 Welcome to our exotic tropical boomtown of Honolulu Hawaii and we're dating the year 1969 and which person could be more characteristic for this era this golden era in America than the person you're going to see now on the screen from the first picture well so it's it's going to be John F. Kennedy but wait a minute it also looks a little like our co-host to Soto so maybe there's a little bit of both true what's what's the point here to so it was the point well that's not John F. Kennedy that is the Soto Brown in 1969 when he was getting ready to go to his second year of boarding school in Connecticut from here in Honolulu and the boarding school he was going to was the same one that John F. Kennedy graduated from in 1935 at which my father knew him as another student at the school at the time he was there a year before he was there oh yeah she was year after okay so so Kennedy was here ahead of my father but let's let's see what's what's the relevance to all of this well and then so yeah so let's do the next picture because then Kennedy the real Kennedy came here in 1963 but you guys didn't go why probably not well I don't my family and I did not go to see Kennedy's motorcade when he came here probably because my parents were Republicans and Kennedy was a Democrat but as you can see he's riding through Waikiki on Kalakawa Avenue and he came out here unexpectedly for just a really short visit for a mayor's conference and had a motorcade with thousands of people watched him in the same Lincoln Continental Converbal in which he was shot just months after his visit to Honolulu. That's kind of an astonishing and disturbing thing. A tragic fame this car and cars have been serving as the vehicle for exploration ever since we did a we did the shows and this is also our American or Honolulu top four of Steve Owes architecture and this is number four which goes back in time to nine to the late 60s here in Honolulu. So this has been various car-centric days right and and America had their sunset boulevards where it was cruising and this is certainly Kalakawa but then Kalakawa when you keep going ever aside west wise it turns into Alamoana Boulevard. So the building we're going to talk about we already see in the background but mostly people don't see it in this iconic shot that you took but number three people drive by and probably won't even recognize the building and before they actually see the building they you know this is what the building is actually about right the building is about parking the whole side is basically undermined with parking. And what's interesting is as you pointed out this is a protected parking lot from the wind and the rain it's also got open air to the easy breezy as you like to say but it's also hidden you don't see it from the outside until you drive in you aren't even aware that there is a major parking lot underneath this building. Excellent point if you this is why when you look at that picture it's very cleverly it's half submerged in the ground couple of feet and then there is this bellow straight panel so you can actually watch out while people from outside won't see the cars or barely the top of the car so it's it's very cleverly designed by the best parking garage from it's sort of as you can see here you don't see any cars it's all in the shadow right and it's and it's right where my thumb is right where my thumb is right there is the parking lot. Exactly. So number three is how picture I took a couple days ago which basically shows how we mostly drive by right we don't even recognize the car the cars we recognize but not the building and we might say well from this day and age where everything is about America superstar and people of no talent become stars or reality TV you know stars become president and stuff like that right yeah so in these days this this building might seem strange because it's so humble it's so subtle it's so nondescript it's unassuming and I would say that is a quality America was really good at background architecture not every building wanted to wanted to stand out exactly but if you take the minute which you did number four which is also a permanent background picture you can really see how sort of hovering how horizontal the building is very much so and it is an extremely unlike much of what's around it today and that's something we're going to get to at the end it's not vertical it's horizontal so what you see are parallel horizontal lines and something that we're going to get to is it looks like it is just one very plain box but in fact there's a good deal more to it than you can see from this yeah and finally if you guys haven't found out if your eyes aren't good enough like mine getting bad you know you can't see that little signage there so go to the next picture and we can see it clearly well how the project is called right that is the Ward Plaza and it is part of the entire Ward properties that are on either side in this case of Ward Avenue this is across the street from Ward warehouse which we've already discussed yeah and the Ward properties extended all the way from King Street all the way down to K. Wallow Basin and that's why all of those things today are still some of them are still named Ward after the family that originally owned this property in the 19th century and up until fairly recently in the 21st century and it was sold and where the sign was is actually sort of the the backside of the building although that's