 back to this or a show thing take wise human human architecture happening to be our 314th episode and we're in the 23rd time to look at why in the world are we getting skyscrapers from a fellow windy city in Chicago as we're on to investigate. And us is not just me by myself like last week but luckily having you the solo Brown back hi to solo. Hi and hello to everybody in in think tech land. That's great. So last time we lost you because of the terror of territorialization the tropical version of it related to Texas. And this week we were wondering if we both make it because we both got a cold and that's when you look at these images here that is what we want to instill in you not getting a cold to but doing a little bit of a science reflection on what that means to be cold. And what are we looking at this order to do that. Well we are looking at pictures from the past of us in the snow and that's relevant because your hometown in the area of your hometown of Germany has just been snowed into a terrible degree because it's shut down all transportation including the airport including the street traffic including cars including the street cars whatever. Well the picture in the upper right is me as a little guy back in 1961 in the snow in New Hampshire which I was visiting because I lived in Boston for that one year and behind me is our 1961 1960 Plymouth which is a very beautiful car with fins. And then there are pictures of you little Martin on skis in Germany in the snow. And then I presume the picture in the to the left is what things look like today or just recently in this tremendous snowfall that your hometown just went through. Absolutely and why would you the audience care for us guys and you know how we look these days and how we look back then when we still had hair or funny hats on right because we want you to think about yourself and how can you relate to these things. So since we're broadcasting in and for Hawaii have you ever been in that cold stuff and you just told me this sort of that you are educating your your fellow museum guys at the Bishop Museum about it right. That's exactly right because there are people here in the Hawaiian Islands who have never been through a winter experience and I've been through a few but fortunately the bulk of my life has been spent on the island of Oahu far away from snow and one of my co-workers yesterday and I had a long discussion in which I filled him in on what it's like to go through a lot of snow and to deal with the cold and to deal with slush and to deal with the ice and all of the things that I just said were so devastating in Germany that shut everything down. And one of the problems there is that any place that doesn't regularly get a great deal of snow isn't prepared for it. Places that go through a lot of snow have the equipment. They have the snow plows. They have the salt to melt the ice. They are capable of taking care of snow and if necessary dumping it someplace else to clear the roads. If you don't have all of that infrastructure in place then everything becomes catastrophic also and making it even worse is because it gets so bitterly cold as well. And we saw that recently within the last few years in the state of Texas that went through a terrible freeze that was completely they were completely unprepared for their electric system almost completely collapsed. People were stuck in their homes for days with sub freezing temperatures. And so while we're showing pictures of us sort of having fun in the snow, snow can also be something deadly and it also can cause severe significant damage to structures that are not prepared for it as well. Yeah, and that being said, we're using us as to trigger you to think about the zeitgeist circumstances of snow while you in the sixties with a short quote at the bottom right of your of your of your slide there. This is these were the John F Kennedy days. This was when America was very optimistic about shooting people to the moon and doing all these things and not even think about the impact on the environment. In fact, you told me a very interesting anecdote about that, what people were thinking about ice age related. Right. Can you repeat that? Yes, that's right. Well, back in the in the 20th century, temperatures had particularly in the United States had reached a peak of warmth in the 1940s and we're gradually dropping. And I can remember watching a television program in the late sixties or early seventies, which was saying that we were going to be looking forward to increasingly cold temperatures in the future. Well, obviously that didn't come to pass. And it's because people at the time did not yet understand that global warming was really what was in effect. And the planet was not going to get colder, but we thought for a time that it was. Well, even if the planet's getting warmer, this is an important point. It doesn't mean there's going to be less snow everywhere. Because, in fact, warmth and the higher levels of humidity mean in some situations, more snow, like what just happened in Germany. And this was kind of a lake effect situation, as which also happens in New York State, where cold wind blows over slightly warmer water, picks up more moisture and then that turns into catastrophic amounts of snow. So global warming doesn't mean uniform warmth. No, it does not mean. And since we're going to Chicago again today, there is a lake, too. That's Lake Michigan. So that lake affects snow and back home, what you're referring to, to be specific. This is the most snow in the month of December since they started recording in 1933, and that was almost two feet of snow that we basically had. Which, again, back in the days of your child, a little boy there and me, you know, a little older, that was in the 70s and the late 70s. It was more fun for us because it was more innocent because it was basically weather and there wasn't sort of an accumulation of extraordinary weather events that you can then can say, well, that's going to be climate because that's what climate is. And so Zeitgeistly, you know, think about the circumstances that we're in. We're not as innocent anymore. And I was maybe