 And welcome to Human-Humane Architecture here on Think Tech Hawaii. I am the co-host of this program to Soto Brown and I am the historian from Bishop Museum here in Honolulu. Normally we would have our host, Martin Despang, joining us via audio. Martin happens to be in Germany right now, but for technical reasons Martin is not able to talk to us today, so it's just going to be me today. And as everybody knows we like to talk about different types of architecture here on human-humane architecture as you would imagine. And our subject this week is Alamoana Shopping Center and we've got a bunch of different views of Alamoana for us to discuss and for me to tell you about. So let me see, let's go right now to our first slide. And this is a view, an idealized view of Honolulu in about the location of where Alamoana Center is located today. And Martin likes to talk about how there is this exotic view of the Hawaiian Islands as this tropical paradise, a lot of it a fantasy of course. And interestingly enough, Martin being from Germany, this view is even very common in Germany and other parts of Europe as well. So this painting, which comes from some source that I'm not familiar with because Martin found it, is again kind of an idea of what things look like in Honolulu before a lot of intensive development. And when we go to slide number two, here is an important architecture, architect and some of the work that he did. This is Victor Gruen, excuse me, yes, Victor Gruen. Victor Gruen is a very important man. He was, as I was just mentioning, excuse me, Martin being from Europe, Victor Gruen was also from Europe, I believe he was from Austria. He made his largest mark architecturally in the United States by creating the first indoor mall, shopping mall. And it was called Southdale Center and it was located outside Minneapolis and it opened in 1956. To the right, and the picture on the right, is the financial plaza of the Pacific in downtown Honolulu. Not by Victor Gruen, but an important piece of architecture from that same time period nonetheless and it is in a style which is called brutalism. We're going to be talking more about brutalism in some of the future shows that we do here on Human Humane Architecture. But going ahead to slide number three, this is the sign which was placed on the site of Alamoana Center when it was under construction in 1958 and 1959. And as you can see, John Graham and company was the architectural firm that designed the Alamoana Center and Alamoana was built at the time that shopping centers were growing very, very strongly in the United States and yet they were unknown in any place outside of the USA at that particular point. And Alamoana was incredibly important in the development of the city of Honolulu because it shifted the center of retailing from downtown Honolulu to Alamoana Shopping Center in the center of town. And as you can see by the sign, there were going to be 80 merchants and 5,000 free parking spaces, a very important point of the entire project as it was built. And in slide number four, this as Martin likes to say using a German term is part of the zeitgeist or the spirit of the time from when Alamoana Center was built. Actually, it's a contrast. It is a depiction on the left of Hawaiian women surfing in the 1800s from a publication probably from the United States. Again, a very idealized fantasy view. But on the right is a fashion photograph taken in 1958 or 59 during the construction of Alamoana Center. This is a 50s woman in the Hawaiian Islands as opposed to the 19th century women that we see on the left. In the background of the picture on the right, you see Alamoana under construction and the woman is dressed in high fashion of that time period. This photograph was part of a series of fashion photographs taken at Alamoana as promotion for it before it opened. So you see from 19th century nude Hawaiian women to 20th century Hawaiian women dressed in high fashion. That's the interpretation there. If we go to slide number five, here's a view of what Alamoana and the surrounding area looked like before it was developed. The land was purchased by a man named Benjamin Franklin Dillingham in 1912 and originally it was marshland through offshore dredging which was done by one of Mr. Dillingham's companies which was called Hawaiian dredging. The dredging material was piped on shore and placed in the site of Alamoana Center to turn it into dry land. That dry land remained unoccupied except during World War II when it was used for the storage of materials by the U.S. military either the army or the Navy. It was a large open area so they could store lumber and other things like that. This particular picture was taken in 1947. It's a little bit ever of the actual site of Alamoana Center. It was the lumber yard that was owned by a company called Lewers and Cook but you can see that nothing has been built as of yet in the site that would become Alamoana. In picture number six, well that's what Alamoana Center became. I remember that I showed you when we just discussed the sign which was on the site before the building was actually constructed or before the center was built. It said it was going to have 5,000 free parking spaces. Well there are some of those free parking spaces in use and free parking was really the thing that made Alamoana as important as it is because up until that time if you wanted to go shopping in downtown Honolulu you really had a problem trying to find a place to park your car and by the late 1950s a great percentage of people were traveling by private car and so if you can't park you won't go somewhere. Soon as Alamoana opened and there was all the parking that you could possibly want, the retailing center as I said shifted to that site to make use of all of these free parking spaces. In the next photograph, here's Alamoana Center as it looked in about 1971-72 and this is a little bit different from the way it looked when it opened. When Alamoana opened it consisted only of the end which was closest to us in this photograph where the Sears anchor store was built. Subsequently the high rise to the left, the Alamoana building with the La Ronde restaurant on the top opened in 1961 and then in 1966 the second phase of Alamoana opened. At that point it occupied its entire piece of property. What has happened since then is important to know too because even