probably not a correct way to call it but we go to number six is so if you don't come and are someone who works there and you pull straight into this opulent parking garage but you might be a visitor and it might be raining which it does at times here there is a sort of driveway here where it's sort of very sort of almost like flamboyant you can say it's a port-co-sher oh that is the term and it's and it but it is intrinsically part of the building it's not just sort of a decorative add-on you can see that as you said earlier it protrudes out of the building and it's very much integral to the building in its appearance and in its entire structure yeah and so when you pull under and let's imagine in your 1960s Lincoln convertible pull under and the next picture then you make a stop and you get out of your car you're shaded from the sun and from the rain and you basically walk up this very wide staircase and it gives you this sort of very very sort of heroic feeling I we had when we were there in the last couple times to shoot these pictures right and you always so wanted to point out the characteristic the juxtaposition of the man-man in the natural environment right and we're gonna be seeing a good deal more of that but you'll notice the tree on the right of that picture well we'll see another tree that we can talk about so so maybe now we need a little bit of orientation and that's why these owners put up some signs and so we've been using them as sort of a navigational device in the couple shows because also in these projects which are like the Gesamtkunstwerk the total piece of artwork where the architect actually designed everything right including the signage short and we looked at the very rugged signage of where it housed the 70s just painting on wood yes whereas this one here number eight is very delicately designed you can see the signage here is sort of geometrically sort of the type has been crafted and and sort of customized tailored to the building right and that and I can tell you I can clearly remember when this building was new how distinctive that Ward Plaza typeface is and how unusual it was and still is very distinctive yeah yeah and here also shows so these are the floor plans for orientation here and when we say it's it's a building that's actually not quite correct right yeah it's actually got three different or I see four sections in the in the central part of the second floor but it again as I said from the exterior you see what looks like one big horizontal building in this floor plan you can see that in fact there are a lot of different spaces it is not one monolithic thing mm-hmm and that little thing that you say is almost the fourth one it's like the second to right picture in the middle picture at the bottom gets us to the next picture that's D and this is the next picture this is actually above that you know point where you get so majestically dropped off it's not just as you said a canopy which there are plenty good ones in Honolulu actually perfect ones that we're also going to do a show about in my future but this one here is very practical because there's also a utilizable space above right now notice to again horizontal and a very stark and man-made environment but down in the left-hand corner you see the tree and this is a clipped tree that's been clipped into a dome shape if you look at the front of the Ward Plaza you will see from Ward Avenue some very distinctive similarly clipped banyan trees that have that rounded dome shape now in one case on one hand that's nature juxtaposed against the starkness of the monolithic building but at the same time as you pointed out it's a very controlled nature because it's not just growing wildly it is shaped geometrically as well and these the same type of trees are also found clipped similarly at Ward warehouse across the street so it's a very sort of a neo-baroque approach correct sort of geometrializing our nature so the building one almost gets a little bit confused in a positive way and that one of the first things after we both send us out visiting it visiting it separate from each other you said Martin it reminds me of a piece of artwork of some years before from 1953 which is one of your favorite ones and yes we can see that next in the next and this is a picture by MC Escher which is called relativity and as a kid in the 1960s when I first saw this I was incredibly intrigued by all the different vistas the different planes the different sources of gravity and also the fact that not only are these people are all walking in different directions and within this space but you feel like you want to see into where these other places are you see glimpses of through doors and windows that you kind of want to go to and that's what I think Ward Plaza has it's exciting it's an adventure right it is exactly an adventure you want to explore yeah yeah and the next picture shows us one of the many plateaus against we can say this is the central Plaza the central plateau which is basically a white landscape and what intrigued me is that unless you know and and even if you know you forget that this is actually the parking deck right I mean this is a landscape this is a pristinely and cleverly which has a lot of occupational quality with these custom-made benches as you said with this nature and case and these troughs right very strategically placed and it's a very generous kind of landscape you almost forget that I want