 to think TechKawaii's human humane architecture. I am your host for this program, DeSoto Brown, usually the co-host. And this week it's going to be a Dokomomo Hawaii episode in which we are focusing on the history of and preservation of the architecture of the mid-20th century, and that's what Dokomomo is focused on. It's an international organization. As I said, I'm DeSoto Brown, and I am the Bishop Museum Historian here in Honolulu. I'm also the curator for the archives, and I'm going to be talking today with the assistance of photographs that are from Bishop Museum, where I work, as well as some others that are provided from my personal collection, and also that I have taken personally. We're going to be talking about the history of Iwani Palace and its replacement in a number of ways, the Hawaii State Capitol. And those are two very historic buildings, and they have a fascinating and intertwined history. So to begin with, as you can see, this is Iwani Palace. Many of you are familiar with it. It is a very focal, it's a focal point of downtown Honolulu. It was constructed over 140 years ago, and it remains a beloved and very popular, not only location for people to learn about history, but also the grounds are often the site of events and band concerts. By the way, we're a Hawaiian band. Let's go to the next slide. And here's the other building that we're going to be talking about. This is the Hawaii State Capitol. It is not 140 years old. It is a little over 50 years old, and obviously it is of a very different architectural style than Iwani Palace, but it does serve again as a focal point for government, as the palace did for a long time in its existence as well. Let's go to the next slide. And as with many large government buildings, the Hawaii State Capitol was constructed to look dramatic and different and be impressive because many capital buildings and many government buildings want to impress people because they are symbols of the government. And so, as you can see in these two kind of abstract views of capital, it does succeed, as I said, in creating a sense of drama and looking different, looking impressive, and being large and striking. So let's go now to the next slide. And let's begin the story with the first Iwani Palace. Probably many people don't know that there was a predecessor to the current Iwani Palace. This is a picture of the first Iwani Palace, and it was built in 1844. It was originally constructed for a member of Hawaiian nobility whose name was Princess Victoria Kamamalu. But the following year, in 1845, King Kamehameha III moved the capital of the Hawaiian Islands from Lahaina Maui to Honolulu, and he purchased this palace, which was meant as a royal residence, and it then became the residence of, and in some cases the ceremonial site for events relating to Hawaiian monarchs. And so it was occupied by Kamehameha III, Kamehameha IV, Kamehameha V, and King Lunalilo. And finally, King David Kalakawa, who was elected to be the king in 1874. At that point, the palace, this palace, was damaged, had been damaged by termites. If you look closely, you can see that the palace is actually constructed of coral blocks. That's what the walls are made of, but obviously, too, there's a lot of wood. The roof is wood, the pillars in the front are wood. They've been damaged by termites, and so Kalakawa decided there needed to be a new and improved Iolani Palace. And so that's what he did. Let's go to the next picture. And this is the palace that Kalakawa had constructed on the site of that previous palace. So even though nobody today has ever seen that first Iolani Palace, it was located in the same familiar place. And this is the Iolani Palace that we know today, constructed by Kalakawa, as I said. Cornerstone was laid in 1879 and it was completed in 1882. And Kalakawa was a very interesting man. He was very dedicated to preserving Hawaiian culture, but he also loved modern technology. And so this palace had running water. This palace had a telephone system, and this palace had electric lights. And the electric lights were installed in the Iolani Palace before the White House in Washington DC had electric lights. So you can see we were head of the game out here in the middle of the Pacific Ocean. Next picture. Kalakawa, as I said, loved modern things. He wanted to look modern. He wanted to be seen as a sophisticated person, which he was, and well educated and very international in scope, because he had literally traveled all the way around the world, which very few people had in those days in the 1800s. But he was also pretty extravagant. And this caused a number of people in the community at the time to turn against him. There was a sort of, there wasn't attempted overthrow of him in 1887, which most people do not remember today. And he was forced to sign a new constitution at that time, which took away a lot of the power he had had. And that was laying the groundwork for something which was going to be coming along in the near future. Let's go to the next picture. And after Kalakawa died in 1891, his sister, Liliu Okalani, became queen. But two years after that, in January of 1893, Liliu attempted to change the constitution back so that she as the ruler, ruling monarch, would again have the power that was formerly acknowledged in the previous constitution. And at that she failed because this instigated the overthrow, which many of us are familiar with today. In January of 1893, she was overthrown. The group that did the overthrowing had the focus and the purpose of trying to get the Hawaiian Islands, which was a separate nation, to be annexed by the United States. And I'm going to jump over a bunch of other important elements here and just say that that had actually did occur, finally, in 1898, as you can see by the newspaper headline on the right. So the monarchy had ended in 1993, annexation occurred in 1898. Let's go to the next picture. And how does that affect the story