 for a think-taker-wise human-humane architecture, which happens to be our 226th show, and it is the first one in 2022. So happy new year. And happy new year. I wanna share with you on midday, a new year's day, I was on the Autobahn in Germany in what we call the Kohlenpot, which is the coal pot, and I had the radio on, and it basically said, well, now everyone had had a happy new year. Even the last ones in the United States, and their remote Pacific islands somewhere, and I thought, ooh, this is all of us. So we're back from all these different parts of the world, a broadcasting live from our traditional triangle back in Honolulu, Hawaii, one of these remote Pacific islands there in his Bishop Museum, Minnesota. How do you do, everyone, and happy new year as well? Good, and we have in the United States on their west coast in his Long Beach, Ron Lindgren, Iran, happy new year. Hello, a most happy new year to all the viewers. Good. Let's hope this is a better year, too. Exactly, for many reasons in many ways, and we have to do a little bit of still, a little homework to do from when we faced out last year, and that brings us to the first slide because we had some slides prepared to wish everyone Merry Christmas, and then we didn't have them, so here are the promised ones. And so we will start to explain. So we see DeSoto here as going as a Christmas tree with his enlightened beard. That you said you didn't redo this year because of all the masking and stuff like that doesn't work that well, right? That's right, unfortunately, no. And you wanna describe, DeSoto, you wanna describe Ron's Christmas gift tree up there? Well, Ron got to have a picture sent to him of the lobby of the Kahala Hilton Hotel as it was originally called with the Christmas tree, and he was very happy that our friend Ann was able to take that picture and send it to him so he could see Ed Killingsworth's first and most perhaps important resort hotel project that he later was working on others, including the Holly Kulani Hotel. And I got to go see the Holly Kulani Hotel last week for the first time since it reopened, and I was very happy to see it. Still looking as good as it always did, Ron, speaking of the floor there that you mentioned, Brian. Yeah. In the lobby, yes. Not a new hardwood floor, but the original one, as he told us, right? Still looking good. Indeed. And Ron, you wanna- And then there's also- You wanna talk about it? Oh, yeah. We were also talking about the picture in the lower right, and that's a German picture of a Christmas market, which is a tradition in Germany. And you said, Martin, that you had an amazingly warm Christmas that when this picture was taken, even though it was after Christmas, it was in the 50s. Of course, you don't use the Fahrenheit temperatures there, but it was in the 50s for us in the USA, so it was a very unlikely warm Christmas. And we also heard that Illinois had a extremely warm Christmas in the 60s, so that was a peculiar statement from our friend who comes from Illinois, right here at the bottom of the picture below me. And we've had a lot of calamities this Christmas time. We've had tremendous snows in some places. It's certainly in North America and the US, and we've had tremendous rain in California. We had a lot of rain here in Honolulu. Terrible fire unexpectedly in Colorado, very out of character for that time of year. And then COVID is also with us. So those are the icons that we see on the screen from the top to the bottom. Yeah, and Think Tech Hawaii and Jay keeps panels and presentations about the relationship of COVID and climate change. At the bottom right here, that was the 30th of December, so the last time that Christmas market was going on, the ones in Munich, the most famous ones are canceled, but as we were talking in the show before, the one in Rostock where our cross-cultural connoisseurs, Joey and Clara, were recently was opened, and they're back to where Joey went to school here in the cold pot, in the cold pot in Duisburg, and that's where it is, and here they are. Of course, everyone you see on the picture, particularly them still wearing the masks, which you wanna say people wear masks when you're in the public. And but they're not here. I'm crashing in their place and where they are, we will see in the next slide. Right, and you were pointing out that even if Germany was exceptionally warm for Christmas, it still isn't really warm, warm. So Joey and Clara had a little side trip to the Canary Islands, and he is in, or in this picture, he's in Las Palmas, which is the capital of the islands as a whole, but there's also an island as part of the Canary Islands, it's called La Palma, singular palm, not multiple palms. And they just had an eruption, a volcano eruption, very much like what we went through in 2018 with Kilauea, in which the mountain just erupts out of the ground unexpectedly, and for several months, this tremendous eruption was going on just as we had. 1,000 homes were destroyed, lava flowed into the ocean, created new land, and they have now, finally this eruption has ended, but now they've got all this cleanup to do with all the ash, as well as they've got to reconstruct all the roads, which were cut off by the flowing lava. So that is a very strong similarity to Hawaii Island, between La Palma in the Canary Islands and Hawaii Island right here where I am in the Hawaiian Islands. Yeah, they continue to wanna be buddies. And the big picture that they provided there is what we like to call Volcrede. So there is, this is in the middle of the island, they're very still volcanic. There's little vegetation there, and they're continue to build. What you would imagine is hospitality typology, which you Ron are almost expert in that area. So they're continuing to build stuff there. But next slide while I'm still here, I talking Christmas gifts, the biggest wish of Tropic here, Bundit and Rich, who we know