 Tech Hawaii's human-human architecture, happening to be the 315th episode. And we are in the 24th time comparing two windy cities, ours here in Honolulu, Hawaii, and the one at Lake Michigan, Chicago, Illinois. And us is me, Martin de Stang, from the Waikiki Grand, and Yudistodo Brown, one over from almost in Diamondhead. Hi, Distodo. Good day, everyone, on Think Tech. So this is going to be our concluding show in this year, 2023, and we want to wish you already happy holidays, as we were wished here. And you got these and I got these. So where are these from? Well, what we're looking at are cards that both you and I received from our good friend, Ron Lindgren, who is a wonderful, required architect, now living in Long Beach, California, and he was the designer of the redesigned Kalikulani Hotel that Ron was very proud of. And obviously, Martin, you visit very frequently. And Ron likes pop-up cards. So he sent us each five pop-up cards. The ones in this picture are the ones that you, Martin, received. I got four of these the same, but I did not get the cardinal. I got a different one. So I took my cards to work. They are displayed in Bishop Museum archives, part of the decoration looking really good. So, Ron, thank you. Everybody's happy with his cards. What does this have to do with architecture? It has to do a lot, because you see how immaculate that all is, that why we put in also the envelope from the front and the back, how everything is constructed, gestalted, to use that German word that you adopted, and how it's taped, and how the individual envelopes are labeled. Everything is a total piece of artwork, as your projects are run. So it reflects. And I've been throwing out, and I'm a frequent, sort of a traveler vagabond in the Halle Kohlani, and they call me a permanent walking inventory there. And I tell them that we're staying, if one of our emerging talents would ever sort of eco-tech the energy model, the building, it probably comes out as lead platinum, because all the criteria of orientation, fenestration is so right. Intuitively, the analog old way, because it was built in the in the 80s, that there wasn't any digital tools to do that, but by this intuitive model. So Christmas, by the way, which did not, you know, the half of your culture, the sort of the Hawaiian, did not bring that tradition. That's your other half, right? That's your, your Halle side and my side, fully. We brought that. And I just read that it is everything but sustainable. It's actually very wasteful in a lot of things we're doing over the holidays. Ron, once again, with a pop-up card, think about actually your Hawaiian culture, we just had, you know, new friends from South Carolina coming in and us having met with them. And they're very curious and interested. They visited the museum and you yesterday, we were at Arnold, the open, easy breezy tiki bar that we know through the breakers. And so it does actually the most with the least and that is very Hawaii, not to say Hawaiian, right? That's what your ancestors have been doing. And by the way, all ancestors of all, you know, indigenous cultures have and then have that been doing. But here, you achieve, you know, the most of declaration in a three-dimensional way with the least amount. I mean, if you, you probably all know the movie with Arnie Schwarzenegger with a Robocop plastic coil that he has tried to frantically get one before they're sold out. And then there's everything like turns into chaos, right? That's the beautiful depiction of the absurdity of capitalism having hijacked that tradition, right? And Ron, once again, you do it here, you do the most with a lease. Of course, there's a little bit of paper production and bleaching and a couple of, you know, colors. So it's not like it doesn't have no footprint. And you made it from stick here out there in the jungle. So there's a minimal footprint, which your Hali Kalani is made of concrete, which by the way, then three of the four ingredients have been local. It was passed in place. So aggregates and sand and water from here, the cement had to be brought in. So it's not where the COP28 needs to push us now, right? Up to perfect. And there's a lot going on just last night by the extent of the conference they wanted to push. And we can be proud of ourselves at this point because the Americans and the Germans wanted to push hard while other cultures as Russia, as India, as China, as Iraq are not that interested in, unfortunately, but things that keep pushing this order together. And again, Ron, you are our hero in that. I've always been, will always be. So I hope we see you next coming year, which is soon because you promised you will do so. And I just want to add one thing too, that these cards are very elegant. And that's also true of Ron's work. So the elegance of the Hali Kalani, which immediately you feel when you walk in that it is an elegant place. I think there's a correlation between Ron liking these cards, which are elegant, and his work as an architect. And his personality, the way he speaks, the way he writes, total piece of artwork once again. And since we already said, this is about the 80s today. Whenever you and I dressed up more than a t-shirt, which is all you need climatically here, there is a special reason. So I did this today for this is our Christmas show, right? But also there's a meaning behind that gets us to the next slide, which is actually speaking of the 80s, because not long ago, we've been doing many shows about tropical brutalism. And that was relative to Doko Momo having had to phase. And we're in its 70s, going 50. Because why is 50 important? Well, 50 is the cutoff point for which the Doko Momo organization considers architecture to become part of what it is studying and what it is researching and what it is working to preserve. So while Doko Momo began as the