 Good to see you back for what happens to be a hundred one hundred and seventy seven human humane architecture show here on think tech Hawaii, which is our first show in this happy human humane new twenty twenty one year, and we're broadcasting live once again from half around the world, meaning from back in Honolulu with hello you the solo. Hello Martin and hello everybody who's watching welcome to twenty twenty one and we're doing this right in the midst of something very auspicious, which we are about to talk about in just a second. But if you look at the pictures to the right of us, you'll see you seeing fireworks in Germany and me seeing fireworks here in Honolulu for welcoming in the new year, hoping that it's going to be a better year than twenty twenty ones. And they were both not supposed to happen because we're both in more or less lockdowns we're actually just entered a very tight lockdown again. But no one was supposed to shoot fireworks, but people didn't regardless you took the picture at the very bottom and Suzanne son took the one at the very top. So anyways, and today is actually a national holiday here. It's epiphany, but actually should be a holiday over there because something way more sorry, you Christians, you know, don't get me wrong, but there's something way more important happening right now over there in the United States of America. And let's get to the next slide because talking fireworks right now, we're worried about firearms and hopefully not anything coming out of them at the Capitol in Washington, DC to sort of right. Yeah. And in fact, literally just before we started the show, I was reading out loud what some of the news reports are in which the pro Trump supporters are actually literally storming and inside and disrupting the electoral vote. Count that's supposed to be going on right now claiming that Trump has actually won and Trump has not one Trump has lost. But he has whipped people up to go to his side and disrupt things claiming that he's still going to be president. And that's what unfortunately we're experiencing right this minute on January 6 2021. Exactly. So we're not proud of these boys. So, you know, behave and be a good loser, you guys. That's right. Try to try to do better and win again next time. No, no, let's let's stay political and go to the next slide because what does architecture have to do with politics in vice versa. And thanks to my mom, we're actually brought to my attention last time we were celebrating my dad's birthday. She was bringing to my attention about Vladimir Putin, who it's probably safe to say, you know, he's not a Democrat. He's not democratic, but the opposite. He's a dictator, one of the too many we have in the world. And we just got rid of one in our country, Donald Trump. So here, again, is an announcement of him building these monuments and architect building these monuments for Vladimir Putin. And then there is this interesting news article to the right side, which is basically quoting which we can call for the best. The Chameleon architecture from the past, Philip Johnson, but the worst and opportunist, who was rather scarily close to dictators and sympathetic with with the Nazis. And that was Philip Johnson. And so in an interview that this architect here, Wolf Precks, who's a founding principle of the architectural firm of cold people, Blau was actually saying it doesn't matter for who I'm building, you know, it's about what I build. Let's go to the next slide, because then and further interviewing him. And here he is at the very bottom right, we have to say the ones my age at the point where we're in school and postmodernism was over, and he's what's supposed to be. He came up with his rather refreshing provocative ideas. Here is a sort of, you know, yeah, pretty scary and in a good way, deconstructive remodeling of an of a rooftop apartment in Vienna, and here's Wolf Precks now up in age, where he's reflecting and basically blaming the younger generation that I'm very close to because I'm mentoring them and I'm honored to do that. And he's blaming them for not having any visions. Fairly, he also blames himself and said, we haven't really gotten anything accomplished. And let's look at some of that stuff that he himself thinks he really maybe wasn't doing so well. So next slide. And what are we looking at the solo? Well, you said this is what this is a near to or part of the complex that was originally constructed for the Munich Olympics in 1972. And I looked at this building and said, what on earth is that? And it's mostly composed of very shiny, reflective metal panels. There's one little bit of glass that's visible at the bottom is sort of a triangle. And unlike the original, oh, and also two at the bottom. And this puzzled me when I first saw this, this kind of a quick sketch on maybe a cocktail napkin of what he was trying to do. To have something kind of floating and some, some, I don't really know, you can try to explain that if possible. But the original 1972 structure, which is this interesting swoopy thing that suspended from poles, almost like a giant circus tent would have been in the United States, is still there and is still interesting and usable. And this new structure, which was built as a, like a convention center or an auditorium or like a gathering place, is much more just there to look funny and look interesting and look sort of billowy and not necessarily rigid. And buildings like this, as you have said, are the work of star architects who in some cases just simply want to do something that looks quirky and is not necessarily that useful or sensible. Yeah, we can say to that regard, we agree