I want a boulevard which is closed and loud is there right the noise level and you have walls you have walls that keep you within a kind of a sort of a safe space sort of a protected space exactly that as we continue we do but then when you get closer and get to the buildings there is the next picture I call this using the German word gestalt rather than design this is shelter gestalt at the whole building that basically the overhangs that are correct characteristic for the building follow you while you progress and process through the building yes they do yes they do and again protection from elements and also feeling of sort of a feeling of coziness if you will because it's not a huge open expanse that you feel unprotected you have shelter and to that degree we started out and I said this is our exotic tropical Honolulu this is what makes this building exotically tropical right because it's aware of yes the things in the tropics to take care of which is shelter you from the sun and the rain right when the building does that in a very sort of successful way agreed right and not oppressive no absolutely not number 13 this is so American to me because I found that these sort of almost institutional buildings always have the sort of institutional identity and where you said before you know the servant this is sort of a lukewarm you know methodology that the servant spaces the basic they get consolidated in the building but they also get celebrated we talked about the water dispenser that is so American this is this courtesy of like we don't let you get dehydrated right he said in Germany not so much right right and other countries it's not we don't there they don't offer free water all the time and you pointed that out you know you know that better than I yeah yeah but it's also very efficient and effective to centralize the core you don't have it you know everywhere people have and it's almost like the outhouse way back in the early settler days right when you put it a little bit away because of certain you know reasons and so here you go on this little trip to the to the bathroom block and you certainly meet people and you can chat with people it's it's very very elegantly yes you know gestalted yeah yeah and but utilitarian as well absolutely yeah and so the next picture is probably sort of the most iconic ones that I was intrigued by immediately that where else there is a sort of coveredness and this sort of protectiveness and and sort of the landscapes are layered yes almost like tectonic plates stacked on top of each other yes but then there are these cracks there are these voids they actually bring light and rain and sundown once again into these places there are four people and for plants and for animals and you can already see a glimpse there next to the tree there there is actually someone there right and one of the earliest shows we did is about the international marketplace sis so the former one of the other one and after the show we realized something really sort of critical that there's a sign at the entrance and and if you come like a 30 in the morning we're hurt you're going to be asked to leave and come back at 10 because then when it's opened so this is like the the per the privatization of public space which is owned publicly and it pretends to be public but it's obviously private whereas this here is a commercial building this is private property usually you would see signs no trespassing not so much here the building is actually welcomes almost like trespassing in in a decent way and the next picture number 15 is I think I the guy was just there and you know he was sleeping so I didn't even couldn't even asking right and what are you doing here isn't that telling something right this is the building is holding true its promise to be a civic welcoming building although it's of private nature private type and as I was saying too there there's a sense of shelter and a sense of comfort in that you feel protected mm-hmm and not exposed absolutely in a good way and I have never seen when you were there have you I have not seen security no and I didn't see I agreed that I didn't feel like there was in this oppressive sense of yeah get out of here what are you doing here yeah I haven't seen it it might be there but it just seems like there's also no trashing the whole the whole urban nomad thing I'm surprised the urban nomads haven't discovered it like to settle there and there is probably some enforcement that they don't so most likely but again once again it's it's it's it's pleasant and and maybe it should open itself up to some qualified nomads who say well you know we would inhabit it in a in a in a decent way we'll let them deal with put up our tippies yeah I don't I don't think so and bring in our shopping carts I don't think yeah well in a civilized way I'm really intrigued by that by that you talk to the management about that so the next picture once again we talked about exotic and the nature of exotic is is sort of in a scientific way but it's also in a cultural way there's a sort of this mystic because because you know exotic is a perceptional thing and you're the utmost expert in that field and at one point you please do a show about exotic okay all right all right well exotic exotic nest is based purely as you said on your perception from where you are coming from what is exotic to you is not going to be exotic to me and vice versa but that's getting that's getting