mid-century architecture group, meaning the mid-century of the 20th century, as time passes, the material that the architecture that they're going to be studying and working with is going to continue to move forward in time as well. So right now they're in the 1970s because 50 years ago will soon be 1974. But as time passes, we're going to reach the 80s, as you said. And that depends on how old you are. For some, including me, this is frightening because it was the era of post-modernism that had just changed when I got into architectural education. So I'm very traumatized by it, I have to say, and I have to admit. And with that, we talked about that because he's of the same era. And so that being said, but others like Bill Chapman, for example, going back to the Hali Kalani just said he wants to do an exhibit in symposia about post-modernism. And once again, what's his flagship of the best of post-modernism as he had categorized your Hali Kalani one. So this gets us back to Chicago here about the 80s. And again, what's about my shirt? I selected this from what is depicting best the 80s as far as the TV series having been shot on our island here from the 80s, the Soto, this is the quiz. Well, that would be the original iteration of the television series Magnum PI. And the star of that program, which was Tom Selleck, was famous for a particular photo that got turned into a poster of him wearing an aloha shirt with orchid flowers on it. And that was probably, I mean, it was popular all over the United States. And I bet it appeared in a number of other countries as well because like a lot of other American TV series, Magnum got spread all over the world, shown in other countries. And I'm sure in Germany was dubbed into German. In my youth. And we talked about the irony that it was censored, go figure. And because they thought the whole reflection on the post-traumatic stress disorder of who he was depicting a Vietnam veteran, which you run are on top of everything else being our hero in that regards as well. And they were cutting a lot of that stuff out of the original dubbing it. And they only brought it back when private TV was was re airing it. So go figure. So from I do not do what you so greatly do because not that long ago you were beardless because of Halloween, as we remember. And so I'm not able to go through these transitions as quick as you do. But I should have been growing myself a mustache from, you know, but so this is a shirt I bought because it's not the one that we all remember where the parents and the flowers with is that shirt that he mostly wore. But I found this from the collection online. So this is a Magnum PI alias Tom Selleck shirt as well, but one that he rarely wore. So I'm wearing this today as again, talking about the eighties and five years in six years, it's going to be eighties turning fifties. And we better prepare for that as here, the office of Murphy Yahn does with the project we see at the bottom. And while things times have progressed, and our patron here is thank you brick principle with formerly Murphy Yahn and Yahn. And who basically we remember from our automobile architecture show in 1991, when I came over as that little clueless German kid and he took me under his wing and he opened the garage door and there was a 1960 Pontiac GTO that architecture and cars have a lot to do. Dan was then trading in into what the office of Yahn was into, which is horses. And we will see more of that in a couple of slides. And this here is certainly the evolution of it. So as architecture evolve, and we talked about his project 900 North Fairbanks as a little stroke boat in the top in the middle there. And I also threw in which we forgot last time and we got reminded of that there is a colleague of ours who's actually doing architectural criticism professional in Chicago. He's the main architectural critic. And that is Blair Cayman. And we put a link there that you can go for and see his coverage of that building that Dan designed. And I want to share something that Dan told me when he was just finished. He said, well, Helmut came there with him and Helmut, who always kept his German accent more than I did, said, oh, this is the next step. And then Dan said, okay, well, what do you mean? And, and he just repeated this is the next step. And Dan said, finally, okay, can you explain more to me? And then finally Helmut said, well, this is the next step after me. Meaning me is Van der Roa, who is the inventor of the old skeletal high rise in and having done that in Chicago, right? And we said last time, probably for us, it's true because that building has actually lanais or Lajias, which decreasingly the ones we get from Chicago authorship architects here. So it was ahead of its time. And the Meezy and high rises never had lanais. So indeed, I actually, we didn't see this back then. So the more you think about things and rethink things over time, the more things open up to you. So two of the projects from the we get to next, that he got the nickname of flesh Gordon of architecture. So from this flesh Gordon period of Helmut, all the two projects at the bottom there, the very left and in the middle. And one on the very left is from the late 70s to mid 80s, the Northwestern terminal. And the other one is the Thompson Center, which is almost exactly the year that the Holly Kalani was built, their siblings runs was in 84, this is in 85. And this one here was quite in the media because it's actually now the question is preservation. And that's also something that, you know, Bill is deeply into and we've been talking to the South Carolina guys about. And we talk about that in these days, you should not tear down any building anymore, you should try to reuse it repurposed, which is actually happening here with this building. And as this media and TV German, even in, in German news, it