of Iolani Palace? Well, when the overthrow occurred, the people who committed the overthrow, who originally were called the Committee of Safety and then called themselves the provisional government, chose to use Iolani Palace as the country, the new country's headquarters. The palace was never intended to be the main government building. It was built as a royal residence. So it was never designed or laid out or built to accommodate everything that was supposed to go on in a government. But the purpose of the overthrow perpetrators using the palace was to make it clear that they were saying that there was no more monarchy. This was not a royal palace anymore. And in fact, they renamed it the executive building. So here are some of the members of those people, some of the members of that group, the insurrectionists. And sitting at the desk in the center with the long beard is Sanford Dole, who proclaimed the head of the provisional government. And then when it was renamed in 1894 to be the Republic of Hawaii, he was the president of the Republic of Hawaii. And again, he's sitting in Iolani Palace because they're saying this is the executive building and there's no more monarchy. Let's go to the next slide. So what this meant was, again, as I said, what was intended to be a royal palace with bedrooms, with all the accoutrements of royalty, with fine furniture and fine fabrics and all kinds of wonderful things like that that were meant to impress people and be used for entertainment and for dinners and things like that became the government building. So this is a picture of the throne room in the palace as it originally looked during the time of Kalakawa and into Liliuokalani's time. And you can see there are two thrones at the end of the room there underneath canopy. Those were the thrones that Kalakawa hadn't manufactured for himself and his queen, Kapiolani, to sit in. And this is where there were not only receptions but dances, halls, and other social events. Well, the throne room went from looking like this to let's go to the next picture, looking like this. And this is in this is the same room. You look in the distance there in the wall, you can see the the raised platform and the canopy that was used for the thrones. But now it is where the House of Representatives is meeting for the territory of Hawaii. And again, this picture is from the 1920s. Well, all of these people are crammed into a room that was never meant to accommodate them. And again, even though the Republic of Hawaii had proclaimed this to be the executive building, that title did not last for a very long time. And in fact, people continued to refer to it as Iolani Palace. But it was at that point where the territorial government, Hawaii being a territory of the United States, was functioning from. And for example, the governor's office was on the second floor of the building as well. Next picture. Now everybody knows, I think, about the 1893 overthrow, which I just discussed. But I think most people do not realize there was, in fact, yet another overthrow of a civilian government, or of a previous civilian government. And that occurred on December 7th, 1941, when the Japanese attack began the United States involvement in World War Two. And the military immediately took over and declared martial law and then kept it in effect until 1944, when it was ended, even though they continued to control many things. And this was a military dictatorship because there was no legislative process for most of the laws. The military government simply said, these are the new laws which we have to create. Well, the reason I'm bringing this up is because at that time, Iolani Palace, again, being inadequate to contain all of this, a number of temporary wooden buildings were built in the site. And that's what you see in this picture here. Those buildings lasted until the 1950s. And if we go to the next picture, there's a picture of the back of Iolani Palace as it appeared in 1966, 1967. And even though those temporary World War Two buildings had been removed, again, there still wasn't enough room. And so wooden additions were added to the palace to in order to accommodate everybody who was working in the government at that time. Now, obviously, everybody knew the palace was inadequate. And everybody knew it was going to be necessary to build a new modern and more representative capital building. And so that discussion had been going on since at least 1940. So let's look at initially what happened in some of those discussions about building a new capital. Next picture. Here's a map from the report that was created for the report that was published in January of 1941 by a committee exploring how to build a new capital for the territory of Hawaii. And in this map, you can see Iolani Palace is to the center left and then to the right, they're separated by Hotel Street. There are two blocks which are in the Maoka direction from the palace. And those are the upper block is referred to as the Shuman Block, which I'll describe in a second. And then on the other side of Miller Street, which no longer exists, there are two buildings that are noted. First, the Armory and then below that, the Iolani Barracks. Well, let's look at what those two buildings were, which were located on what has become the state capital grounds. Next image. So this is the plan that was purportedly going to be that new capital for the territory of Hawaii. On one of those two blocks, the Shuman Block, this is this plan dates from January 1941. This building was never built, but it does show that the serious consideration for this was under discussion. Next image. So why was that called the Shuman Block? Well, it was because it was this location of something called Shuman Carriage Company, which had begun in 1893 as a company that actually sold horse-drawn carriages. But in the 20th century, they became a car dealership. And the building they used originally had been Central Union