rather so as you call me out I find this exotic because there is a sort of this mystical kind of a little almost like an urban domesticized jungle there is this there's this plant there's a tree this shade and then there's a human creature which is sort of almost like camouflaging and then this is a guy who actually this was Saturday when I was there that what warehouse has this farmer's market and they sell flowers potted flowers right he bought orchids and he was like looking at them there so I thought it's really beautiful almost like to get to be true almost like staged yeah yeah well what I think in the next picture too one of the things that that we can talk about here is not only that there there's potential exotica but it's contained it's within structures so it's within these rectangular or round structures that hold the plants and the exoticness and the nature within the otherwise rectangular or man-made structure so we see these asparagus ferns looking really kooky and weird and green and reaching out is that how they're called yeah that's a that's a type of asparagus fern but not really a fern it's asparagus but again within this wild strange green thing it's all held within safely so it's not threatening within that well-kept gray enclosure yeah within something that matches the rest of the story absolutely you want to take a chance to reintroduce that term of of of tropical brutalism and one thing that my son Joey when he was here he was so intrigued by sort of the contrast of the volcrete so the local ingredients concrete and the green and something I know from Mbacadero Center in San Francisco which has the same sort of phenomenon which is really sort of you know specific about the place and it's something that's unique so it's it's amazing that we haven't continued that in the end of the show we'll make a proposal to do so and that is true from the macro level but it's also it goes down to the very micro and one of my rules of thumbs of good architecture is the closer you get the better it gets and this in contrast to today which the shittier it gets the closer you get to it right yeah well and so if you go to number 18 this this proves it Ryan right and this is a very typical type of brutalistic finish and brutalism is a type of architecture school of architecture from the night primarily 50s 60s and 1970s and in this case what we see is concrete that's got these embedded little chunks of Hawaiian basalt and as you pointed out this has to be created by hand in other words it's got to be cast and then somebody has got to spray water against that surface to get to get cement off to get cement to expose the aggregate inside and this is typical of brutalism and it's also a particularly local product yeah and it also as you just said on one hand you see it at the macro level but when you go close to it you can see that individual texture it's all different every time very much a brutalist type of attribute yeah and then there's an in-between level which is kind of the talk tectonic composition it's the next picture whereas things that look basically monolithic and stereotymic so like they're almost cast out of one piece right in fact when you look up close and that's the next picture which I did got on my knees or on my back to take that picture here right you see it's not right correct so that is not part of the structure those are panels which have been applied to the exterior of the structure for the decoration for the appearance and as you pointed out these are nicely detailed to the point where the corners are cut at a 45 degree angle so that they will fit together nicely yeah and it isn't mostly yeah and that's quite the effort you either have to again take a saw and do it most likely you do your mold you do your form like that and that's an extra effort you have to go through and so that's that's pretty remarkable and gets even better the next picture here is one of my favorite details of the building and it's a building that has sort of it's sort of inherent the detailing is not applicative it's not decorative right it's inherent to the integral to it exactly so has integrity so at some point you got these stratospheric stacked landscapes so water comes down and they need to basically come down right right and the water's got a drain and you pointed out here that this is a drain that is the water will come down off this drain but then drain on to the next level so it's almost fountain like in that it isn't it isn't in confined into a drain pipe yeah it's almost part of the visual aspect of watching it rain experiencing that reminds me of one exotic visitor here who had some impact that we're going to talk about later when we get into the tropical brutalism that's Lawrence Halpern okay it's harpoon was and there is a little fountain he did which is not a fountain anymore we get to there later I got a picture of it don't worry perfect yeah yeah and so so going back to the picture number 21 it has this very poetic you can see where the water drains is where you get the stain yeah concrete correct stain so this is the difference this building ages and grays patina as well yes so there's no there's no downspout there's no gutter that can be beat up and looks ugly and nasty right right they just let it be the flow and look at this little a sort of to code so that child had cannot go through there's little rebar sticking out so like almost you expose a rebar I found this