you can figure a big fan of the person we're kind of quoting there at the bottom right next to me of David Bowie and David Bowie. In the 70s, where I was in there, I was really enthused about America as I was. And his song, Young Americans Couldn't Reflect This Better. He went to the U.S. He had, you know, R&B American musicians record with him in New York City. And it was all about that fun. But it didn't take that long until the next era of the 80s with Ronnie Reagan and Helmut Kohl on our side, that he was with a Pat Metheny song recording This Is Not America. And also I recall, you know, when Jimmy phased out passing on and over to Jimmy Carter, the opposite way, of course, Jimmy Carter passed it on to Ronnie Reagan and Ronnie Reagan was embracing fossil fuels. And you remember also Freddie Mercury and David Bowie teamed up with their song Under a Pressure, right? They felt that pressure of the zeitgeist. So please, everyone in the arts, express yourself and combine together and go up against it. We have COP28 going on as we are speaking with a highly controversial leader of it, who is a shake, an Arab leader who is also owning oil companies there. So people, you know, see a conflict of interest. And if you watched some of the interviews with him, he seems to like try to sort of talk his way out of it. What you see as the object to the left is our little self study of minimal dwelling. And some people say, we're going to do an entire show about that because that was my summer research disorder that you're excited about. And what is this about? Well, it's a little trailer and it can accommodate pretty much two people to sleep in. Is that correct based on the photos you've seen? I mean, the chief showed me. And one thing that you told me, which is fascinating is that, as I mentioned earlier, heavy amounts of snow are something very significant for buildings to deal with. Since we're talking about architecture in general, and a building here, for example, would not be engineered to accommodate two feet of snow if it fell. Well, your little trailer also has a very thin skin because it needs to be light in order for a vehicle to be able to pull it easily. And so it's not made to accommodate two feet of snow on the top of it either. So you said that one of your sons had to go out and clear it off to make sure that it didn't get bent or crumpled by all of the snow that you wanted. And this is, again, 70s. This is from the set. This is a 1970 Pan P-A-N, which was developed parallel to the air streams that we know from here. And we're going to do an entire show again in provoking us here to say, which some say if we would actually allow not an invasion of humongous and huge obnoxious things on wheels, but little delicate trailers like that, maybe vintage trailers, as you are very interested in Cuba, the fellow tropical exotic island, that there's many parallels, geopolitically and related, where out of scarcity, they brought in no new cars anymore. So they all kept their old American cars and made them nice and tidy. And that's what we have now on postcards predominantly. And so we could have that here too. We allow vintage trailers on the island and we ease the housing prices that we have. And we're always getting Stanley Chang's newsletter just before the show. He was getting excited about modular construction. And these trailers are modular. You can bring them in. You can even put them in the scaffolding next to each other. And of course, you got to easy breezy them. So this is all about transportation that gets us to the next slide. Because, as you said, the soda not only was basically major transportation down as no planes were going in and out of Munich, and that gets us back to where we are going back to Chicago. Because when I was still in the prairie and even in my desert days, Chicago was my hub in and out that I had to have a stopover. And so many times I got stuck there because of lake-effect snow, because of de-icing planes and no planes going anymore. Also, trams and trains and certainly no cars were going anymore. But then we still say, which we see here, we still got skis and we got snow boots on. But that wasn't happening either because of what other effect the soda that you were discussing with your coworkers. Well, was it ice? Was it the formation of ice? Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. There was a thought. And so a lot of the snow melted. And this is something I was describing to my coworker too, having experienced it. You have a lot of water on the ground on a warm day from the melting snow and other ice. Then when the sun goes down, the temperature goes down, it goes below freezing again and all of that water on all of those surfaces, even if it's a very, very thin amount of water, will freeze. And then you've got ice on many, many surfaces. Well, not only can you not drive on that and you can't ski on it, as you just said, you can't walk on it. And if you try to walk, you will fall down. And many people during those time periods get injured from falling down. And that's how I broke my wrist a few years ago. I slipped, not on ice, but I put my hand out and landed on it. Well, that's what happens to a lot of people during icy conditions. And so that adds danger to all of the lack of transportation as well. And that being said, when we're saying we have 10 out of 12 of the world climate zones here, we have Mauna Kea up there and there is snow. But that's where we are hardly impacted because no one lives up there, right? So it's not impacting everyday life. And we kind of humorously or even sarcastically often say like last week, when we had a rainy week, this is like the snow for us because then people have trouble driving. And so it's just the equivalent of conditions that we're not so used to because it doesn't rain here a lot. So when it rains, it's something that people are not used to. And that is the same right now as we're speaking back home in Munich. So transportation, it should remind us, however, that's why we say that. Not to say, oh, we're safe from that because no one is safe anywhere in the world. We're hoping to make it through this show