 happens to be a 181st episode of our think tech Hawaii's human-humane architecture, traditionally broadcasting live from the opposite ends of the world. So today is just one end of the world because our co-host, DeSoto, being the nature of the vintage and treasures, currently his systems up on his vintage home the diamond head hill is down. So we need to get that back and need some care. So I will now be today on behalf of us, DeSoto and myself here back in the very Germany. If we can get the first slide up, it shows us again what we're always doing oscillating between both of our cultures here. And this is talking about that things sometimes have to get worse before they get better. So Joe Biden had just to reinstate as it says here, the travel ban for us Europeans to come to keep our cases down in Hawaii. And it sort of reminded us that coming full circle to the beginning, the heydays of tourism in Honolulu, DeSoto taught me, I always have my weekly German lesson with him and in return, he continues to give me English sayings, lessons. So he taught me the term newspaper clipping and that's what he's doing. So here is from the star advertiser looking back pieces here. This gentleman that you see at the very bottom right who is Willy Brandt who at that time as the subtitle says was the mayor of the city of Berlin. And you see him here relaxing on the beach of Waikiki. You see the basically the Royal Hawaiian in the back and here he is with swimming trunks and a lower shirt. And it took him until a decade later to finally become the chancellor, which is the equivalent to the president in the United States of Germany. And so that basically made him then being in the time of the late sixties to mid seventies. And so at that time in 59, just do our little history memory. That was the beginning of statehood when Hawaii became the fiftieth states and that basically boosted a tourism. So he was kind of a pioneer to that degree. And let's go to the next slide and look at the other end of the world how basically it all looked in Germany at that time. And this here is almost looks like, reminds us of a Y-like coffee lounge that coffee house that unfortunately closed, I think last year. And also has a little bit of a tiki touch and that makes me wanna congratulate my best German buddy Stefan who we know from previous shows as the tiki basement expert and of both of us having celebrated one of my recent birthdays at one of the most tiki places in the world, which is Trader Vic's oddly in the basement of Munich's most upscale hotel in downtown Munich. This place here, however, isn't a restaurant as it looks like, but it's a cafeteria and the dining facility in a place that we need to connect both worlds and that we started out increasingly with the airborne traffic of aviation connecting us half around the world which gets us to the next slide. So congratulations Stefan, again, happy birthday. It's your birthday today. So all the best health and happiness first and foremost. So here we see what I grew up with is my hometown of Hanover Airport here that has been built as it says in the early 70s. And Stefan knows this more from the inside because he was doing basically work there as a student and even before he was having a job there at helping to get the luggage into the airplanes. So he always told me these exciting stories about this by this airport here which again, we're missing Mr. DeSoto Brown and instead we're reporting on this episode two about Father Brown who's the nickname for this vintage architect of my hometown whose name is Heinz Wilke. And Heinz Wilke again was the architect of our airport as well. He was highly influenced by Amnesian modernism as you can tell here and he was using a material that's foreign and we said we caution everyone else to get overly excited about it for our tropics because it's a material that's maybe too invasive for it was just steel but he was mainly using steel. You can see at the very top right the project under construction, there's a little sign up there that's really kind of tragic because we were reporting on another project of his in the last show which is almost the sibling half around the world of our varsity building that we're worried about Kamehameha School maybe thinking about tearing it down. As this German Hanover sibling has been torn down and it has been torn down by a contractor company who owned it and used it as the headquarters and then it was Ruta Baal. And I was rubbing my eyes when I saw this historic picture of the airport under construction because guess what the sign up there says Ruta Baal. So this is particularly tragic that they have been instrumental in Father Brown's work than having sort of owned and occupied one of his buildings and having it torn down. That's really tragic. Once again, it reminds us of Kamehameha School owner of the varsity building. So please, please Kamehameha Schools keep it. It's a keeper and not tearing it down. So let's go to the next slide and check out how this my hometown airport has been looking from inside. Here you see very kind of spacey, the elevator as an object in the space and very kind of signature style for Father Brown. That's where it's nickname comes from that his favorite color for materials in the building was the color brown. So you see this dropped ceiling here made out of these kind of sections of hollow tubes that were powder coated in guess what brown and also had the lighting integrated in it. So next slide, it created this sort of brownish, very cozy, very warm, you know not very institutional looking atmosphere of an airport very kind of homey almost just by the choice of that warm color and lighting enhancing that. And I remember that from my childhood. I threw in the chill quote that we had with our friend Ron Lindgren who was making comments about the military diner we have been designing and sort of a similar atmosphere a very kind of a celebratory kind of celebrating the space and the warmth of space kind of along the same lines. Next slide, shockingly, last time we've been reporting on his prime project of the headquarters of a local people's bank, the Spark Husser that architect has been turning gold into silver. So usually you do the opposite, right? Because gold is more valuable than silver but here for some reasons. And in the past show reporting, these were other architects, but we've been reporting that when Father Brown passed away in the early 90s at the young age of only in his mixed 60s some of his staff members basically took over the office. So they were responsible and in charge of the remodeling of the airport of the founding principal of the firm, Heinz Wilke and they did the same as the other architect basically they silverized it. So once again, turning gold into silver versus keeping gold. So a way more sort of sterile look having basically done the ceiling in more bright and white also as a reference I guess to not make the look the ceiling so naked they have these kind of sticks kind of sticking out and the lighting somehow being part of that. But again, a very, very different feel almost like feels more like a hospital feels less warm feels less homie feels way more institutionalized. So going to the next slide what does it all have to do with us in Honolulu? We see these similarities here. The top rows are shows about our aviation heritage in Honolulu by the architect of the Soto's home building, Vladimir Asipov. Again, having