 Good to have you all back for another episode of think like Hawaii is human humane architecture broadcasting live This is going to be our 208th episode Broadcasting live one last time for a while from three different locations in the world because all State worker troops are ordered to return to Hawaii and that includes me So I will be with you to Soto soon Unfortunately, not really physically in studio yet because you just said restrictions are tight again but we will both be in Honolulu and then we will still have you Ron in Your Long Beach, California. So good to have you guys back morning Hello so I will start out with a Online article of the New York Times from two days ago That a lady wrote and she basically says, you know, there are still different scenarios for the climate depending on how we Operate and how we act But the main keys is that she said is how we Heat or we should say for us in the tropics how we cool our buildings is one thing How we move on and how we basically grow our food in the future. These are the key things besides obviously how do we harvest energy? so two of the points we're trying to combine and make relationships and this is architecture and automobiles and last time we ended up on the ultimate of for us Germans what we call straz and Kloetze and that is the Lincoln Continental and We talked about a sedan version, but even more the ultimate of the best ever and the most Spectacular isn't if we get get the first slide up for that one is the convertible version and to sort of breathe us How that one is very strongly related to Hawaii and also we call you as the utmost License plate expert to have some news that you saw today Right. Well, this is one of the most famous cars in the United States This is the early 60s Lincoln Continental and it was really it was redesigned from a very Ornate and I think grotesque looking automobile into an incredibly clean straightforward beautiful car in 1960 and It became such an icon of American culture not only because you as you have pointed out in Germany It's a street cruiser and it's an ultimate symbol of American culture but it also is strongly associated with President Kennedy and that is because in the last year of his presidency in 1963 he used this black Lincoln Continental convertible limousine as the car that he Went around in motorcade and when he visited Honolulu in 19 June of 1963 The car was brought with him and he did a motorcade through Honolulu Which thousands of people attended and went to see him because he was as you have said It was such a young charismatic President for this time period of great optimism in the United States with the beginning of space travel and a real feeling of Optimism for the future and how the future was so bright Well, this car was the same car just months later That he was assassinated in when he was being driven in another motorcade through the silly city of Dallas, Texas So the Lincoln has these two associations of the wonderful optimism and the clean lines of the car Coupled with the connection to President Kennedy's tragic death the license plates that were on that car Which were number GG? 300 were sold at auction in 2015 for a hundred thousand dollars So anything associated with that moment in time obviously is monetarily really valuable and you Martin have associations with the same model of the Lincoln in Germany where you knew somebody who had one and you got to be driven around in it and he drove some other people around it Yeah, that one we see here on number six this gentleman This is the architect Carsten Roth and while you know the the American one has GG This one here has HH as we can see there and this is the city of Hamburg We did a show in the old urban transcendence show days and we said Germany's Kakaako Hamburg's Harbor City and so Carsten is an architect there and also a professor in the city of Warnschweig and he as he told me You know has long been a fan of America ever since he was a student and this particular car here He brought over when he was a student and ever since he's taking it out for certain driving occasions Like when you know, he picked me up when I visited him And so he was also the chair of the jury of the lowest sex in the state's award that then Who is now the? President of the European Union Osala funder line had to give the award to us for that very humble Roche me store that we see on three that we did a show about another award we were lucky to get was Down there at the at the bottom would associate it to the gentleman on number eight Howdy Tehrani was an architect from the same town He got the award for metal roofs and facades for this building on number nine Which is his own office and a couple other offices in the harbor area and he started this little tradition of that He started out as an architect was one of his first projects and he wanted this to be an emerging award And so he gave it to us for the train station and I continue that when I was the chair of the jury next time The sort of unwritten rule of giving it to the little emerging guys versus to the big guys So Karsten told me that one day he basically picked up party and they cruised around in Heimberg with a top down and he said they got so many looks and he thought This is still a cool card to have until he realized he said they're not looking at the car They're looking at my starked actual colleague, Adi and so You know it has something to do with I would say status symbol Obviously also with you are what you drive, right? So there is there is some ego there But returning what you said to sort of at the beginning Karsten when he has this car. He basically demonstrates his basically homage to mid-century America Everyone including you know him as this generation and me as I said before was looking up to as We had our first when you guys got us back on our feet as we had screwed up so badly before that the first