gets basically covered as Google will take over and be the new owner of the building. On the right, you see a proud model that in the firm, that's how powerful and impactful the firm is because they built their city as a large model, as an urban model and everything that is red is all their building. So there's quite some impact that the firm of Murphy Yon has the black ones. I've been thinking about to remember, but I think these are kind of associated things. We see the Sears Tower by SLM, of course, these are kind of associated to firms that helmet started out with, I believe at the table. So let's go to the next slide and look at the Thompson Center and think a little bit brainstorm a little bit about the nature of repurposing buildings and reusing building. It's truly, this is why we throw in here the signage of flashboard and it's very flash Gordon-ish and it's color details. And it's a big atrium building like John Portman kind of style, which then also talking killings for the Elie Ilani picks up that central atrium at the very end of the nineties. And it's been, we have to say the eighties were not the most energy efficient times. In fact, the opposite, right? With Juan E. Reagan, even promoting heavily fossil fuel. So the building has been criticized over time as a gas gosler, as an energy hog, and there were thoughts about mainly also for that reason, but also being considered to be outdated to basically tear it down. But the good news that is not the case anymore, the building is bold and promised to be. And so, but then there's this article here from the Chicago Sun Times here that we quote, where the writer rightly so refers to the rendering at the bottom right and saying, okay, why do you now make it so Andrew Jean and so colorless? And why is all of a sudden, you know, it's trademark kind of gone and they make a pit for because Google is going to move in that two of the colors that are the is the corporate identity color as we refer at the top right, the building had, which is basically the blue and the red. And also we make that funny comparison in that flesh board and sign it here. It's also, you know, two of the colors that are in the building. So why are you starting to basically want to modernize it in a way that it takes away its postmodern character? And that is on the on the formal side, on the performative side, on the energy performance side, we threw in at the top right, this building product of onyx glass that is that you print, so you print dots on glass that are photovoltaic. And it's a little like from the appearance, like when you have advertisements on the glass of buses, that from the outside, you see the full image of advertisement, but from the inside, you can actually look out. So that technology is available. And I would hope so that that is what's going to be maybe implemented when they remodel the building and you don't really again see it from the outside as actually as much as on the bus. So I guess I have to say, although the original, these are all renderings, so we forgot to put in, but we also want to encourage you to do some work too. So punch in the tongue, send the how it looked like originally, and it's glass is very adiishly not clear. It is sort of tinted and kind of bluish. And so you could actually replicate that, which we also recommended once for a project here by Joe Paul Rongstead, the century power, I guess it's called right right across from the Blaisdale Center, which also the glass is long overdue to be replaced and also has this tinted look. So you can actually preserve its appearance while upgrading its performance, its energy performance. So that that's something that we want to throw out here in the in the discussion that, you know, preserve the building actually in its homo authenticity. Let's just face it and say this is what it was. And let's continue to like it or maybe just say re like it for that, because of course the 80s were for some of us, me including and me saying that that's the big learning curve, right? Because I'm kind of retraining myself to get over my own trauma and paranoid. But you know what you're saying is very applicable to all kinds of things that are fashionable. In other words, clothing, hairstyles, cars, architecture, all of those things go through a period from first they start out looking very new, very modern and very desirable and exciting. Then they gradually lose that freshness and they start to look old fashioned. Then they go through a phase where people actually actively dislike what they are and want to destroy them. And we have seen this again and again with all kinds of different architectural styles, which get destroyed because people don't like them. And pardon me, there is a jet going by making a lot of noise as I'm speaking. But in any case, this is something that we all need to realize that just the way we feel right now, it's not the way everybody's going to feel in the future. So the destruction of something now is something that we may be sorry about in the future that we lost. And there are many buildings in Hawaiian islands that were demolished because they went out of fashion that we wish we still had as evidence of those architectural styles and of the quality of the workmanship that went into creating them, which in some cases is impossible to replicate now. So what you just touched on is very important. And also we're in a stage now where we're seeing a lot of redevelopment or repurposing buildings that were commercial and were for offices, which are now no longer needed because office space is now no longer as much desirable as it once was because everybody works from home sometimes. Therefore, again, when those types of projects are going on like this building in the discussion we're having right now, as it becomes something else, I fully agree that we shouldn't be