with him that he has failed because he wanted to like be in the tradition of that, you know, great, ingenious engineering marvel of the Olympic tent structure by Fradi on Günter Beynisch, which looks as fresh these days as, you know, back then 50 years ago, while his and it's authentic. It's like what you see is what you get. Well, here it's most likely a steel structure, but it's all mass graded, right? It's covered up. It has makeup on and that to that degree is truly formalist and has little to no performative measures. Go to the next slide because and at this point, we want to let the audience know that as much as possible, we pull from personal either archives, as in your case, with your great archive of professional and personal or as walking around and I witnessing things and I happen to be in Frankfurt around. I think it was during my Arizona time. So sometimes in 2013 or 14, where I was seeing this project under construction, which is the European Central Bank towers also by Cobb Himmelblau. And Frankfurt has a recent history, you know, a modern marvel, which we talked about before at the very bottom right, which is the commerce tower by Lord Norman Foster, which is really trying to push that very sort of power and money dominated typology of a high rise into a more ecologically sensitive and responsible dimension. And that was in the early nineties and some two decades later. Next slide, Wolf Precks came in and won a competition for this basically fossil monument here, which, you know, tries to, again, as you said, look kooky, look funny, it's twisted and morphed and turned. And at the next slide, but on a performative level, what we see here is the white sheets in the back is actually the construction workers boarding the building up when it was under construction. So it wasn't even totally hermetically completed. And again, I'm not wearing my collar here for decoration because we have snow here pretty heavy these days. And it's really cold and this being next door to me in my country. This time of the year, it might actually make sense because when the sun might come out tomorrow again, this might, you know, perform as far as solar gain. But then in the summer that isn't I remember at Frankfurt is funny because, you know, the Iron Man being in Hawaii, there's actually a German one in Frankfurt. And some years ago, all the athletes were so happy to perform under cooler temperatures in Frankfurt, and we actually had it hotter at that point than in Hawaii. We had a huge wave and it was like in the hundreds. And then, oh, my God, we wish we would have been still in Hawaii. Yeah. So once again, you know, here, here he is at the beginning or fairly into the new 21st century doing basically fossil formalism, which is wrong. So yeah, and you pointed out, you pointed out to that in Germany and a temperate climate where it gets cold for a good portion of the year, it may be useful at times to be sealed into a glass box, which will heat up through solar energy. But that's not true 100 percent of the time. So for the rest of the year, where you don't want it to be a heated up glass box, like a greenhouse to grow plants. And that's something that is very prominent in temperate climates. Glass greenhouses are created to grow tropical plants in cold climates because they gather and conserve heat to keep tropical plants alive when there's snow outside. So sometimes that works, but that's not true 100 percent of the time for the whole year. Yeah. And for sure not in Hawaii, because this is how the buildings look that we predominantly see popping up in Honolulu left and right. And they're totally wrong. And here they're pretty, pretty wrong, too, because the summer is coming next. And then these are wrong, too. Speaking of European Union gets us to the next slide, because this is a lady we've been talking about quite a bit. She's now the head commissioner of the European Union, Ursula von der Leyen here, who's currently struggling with COVID as we all are and with getting us as much vaccine as possible right now. But she's also promoting something here that you found interesting, right, that we quoted at the very top left. Well, she said that she thinks it's time for a new Bauhaus to be created. And I wondered what she meant by that term. Now, the Bauhaus for those who don't know is was an art school and an art movement and a construction movement, design movement created in Germany in the early part of the 20th century, 100 years ago, actually. Very forward thinking. And also what I said, what does that mean? You said that you thought that what that meant is a comprehensive, all encompassing type of new attitude in which you design for everybody and you try to affect as much as possible of daily lives to improve them. So I think what she's saying is a new spirit, a new going forward of not only unity, but looking at everything holistically to improve everybody's lives. And certainly this would take into account climate change, energy usage, etc. Absolutely. And that being said, you know, the United States continue to be the strongest ally of the European Union. She's obviously much looking forward to the Camilla and Joe Biden administration now because that's the reason why the Proud Boys are so freaked out because as it looks like the Democrats are about to win not just the House, because that was in their hands, but also the Senate now. So that gives, again, the Biden-Harris administration much more leverage to be in line with Fundalign. She also calls it the new European Green Deal. And that's obviously referring to America as well. So it goes both ways, right? Right. So next slide is getting us back