the podium, the picture you took for us here. A two-story podium and then the hotel slap is basically pushed back. And I was curious how that have looked way back in the cool heydays of mid-century modernism. And you help me out next picture. And we're digging that out of the archive. And you can see very plain and simple, very glazed. Us being keen on saying that architecture also has to perform somehow climatically. This probably worked out fine, because this is facing pretty much east. And then with the high buildings around it, it's probably always shaded. So it was biochlamatically appropriate, or at least not inappropriate to design it that way. And very lean and very clean and very sexy. These people need to undress, obviously, but they will when they go to the beach. They will, yes, right. Next picture. Next picture. Tell us about the other. You were already saying there's a lot more going on in the hotel than just sleeping. So what was that? Correct. And one of the things that they promoted in that in the earlier thing that we saw where they said where it's happening, they were also saying that there was a lot of entertainment going on in this hotel. So there was a showroom at which this particular group that you can see in the two diagonal pictures, the Society of Seven, or SOS, performed there for many, many years. So the outrigger wasn't just a place to sleep. It did have bars. It did have dining rooms, but it also provided live entertainment and was known for being a place that provided live entertainment. And let's move on to the next slide. Because while, again, the podium doesn't look original anymore, nor does the one of Pete, which we show on the left side, which had a plinth that was in compliance with a sexiness of the tower. And on the right side, it's not. It looks like the Cheesecake Factory next door. There's a subtle little sign there that says Blue Note. If we go to the next page, your next slide, Blue Note, if you don't know, is a classic jazz club originating in New York City and they have selected locations all over the world. But I have one and we got one in Waikiki in that building. And on the left, I'm sure you were there, but we didn't know each other at that point because you being the Tiki expert on the island here, this was Don Tiki playing and Don Hibbert and Tropic Gear Rockwood and myself went. And I went there with our tropical tourism expert, Suzanne as well, for a smooth gas show. So that's that's a good sort of continuation of tradition of entertainment. Next one is another tradition because Suzanne remembers something else very vividly and that's something very erotically exotic. That is a pool that has a glass wall as facing a bar. So that's as cool as you can get it way back, right? And we found a little picture of a little mermaid at the very bottom left here. Everything was themed after that. And guess what? She's topless, right? So she's dressed as winds used to be. So there wasn't really, you know, people weren't proved as proved way back as sort of we got more mood mood now both in what we wear and what buildings were, right? Yes, that's right. Let's move on to the next slide here, which is another institution within that probably most people know the building more for this one here. This is the legendary restaurant used that you can that are tropical tourism expert Suzanne remembers from some while ago, many years ago on the left about it left her there and then on the right her visiting. And again, it's an institution. It's a it's a nice place that you pointed out is rather egalitarian because unlike the other restaurants where you have to get in from the sea and street side here you can just walk in from the beach. You got to rinse your feet but otherwise you're just out there and it's for everyone, right? That's right. The hotel has a very sort of inclusive approach versus being expert and that's something next picture we want to further dwell upon here because Suzanne is originally Bavarian from Germany, that part where you think, you know, this is typical Germany with the beers and the journals and all that stuff. We were walking through downtown the equivalents to Kauau Avenue. This is downtown Munich highest real estate prizes and here's some sort of conservative citizens expressed their their worries. This is your German learning lesson. You want to give that a try? Well, the top phrase is let's say to hell with expensive luxury apartments and below that it says wellness for all meaning they were anti gentrification, correct? Exactly, and that's an issue. The next picture we are facing on the island here big times and this is a really acute card you provided from your treasure box here about how they envisioned the Outrigger way back, you know, in this sort of naive way but you can see they wanted to make this, you know, thing that, you know, gave access for relaxation and enjoy paradise for a little while. It's a little silly, it's a little naive, but I think it's well meant at its time. The building is, you know, has sliding doors, it's rather biochlamatic, so even though it's a big chunk of concrete, but within that, you know, it really tries to be a good building that sort of evolves Hawaii above and beyond what it was, you know, before contact. So next picture, a building upon that, this is under construction and you got to make some correction here and tell the people in the hotel to please replace that sign up there, right? Correct. We call that Schnupstsa, 55 is what, so we call, you know, numbers that have multiple, are comprised of multiple, of the same numbers, Schnupstsa, which means liquor number, so we got to replace that with the next liquor number which is 66 which is familiar to me because it's my year of build and that's when this was built which you had said before, right? Right. So they were mistaking this for the reef hotel and it's actually the outrigger hotel under construction, not the reef hotel. Exactly. But why are we so keen on this stage of construction the solo? Well because we're talking about, yeah let's go to the next slide. What we'd like to talk about is the removal of exterior walls and the concept that buildings can be made to be more adaptable as well as more appealing by keeping some of this, keeping a lot more easy breezy. This is one of Martin's classes projects and it shows that Foster Tower, which is in a fantasy view has been stripped of this exterior, it has a vegetated seaside wall or makai wall and that's one of the ways that perhaps things can be made more livable but that's not the only one if we go to our next slide we'll see that this is again one of the projects done by Martin's upcoming architects who are still students and this is Primitiva 1 which is a cylindrical building which is open to the elements. It also is meant to be where people gather, where people intermingle, where there's a lot of open space, where people are able to purchase their food on the site of the hotel of the hotel of the building itself. It's got transportation, etc. Again we are being visionary if you will and next slide I think we're going to go to yeah Martin tell us what what we want to look at here. You know the recommendation of tropical tourism expert Suzanne is pretty much when you look at the tradition here of the Outrigger it wants to be like a an artificial mountain it's almost as big as Diamondhead as it looks here right and as we said it was innovative you know at its time it was it was cutting edge so we should try to be that now even more because we're at the beginning of the 21st century if we go to the next slide which is our last slide as we pointed out in many shows and the last one about the conversion of the Waikiki Park Hotel into the sort of extension of the Hale Kalani we increasingly have the problem that the people who who do all the work in the hotels for the guests can't afford to be on the island anymore right so we got this you know and we were saying you know to prevent a revolution and civil war which has happened in situations like that in the past we better come up with more integrative more inclusive solutions as a version of what Suzanne and the industry calls a statable tourism basically mixes and you found an interesting island tradition that one could reactivate for that right correct we were talking last night about how during World War 2 because of the lack of living arrangements for workers who had to be brought here to Oahu to work at Pearl Harbor there needed to be people needed to share rooms and accommodations and so one man would have a cubicle or a bed to sleep in while he was off work and that might be during the day and then when he went to work at night another man who was then off would come in and use that same space and that was of necessity because of crowding that what Martin and I have talked about is what about adapting more cohesive uses or co-uses of spaces to not only create more space for people but also to bring people together and what we've also discussed is the idea of having workers for hotels live on site rather than have to commute from a long distance away and we're not there yet and we don't know how that might shake out but these are just as Martin said visionary views or ideas to look at for potential use in the future yeah and it's sort of breaking up with this sort of territorialization and the terrorization of territorialization of space where you you know you claim your room which you only use for I mean you're in Hawaii you're on the beach you're shopping and you only crash there for couple of hours so the other time it's wasted so to utilize that to the wasted space is the attempt to look at the building more as a landscape if you can do sort of more freely inhabit like you do with parks you pop up a tent which is another great island traditions what the locals do on the weekend well it's time for us time but we are but I think we got ourselves yeah we got ourselves into something so next time let's do another erotic exotic hospitality typology and I think there is one just down the road but let's not tell people more so they are excited in its unit okay everybody thank you for joining us for human humane architecture you'll see Martin again and me again in the future till then aloha