tearing down buildings just because of certain desires, like they don't look good. But as we redevelop them or as we repurpose them, the preservation of the original appearance as me as a historian is saying this is something that should be kept and it should be kept in mind. So I agree completely with what you just said. And this is an open discussion that we invite the audience and we invite the emerging generation because in the middle, I mean, another Dan was a patron and our host for the show because he hosted me, housed me when I was there. And but also we had the DOM just out by that time city guide of Chicago and that we have been asked to write the Honolulu one. And we already referred to Bill Chapman and there is also Don Hibbert and Don had just given me a big learning curve to that regard because based on our criteria of climate and cultural appropriateness. So we disguise basically AC conditionally, as again, we're in COP 28. So as everyone should, we should disguise buildings that use fossil fuels that makes us actually have the heavy bulk of buildings. So the younger it gets in the sort of chronology of our investigation, the less buildings we get, because the earlier the building are the very early, there wasn't even AC and then mid century, it didn't embrace it. And the more we got into the 80s, speaking of which, and then in the 90s and the 2000s didn't get better. So they get less and less and less. And I was at the point to even then, you know, almost have no buildings from the recent eras. And Don rightly so along the lines what you said made a pitch for there's one building that you guys can be excited about. It is actually on these sort of the Maoka, Eva, and of Kakaako that people nickname it Bundit calls it the Pineapple because it's top, you know, you could see, you know, it's inspired by the top of a pineapple looking like. And I call it a Maui Gym building because actually glasses tinted like some of the sunglasses by Maui Gym are tinted. And the more and there's also an architectural office in that's been hosting some of the Doko Momos. So by further, you know, thinking about what Don said and looking at the building, we actually came to the agreement to yes, actually keep it. Because it is an example, a good example from these 80s, maybe relatively, because why we might say absolutely the 80s weren't that great. But again, if you apply Einstein's theory of relativity, there are actually buildings that are better than others. So we want to point out the ones and so thank you, Don. This was a great learning curve for me. I was not happy with that building, but through this thanks to you that learning curve, I'm now seeing it with different eyes. And that's hopefully what that book will do, if anything, right, to have you the audience as our shows basically take along on a reflective psychedelic trip and getting the synapses in our brains going and sometimes do roller coaster and you come out in a different way than you started out, right? Right, right, right. What it is. Yep. So yeah, so that being said, yeah, we have three minutes left, but it's probably, yeah, we can go the next slide, but just show where we're going. We won't have much time to talk about it. We stay with Jan for two more slides. I can get to talk a little bit because this is me in 2006, when I returned to America to get fully into coaching teaching, I brought Joey and Lenny and their mother along for a promotion tour that didn't have the intended effect to get them here, but it was certainly as Joey was just recalling and surprised as experienced at his age that you can see there. And the office of Jan was actually still up to the point I visited him one and a half years ago. He was actually moving the office out of it, which we see next week in the next picture. But here they were in the in the Jewellers building, which is 35 Weka Drive, which is a very historically significant speaking of the Soto building, which is again where most of the Jewellers in Chicago had been in there, but also someone very scandalously known associated with Chicago, which is El Capone resided in. And stories say that were actually when they came from their gangster rides, there was an elevator that took their gangster cars up there into floors where they were saved. So it's the it's the building. And where Ben where that big model at that time was was the cupola in the building. And the cupola also then played a role in the Batman movies, the ones just before the Dark Knight series there. So very, very loaded through again, events and zeitgeist as you were saying, which buildings are all embodying. And we should keep, yes, that embodied energy as much as we should keep the the the thermal embodied energy that that buildings have that, you know, a friend from San Bernard was pointing out to his friend Fred Bernstein, who was saying architectural critics should all basically evaluate based upon embodied energy, but the building, not just the operative energy, but as it also called the building, the energy that in encapsulated in the building through its construction. And so what that all means the great energy and how we how we call that. So more about that. And the other images that we see on here next time will actually be not the first show and second one, because you kindly take over and give me some time and transitioning back. And you will be picking up on again on history and tradition of us here in and you have to sign into the doco Momo play a mess for that because you kindly feed that one too. So until then, happy holidays to Soto and everyone else. And I leave you with your with your concluding German lesson homework. In fact, and I say until then, please stay besinnlich besonnen besonnen besinnlich. And you have enough time over the holidays to figure that out what that is. Happy holidays. Bye everyone.