 Great to have you back for another episode, which happens to be the 229th already of Think Tech Hawaii's human-humane architecture. And we're broadcasting live once again from the opposite, we should say beginnings versus ends of the world, with you DeSoto Brown in your Bishop Museum in Honolulu, Hawaii. Hi DeSoto. Hello everybody and hello Martin. And me, hi DeSoto. Wouldn't you wish so still back in Munich, Germany? So I'd rather be in Honolulu. Thank you. You can be in Munich. I'll be here. You're welcome. I thought you wanted to ski with me. You just said no, no, no, no, no, no, no. All right. So we're still reporting under the three threats of seas, which is climate change, COVID coronavirus and civility through increasing civil unrest through social inequity. And architecture certainly has to do with all three areas. And that's very critical. And speaking of critical, let's remember some people who were, we remember as very critical minds on the island, who were not afraid to address issues like that. And one of them is very familiar to you, DeSoto, because he is your architect, right? Who is that? His name is Vladimir Asipov and he's a famous mid-century architect of both commercial buildings and private homes. And he is the person who designed the home that I grew up in and will be moving back into at some point in the future from 1948. So I know very well the work of Asipov. And about one and a half decades later, he declared the war on ugliness, which was, of course, a peaceful, yet powerful kind of professional declaration of that he didn't want to put up with what he saw was going on in the big building boom era around him, where he tried to be more sensitive than he thought others. And then another person we just recently thought about again, his name is Chris Smith. And Chris Smith in 2005 on a convention provoked the audience. He was on a panel and he said, can anyone here design an interesting building? And, you know, most architects would probably vainly say, oh, yes, my buildings are very interesting. But to put it in perspective, what he might have meant, he is the architect, for example, of the HMSA, which is my health insurance, by the way, not that it matters, but on Kiamoko Street. And the goal was, as rumors say, and we will look more into that in the future, that the determining factor for the building was not formal but performative because he wanted that no son, which is problematic in Hawaii all the time for keeping us cool is ever going to pass any glass. So that being said, again, he had a performative versus a formal approach and might have meant the interesting more performatively. And then about a decade later, a Kurt Sandburn, who wanted to be called in the show I did with him, most activist journalist, in 2016, one of his final articles was labeled when protection fails and ugly Honolulu emerges. And that basically, you know, he had been living in San Francisco for a while, but civil beats basically told him that because he's not on the island, you know, he's not qualified to talk about what's going on in Honolulu, which really, you know, pissed him off, excuse the term. And so Kurt, hope you're well. We have to get you back one way or the other. We miss you. And so here we are. I guess it's the Soto, you and I, who have to do that here and now, right, because for right now, yeah, who else wants to, right? And let's let's get the first picture up for that, because we want to operate in the tradition of the three mentioned gentlemen who are heroes from the past, in regards of architectural criticism, because they were howlies, right? They were not from here. Asipov, we have to add was genetically Russian, and he grew up in Japan. And so the two other ones are basically American and Kurt grew up on the island, but Chris, I don't think he did. And he moved back, I believe we believe to San Diego some years ago. So again, we keep believing that being partly off and removed from the island, as I occasionally are, is a good thing. And it opens your eyes. And you confirm that when, you know, you share the stories that I bring from other places that all of a sudden, you know, gives us a clearer perspective. So to that regard, what we see in here is from the last summer, when I was following our cross cultural connoisseurs, Joey and Clara, to their stay in Barcelona. And up there is when I arrived at the airport, Joey basically said, oh, you just, you know, grab a cab. And I said, Hey, son, you know me, I don't do that. I hate caps. I'm a public transport guy. I want to hop on a train or a bus. And I found one. And that was an express bus that only took had two stops. And doesn't the distance and the location up there at the top right that I Googled reminds us of back home? What you were saying that this was probably a trip comparable to going from the Honolulu Airport to Waikiki, where you live when you're here in Honolulu. And yet you are able to get on this bus. And as you said, make only two stops and get there not only very quickly and very directly, but you are also able to ride in a bus which could accommodate your your bag, your suitcase. And it lets you off right where you need it to be. And you pointed out that if you were to try to take a similar trip here in Honolulu on the bus, you would not only not be able to carry luggage, a piece of luggage, you'd also have something like 29 stops you figured before you got to Waikiki. So in the case of Barcelona, you had a much more direct, much faster and much more accommodating way to get there than you would have if you had tried to do it