from previous shows was that I drive up to what's their favorite, as far as public transportation. And that is the suspended rail in Wuppertal in Germany here in the Rugebeet. And you found this, it's intriguing, right? And the number two, yes, which Michael, thanks for zooming in, is proof of evidence from a show quote from the past, from one that Tim Shuler did with Rich and Bundit. And they were showing their proposition for installing something like that on Kallakawa Avenue, for example. And why is that so fascinating? Because you guys find it fascinating too, right? Well, you told me that this structure that we're looking at in Germany is from the 1880s. So it's a very early technological marvel really of the time, it's a steel structure that supports a suspended like railway kind of. And I asked you if this is just a tourist thing or if people actually use it to commute. And you said, no, it still is something that's used for basic transportation for the residents of the area. Now, even though the structure itself is from the 1800s, obviously when you look at the pictures, you can see that the cars are modern. So while it's an old structure, it's got very up to date accommodations for carrying people. And while it might be typologically be very inspiring. And again, if you look at our heavy rail that stumbles around like elephants with big legs, this seems more tropical exotic spidery, more filigree. But before you get too excited, we should probably take everything with a grain of salt. And as far as materiality, while we always say we caution people about glass and steel on the island because it doesn't grow and either one grows anywhere there on the island and nor does the labor that installs it. But here it could be called a traditional vernacular material because this area of Germany is traditionally the Pittsburgh of Germany with a heavy steel industry in the past. And that's where the name Colin means coal and pop is where you melt it. Any way you melt the steel is, right? And we go to the next slide because then I also drove one more town over which is the city of Bochum to revisit something that has also chosen steel as the local material. And that looks familiar to us, right? Yeah, well, that's the canopy over the entrance to the subway. And that was created by your father. And I don't remember now were you involved in that as well or was that the Despeng architectural firm or your father just like self? Because dating this, this is 10 years old a decade and that's when Despeng architect was operating. And I like to do so it's by both of us. And so I like to do post-occupancy evaluation, evidence-based design life cycle assessment to see how the projects are doing over the years and they're aging and hopefully they're aging in grace. Here, they could do some glass power washing here because there's some trees over the canopies and it deposits some leaves there that basically decompose. And but I'm happy we choose for several reasons the structure because it doesn't really show that much. But we also identified another which we have been calling a global disease as far as material authenticity, right? What did we see there at the bottom left? Well, you see that the concrete is being painted and that's something that we do not like because for example, for one thing, concrete if you leave it alone looks just fine. But also because once you paint a surface you have to keep repainting it. And once you've painted concrete you're never going to get all the paint off of it because it is a porous surface. So if you take that step, it is irrevocable. And particularly in the case of brutalist architecture I personally find it very offensive when raw concrete gets painted. So we're seeing test patterns of concrete paint and we don't like it. Yeah, and my dear colleague on the client side, Tom, happy new year. First and foremost, you will see my email when you come back from your Christmas holidays that I send you regarding this and advised you to if so choose the lightest color that looks most like concrete, even though it might not like that either. But anyways, let's go over this at least for this point. Let's go to the next slide. And as you already introduced, this is Günter des Speng. This is my father, some almost half a century ago in the same town in Bochum where he and I have some early childhood memories about my step-grandfathers who was a coal mine worker, by the way. And he lived what we are rediscovering now which is self-sufficiency. They lived on their land in such a way that they had all their vegetables and basically greens and stuff like that and a couple of animals that they could live off their land because they weren't making enough otherwise. And so that was the system now we're looking back into that. And so he started out his career talking his relatives into developing the land for housing. So he became very early a developer which usually is a no-go and he later became rather critical about it. My sister is now going in the same direction and my father is more eased on that one. Anyways, it's another story but this is a project he did then for a client. And it's a traditional as you see at the top right gable roof that he added on to. And we feature that in the show celebrating his 80th birthday about a year ago. And so I was curious when I got there and I couldn't see that sexy curve. So I had to go through the gardens of the neighbors and then the owners, the current owners were out there in their whirlpool that tells you how warm it was. And they basically invited me immediately to jump in which I resisted but I stayed for the rest of the day and the evening and dinner and we became new good friends Sabina and Arndt. Thank you very much for all of that. My father indeed when we involved him basically said, I don't think it's senior moments but I'm not quite remember all the crazy detailing as you see the fireplace