 There are four pieces, a compendium of a paradise in perfection in its post-contact way, and a piece of architecture that has defined resort architecture in the world and has started out here in Hawaii. We're going to have with us for that the architect, long-term friend and business partner, Ronald Lindgren, from Long Beach, California, Iran, and we have our co-host, Bishop Museum historian, De Silva Brown, tied it to you. Hello, hello, hello, hello, everybody. So without further ado, we're not going to waste any more time. Let's go to the first slide, please, and you, Ron, please recap and add a little bit to where we ended last time where we pick up from now. Yeah, I'm happy to see slide one, which again is the site plan of a hotel because another look at the site plan reveals some very special hotel features. Dick Kimmingsworth was convinced that every hotel, if it was one of these successful, but there had to be a dramatic sense of arrival, a feeling of having come to a very special place, an unforgettable place. Well, he provides this, as you see in the site plan. At the far left, it begins with a long, anticipatory roadway that ramped up between some dense landscapes, which was actually a sort of a green tunnel after everything had a chance to grow, but then you arrived in a hotly contrast in a very sunny, expansive motor court where you see the four trees clustered on the drawing. Now, this motor court, and many people don't know this, was built on an artificial datum about 18 feet above natural grade, and what feels devoid beneath the motor court, that happens to be where the hotel kitchens and the back-of-house service spaces are located, and at the head of the motor court, in the very center of that drawing, you see a rectangle designated as number three. That's where Ed put a very grand lobby and lounge to sort of culminate the memorable arrival experience, and again, because the lobby was raised up, the guests and visitors, when they came into the lobby, they could look over and above a lagoon, which we'll talk about more later, the oval swimming pool, the pool terrace, the beachfront, the ocean, and beautifully off in the distance, a romantic glimpse of Cocoa Head, and this sort of impressive welcoming experience was a calculated design on Ed's part, because he wanted to heighten the guests' anticipation of what the entire resort might offer in terms of filling their dreams of living in a luxurious, tropical paradise, even if only temporarily. First impressions at a hotel are all important if they are successful, you'll have those guests coming back, they'll bring their kids back and their grandchildren back again. If we go to a slide, on the left you're seeing another tantalizing glimpse of the hotel's architecture. This happens to be a view from a guest room on I, again looking out to Cocoa Head. To the right is something that the photo has found for us, which I'm sure is from some sort of Hilton girl sure, and I think that that particular view in another water pillar is probably the first time that the traveling public had a chance to see what the Hilton Corporation had in mind for building there, and on the touch below it says, are from the batting crowd. The right from the start, even before the hotel opened, they were advertising the hotel as something quiet and private and away from a batting crowd of white teeth. If we go to something socially distant, which reminds us of the audience we're in the midst of the grown-up pandemic. Unfortunately, exactly correct. That next slide is a very early architectural rendering done in Killing Forest Office, and this is probably the first time that residents of Oahu saw what the Kala Corporation was up to, because it was published extensively when both of them made the newspapers that existed at that time. And note that there are two 10-story guest room buildings offset at an elevator core, and from that core, one and two story buildings extend out to the ocean. These low-rise buildings contain that raised entry lobby that we'll look at soon and lounge, and they were all above several restaurants that were below at the Lagoon level. And you know, Ron, I think we can point out too that this rendering is not the way the actual hotel was constructed. One of the things is the Lagoon has some additional things in it, like an island, as well as a building that was supposed to be in there, which never was built like that. And also, it's got a port cuchère that extends out into the center of that motor port that you mentioned earlier, which kind of surrounds the trees that were there, and that was never built that way either. It's something that strikes me as being very timely, is that the illustrator put vegetation on, so it's something that we in the past likely called Archimature as the hybrid between architecture and nature. Right. You like that. Yeah, and as Ron just pointed out to me before we did the show, the initial plan was that planter boxes would be placed on the exterior of the building with bougainvillea vines that were supposed to grow and cover up the exterior, but they never really thrived, and so that didn't end up actually happening the way Ed had thought it might. Oh, wow, that's a very signature element of the feeling we're over, right? Yeah. As Ed would have said, you win some and you lose some, but the salt air and the heavy trade winds just didn't allow the bougainvillea vines of beautiful splashes of color, but he always thought would create a wonderful touch and a humane touch to the hotel. It couldn't happen, but if we look at the next slide on the left, you see those vines, you can see just how lively that was