amazing and I see some leucon in there you know and I see this is this is pretty cool and one gets even better to the next detail here which is the last one of our detail exploration here look at that staircase right yeah and what I like is first of all there is the rough texture of the concrete the aggregate that you can see it has this other form connected to it which is the the bars of the of the piping which have been formed and then those wooden planks yeah so you've got a bunch of different stuff going on I also like the vertical bars that hold the wooden planks in place so it's a whole it's a whole elaborate structure yeah and this is just a utilitarian thing of an exterior stairway but it's sculptural it's very cultivatedly crafted yeah absolutely and intriguing to look at so in this point we got five minutes left we got to come with some bad news the next picture you already said it's a hard use property and it's actually the last one the last block yes on the other side and that's what's coming that those big high rises in the in the distance are approaching and as you said they're walking towards us they're marching towards me and they will occupy the site of Ward warehouse as well as word Plaza exactly so demolition hasn't absolutely been precisely announced for this for what warehouse it is in August this year but it's been announced for word Plaza as well and so you know we just gonna we just want to point out that we were not against evolution because evolution is a good thing if one believes in Darwin yes and and one cannot stop it either exactly whether you believe it or not it's still we want to be maybe you know critical to arguments whereas what warehouse is told it's falling apart I was told epoxy is gonna hold it together certain degree yes because of deferred maintenance I just did a show for Howard as a guest host that was a topic right and you heard the same about this building here which I would say is is is is not true because the building still looks looks pretty exactly and I don't I'm not an architect I'm not a maintenance person but I am but you are the newspaper article which I just read this in a short time ago said that because there were maintenance issues they were looking towards demolishing so Plaza so we also said well we had a picture of you to sort of encourage a zeitgeist memory we want show one of me because I was three years young or old a toddler what's the point but we want to show the next picture of a project of ours that shows a like-mindedness this is in hand of a Germany again it's 12 years young or old it's a community Plaza Center it uses the same material concrete concrete precast concrete but again I mean this just shows my sympathy obviously but what's that good for right now the position is it's going to be torn down so let's go away from that but go to our vehicle of exploration and thought the next picture because this project got an award the lowest sex in the States was so the highest award on a state level and the head of the jury is from one town over and this might look like one of the peer 38 but it's another harbour town on the other side of the world this is one ton over from my hometown this is Hamburg and this architect gentleman architect drives this car and so there's the same there is JFK's will not be exactly no no but it's the same but it's sibling from 61 right what does it tell us because he's the coolest guy driving that and I had the pleasure to be cruise around and you get the looks I mean not me but the car right yeah so so what does it tell us it is still cool right and it's cool because it has integrity right it does and so that that's the point we want to point out whereas the next picture is is showing my 93 Lincoln town car that is in the car heaven because it didn't hold up it wanted to be in the good old days but it isn't so here we wish Lincoln the best this is Matthew McConaughey promoting the newest model but I also got to say to my thanks to my son Joey who was about to write his master thesis in automotive engineering and management highly high Joey he learned in school that today is the car makers make cars to fail after a certain time versus to last right so with that one we want to be because we're out of time we want to spend the last not even existing minutes going through four pictures and saying well what if like we say we're going to be vertical but want to stay true to the name and the term of the place which is plaza right and this is a proposal here if we can go back to 27 to make a ground scape plaza 28 is vertical circulation plazas number 29 is streetscape plazas and last but not least we have a skyscape plaza and this is primitive on how she could be currently developed by my emerging colleagues and myself and just as an inspiration you can do you can go the flow and with the times right and develop differently but you might as well sort of obey to the same philosophy correct and means and methods because because what's there right now has a very distinctive look and it can be echoed it can be used as inspiration for what comes after and if one of the things that we mentioned was maybe reuse the wood from ward warehouse in the project that you just saw the evolution of tradition and with that thank you very much my co-host and we're going to be back in about a month I mean we're going to be back looking at another commercial mercantile topology right so see you then thanks for watching