here in Honolulu. All right. So something to learn from that. But never mind. Let's jump the bus, which I did last time and I did the 29 stops. And, you know, the bus driver was kind enough to take our big luggage last time. So thank you for that. So let's jump the bus and ride the bus. Let's go to the next slide. And before I'm almost home, this is about the second to last stop before my Waikiki grant. And this is basically then getting us through Cahuillo Avenue. And Cahuillo Avenue is the is the sibling of Calacaua Avenue that runs parallel to it. But they are very, very different nature, right? Calacaua is our glitzy mile. And Cahuillo at least was and is changing dramatically, which we'll talk about is has more gritty green. Is that fair to say? Yes, it is. And one of the reasons it ended up like that was because in 1971, because of traffic, Calacaua Avenue and Alawai Boulevard were each made one way. And Cahuillo was left to have two way traffic, which makes it a lot more congested, not as smooth, not as calm and nice as the traffic on Calacaua is. And I think that's one of the reasons it seems more gritty. In addition to all the other things that you mentioned alike, the photograph of the homeless person, which is in the upper left on Calacaua Avenue, they do sweeps regularly. They clean things up. There are people sweeping the ground literally all the time. So you do not see that as much out there where the expensive stores are. And yes, there are very high end stores lining Calacaua Avenue. Yeah. And there are some new developments on Cahuillo. One of them we reconvened when our exotic escapism experts, Suzanne was with us. And you choose to take her and me to Denny's, which is at the range of Cahuillo and Capahulu. And so one more slide, next slide, that we have been recently on Cahuillo a lot. The bottom right is the show quote, when we were out of our quarantine, but I still was only with the Department of Health and my university health services emails that I had sufficient vaccination. And the restaurant that had no problem with that was Paya, which is on Cahuillo. And it's in the building. It's the base of the building where our friend Ron Lindgren was put when he was with you, a keynote speaker on the national adocomomo symposium, which you see at the very top right. And the one who gave the name to the street we see at the very bottom left, right? Soto, tell us who that is. That is Prince Jonah Kalaniana Ole Cahuillo and Cahuillo Kalaniana Ole, pardon me. And he was an important person politically. And the reason you pointed out very interestingly that in this statue, he is dressed in Western clothing. And that was because he was a delegate from the territory of Hawaii to the Washington, to the national, you know, United States Congress in Washington DC. So of course, he had to dress that way in this statue depiction. However, he's also wearing a shoulder cape of feathers, bird feathers in a traditional Hawaiian style. You asked why his statue is not on Cahuillo Avenue that's named for him, but instead on the beach. And I was able to tell you that that was because he had a home on the beach. And in fact, that's why this stretch of beach at Waikiki is called Cahuillo Beach. So he's there where his home was. But as you pointed out, he is totally overdressed. And the woman who is walking past him is dressed much more appropriately for the setting. Yeah, let's just assume he was undressing himself as well when he was back home on that. He was. He was. He did. So okay, so now from your treasure box of historic photographs, next slide, in the next couple slides, you will show us the history of this particular part of on Cahuillo Avenue that has just been gotten redeveloped. So that's how it looked back then, Ryan. Right. And so we are going to look at the place that we're talking about which has a new structure that's going to be the focus of what we'll be talking about in this show and for some others to come in the future. And it's this corner, which is the corner of Cahuillo Avenue on the left and Cane Capole Street on the right. This is property that belonged to Queen Emma. She was the wife of King Kamehameha IV. They are the people who started Queen's Hospital and her property in Waikiki is the Queen Emma estate, which helps support Queen's Hospital. And until the 1950s, this large piece of property was not developed. And in fact, they didn't even construct roads through it till 1954. So you see here the fairly new roads in 1957 without anything built on the property. But you do say there's an abundance of trees. And there's a big banyan tree back there that we're going to be looking at as this little story continues. Let's go to the next slide. And here is that same piece of property as it looked after the first building was built on it in 1960. And that was a supermarket called The Food Pantry. The Food Pantry not only fulfilled the needs of regular people in Waikiki who lived there, but it also had a gourmet section, which I always remember as a kid was very intriguing because it had a lot of weird types of food in it that I'd never seen before, such as a bottle containing a rattlesnake so that you could eat rattlesnake meat. Nobody ever bought that bottle containing a rattlesnake. But you'll notice there's the Food Pantry on the left, but the space on the right is still empty. And you'll notice in the background there's that big banyan tree. Let's go to the next slide. Which is zooming in, right? Which is zooming in. And again, here is the Food Pantry, which was there until a short time ago. And that's