and this sort of seating almost contemplative meditative alcove in there. But in talking to my sister who talked to him about it, there was a very sort of a strong client that probably had a stronger impact than my father even remembers, right? And that basically segues us back to you Ron and your story about situations of unfortunate circumstances of water damage that made you having to rethink major parts of the interior of your house. And for that next slide which shows us the condition of when you had just started to recover or get back on your feet, right? But tell us more in detail. Yeah, I'm looking so much over to the year 2022 because 2021 encompassed a severe water damage to the home when the second floor water supply pipe under a bathroom sink burst, mostly this from old age. And I had so much damage to furniture and to the home itself that I had to spend a good portion of the last half of all last year without my familiar setting, my home furnishings, the books that I constantly are looking at all gone in remote storage. But I'd like to say how lucky I was in that I had the smarts that as soon as I got the water turned off to the house, a half hour later, I had an emergency damage company arrive and immediately get rid of any standing water and to vacuum out any water that's caught up in all of the carpets which were all ruined. My advice to those who unfortunately might have water damage is don't wait a moment to call those people. They used to be sort of a cottage industry. Now it's definitely developed into a very sophisticated operation to get your own home or your own business or whatever building might be damaged both by water or fire. And these same people that do the cleanup do the drying out, they take things away and store them in remote storage. They also arrange the tests you might need like asbestos tests and mold testing because you can't really live in your home healthily until all that mold is gone. And then they'll suggest a general contractor for you to work with. Go with their idea because these people the cleanup crew, the damaged crew, the general contractors have worked together on many, many projects. They've also worked together on many, many projects also with your home insurance company. And finally the construction was done. I chose just to live at my home in the one room that wasn't severely damaged because as a retired architect, I wanted to keep an eye on the demolition and the construction to see that it really went my way. And it's good that I did because the workers for the contractor every day had questions. Your insurance policy will allow you to live in a hotel although they won't provide food for the whole time that your house might be unlivable or a kitchen isn't available or bathroom facilities aren't available. But I chose to sleep in a sleeping bag and do so. And at the end of about three and a half months, the process was completed. And my biggest loss as we'll see in the next slide soon was a very large Italian storage cabinet that I bought when I was very young and was first making money. And it was about 10 feet wide, seven feet high and contained a lot of my Buddhist and Hindu sculpture objects that I picked up on. Let's bring the slide up already, Michael, please. Next slide. So here it is, what you're talking about. It's sort of a brooding black presence in the living room but the fact was all the sliding doors were covered with a very shiny black lacquer. So it was like a mirror surface. But right in the middle of it all, as you can see in the picture right in the center was a lighted alcove where I displayed some of my favorite books and some of the sculptures I was talking about. So something that was 40 years old and very expensive was not gonna be replaced. So I worked with my contractor who also talked to my insurance company for me and decided to build a display alcove of my own which was the slide before. If we go to the next slide, please. That alcove which was lit from above, I decided to use some self-stick wallpaper which was a gold leaf that displayed Japanese Edo style autumn flowers and spring flowers. And at the same time, I still wanted to display my beloved sculptures from all my business trips. And so I had some glass shelves installed on the sides of that alcove. Next slide, please. Here's the alcove. This sort of reminded me that this was a bit like the Japanese architectural use of the tokenoma. An alcove designed to display some art and mostly just to contemplate before. And here you see the entire wall with the spring flowers on the left, the autumn flowers on the right. Next slide, please. At the same time, my insurance company bought me a very nice walnut credenza which I picked up from design within reach. And I was beginning to think in these photographs of what I might display on it. And I had a Thai teak spirit house. I also had a sculpture that actually would sit on the top of the credenza, which is a replica of a very famous 14th century bodhisattva which is actually in the Honolulu Fine Arts Academy which is on wonderful display. It's a full-sized human figure in wood of a bodhisattva. Next slide, please. This is again just a view of that particular bodhisattva now learning it over that alcove. And Martin, you had some thoughts on the slides to the right. Yeah. Bottom right is a show quote from your boss and friend's business partner at Killingsworth's home which you told us that different than people might think, it was not furnished exactly proportional to the very lean and crisp and then very high and modern way the architecture was, but that basically allowed himself and afforded casualty and comfort over style and objects as sometimes are more fetish than fulfilling the purpose of home-iness if you wanna say so. So to this regard, it just reminded me of this. And then on the top right is basically one of my favorite of you guys projects that unfortunately