out again. I seem to be fixated on Cocoa Head every day, because there is Cocoa Head out in the building. I was going to ask you to sort of what you thought about that interesting Hilton brochure, the color photograph on the right. Well, I think that that is an extremely strange way to depict a hotel in the Hawaiian Islands, in which there is a young woman in the foreground sitting on the sand who looks as though she might be local or Hawaiian, but the overwhelming image is this background picture of this beautiful green-eyed blonde woman, and today this really wouldn't fly. You would not be advertising something here with a picture of a beautiful ultra-Aryan looking woman, and to me that picture looks like it's more like a cosmetics ad for lipstick or something than it is for a hotel, but there is always this, this brochure by the way was published before the hotel was even completed, so they weren't able to put any pictures of the actual site in or the building because it hadn't been constructed yet. So somebody said, oh here's a beautiful picture and this will attract attention, so we'll use it. To me it seems very strangely inappropriate, but again this is 1963-64. Despite that discussion, I think I was talking to Bill Chapman today and he kind of assured us of that we need to think of a heaven's fire again to appreciate more what one could summarize as a more cosmopolitan approach than a sort of a Strictly Regionalism, which we like to sort of default back to these days as almost the easy way out, while this one he was saying, well we're actually part of the world, right? Where Rube is in the wild, but our approach is again in the cross-all border. Well that's true and that is something that we're going to talk about in a later show in this series when we talk about the Hilton that was built in West Berlin, for example, because Hilton at that time was expanding as we said last week internationally and in fact if you look at the logo underneath the word Hilton on this brochure, that is the Hilton International logo that Ron, you mentioned a while ago, that was part of, they were saying that the Hilton was part of the international set. That's right. And here's the next slide. We're finally showing our audience the tour of the Hilton Hotel and Ed Killings was convinced that the exposed structure could be any modern buildings worthy and enlivening ornamentation and surprisingly delicate appearance of this all-concrete hotel was realized by interlacing some horizontal floor beam out from the building and linking them with some slim vertical struts and together they formed a continuous trellis over the facades, as you notice, continues right up and over the roof. The trellis supports those floating lanais from the guest rooms, but also enliven the facades because there's constantly changing shadow play, not just tropical sunlight, but the very simple even full moon appearance that the building can take as well. Up at the upper right corner, the postcard designer has taken some artistic license because the palm trees would have to be about 250 feet tall in that in that particular rendering. Yeah. So even the palm trees are natural size and the building is very shrunken in miniature or the palm trees are absurdly too tall and tower over the building. And in the next slide, on the right side, again, you're seeing the guest room lanais, but we put this photo there because it shows the relationship between the hotel and the adjacent Kahala Beach apartment. And the Kahala Beach apartments were also developed by the local Hawaiian Charles Peach and also designed by the Killingsway. We had the pleasure together to present the Kahala Beach apartments to the viewers not that long ago. To the left are some very typical 1960s advertisements for all of the things that we would hope to find there in the 1960s. And the photo, you pointed out some wonderful global books and one around dresses that are very 50s in the center picture. Yes. Actually, you pointed that out and I was really pleased that you saw that. Those three people were actually entertainers from Japan who were appearing at the hotel in the 1960s, not long after it opened. And they got photographed with a leaping dolphin as part of as a publicity picture. And they got put into the brochure to emphasize that, yes, this is a swinging modern 60s place. And even though it's a world apart, it isn't outside the mainstream. So, you know, we're up to date here. We've got go-go boots. And once again, no who got skirt and no coconut. Exactly. Right. We're emphasizing modernity. We're emphasizing current, you know, the how up to date modern we are, not in its old way. Yeah. In the next slide, as you can see the hotel, it's closer. It's exposed painted close and deep construction at probably the grandest scale of what I've experienced. And the possibilities inherent in concrete were all used here. The building was made up of port and plate, face concrete, recast, pre-stressed, post tension, you name it. It was all there to create probably as most successful example of what I called structural addressingism. But none of that would have been possible at all without the guidance of the gentleman that appears at the upper right picture, Al G, who was the premier structural engineer working out of Honolulu, who famously worked for decades all throughout the Pacific region and Southeast Asia. Yeah, and it's a beautiful, it's a magnificent structure and particularly because you see on the right how it is held up by these very, what look very like very delicate little holes holding it up. And it's not a big heavy, huge looking thing. It looks very light, despite