Church. And you can see the church intact in the picture on the left, built in the late 1800s. When the church moved to its current site on Barotania Street and Punahou Street in 1924, the church building was partly demolished and new structures were built around it. And it became the car dealership. So that's the picture you see in the bottom right. That's the Shuman Carriage building as it appeared in 1969 before it was demolished to open up the grounds for the new capital, which you can see is being constructed behind it. Next picture. This is the National Guard Armory, which was also located on this site on the other side of Miller Street. You can see Miller Street on the left and Hotel Street on the right. This is where the National Guard stored its weapons. This building was also intended to be used by the National Guard if it needed to be called out for a place to muster and gather. Next image. Next to the Armory was this. This is a 19th century building called Eomani Barracks. It was constructed for the Kingdom of Hawaii for its army. And it was made of coral blocks. And it was considered historic and important to preserve. And so during the construction of the capital, it was taken apart. Next picture. Those coral blocks were disassembled, numbered, and then reassembled in a new site on the grounds of Eomani Palace. And here's a picture of that process going on in 1966. And the next photograph shows us, this is what the Eomani Barracks looked like today on the grounds of the palace reconstructed and preserved from the site where it was originally located. Next image. So the capital was finalized and the contract given to the architects in about 1959, 1960. And here's a photograph of the capital under construction with some of those important people in the foreground. There were two architectural firms which were in charge of designing the capital. One of them, and I'm going to look at my notes here. The first was a local company, Belt, Lamon, and Low. And they were working in tandem with a company from California, which was John C. Warnicke and Associates. That's who designed the capital. And the capital's design was pretty much set by 1960, early 1961. Let's go to the next slide. Here is an aerial view of the capital after its completion in 1969. And you can see the capital is on the left and then to the right. And sort of in the lower right corner is the Eomani Palace. And then the Eomani Barracks at the bottom of the screen, which is what I just mentioned. But to also look beyond the capital in the distance, looking towards time and yet, you'll see that there's a large area that's in the process of being cleared. That's something that I'm going to be talking about in the next program I do for the continuation of how the capital, the new capital, affected this large area of downtown Honolulu. But let's go to the next slide. And when the capital opened in 1969, it got a lot of attention nationally in the United States for being a new modern structure. And on the right, you see the cover of Architectural Record Magazine from 1969 that's talking about the new state capital for Hawaii. And frequently at the time it was mentioned that Hawaii was the newest state having become the 50th state in 1959 and it therefore had the newest capital. And the design of the capital was very different than most other state capitals. So that's why it was notable. Next picture. The capital is very obviously a modern building, not a traditional or classic building in the sense of European architecture, but it does have classical elements, which I'm about to get into. And one of the main ones is that it is symmetrical. It is a large rectangle. And if you were to cut it down the middle and look at the two sides of it, it is symmetrical. It is a mirror image. Therefore, that type of those types of constructions and that type of proportion is very typical of classic architecture. So while it's modern, it does have very strong classic elements. Next image. And if you look at the capital, it's got some interesting symbolism. First of all, it's surrounded by a large reflecting pool, which is to suggest the Hawaiian Islands being in the Pacific Ocean. Next, if you look on the right of the picture, the taller picture, you'll see this sort of sloping dark surface that's a rounded surface that is intended to resemble the Hawaiian Islands as being volcanoes sticking out of the ocean. But probably the most notable part of the capital is the columns which surround it. Now these columns are more abstract. They do not look like classical Greek columns, which is what most buildings at that time were still mimicking. They instead are intended to somewhat resemble palm trees with the crowns of the palm trees kind of growing outwards from the tops of the columns. And if you look at the tops of the columns, which you see within the building, you can clearly see this kind of spreading open type of construction, which is unique, certainly not the way most columns look. Next image. The state capital also has a lot of elements of very popular architectural style of the time, which is called brutalism. Brutalism made use of a lot of raw concrete. So the walls of the capital in many situations are, as you see in the picture on the right, raw uncovered raw concrete, where you can see all the texture. There's no paint. There's no extra finish. There is some element of decorative lines which have been incised. And the picture on the left, you can see the top of those columns. And another thing that brutalism did was it used concrete that was textured in the surface forms of the wooden forms that had been made for the concrete to be poured into. And so on the left, you see these are multiple skinny wooden boards, which were used to construct the form. And the surface of the boards is left in the surface of the concrete. Next image. The capital does, as I said earlier, fulfill what's usually considered necessary for a large government