going to be something that has something to do with the development we're going to be talking about. And talking performative, right? This is a very utilitarian building type, but a fine mid-century one because there's performative measures as the canopies that shelter you from the sun and the rain. And then there's this interesting sort of like double facade kind of fake front thing that you see at the very left. So indeed, did you say that was a Pete Wimberley binding? Is that right? You know, I was just trying to remember it was by somebody significant, and I think it was Wimberley. So again, that's a totally utilitarian building, but it still has these nice mid-century touches, and it opened in 1960. Let's go to the next slide. And this is that big banyan tree that I was talking about that was already on the property. When this was developed, the banyan tree was left in place, and there was open space around it as well as a parking lot. In the late 1970s, as there was a plan to redevelop the property then, people suddenly rose up in anger when half of the tree got cut down in getting ready to get rid of it entirely. And there was so much quick and sudden anger about this in the community that they stopped cutting it down and they left it, which is why we are going to see it is still there today. But this is as it appeared in 1965. Let's go to the next picture. And this is the other building, which was built on this same piece of property next to the food pantry. This is the Royal Theater, which opened in 1964. I went to a number of movies there, which I remember very well, including The Godfather in 1972, which you see is on the marquee right then. And I vividly remember going to this theater to see that film, because it was so good. The Royal Theater was demolished in the 1980s, and it was replaced by a restaurant called Banyan Gardens, which of course made reference to the Banyan tree that I've just been talking about. But that eventually closed. It was turned into a lower end restaurant, and then the property was entirely cleared on just this corner. And there were food trucks and other types of temporary food sellers there. And this corner went through some changes. And The Godfather being a mafia movie theme, as we know, that's appropriate and suitable for Cujillo, because Cujillo is not just gritty grain, but it also has some rough sides, right? There was crime, there's prostitution, and it's the other side of Waikiki that we see. The building, another very nice, fine, tropical, exotic piece of architecture, again, with a sort of row of slab posts there, and then these kind of canopies that remind us of Queen Emma Garden by Yamazaki, again, and providing sufficient shade and shelter from the elements. Very nice piece of, as you said, utilitarian, but exquisite tropical, exotic architecture, and too bad, it's not there anymore. And when we go to the next slide, this is how we recently remember the side when everything was demolished for quite a while. The food pantry was still there, right? Until until recently, but large parts of the block were basically, and before the redevelopment, they used it as for sort of a more mobile sort of vendors. And when Joey and Clara were on their culinary shaved ice trip to Malta, that was an inspiration when Suzanne and I took pictures of the shaved ice vendors and gave them some clues about practice back in Hawaii. And next slide, the tree, and everything has changed, but then the tree has always been there and was obviously one of the prime things to save, although land is very valuable in Waikiki, but luckily that one survived predator capitalism so far so good. And on the next slide, and these are pictures you gave me because I was not on the island when that happened. You can see there's quite some rubble and quite some stuff, so the tree had to go through quite some challenges there. Correct. And this is where the food pantry was. This is after the demolition of that building. And I believe that the new building, the Liliya, which we're about to look at, because it has a supermarket or a market in the ground floor of it, I think that that was partly one of the justifications for them being able to build it, was to replace the food pantry with a large food store because Waikiki has a lot of people in it, and that was the only supermarket. Yeah. And another justification slash deal we're going to get to in the next couple slides. Right, right. Yeah, so also on the site but across the street but still on the Queen Emma property in the early 1960s when those other buildings were built, these small two-story walk-up buildings or three-story walk-up buildings were also constructed with low income or low cost apartments. And instead of demolishing those as part of this building being built, the new building being built, these 1960s buildings were refurbished and that was done so that the development was fulfilling a requirement, a zoning requirement or a permit requirement, to include lower cost rental apartments. So they are functioning as part of the deal, which allowed the high-rise to be constructed. It has to have some lower cost apartments in it as well, but that number was reduced because these other buildings were kept. Yeah, we're obviously as Delcomomoers, we're happy mid-century gets saved. However, if you want to be nitpicky at the top left, a show quote from many years ago, almost half of the decade now, 2017, the two of us did a show that was called Sun Slated Hawaii. And what's so iconic about it are these vertical wooden slats that cover the staircase. And in that