the fact that it's concrete. Correct. The next slide is a southern view from one of those floating restaurants with a beautiful model, I wish I knew who she was, but it takes in the view of that classical footprint on the beachfront. And in the other right corner, Martin, your Suzanne and I appear to be at the hotel, but unfortunately, we weren't there at the same time. There you go. And if we look at the next hotel, you'll see just what DeFoto was talking about. There's those columns or pilates of concrete supporting 10 stories of guest rooms. And they do look delicate somehow, partly because they've been detailed with inset panels and so forth, to make the column interesting and create some more shadows that fill up the the appearance of the structure. At the upper right, you're seeing the first look at the lagoon and one of Al's presents to us, which was this wonderful, very slim bridge with no handrails that went across the lagoon. And you pointed out a really interesting thing, Ron, which was that when the dolphins were first put in there, they would jump over that, that very skinny, slim bridge, because there was nothing to obstruct them because there were no railings. And while that sounds wonderful, it is not wonderful if they happen to run into somebody who was standing there. I also can remember that dolphins do like to flip their noses in the water and splash people. And as you can see in this picture, the bridge is wet. So they did in fact splash onto the bridge. And if you were standing there, you either thought that was funny or you took great offense at getting wet. Yeah, you wonder what kind of liability there is. Because you wonder what kind of liability insurance would have to cover that. You look at the next slide, you see dolphins at play, because the lagoon became a really a tropical playground, not just for the Bottle Nose Atlantic dolphins, but also some rays, e-turtles, tropical fish. And in the right corner, you see some lucky humans, very heavily supervised children. And this lagoon and the use of dolphins and dolphin play as part of the students of the hotel was a very new thing. Ahala, if it wasn't the first hotel to do it, might have been one of the very first. That's about the most I can say from my research. Yeah. But if we look at the next, and you guys, you guys pointed out to me at the dolphins are currently the main revenue generators in crisis while the hotel is shut down, right? Yeah, right. Because they offer online contact. Yes. That was one of the, yeah, we all looked at a news report about how people can pay to have some face time as it will, as it were with the dolphins. And one of them will actually pay the picture for you. It is not inexpensive, but it does look like it's very interesting. I also want to point out that at the time the hotel opened, and Ron, you will remember this, I'm sure, dolphins were kind of a popular thing in American pop culture. And there was a TV series based on the previous series, Lassie, called Flipper, which was about Happy Dolphin, who was a friend to some boys in Florida. So dolphins were cool at the time. They even bought this to Germany, and I watched that as a kid. Was he called Flipper in German? He was. They translated it into the heroine. And in fact, we just watched it here with a kid down there a couple weeks ago, and they said, they got a stick out of it. Well, speaking of the dolphin lagoon, that next photograph shows a black and white picture on the left. If that rather elegant woman would turn around her, she'd be looking down over the lagoon. But this is a picture of the hotel entry lobby. I think it's grandest lobby and most memorable lobby design. It was very much a classicist. And so this is spacious. It has 34 ceilings. It's absolutely symmetrical. There are some floor-to-ceiling glazing, letting light in, and the play of light on the floors and walls. But especially interesting is the fact that very traditional hanging out glass chandeliers are there, which have been there ever since the hotel opened. They're still there now. And are incredibly memorable when you excuse them for the first time. I'd like to say that one of the successes of Ed's hotel is that he was able to comfortably combine modern building, classical touches, traditional touches like chandelier, but all in a sort of well, but all with a warm and welcoming touch of Kauaiana. The pictures on the right are color shots. And back when the hotel opened, two New York lighting designers, both who have theater experience, a lot of Broadway experience, were called on to design all of the lighting pictures, which are custom. And these photographs show just how important custom lighting design brings to the hotel so that it comes alive theatrically at night. The woman who designed the chandeliers was named Irene McGowan. Her partner and younger assistant was named Leslie Will. Irene also designed the custom chandelier in the entry lobby of the Kahala Beach Apartments. And 20 years later, Leslie Will came back to the Holly Kalani hotel and designed all of the lighting there. And we've had wonderful lighting from these two wonderful women. And Holly Kalani, having been designed by you, Ron, and there are three shows about that, just to let the audience know. Yeah, you know, also too, before we leave just quickly too, you mentioned, Ron, that this entry lobby has got these three domes in the ceiling, which were also a major engineering feat. And you can see them, particularly because they have the chandeliers hanging from them. And that's an important part of that ambience of that that entry space too. Yeah, and it was a very classical cut