to America. And again, here's Camilla Harris up there. And again, Ursula is a woman, Angelism is a woman. Many of the other nations who are led by women have actually proven to do better in many ways also during COVID. So hopefully next time we're long overdue to also have a woman leading us. But again, now it's teamwork between Joe and Camilla. That's that's already as good as we can ask for at this point, right? And again, also, we want to say our friend, Ron Lindgren, who is who we're going to have next with us again on air in the volume two of this show here, reminded us of the tragic fact that of the 350,000 casualties of COVID in the United States, 250. So two thirds are basically the wisdom parts of society, the 165 and older, and that's really tragic. And here, luckily, here, the two presidents that we still have around Jimmy, the oldest president ever, and then Joe, you know, running us next. We're really happy to have them around. And, you know, we see a certain, you know, relationship between the two of them and Joe basically reconnecting to what what Jimmy did. And let's go to the next slide and talk more about that. And also, we want to remember the many that we have lost again, especially of that wisdom age group. This is my dear mentor, Bill Bonner, without, you know, whom I wouldn't be where I am and I probably wouldn't have known about Hawaii. Of course, I knew where Hawaii is, but more vaguely. But when I came back to teach in Nebraska and he took me under his wings, he basically always told me about his dream place, which is Hawaii. And he was vacationing there forever in the past and continued to go there. These were the times when he had his wife, Debbie, and their friend, Becky, out there in Kauai, twice. This was us out there. And next slide, going back to the glorious days of the 70s, Bill was instrumental. He started teaching in 72. And he was the environmental engineer of the building that probably has informed and impacted me the most, which is the 1976 National Bank of Commerce by IMPAY in Lincoln, Nebraska. And you see at the very bottom right, the achievement of Bill together with IMPAY, this beautiful fusion of at that time, granted, the 70s were still fossil, you know, principally, but this beautiful fusion of all systems, acoustical, air conditioning, lighting, sprinkling, structure, everything collapsed into this beautiful blend of reflective ceiling plan. And needless to say, IMPAY, we have a treasure of IMPAY. And that's we are referring to with this image from your archives, which shows it before, right, before construction. And that is East West Center. That's right. That's right. And go to the next slide. And this is this is the building here. We see the next generation R&T, the meant the bore up there at the very top left at the east fenestration of the building that is sculptured in a way that it keeps the sun out. So this building basically is between the big awakening of the first oil crisis at the beginning of the 70s and was completed in 1976 and is fully demonstrating that even under not so good political leadership of Nixon at the beginning, you know, architecture was, you know, not, you know, giving up and trying to do its very best. And then obviously when it was completed, then Jimmy picking up from there and really fostering environmental concerns and consciousness, right? So this is a brilliant building. And I once gave out the task in talking Chile and my background picture is a picture from the construction originally, and now it's being, you know, below freezing here in Nebraska, even more with a wind chill, I can't even tell you. It's like it feels like 30 below. So they were building this through the winter and this is port and place concrete, buff colored concrete and how in the world did they make this happen to pour through the the winter and the freezing? Why do we say this and why we don't have that? So we should, you know, really be very happy and feel honored to be able to to be able to build under the more privileged circumstances, constantly perfect, you know, temperature. Right. Nothing freezes here. Exactly. Next slide. Talking marvels from the 70s. This is a 1975 building by Harry Wees in Chicago. And that caught your interest, right? Yes. And this is interesting because it needed to be placed in a prominent location. So it had to be architecturally rather distinguished looking, particularly considering that it is a high security prison. So the response to that requirement was to build this very sharp edged triangular high rise that is distinctive looking because it's got these very skinny little windows that could only be a maximum of five inches wide. That's for security purposes, but it ended up looking interesting and looking like an old fashioned IBM computer punch card, which the architect acknowledged was part of what he wanted to do. And it became a striking looking building, despite or partly because of the nature of what it was doing. It was housing hardened criminals that had to be kept under high security. Yeah. And next, well, stay with this slide for a second here. Just like Wells Fargo Bank and Lincoln, Nebraska, this was basically pigmentant. So the color was basically mixed into the concrete, which I poured in place in this sort of buff color. It was actually imported from Texas. And next slide is when I was back in Chicago a while ago and my buddy from school, Dan Kubrick, basically drove me around and I asked him to drive back because I was hoping that what I saw wasn't real, but it was real. And was that the solo? Well, unfortunately, they've painted the building this kind of buff mustard color. And for some