President chance that we had was Conrad Adenauer and nothing against age one We know you're the best example with with with age comes wisdom Incredibly But you're also still not just young and hard but a really cool guy and you know just like Joe Biden You know, it's not a matter of age It's a matter of mindset But Conrad Adenauer wasn't really that guy that the young people could get excited about so we have this very sort of grumpy old guy as a president and you had this Cool young guy that was a womanizer and was shooting people to the moon and microwaves and refrigerators and big big boats big cars and the picture at the bottom right is basically I still celebrated one of the Biggest events if not the biggest event in my hometown in Hanover is this American car show and there is one, you know of Kennedy's car there So there's still and we found out when you said this morning send us the license plate that's sold in 2015 for a hundred thousand dollars. We frankly Google where actually the car is and what it costs and It's luckily and probably rightly so in the Fort museum in Dearborn, Michigan and you're near your home run And so we don't know and probably, you know, it's not for sale anymore. So sort of, you know, it has a nominal you sort of, you know Value but but anyways, this is sort of again America as its best and obviously for some architects Really something to look up to ourselves. Although, you know, we were so kindly peer reviewed here by these colleagues We were foreseeing the last world recession in 2008 and quality wasn't really what was selling well talking selling So we took this sort of dip and at some point in 2005 gets us to the next page I couldn't see any new jobs on the on the table And when we see on the next slide I was then going back to my alma mater in America, the University of Nebraska Lincoln who said hey You've had some interesting years on the turf. Why don't you pass on some of that to the emerging generation And become a coach and teach with us Which I took their kind offer And here you basically see I was Again on a low budget, right? Not like the 600 dollars of my Plymouth Fury before but not much more And with Wally wasn't an option. He didn't have cars of my like at that time So I ended up with this colleague of mine whose name was Marv Beichen And Marv is is just like you Ron represents for me the best of America this pioneering generation There is a sort of honesty and humor at the same time And so there's this one anecdote that I made you chuckle before when we talk that he the way he does business is that he makes like puts Everything into the car. So they work you see him there in his white shirt with a tie. That's how he worked on these cars And he basically then his cars were all in a range of 3500 dollars not thousand, but you know, 3500 dollars. So he sold one to a guy who Basically bought it for his mother Next day the mother comes to the lot and is really angry and says, you know, this is the best car ever had He sold it to me for too cheap and gave him wanted to give him 500 extra dollars Which got Marv upset and he said that's not how I do business so that again about the heartland and the honesty just in contrast to the Sort of the reputation we know from American movies with car dealers than being the most dishonest sort of profession and he had a four dealership and then uh when he retired he basically Had his own little business and bought all the cars back that he sold to the people and They bought it back to him Sold it back to him The the the Lincoln town cars were also made it uh into movies, which uh, Ron, you are recently or have been for a while Really into movies. I think you charge yourself with at least one a day So the one on the top right, I I intentionally offer you the german one. How is that called in english? Do you guys remember the movie? Oh the Lincoln lawyer Exactly with mackey maccomie and obviously refers to his 80s Lincoln town car But the movie I watched together with marv and his wife around there. I think 65th wedding anniversary Was the the movie at the bottom right with Clint Eastwood both as director and main actor grand terino And occasionally his wife was kicking him and basically says marv. That's a little like you And it was this sort of you know, he admitted to like You know grow out of prejudices against other races And and and things like that He he could identify with that So marv was really a wonderful gentleman and what he basically Then cut a deal with me is what I drove in his driveway here when I visited him on slide one And that gets us to the next slide Which shows us My Lincoln town car by 93 town car So when I was there as a student, I bought a 20 year old car This was a little younger. It was 15 years or so or 16 old when I bought it at that time And um, it's a Lincoln and Lincoln. What can I say? And the two pieces of architecture this solo you can relate to because we have pieces of the same architects in honolulu, right? Yeah, you were pointing out that we have The iampay east west center And we've also got you also have a picture in here of the interior of the ihilani hotel And I just wanted to say before we get further into that that We've already mentioned before at the same time that you were longing to buy an immense car oversized american car I wouldn't even have thought about buying an oversized american car I only bought small foreign cars. So as you commented earlier before the show The metal is always shinier on the other side of the fence Absolutely and to add to the architecture The nebraska state capital is is a burton goodhue building and we have the honolulu museum of art by goodhue And again, it's like thanks. You mentioned already ron your your friend and business partner larry stricka design the ihilani In the early nineties and so it's a great piece of architecture in times that weren't that great anymore That was