stayed unbuilt which is that very affordable housing for Latin American working class people, these courtyards which one would assume to be very, very minimally furnished if at all. So again, in this regards, we're not talking about a high end, super richly expensive, but you were telling me Ron and us that the people now that you know who bought Ed's house recently are now putting in furniture that actually looks way more like one would have expected that Ron's was excuse me Ed's was furnished but actually never was, right? Is that all fair to say? Yes, they've sort of foregone comfort which is something that some mid-century furniture doesn't provide for looks. It certainly looks more applicable to the mid-century architecture they had designed. And there are some classic new pieces and there are some rather quirky pieces in my own home. I've got some quirky pieces too that we'll look at in the next slide I believe. But before we do, you have talking about the appreciation of your guys work and the houses selling and being recognized and registered. You have some very hot of the press updates about the one of the triad houses, right? Yeah, today I found that one of the houses which has been put on the list of national historic places that is now once the owners leave the home is going to be donated to the La Jolla Historical Society. So in other words, and along with some maintenance funds I hope, so in other words that building will consider will be going on from its 1959 beginnings hopefully for decades more. Absolutely. And wishful thinking, I immerse myself today in my virtual background in your living room that you just made us be very curious about how it all looks when it all comes together and that's the next slide. Yeah, I must say that slide looks better without you in it, Martin. What I was going to say is that I've got some very quirky furniture too over almost 37 years of living there. For example, the coffee table is an example of postmodernism, one of Tori Satsas' coffee tables. And yet there's also furniture by the master architect Corbusier. There's a long comfortable black leather sofa and beyond it you can see what I finally realized by furnishing my tokenoma with that credenza, with sculpture and on either side I developed some shelving so I could put a vertical row of books on each side. And so now I'm living quite happily in a situation that's even better than what was there before. It's that whole old adage about once you're given a lemonade, the old black Italian storage system as much as I had come to love it and how familiar I was with it is gone. And as a result, the room is much larger, it seems much larger, it actually is much larger and it's much brighter and a happier place for me to ruminate. Well, talking about good wishes and promises for the new year, that would be one to say make a virtue out of a dilemma, right? And why you would call this sort of probably eclectic, the kind of the combination of the furniture in there, like the Satsas table and then the cantilevering Achille Castiglioni light fixture there. It also reminds me of your recommendation for your projects, your hospitality projects where you basically say one should basically rather than, and let's get to the next slide which has to be our last one for today as you were recommending as to do a total hall over and saying everything is new, you should start to add furniture even as a hotel to say, okay, over time I found these two new pieces and add them to it and then it grows organically rather than looking sterile like from a catalog, right? Every so many as are exotic escapism expert. Suzanne reminds us every seven to 10 years throw everything out. No, don't do that, evolve it and grow it and then it gets character, right? And talking about characters, we're running out of time we have one minute left, but please introduce to us who were one of the first people visiting your new old home again, one of your best friends and a little bit who they are and what we should know especially him for. Yeah, to the right, there's my goofy grin showing that I'm really satisfied with what I've produced in the home in terms of renovation. The couple shown to the left are Scott and Marcia Fitzgerald good friends, former employees that Killingsworth fine architect and what he's done for us he's a great friend of the show. He uses his Photoshop skills that I take advantage of and for example, makes views of windows disappear to make a point about for example the Hollywood guest room. And when I was making presentations on the Killingsworth life to many organizations and doko Momo, we would sit together and even improve the photographs of Julius Shulman, arguably the finest architectural photographer of the last century. He would simply make telephone poles and those ugly, swaggering electric lines disappear from these iconic photographs and made them much more interesting and valuable. And show quoting at the very top left remembering he can even make volcanoes disappear. Because Diamond Head is actually out there but you don't see it. It looks like there's no Diamond Head in the view from the Holy Kulani and we did that to make a point that the room looks so generic it could be anywhere rather than in Waikiki. Exactly, if you wanna know more about that you gotta go back and watch the shows from the end of last year because now we're at the end of another exciting a little bit more than 28 minutes. There's more to come wrong because that wasn't the last disaster that happened to you that you try to find again a virtue out of the dilemma so we're gonna continue with that next and until then have a happy and a good and a dry stay dry and happy. Importantly, I hear from Michael there's another wet front coming to you the solo on the island. So we all stay dry inside out and again, happy and you and much better 2022 and see you next week. Bye bye. Bye. All right.