building. And that is it wants to impress you. It wants to be seen as monumental. It wants to be seen as indicative of a strong central government that is working for the people, et cetera, et cetera. Well, in this sense, the state capital does carry that on. It is marked by these two huge metal state seals, which are round, which you can see in this picture, which you walk under on either side of the building when you walk into the central open courtyard. Next image. And here is that central open courtyard, which is very unique among state capitals because we are blessed with such wonderful weather that it's not necessary for us to be a sealed, controlled environment building. Instead, we have this open thing that literally the breezes blow through and the wind carries the rain through it sometimes. And there are two elements of this open courtyard. And as you can see, the different floors are visible as mezzanines that go around the central courtyard. But if we look at the next slide, we can see that there are tile, there's tile work that carries on elements of and references to the natural environment. So at the top in the open space of the roof, that is surrounded by blue tiles, which mimic obviously the color of the sky. And on the floor of this open courtyard is this circular tile mural, which is called Aquarius. And obviously it is a reference to water and the ocean, which is appropriate again for the symbolism of the building. And it was created by a sculptor or a tile worker named Tadashi Sato. And it was unveiled in March of 1970, which was the year some months after the Capitol opened in 1969. Next image. Well, finally, with the construction of the Capitol. And this was a very lengthy process. And I just do need to say that it took years for all of this to come into play. There were more than 20 different sites that were proposed for the new Capitol. And even after the current site had been purchased by the government through large government appropriations to purchase these pieces of private property, people were still trying to suggest other locations. And so there were suggestions like Hilo on Hawaii Island. There were suggestions of Maui. There was Kaneohe. There was a landfill site that would partly be in Honolulu Harbor all over the place. And even after all of this had been set and the Capitol was under construction and had been designed, people were still lobbying for other things. Well, fortunately, none of that ever happened. And that was because the existing government buildings in downtown Honolulu weren't going to go anywhere. And you really needed to be where all the other government agencies were located. Well, when that new Capitol was finally constructed, and everything was taken care of, and everybody had moved into it, that allowed Eulani Palace to be reconstructed, to be restored. And this picture from 1976 that you see here is Eulani Palace under restoration with scaffolding, metal scaffolding around the exterior of the building. And there was a great deal that needed to be done. Not only was there termite damage and a lot of wear and tear, a lot of things have been remodeled. A lot of pieces of original woodwork were gone and had been damaged or removed. So a lot of things had to be done. If you go to the Palace today, the interior is magnificent. It is well worth seeing. One of the things that unfortunately did happen to the Palace was that many of the furnishings and interior fittings and all of the stuff that was associated with royalty, in many cases, was sold off. So a lot of those pieces are gone forever, but a lot of things have been returned. And so a lot of the original furnishings and other things can be seen today. And this is treating the Palace with respect. This is treating the Palace the way it deserves to be. And so the Palace is a living memorial to Hawaii's Kingdom days. And all of the other government work now goes on elsewhere the way it should. Let's go to the next image. And to end on sort of an unamusing note, the reason most people today throughout the world are familiar with Ilani Palace is not because of Hawaii's history. It's not because of royalty. It's not because of monarchy. It's not because of the new modern state capital that's right next to it. Instead, it's because of this TV show. Many of you are going to recognize that's Jack Lord. He was the star of the original version of Hawaii 5.0, which ran on CBS from 1968 to 1980. And in the plot of the story, there was a fictional state police force called Hawaii 5.0, and its offices were located in Ilani Palace. Now, originally when the show began, they did in fact do some location filming in the Palace, but most of the time it was sets that were meant to look as though they were in office inside Ilani Palace. So in the picture on the right, you can see Jack Lord in one of his typical poses talking on his police radio next to his Mercury that was very famous, and he is in fact parked in front of the Palace. But in the picture on the left, the black and white one. That's supposed to be Steve McGarrett's office where Jack Lord is sitting, but it's actually a set. And looking through the windows behind him, you can see copies of the actual wrought iron railings, which are in place on the second floor of the Palace. But this is the real thing. Anyway, thank you all for joining me, everybody. And I hope you enjoyed this feed of history. If you're watching this on YouTube, may I ask that you please give a thought to clicking on the like icon and maybe clicking to subscribe to Think Tech Hawaii. I'm going to be doing another program, two programs probably, on the history of the Palace, on the history of the state capital and the area around it. And so be watching for those Think Tech Hawaii's human humane architecture, Dokomomo, Hawaii. Till next time, everybody, thanks for joining me and Aloha. If you liked this show, why don't you give us a like or subscribe to our channel? Thanks so much.