the time when I went you know to to school and They these were the greatest times were kind of lost And so to build, you know Good architecture in times. They're challenging and not so good is even better And americans really at that point they they they wanted still to build what they were Famous for the big boats But at that point of time for various reasons they weren't able to do this anymore Which gets us to the next slide And I pass this on to you to sota because you commented before about That the different to architecture that's always static and And depending on in which climate zone you are if you're in temperate climate zone You get some extremes that we show off here But if you're in a tropical one you have only one But cars are Moving enclosures right so they can transition from one to the other one And you want to walk us through where the town cars started out and where it went Well, you you divided these pictures up into three columns And the column on the left is pictures of the town car when it was in its original place of residents When you bought it in nebraska where it was sometimes literally buried in snow Where it was covered with sheets of ice And living in also of course warm Warm temperatures during the summer and you also pointed out that eventually you moved And when you moved you drove your Lincoln town car with a trailer attached to it And you happened to be able to go through colorado so you could see the famous air force academies Church or chapel which was built during that same optimistic time period that we were talking about when president Kennedy was around and people were literally reaching for the stars And then you moved to arizona and arizona was a Very much an opposite of the winter in Lincoln nebraska because arizona is incredibly hot In the desert and you always try to park in the shade when you're outdoors with your car But if you can't Even if you do the car starts to deteriorate from the excessive heat So you begin to lose the seals and the gaskets around things like your windshield or around the doors the The rubber will literally melt and deteriorate and that's what happened. You said also to your front Turn indicator lights are not turn indicator light But the cover for it just came off because it failed to hold it in place And eventually the Lincoln came out here to Honolulu And it no longer had to deal with the extremes of of terrible heat or the extremes of terrible cold But it did eventually give up the ghost Because it was just old but as you pointed out this was the last of That particular type of car. It's got a bench front seat. It doesn't have individual bucket seats It's got this straight across flat dashboard And it's something that we probably are never going to go back to in terms of the styling of that type of american car Yeah, and and one more detail as far as and and larry medland's sun was kindly fixing it up and You're replacing the windshield seal gasket and also put the The the headlights cover back on it. So Thank you for that And we lost that where we're going For a trip to the ninth island to vegas which you guys have to do by boat or by plane not by boat No, no boat goes but but plane and I could drive there And it's just like reminded me of the space shuttle that we put there just when it got back into the atmosphere It basically lost times of its heat shields and so so that one did right So america wasn't as good as it used to be where it basically built things to last and never break My fury never I mean You know besides that that timing chain that then kindly fixed, you know, nothing ever broke but here Especially the and we we get to the suspension next and we can get to the next slide of that one The there is a saying nothing rides like a Lincoln And that's certainly true and that's because of air suspension But these airbags get bad, especially in the extreme temperatures of the cold And the heat and they get brittle and then they basically You get a low rider and that's basically something that gets us to the next slide But let us quickly before we pass this on to you ron share that We were able to go back to the movies and you're not just ron watching charge yourself to watch a movie at home At least one per day, but you also are able to go back to the movies So the one on picture one is the one you last saw in the cinema. So which one is that? Yeah, uh, the fast and furious franchise has probably been the greatest Positive force for american cars to be seen around the world in hollywood history And their their ninth film came out which which they just called f9 Because just to mention f people know what it is And if you want a good time at the movies and you'd like to see a classic Pontiac fiero Be connected to a rocket and be shot in outer space With a vindiesel watching the action. This is for you f9 All right We will go there and as you see on the on the advertisement poster It's mostly contemporary cars, which you're probably promoting to buy the audience But there's I think that's been diesels too. There's I think it's uh, it's a charger a dodge charger, right? It's not a challenger. I think it's a charger but someone we uh, we used to you know Enjoy as as one of the characters in the in the fast and fury ones Is not with us and who is that he's very familiar to us on the island Well, that is our friend so to speak I can't think of dwayne johnson the rock dwayne johnson Thank you because he's better known as the rock and he used to actually live here in horolulu when he was growing up And his father and uncle I believe lived here. He's mostly samoan of samoan ancestry and vin has become a tremendously popular star And he's a very likeable guy on screen but he's also kind of implied that he might get into politics and Martin you and I have been saying that if he wants to run for president We like him and maybe we'll vote for him, but we'll see if