though by 1966 Alamoana was completely built out in a sense it was going to change considerably with the addition of a lot of additional buildings and we are gonna touch on that a little bit as we continue through this but Alamoana no longer looks like this today. It has a lot more stuff built on it because within that piece of property which was very fortunate for the company to have in such a densely urbanized area as it has now become it's been necessary to build on it even more to occupy, to use even more of the space that exists there. And if we go to picture number seven here is a view of Alamoana right at the time that was just being built or just had been completed from the ever end and you can see again Diamondhead is over on the right hand side not dissimilar to the photograph that I showed you just a little bit ago which was from 1947. Well, here we are in the same location as that earlier picture was taken. It had been developed into the Lourdes and Cook building supply company store and now Alamoana Center is there. And this end of Alamoana that we're looking at right here is the Sears store. Sears was a very important American retailer at that time probably the largest retailer in the entire country and interestingly this Sears store out of all of the thousands that existed not only in the United States but in other countries as well. The one at Alamoana for a time was the largest Sears store anywhere in the world which gives you a sense of how important it was. Sears was in crucial in the construction of Alamoana because there was a freestanding Sears department store already at that time on Baratania Street but it was not until Sears was convinced to move to Alamoana and it made that commitment in 1958 that construction was finally able to begin on this entire complex. Sears today of course is gone from Alamoana but it was absolutely foundational in the development of the entire thing in the first place. In the next photograph, now again a similar view but from a different angle there is the Sears store and there's Diamond Head and a little bit of construction starting in Waikiki with the Kaiser Hospital which the building you can see right there next to Diamond Head. Alamoana was a two level originally a two level store. There's the mall level which is what we see right here with the parking deck and underneath that was the ground level. Notice also the overall look of the entire structure. Sears is kind of a box on top of a box and it has very clearly marked on it it's Sears script logo type which was very distinctive and obviously very important to identify the store. But if you look at the rest of Alamoana to the left you are going to see these very wide large flat or not flat roofs but roofs which really extend out and give a great deal of shade. And that's an important thing as Martin likes to talk about here in the Hawaiian Islands where we've got not only sun but we've got some rain to deal with as well. You want protection for people who are walking around and that's what those eaves did. In picture number 10 this is an architectural rendering of Alamoana before it was built or while it was under construction. It did not actually look exactly like this but this was phase one and this was the end of phase one on the left hand side. That today is the central part of Alamoana where the escalators go between the two floors and where the stage is. Phase one of Alamoana ended there. Notice again those very dramatic large overhanging roofs on the right hand side of this image you can see the parking ramps which went up to the base of the Alamoana building which when it was constructed in 1961 was the tallest building in the Hawaiian Islands. In the next picture this is a cross section that shows how Alamoana was developed and you can see on the bottom is the ground level that I was discussing and then above that is the mall level and right in the center you can see there's a picture of a tree, some individual people walking around with those overhanging roofs to shade them and that's the main level for retailing. There was retailing again as there still is on the ground level but what's more important about this picture is that it shows the cutaway view of how Alamoana was serviced. In the very center in that black rectangle that's a truck that's going into the loading docks and the loading zones of all the function to supply all of the different stores. All of that was covered up, all of that was ground level so people couldn't see it. There were also interior service corridors so this was built so that you didn't see any of the day-to-day activities, you just saw the retail environment and for you as a pedestrian and a shopper and a customer it was a much more attractive experience. In picture number 12, here is part of Alamoana Center's first brochure which was released to the public even before the center had opened and it shows you in these renderings of the architectural views how typical it is of the 1950s not only in the way it's drawn but if you look at some of the depictions for example the architectural styles which were used for some of those early storefronts again extremely 50s. There's also a very distinctive logo that Alamoana developed which is very much a part of it, that circular logo which was supposed to be influenced by traditional Hawaiian cultural objects like and for example it used the different colors of red, yellow and black which are the colors which are found on traditional Hawaiian feather cloaks. Next picture, we've got another view another of those architectural renderings this time of the diamond head end of phase one and Martin pointed out very astutely I thought that the Eva end was where Sears was located that was the mainland national company but on this end the diamond head end there were two major local clothing stores Andrade which you can see later on the left and the McInerney store which was on the right and then in front of them was a decorative fountain which we're gonna see in just a second. So the Eva end has the mainland type of retailers and the big box store and the diamond head end has the two other local retailers in sort of a more Hawaiian-ish type of setting and I might point out that I worked in that Andrade store that you see right there in the 1980s and it still did look like that then it's long gone today unfortunately. Next picture, that