reason, it's true, even here in Honolulu, people feel the need to update concrete, plain, concrete, brutalist buildings by painting them this same yellowy color. That's happened here in Honolulu. It happened to the federal building downtown with the federal courthouse. It happened to the Kaiser Clinic in central Honolulu. It happened at the UH. And for some reason, uniformly, everybody thinks they should do this. They should not. They should leave the building as it was designed, but also because once you paint something, you have to keep painting it. Therefore, you are putting yourself in a situation of constant maintenance, which the plain concrete did not require. Yeah. Yeah. And talking like, you know, finding a sociotel explanation for that. While in the Jimi era, it was about authenticity, right? It was about the real starting with the movie actor, Ronnie Reagan, and continued to be through Trump, even more to an extreme surreal level. It was all about the look and the faking it, right? And trying to look young, even though, you know, you were aging. So similar with the building that just threw the makeup on the fake over it. And we basically covering up its authenticity. And next slide, again, I once had the situation. I was also banking in this is back to Nebraska. This is the lobby down there and I happened to be in the lobby and I saw them doing some test paint on some of the counters. And I basically freaked out in a woman that turned out to have something to say, basically asked me. And when I came back next time, they had scraped off the test test paint and basically tried to wash it, get the grease out, because it was where the in the summer, when the short pens and the skirts, you know, the legs were leaving their grease in the concrete, right? We're washing this out and luckily, because, again, you cannot make something like that. This is like, again, me, the Americana, these buildings would have never happened in Germany. We lost the war for good reason. Thank you. And we were traumatized. Some modernism was stiff and this very proud her rowing is was only able to be possible in America, only in America. The next slide truly shows us, Bill, here he is taking the students and me out to where the cutting edge technology is. This is out to the prefab concrete industry in Omaha and Lincoln, Nebraska. And you see these huge highway trusses, double T with these amazingly, you know, flimsy and thin flanges there. And again, picture up there. We have that, too. We have that out there. A great specific walking mountain precast out west at Campbell Industrial Park. And why did Bill show this to us? Next slide, because he wanted to prevent this, right? Because when we're saying, you know, the whole, you know, talking tragic agendas that Trump was still pushing through his classicism mandate that in the spring, you were hoping this would never happen, but he actually just pushed it through. And we'll talk about more about that next week. But this just didn't start yesterday or with the Trump. So it's preceding Trump. This was at the end of my period days, so somewhere before 2010. And here you can see this basically, you know, small bank branch being basically a composite structure, the canopy out there is steel being make up and masqueraded with these exquisitely done precast panels that don't try to be they're not allowed to be what they are extremely modern and progressive, but they they need to become this sort of neoclassical masquerade. Yeah, it's preposterous. And the close up photograph of that facade being put over the steel structure is mind bogglingly stupid and phony, totally phony. Exactly. And next slide is, you know, when you want the real deal, you go to Europe. And this is when I saw Bill last, when he was visiting us in our rather boy headquarters. You see him with my dad at the very bottom right there. And we took him to all the historic marvels of Dresden here. Right. And this is where the old stuff comes from. And that's where it should be long. And you sure should go there and be fascinated about it. But when you go home, like to America, you take it home and you take home from it what you want. And then you interpret that. And that reminds us of one person in architectural history who is probably embodying that sort of mentality the most. And that gets us to the next slide. And that is who? Well, that's Louis Kahn. And I am pay, who you see at the top was one of his big fans, who was very influenced by him. And you pointed out that here is a documentary about Kahn, which was done by his son. You see his son with him in the photograph in the lower left. I have not seen this this film. You took your sons to see it when they were very little. And as you pointed out, they saw you crying with emotion to see the work of this man and to find out about his life. Yeah, very much so. And again, in the movie, Nathaniel, who you see here at the very bottom left with his father and happy new year, Nathaniel, we have a chance to get to know him when we brought him to you age to basically show the movie and have a Q&A after that, never forget that. And basically in the movie, basically he goes out to interview for various reasons. He didn't have the chance to get to know his father a lot. So he wanted to get to know him through the ones who have been around him. So he was asking all the famous people who are still around. And one of them was I am pay. And we probably have to do a show about him because of the footprint in and he passed away in the very honorable age of 102 last year. And that was some years ago, but he was already up in age. And when Nathaniel basically said, well, I am