to have shallow domes in a flat ceiling. But they also worked for people in the guest rooms. You didn't have to look down on just a flag on the ordinary expanse of concrete, because they don't get into the air. Right. How are we doing on time? We're doing it. Let's go to that. Let's jump on the next slide. This is a very 60s rendering, because in the 60s, architects obviously didn't have computer drawings yet, but they're all these wonderful, fresh watercolor drawings. This just happens to be a beautiful curved stair that goes down from the lobby level to a bar and waiting area, where one would sit for a while before going into the very popular commodity restaurant that would have been in the right of the picture. And in fact, the next photograph of black and white shows, again, how it put a touch of something very traditional in a modern building. At the same time, those lighting fixtures hung from the columns designed by moving wheel with more of that art glass. There's another touch of tradition. But at the same time, the walls that surrounded the stairway are covered in black lava, which in turn will festoon with live orchids. And so here again, we get this touch of Hawaiian, modernism and traditionalism quite comfortably combined, which was a great success here at the hotel. And something which was really popular at the time, which we see very clearly here is the contrast of the rough textured lava rock and the smooth white concrete surfaces and paired with often shiny terrazzo flooring. This was very common in the small hotels that were built here in the 1950s, as well as the Hawaiian Village Hotel from starting from 1955. That was a really popular look and something that I think really sums that area up that time period. Yeah. And there's been curious much more about that there are two shows that you saw that you and I did. They're called Volcanic Volume and Volcanic veneer. Exactly. That can be further researched when you watch them. Yes. So I'm going along. Yeah, speaking of the 1950s, the next slide is a whole series of advertising shots taken of what people would expect to enjoy at the hotel. If you look at the summer picture, you'll see some of the lagoons. You'll see the dolphin in their clay for an appreciative crowd. But the photo shows that in 1967, a series of cottages were built around the lagoons that completely enclosed it. And they had guestrooms in them. They had typical double-pitched Hawaiian tile roofs. And they, again, give a nice touch of Hawaiiana. But the picture at the lower left shows again why it was so disappointing. Someone took this picture through pink Bogan beer flowers from Illinois, which of course didn't survive, unfortunately. Yeah. And you know, all of the Beijing, right? Yes. That's exactly right. You know, the, the, and I, as I remember, Ron, those lagoonside rums were probably premier rums because of their setting. They weren't in the high-rise. So I think those were potentially the more expensive ones because you were down right next to the happy dolphins, etc. I think you're right. I've stayed in the lagoons, dolphin rums. And in the morning, they're always up before I am. And they're always making wonderful noises, kind of checking themselves, waking me up in a wonderful tropical way. That, that next picture is an interesting, it's a shot by again, the famous photographer Julius Shulman. He used a very special day for night lens to get this incredibly dramatic picture that almost makes it look like it's in full moonshine or something. But Julius loved his, his lenses. And here's a case of where he used it. Yeah. Any comments about the picture in the upper right, Martin, or Soto? Well, it's sort of the segway that we're getting to the end of the show to the next slide, which our friend, Andrea Brissy, who had us over in his apartment in the adjacent Kahala apartment, he told us that for him and for almost every other architectural photographer, Julius is the big hero. So he was sort of triggered by that. So one of these nights get out when the moon seemed to be equally perfect. And that's his apprentice piece here that I'm sure Julius will acknowledge a lot. So thanks, Andrea and Kudo. And the next shot is indeed what Andrea filmed of the hotel in lockdown without a soul. We've been told that in less than two weeks, in fact, in June 1st, the hotel is scheduled to open again. We go to the next and last picture for this week's episode. You'll see a share of that, but I think you took to Soto of the, that long lapping drive in the green tunnel of vegetation that's closed off in the pandemic. But in the upper right, Martin found an interesting connection between his home country and Hawaii. Yeah, run it, said Martin. Yeah. And in Lawrence, particularly Suzanne's location, which is Bavaria, the most southern in Germany, which Americans did it to be German, German as you can get. And here on this ashtray that clearly is labeled, belonging to the hotel, you see that green print, which is basically identifying and having been produced in Bavaria. So here we got another connection between us, broadcasting me from here, close to Munich, and you guys both in Hawaii and Long Beach, California. And so with that, we look forward to do this again and next week shows. And that one will be more about your thing of print or the access of this by intention of the Kahala Hilton and Ron and we look much forward to that. I will be there and everybody else should be too. That's all I can say. And thank you both for the privilege of being there myself. Thank you, Ron. Thank you and see you all next week. I mean, so then we stay as perfectly exotic as Ron and I. Bye.