is the fountain which stood outside that diamond head end of the original phase one. The decorative parts of this fountain were dedicated to and paid homage to the four major Hawaiian gods. So in a very abstract sort of way this was again another reference to Hawaiian culture and this is a postcard of Alamwana from the 1960s which Don Hibbard very kindly made a scan of for us. And in the next photograph again, more artwork. This very large abstract, I don't even know what that is it's kind of a sculpture. It was on the Maoka side of the McInerney store. You can see there's a show window down in the right hand corner and one car parked there. And this very dramatic depiction was kind of an abstract view of the island of Oahu with some little buildings scattered here and there. As a little kid at the age of five or six years old I was very puzzled by this because I thought this has to, this was supposed to be a literal depiction of Honolulu and I couldn't quite figure out what looked like what. No, of course it was not a literal view but it was a part of the art which was very openly discussed and praised as being part of the whole Alamwana experience. The installation of art and sculpture et cetera to enhance your shopping experience. Next photograph or next image I should say again an architectural rendering. This is supposed to be the central part of Alamwana where today as I've said the stage is located and in this rendering it is made to look exotic as Martin pointed out. Particularly the depictions of the palm trees and the other foliage makes it look like it's something more than just your everyday shopping mall. It also shows too that it is open air. That's a very important thing. This was exposed to trade winds, it still is. It's for the most part very well ventilated. And it also has a more exotic look. It's also got outdoor escalators and those were the first outdoor escalators built in the Hawaiian islands and for that reason they were considered kind of outstanding and interesting. In the next picture we've got a picture of the Alamwana meeting rooms. Alamwana provided meeting rooms which were available for rental as they would be for example in a large hotel ballroom. And this was part of the amenities which were offered to Alamwana shoppers as well as other people. Notice that in the background there's the Alamwana center logo but right in the center behind the stage where you can see there are some figures standing on that stage. We've got three kahili and a suggestion of two feather close. That's to get across the idea of Hawaiian-ness yet again. In our next picture, here is the mall at Alamwana on opening day in August of 1959. And at the end that you can't really see too clearly is Sears and then there was Longs Drugs which is still there amazingly one of the very few original clients that are still there. The Woolworth store, the Hartfield store and as you can see it's also not even completely worked out yet. They haven't even finished, they haven't even finished up much less occupied all of the retail spaces. But there are those overhanging eaves that are providing shade from the sun as well as providing shelter from rain but also open air experience. And Alamwana today is being promoted as the largest open air shopping center in the entire world because it's not enclosed. In our next photograph, another part of the shopping experience made more pleasant. This is in phase two of Alamwana when it was completed in 1966. This fish pond with people with a little bridge over it. I thought that was very cool when I was a kid. And in number 20, our next photograph is a picture of the fountain, the Waiola fountain. That was also an original part of these phase two of 1966. This is a photograph, these are photographs that Martin took that show that Waiola is a specifically, again, reference to Hawaiian culture. That sculpture and that fountain is still there today, although it is not really as well seen as it used to be because this area has been altered so much and redeveloped so substantially as Alamwana has grown over the years. In our next photograph, here's something else that was built as an amenity of that time for phase two. This was right outside the Liberty House Department Store at the Diamond Head Inn. And it was an aviary, a large outdoor aviary and you were supposed to be able to gaze upon and look at attractive tropical birds and hear them singing, et cetera, as part of your shopping experience. It also had this rather cool circular ramp that went around it. Well, this actually didn't work out as well as everybody had hoped. It is kind of a striking modern cage, but this area was so windy that they had to install plexiglass to shelter the birds and they never were really all that happy in this kind of dark and windy location. So that's something that architects can design, but not necessarily things don't always work out the way they wanted to. And in our next picture, something else in Alamwana, which I talked about previously when we had our kooky canopies show here on Human Humane Architecture, there were holes made for full size coconut palms to grow through. And here is one of those coconut palms protruding up through a hole in the mall level. Most of those are gone right now, but that was again a distinctive and tropical touch that Alamwana had that no place else in the United States was likely to have. In our next picture, we've got the Liberty House Department Store as the anchor tenant on the diamond head end. And interestingly, as we look up in the picture on the left, we're looking up through one of those circular holes in the deck of the mall level and the overhanging Eve of the Liberty House Store has got these panels which are in fact actual Kappa designs, Hawaiian Kappa designs. And I praise the Alamwana Center management and or the management of Liberty House, which was what the store was at the time, for including these actual designs from Hawaiian culture, traditional Hawaiian culture. And I work at Bishop Museum and I think they got those top of patterns from Bishop Museum. So I'm proud that we were involved. Today, of course, the store is now Macy's and there is not much left of it, as it originally appeared, except these Kappa panels are still there. In our next picture, here are three renderings of how Alamwana Center has grown over the years. And this is