one, and we took these pictures back then, they were also the guardrails. So I'm wondering now if this aluminum guardrail sort of is a retrofit or an interpretation, but in any case, again, overall, they're pretty much kept in the original and that's a good thing. And next slide, they're comprised of several buildings. So it's not just one, it's a couple of them that we see here. And we see it in the final execution up there, a picture we took. And at the bottom, we see the renderings by the developer. And they're sort of depicted as sort of hip, as you can see, you know, our automobiles, architectures show to be continued in the future. You see that Ford Bronco pickup with a surfboard, you see the Vespa, you see a T1 VW bus and an American car down there from mid-century. So obviously, mid-century seems to be hip again, which is good, which helps to keep the appreciation of it. And next slide, talking hip and howly at the same time, probably the most iconic one, which is not on Kohio, but it's sibling Kalakawa, is what our exotic escapism expert, Susanna, as being representative for many others says, this is the building I like the most, is this is the Bank of Hawaii, and by Pete Wimberley. And again, he was not from Hawaii, but he chose to live there and work there. And he did a pretty good job in saying, I want to build not like where I come from, but I want to adjust and adapt to these very specific conditions of tropical exotic, which he did. Next slide, Ron Lindgren, who's not physically with us because he chose so, but he will be with us by his opinions that he allowed us to quote, and we will. And Ron, we know you're one of our favorite viewers, so hopefully we can lure you in being a special guest in the in the next volumes of this one here. And one thing you said is rightly so that usually, unless it's like a stark architectural branding with Richard Maya, that we will get to, oh, there's actually he is there at the very top right. The architects don't always play a significant role in the developments. They seem more like the facilitators. And at the top right is a project that got pulled, which is on Alamona Boulevard by Howard Hughes, that was supposed to be Richard Meyer. And the gentleman you see at the very top left with hair was me at the age of what my emerging generation is now in the mid 20s. And when I was at the Prairie at the University of Nebraska, we did something that I miss so dearly and I feel bad that I don't do it with my students because of just the remoteness we have and the being so removed from the landmass is doing a quick trip, which took us actually, you know, with airplane, you can almost be as fast, but it's more costly. But there we were able to hop into a car. And after eight, nine hours, we arrived in Chicago, which is where that building at the bottom is. And that was in the early 90s, the hottest thing, or one of the hottest thing that was there, which doesn't seem so hot, which means it was a little lost in the early 90s. And that was what we thought was Richard Meyer, but I wish I actually affirmed that was sort of maybe copycatting Richard Meyer. And that is Solomon Courtwell Buens, as it says up there. Recently, this project has been remodeled pretty much back to its original by Starbucks. And you see an R on the on the right side of the building. So this is one of the few Starbucks reserves that only few cities in the world have. This is a special brand within the Starbucks brand. And they do special brewing with special coffees. And so Tokyo has one and obviously Chicago has one and Hawaii has one. And where is that one? It's even on Wahoo. It's even like Kiki, but probably on Kalakaua, right? No, because unlike what we were just saying, where all the high end stores are and Kalakaua today is, you know, it's notorious for these incredibly expensive European based mostly stores that are designer stores. But our Starbucks reserve is not on Kalakaua with all of those, you know, the Tiffany and the Hermès and the Louis Vuitton. No, it's on Cuyo Avenue. So Cuyo Avenue has been upgrading itself in recent years. It's gotten cleaned up a great deal. And while there still are pockets that deserve to be cleaned up, a lot of stuff has been done that makes it a lot more friendly and a lot more walkable and a lot more things to see and do that aren't quite as sleazy as some of the stuff used to be. And so we get to boast that we have a Starbucks reserve as well, although it's not quite as huge and noticeable as the one in Chicago that you are looking at right now in this slide. Yeah, and it's on the corner of Seaside and Kohio in the, what was it called, Waikiki Trade Center or something like that. That's correct, which is a hotel. Which is now a hotel. That's right. And these things are both good and bad. They're obviously good because they raise kind of the level of, but it's also gentrifying. The reserve, you can still get your coffee. I mean, Starbucks coffee is costly to begin with. And in a reserve, the normal coffee is actually not more expensive than in other stores, but then the very special brews in there sort of are. Anyways, we're at the end of this appetizer talking Starbucks here, a little taste of what we're going to continue next week. And we're going to start out to reveal that the island already knows the architect, Solomon Corbwell-Beuens, because they have been active on the island before, but that one we have to save and will for next week. So see you then for volume two of the Lillia Living Wall Waikiki. And until then, stay very tropically exotic. Bye-bye. Bye.