because they put up a sign that says we do the fire testing between nine and eleven thirty. So we're half through having been beating them as we agreed we want to do. So we have lots of issues here that we didn't have in terms of fires and hurricanes and droughts and all these things in Lahaina. So we don't want to be on the arrogant side and say, oh, this is cute to watch other people having all these issues. We don't. We have many of the issues. And the utmost issue is, of course, keeping people, native people on the island because everything got so expensive. So transportation plays into it, being a playing a big role in the in the carbon footprint of climate change, because there's too much fossil transportation and also the cost of transportation. We were talking about last time the bus that is the only thing that gets me and our students up to QH. And, you know, it didn't help that there has there used to be a day pass when now they went all to the what's the card, the holo card, which is the digital ticket. And it just by doing that, they kind of eliminated it the day pass. So it used to be five bucks for a day you go somewhere and you go back. Now there's single rides, so it doubles it. This is not helping, right? So we need to get the cost of public transportation down. And we got to make it really attractive in many ways. And this gets us back to saying hi to our Jimmy Carter of architecture, Ron Lindgren and Ron on my way up here and seeing that sign, that alarming alerting side of fire. I was actually picking up my mail and I got your traditional. Have you gotten them to already? So I got your Christmas cards. I got the Christmas cards. So we can't be more excited about opening them. Thank you, Ron. Thank you, Ron. So we're stopping by here virtually in your LA and me sitting as every Sunday in your Hale Kalani and reading the newspaper. And a few weeks ago, you know, there was this, you know, whole page about public transportation in LA. And there is one of these that we stopped by over the summer. Me sending me there. One of these, what is it called? You need Cula for Nicula, right? If I pronounced that correctly. So these are these sort of almost ancient rails that can go up hills. Yes. That there is this little, you know, competition going up, which is the one that first, was it the Wuppertal suspended rail that Bundit and Rich Low former guests on our show many times are so excited about, or is it this one? And they kind of, you know, the one in Dresden that we see in the show quote at the top right that was talking about. But then also Ron, you had one around the same time. So this was going viral, as you see at the bottom left. And the text here that I took a picture of that was in 1901 as well. And you do better, Ron, because you fair as are, as it says here, you could go up the hill for 50 cents. Or if you don't have a metro card, which I suppose is the same as a holo card, right? And it's a dollar. If you don't shame on us, even in Dresden, it's four dollars a ride or four euros a ride, which is almost the same as here. So we should take should, you know, we should be encouraged by that by you, Ron, and your historic transportation there because the solo going up the hill in mass transportation next slide, that is familiar to you from the past, right? Yes, as we see at the show quote on the top right, explain more. That's right. That was the first electrified railway like system in the Hawaiian islands. It was in place before the electric streetcars of the Honolulu Rapid Transit, which began in 1901. This was the Pacific Heights Electric Railroad, and it was a private subdivision that was constructed before automobiles had gotten here to the Hawaiian islands or before they were common. So because it was difficult for a horse and carriage to go up and down the steep hill, the developer built this little streetcar system that would entice people to buy property there because it was easy transportation again before people had automobiles, private automobiles. And that is the same reason you went out there for us and we show quote that here or list them here. The history of transportation on Wahoo. You did recently three shows about it, and we did two, a couple of years ago that you see up there. You can YouTube, Google them and watch them. And the reason that we have the heavy rail is the same reason because many say it's, I think, more than a rumor or not even a conspiracy theory that we don't like anyways. But it seems pretty obvious that there was the developers having played a heavy role in saying, well, you public got to do something so I can continue to sell houses out there west because if our potential buyers get stuck on age one for two hours in the morning going to work and two hours in the evening going back, they're not going to buy houses, right? So there is this capitalist interest that drives it. And once again, the image you audience, please go out and, you know, in the social media, you know, find stuff. I found this fascinating here, what you see on the left, which is in Wyoming, which is also getting snowed in big times in that time of the year. And this is a summer here where you see in the most kind of easy breezy with no fear, no fear of height, there's no belt, no nothing right that these ladies are basically scooping up the mountain here. How beautiful is that? And if you can do this in temperate climate where it gets freezing cold and nowhere else this is we need these sort of lids above us that modern ski lifts all have, they're highly technically advanced and they give you protection that even have heated seats and all this stuff, right, that we all don't need here. So why don't we bring back truly tropical transportation that we had and Chicago traditionally has getting us to the next slide because Chicago has the legendary L and that is the loop. That is even a couple of years earlier than the systems we talked about that came from Germany and made it to LA at the same time. This was in 1893. The L was built and rightly so when we sort of criticize the heaviness of construction, the heavy rail here, which is a monster, but out of concrete. This