what I've been talking about is we've been going through these pictures. On the far left is Alamwana's first phase as it appeared when it opened in 1959. In the middle picture, we've got the addition of the Alamwana building as well as phase two with Liberty House. And then today, well, this is kind of what it looks like today, pretty much. We've got one section that goes off towards what had been the Nordstrom store on the Malco side. We have a much larger portion on the end of more retail with the other, the new Nordstrom as well as Bloomingdale's. And of course today, they're also constructing high level apartments on the site too. So as I said, there's been a lot of changes there and there's been a lot of additions to continue to build out this property and to occupy as much of it as possible. In our next picture, and this is something that Martin has pointed out and I praise him for this because it's not something that I would have really noticed. The addition of a third level to Alamwana Center which has occurred, and as you can see by this picture here, has taken it away from its original appearance of the wide, low hanging eaves and a more of a tropical or Hawaiian field that it used to have to a more kind of generic one. As he points out, this is almost Mediterranean in some respects. It has a lot more elements happening here. Originally the center looked very much more stripped down and typical of the 1950s in its appearance and how it was more of an abstract type of artwork. If you saw anything today, we got a lot more literal things going on, a lot more elements looking down from the third level onto the mall level here at Alamwana. But something that Martin also noticed because he is a newcomer in some respects to Alamwana Center is in the next photograph. And Martin pointed out that when he first came from Germany to the United States when he was an architectural student, something that really struck him were the existences of malls because really large malls had not yet spread to Germany. This is a mall in San Diego. And when he encountered this mall, he was really struck by how big it was and how striking it was. But today, as he points out, this is not too dissimilar, this San Diego mall in some respects to what Alamwana looks like. Alamwana has in some respects lost a lot of its originality, its Hawaiianness to become a lot more generic and like malls throughout the entire world, if not the United States. And he also points out that there's been an amalgamation and homogenization of the stores because when you go to Alamwana today, you will be seeing stores that are not unique to Hawaii so much as you will be seeing stores that are found all over the country and all over the world. So as the rest of the world in some sense has caught up to the construction of malls, they have in fact become much more similar throughout the entire world as well. So Alamwana's original appearance was far more unique than what it is today. And in our next photograph, this is a photo that shows what's happening at Alamwana right now. The high rises to the left are at the ever end of Alamwana and the cranes that you see there are constructing the apartment buildings that I mentioned just earlier, which are interestingly built on the site of and are part of a shopping mall, but they are high end apartments. And in 1959, it would have been inconceivable that a shopping center in Honolulu would have built in apartments as well. And yet as space has become tighter and has land has become more valuable, more and more we are seeing the use of all of this land as much as possible to maximize the profit and to find places for people to live. And so people are now living at Alamwana center or if they're not there yet, they soon will be because these apartments are, if not completed, very near to completion. That is the latest addition to Alamwana, but it is probably not going to be the last one because I think we will probably see the continued use of Alamwana, continued redevelopment of it. And in our next photograph, this is a comparison that Martin was gonna make that I am not as well familiar with, unfortunately, but this is a building in Berlin. And he said that when, even in Berlin, there are days when it's very hot and or raining. And the thing that really struck him about this particular public building was the very generous overhangs that shielded you from not only the sun, but also the rain. Here in the tropical Hawaiian islands, shielding from the sun is a good deal, more significant than it is in the far north of Europe in Germany, but those overhanging eaves that provided that shade, which were very commonplace and which were a big feature of Alamwana Center when it opened, are really not there anymore, certainly not in the same appearance as they once had in the first photographs that I showed you. And in our final picture, this is a picture that Martin took of the Bloomingdale store that was under, when it was under construction at the Ewa End of Alamwana. And he said that it struck him as he was looking at this shell of the building, that it was kind of a shame that it wasn't possible to leave it just as it was with, again, the protection from the sun, the protection from rain, but with the open air aspects, which would allow free movement of air and how fabulous that would be in a tropical setting to be able to be shopping in essentially the open air. And of course, and he hoped that it could be left like that. Well, obviously it wasn't possible for the Bloomingdale store to remain like that, but that was his fantasy as to what Alamwana could have been in comparison to what it really is. And I think that brings us to the end of our program for today. This is the end of Human Humane Architecture. I'm DeSoto Brown. I've been happy to host this program for you in the absence of Martin, our real host, Martin Despang, I hope will be back with us barring any technical problems for our next show, which should be in two weeks from now. And next time we're gonna be talking about another shopping center here in Honolulu, which is the Royal Hawaiian Shopping Center in Waikiki. It's architectural style and to agree what it has changed itself into as time has passed since it opened back in about 1980. So until next show, everybody, I'm DeSoto Brown. Thanks for watching Human Humane Architecture on Think Tech, Hawaii.