why in the world you have built so many more buildings that my dad has and great buildings. No doubt on that one. Why are you so keen on the projects of my father? And basically I am pay is very taken. He basically said it's not about quantity. It's about quality and none of my projects. And talking Washington, DC, there's the National Gallery right there on the mall, which is an I am pay building and there it's a beautiful building, right? But he basically said none of my many buildings get anywhere close to the quality of the work your father has done. So he was an absolutely big fan of him. Go to the next slide and another one of my dear colleagues. And before that, at my student days, he saw us here. Professor in Lincoln here wrote this book here and talking books. Next slide, the history book he had required us to have in the history class was the one at the very bottom right. And the author was Charles Jenks, we see up there. And he was a landscape architect by training and also with some practice as we see on the other side. But in the book, he was basically pretty much always bitching about Khan. And I found this sort of weird that I was a student. So I wasn't quite sure why and what. And I hadn't seen any of Khan's work at that point, right? And so I was sort of and, you know, now recently some years ago when I came back and was, you know, on eye level with Keith, I said, why did you assign that? And he basically said, Martin, I was a victim of circumstances of side guys. We're like postmodernism was at least, you know, over at least theoretically, but still somehow there. So we're like kind of lost and, you know, and that was that was what it was. By the way, Jenks passed away as well, I think, last year. So another one we lost. And next slide, talking about losing. I think we're getting to the end of the show, but let's still try to, you know, at least scratch the surface of what we want to talk about. Because here, Jay's repeated guest, Kevin Newt, basically brought this to our attention. And what is that? So this is a series of student dormitories at a college in India by Khan, using red brick in a very reasonable manner, using brick in a way that it, as he points out, brick wants to be used. This is a classic. This is a complex of buildings. And this college has decided that are said that they were planning to demolish most of these. And there was an international outcry against that. And people pointed out, no, you can't just throw most of them away and just keep a handful of them as examples. The integrity of the entire project needs to be preserved. And so far they have agreed that, yes, that we're not going to tear these down, which is a triumph for preservation of this architecture. Yeah. And the next slide is again, it's just showing we were like outraged. And this is the project that embodies everything, you know, tectonically and technologically that Khan is so famous for. And next slide, this is an exception to the rule. But none of us were able to have seen that in real. So we had to pull this from the web here, but it shows how timeless that is and how appropriate it still looks like. And the next slide shows pretty much the plan. And again, the kind of the stupid excuse they had, they were, you know, seeing there was an earthquake some time ago and there was a terration. But again, give me a break if there's a will, there's a way. And as you said, this big outcry internationally in the community basically made them change their mind. So another proof of evidence back to politics, we, the people, right, have the power, we just have to use it. Right. And on a closing note, talking typologically, as you said, these are dorms and why could dorms to be of, you know, could should be, you know, in the center of attention for us in Hawaii disorder. Well, because there's a threat to demolish some of the UH dorms and that is exactly the same situation. These are outstanding buildings that you pointed out are very useful because you actually lived in one of them when you first moved here. And we need to, again, assert ourselves and say, we need to keep these and don't just destroy them for something which is not going to be as good. And also is probably just going to look pretty and look interesting rather than be useful and reasonable and appropriate. Exactly. And particularly it's Kaikendorhal that we see up there, which is not a dorm, but a classroom building, but by Takashi Anbi, so a true treasure to keep. So please, our bosses at UH reconsider that and as well, again, as you pointed out, you know, I had spent, I was privileged to spend my first week in Hawaii when I came in 2012 in an IMP dorm, which is basically Hal and Manoa up there and it's a beautiful building. So again, go back, reflect that, research that and then go back to the drawing board because again, we don't want to see again what we see at the intersection of University Avenue and King Street, right? Nor again, what they're proposing for up there on Dole Street, where the creek comes down, right? These are pretty scary, hermetic, invasive creatures. And again, go back to these masterpieces that we have just next door because Hal and Manoa is right there. So with that, once again, happy humane, new 21. Hopefully again, everything stays peaceful there up at the National Mall in Washington, D.C. And we look forward to have democracy back and we'll reflect more about learning from the past for the future and starting out with volume two of this next time and sharing another Lucca building that we actually have with this and we want to share how it had some impact on us. So with that, thank you and see you next week.