that happens But this is his latest movie which is based on the jungle cruise ride of disneyland It's kind of a fantasy of a jungle cruise Uh through africa or perhaps on the amazon south america Exactly and that one we saw recently and something that is very american and we have it here And I think you don't have any left in in horolulu. Am I right? And this is a in movie theater and I saw this with our exotic escapism expert A youngest son and we we watched it and we watched Well that one actually sorry that one I saw which you see on picture number eight with my son lenny and his partner rima and uh the uh Goodfilla versus kong I basically saw with jonathan and that one it's it's too hard to read and too small, but trust me on number five At the end where they feature all the people involved in all the places. It was half shot back On wahoo. So there we go. So we're here in new munich sitting In a drive in that is all american and all we watch are movies. They're related one way to another to back home To honolulu and in which car did we uh watch it since i'm not back yet But sunday we'll fly back and we will then Take over again our p.i.m Mercedes From you to soto because you hosted it kindly So the one at the bottom left on number 10 is not ours, but one from originally in germany But on number eight in which car did we watch it? Well, uh, you did watch it in the twingo as I remember and the twingo is the little mini car And I didn't realize the twingo's roof opened up as much as it did but it certainly is open looking in that picture Um, and obviously the weather in germany at the moment at that time was nice enough for you to be able to Sit under the stars literally and watch a movie Exactly But now we get back to america to a phenomenon that we Don't I think I we had that event or that showcasing ones on that american car show in my hometown, but From here on ron. It's all yours with That my Lincoln became unintentionally a low rider because the The airbags went bad and so it was just like basically scratching the roads and I had no suspension left but there is another Art in america that does this intentionally and please introduce us to us with the slides nine and six and seven ron You know Having lived in the los angeles area for uh now 50 years I'd be remiss if I didn't mention the fact that We know that for all of us the freedom of the car is one thing the fact that it's sexy The fact that it can be a status symbol But in my region There is a culture that actually fetishize its cars and by that I mean that they venerate them with near religious intensity And I'm talking about the low rider culture, which is basically hispanic members Of car clubs that first organized in the in the mid to late 1940s When uh car culture were starting to take off across the united states Now these are extreme car lovers. There's no other word except lovers for them They've tricked out their older american cars as you see in the in the boat in the bottom left picture And they put in very bouncy hydraulics as an expression of what's mostly a mexican american cultural identity And unlike the hot and fast hot rods, which is another los angeles phenomenon These are meant to be low and slow Because they drive slowly they cruise the streets and while they drive All of a sudden for those who aren't expecting it The cars begin to bounce up and down with their suspensions Then They could drive on three wheels only or if you really wanted to give someone a thrill who was on the sidewalk watching You hit your hydraulics the car leaves up on its only on its back two wheels and drives down the street At a sort of stately 20 miles per hour But the car finishes had dozens of paint coats all rubbed to a dazzling hand rub gloss Interiors are beautifully upholstered Mostly by sending them to mexico where there are upholstery experts like you wouldn't believe And then you'd open the hood and the entire engine blocks would be chrome to a shine Just an amazing thing If you go to slide four and zero in on that The example of just how religious The uh our chicano friends who are about the cars is that there's a chest tattoo on picture number four That covers the entire chest And instead of being our lady of guadalupe or maybe a girlfriend It turns out to be Three of this person's favorite automobiles And these cars are works of art They they have also exquisite paintings that that have all kinds of aspects of mexican american life And low riders might not even make 25 000 a year But they'll put that much in a year god knows where they get the money into their cars And they become legacies handed down to their kids On the other hand the most extravagant of these often very elegant low rider cars Are sometimes sold not as a legacy But to special car collectors who have been known to pay a half million dollars for a good mexican low rider car from los angeles Los angeles it has kicked off the car club culture But japan brazil and korea now have also followed But in that case Speed is a definite component of their car club car club culture They take the smallest korean and japanese cars you can imagine soup them up and make them fly at speeds you would not believe of Anyhow cars as petitions as something to love to venerate pass on to their kids Uh, it's a los angeles phenomenon Thank you ron and with that we're at the end of the show And we will start out the next one with another low rider version Of that you can actually also buy some You know not convert yours, but basically have them You know being customized by a guy who's most famous for that so be excited for that So see us and we will also then cut the and cut the corner back to architecture and automobiles and the utmost challenge of our times is being environmentally uh responsible so All of that and more Next week When I will be back if the airplane wants so so until then please stay all mentally mobile Bye. Bye