isn't quite, you know, when you're under it, you know, this isn't necessarily pleasant. It's it's loud and rowdy when the train comes, the whole thing shakes and it's terribly noisy, but it was the attempt and it was successful to manage, you know, people living and working in the city when that city was booming. And in fact, as we were talking in one of the first episodes here, this city here is actually on two levels. There is a ground level and underground level where all the service goes all the trash trucks and all the delivery and stuff like that. And on top of that is basically where, you know, in personal transportation goes, but also public transportation goes. And it was soon not it didn't take almost, you know, a quarter of a century for people being so critical about it and they wanted to take it down. But architects like here, Alfred Price, after he concluded his architectural career that we were talking about, and that's why we show quote him here with the Arizona Memorial. There's going to be the Arizona parade coming up on, I think, on Saturday and one of the survivors for the harvest virus. I think 103 years old is going to come back or was back for that time for that reason. So Alfred Price also did, which is just between us here when you throw a stone, which is the entrance of the zoo. And after, ironically, when he had completed these two projects as an architect, his his his his work dried up, a gold figure that is somehow we feel very familiar with as our practice, as that what happened when we were doing actually public transportation and the train stations to the Expo and the aftermath of that one here, a price then sort of transitioned and became a policymaker and was fighting for that we actually are not looking at high rises. When we look at each other, me from my line, the Waikiki grant here, looking at you almost in the extinct volcano of Diamond Head, that we're not looking at massive high rises, but actually still at, you know, at us and at Diamond Head, right? He was instrumental with that. So his fellow, or we call them the Steve Owl of Chicago, that was Harry Wees, that in the recent shows we talked about, he was sort of the hippie architect of Chicago. And he did the same thing. He actually rallied as our friend Kurt Sandburne that we visited and sent me there on behalf of us around Thanksgiving. The activist who basically then went up against things and he said, no, we need to keep the L as the artery of bringing people into the into the core of the city and basically getting them out. So that is the L. And again, the L is, of course, just like the Eiffel Tower or the Golden Gate Bridge that I just saw in San Francisco again. It because it's made out of steel, it needs constant refurbishing, right? So it's exposed to the elements and especially in where there's coastal or lake effect, climate conditions. This is where steel basically gets corrupted by humidity all the time in a rust. So by the time as a Golden Gate Bridge and the Eiffel Tower, which doesn't have the lake next by that much, but it's a temper climate or here you have the lake, right? By the time you're done putting, you know, rust protection coating on one side, you're done. You already got to start again all over at the other end. So it is very, very high maintenance. That's why steel construction is usually really to be given second thoughts here on the island, not only because of that, but also in the Aloha Stadium is a is a very tragic example, right? Because someone got on the the hip, you know, trend of Corten steel, which in my former home of Arizona works because there's close to no humidity. So this is steel that pre-rest itself. And then the rest is protection. But in the sort of lake and ocean effect that's climate, that is not enough and Aloha Stadium got got eaten away. And now it's been turned down and been I've been watching it. We should actually cover that somewhere in the future to Soto because there's some interesting things and some. I had the impression to kind of give it a pre-judgment that it becomes kind of an entertainment edutainment center. And, you know, how is that that we should probably shed a light on. So we will now bring up the next slide. We don't have time to talk about it. We're almost at the end of the show without the fire alarm going on. So, yeah, we were beating it. But we will go back with our patron of the show, who is architect Dan Kubrick, who is an associate with Jan, which is Helmut Jan, who talking transportation tragically got killed about two years ago on a bicycle and run over by two cars, unfortunately. And that is what people always tell me, Martin, when you go to school on your bicycle, wear your helmet and, you know, consider it twice. Maybe you better throw your bicycle on the bus, which is a great thing. But I was told by a commuter when I was getting our p.i.ing mobile back from our mechanic Larry and he needed to work on it overnight. And I hopped the bus on Khalihi Street bus stop. He told me that the reason why the bus still shows the plaque of the best bus system in the U.S. Traces back to almost 20 years ago when there was the improvement of that he could take your bus, your bike on the bus in front of it. But that was 20 years ago, he said. So you need to come with a next update and an upgrade that we actually gave you plenty of impressions here as to easy breezy and more multimodal and all these things. OK, so with that, we're going to be continuing with this one here. So why in the world are we getting these symbols of of of of masculine, you know, macho, which high rises are many college, the fellas symbol of power because it's the male domination of capitalism embodied in tall buildings. So why in the world are we getting these here and why are we getting them the way where they come from and not the way they should morph into the way we would then, if so, like them here that we have to continue to shed a light on and that we will do from next week on again. So until then, please have a have a good week and stay very empathic, warm, warmly empathic and stay healthy. You just sold on everyone else. You too. Yes. Bye bye.