worked in the same era as we know our airport in Honolulu, a very fine example of tropical modernism using basically local materials as cast in place, concrete, local wood, local coirwood touching it up, making the concrete feel more warm very exquisite attention to detailing again, very distinguished. The Soto did a show about recommendations for how to live in the pandemic as being embracing easy breezy and as he pointed out as we quote on the top right the airport being a perfect example for that. So what we see down there is the newest addition to the airport, he has a rendering by the firm quoted on the very top bottom left that's doing the work. And once again, we're kind of missing working in that tradition in that heritage of the tropical exotic. We're seeing this way more technical seeing this way more you know, again, sterile and kind of high techy looking. So once again, where is the attention to tradition? We would say we're missing that. Next slide. We go to an airport here that I'm not one to screw up on pronouncing it. So I'm doing my best is Sherry Medyevo which is one of the airports in Moscow in Russia. And Heinz Wielke amazingly made himself a reputation basically with our hometown Hanover Airport to also get the commission as someone from the West to design one of the most prestigious airports behind the Iron Curtain at that time at the beginning of the Reagan era and our chancellor Cole deeply into the kind of the Cold War era. But again, sometimes architecture is sort of resisting basically sort of problematic zeitgeist and Heinz Wielke once again, you see similarity to the Hanover Airport here the same drop ceiling with the hollow tubes in brown. And you can also see these kind of chandeliers with these illuminated bubble glass lighting fixtures that once again intend to create a more homey, a more cozy atmosphere in the airport rather than a sterile institutional one. Next slide. No surprise probably that things have changed there too. The airport then sort of having gotten a little bit out of, well, I shouldn't say style but hasn't really had the, I guess, it's relevance anymore as a hub but recently in the last couple of years they have regained that and they needed to add on to the airport. What you see at the top left is a rendering of what has been actually executed by now at the bottom there. Also, these are new terminals that have been added. And obviously we've been talking about emperor's new clothes, the architect's thoughts to basically at their own handwriting, at their own signature and didn't really care so much about the tradition that Wielke brought to the place. That reminds us the show we had done with Larry Stricker about his Ihilani. His Ihilani was pretty much the same as the original terminal was here by Hans Wielke for the airport. And once again, there is this, the bottom picture of this sort of megalomantic kind of blobby thing that seems to be way more a formalist gesture than a performatively functional zeitgeist. Once again, this proposal of this new phase of Ihilani out there, this monstrous blob that we're getting, we wish it would show more substance than just surfaceial kind of flashiness. And once again, why are we even asking to be a little bit more respectful of the original condition and let one self be more working within that tradition gets us to the next slide. This is our reading assignment of our steel manual atlas here. And guess what? That airport in Moscow made it into that Bible of steel architecture. So once again, we tell our colleagues and developers and architects before you start thinking about doing whatever you wanna do, do your homework, do your precedent study, find out what really is what you're finding, what kind of position does it have in the history of architecture and then go from there. And then maybe you're a little bit more considerate about the kind of novelty you wanna bring and maybe it's more about evolving a genetic code that's sort of embedded in the body in the project. The cool effect, obviously, I mean, these projects kind of show the sort of desire to make things more cool. Next slide was Heinz Wilken not able to do that? Sure he was, look at that. Doesn't that look space agey? Sure it does. And next slide, it's part of this project here which is a Congress Center in the city of Düsseldorf built in 74. And you see at the very bottom left, this is the skywalk that leads from the other side of the streets and the parking to the thing. This Congress Center very much is showing one of the prime formal elements of the 70s which is the 45 degree angle. If there's something is very typical for the 70s it's the 45 degree angle. You can see here in plan that it's pretty much like a compilation of multiple octagons. And you see at the top right, this very neat picture that I pulled all from this amazing website built index that we're crediting at the very bottom there that shows that once again, it seems to be a sibling of the Spark as a Bank we were showing last time and that alludes to SOM's Sears Tower in Chicago, this kind of staggering of the same geometry and bringing it to different heights. And here you can see that these kind of lower one-story entry canopy pavilions and then the next ones are basically also a roof terraces for outdoor congregations here kind of beautifully, poetically furnished with different colored kind of chairs. So next slide, speaking about the 45 degree angle as that signal for 70s architecture is another project by Hans Wilke back to my hometown of Hanover. This is really down in the urban core of the city and it's a very strange thing to see here. There are some Linai's as we call them in Honolulu and in Hawaii, there's some balconies they're basically sticking out and they're doing this sort of criss-crossy alternating once again in plan in a 45 degree angle. And what is that strange building? Go to the next slide. It's something that is very familiar to us because we're having it a lot on the island from the past. This is actually a parking garage that has a multi-purpose also, there's a bolding alley at the very bottom and then there is office space at the top where the client that are the client organization that as we were telling the story in the last show, our client representative for our first kindergarten was working for and they were basically headquartered at the top of this building. So I was very used and familiar with the building and my dad and I went there a couple of times in the few times we had to wait, we were looking down on the floors and where the floor touches the walls and there was this beautiful Carl Heinz Wilka, Father Brown custom-made baseboard. It was basically routed out on its back that is touching the wall. So it was creating the shadow reveal and seemed to be more floating versus just attached to the wall, a beautiful kind of detailing and certainly sort of subconsciously to some degree probably the detailing of us in the kindergarten was an homage to that project. At the very top there you see vintage images from that built index from the bowling alley. And next slide shows you the parking garage from the outside. Once again, we did a show about the proletarian people power parking plimfs and saying if we would basically remove individual car traffic from the island and replace it with a multimodal alternatives, you would basically free up most of that parking space for other usages. The most in need is basically housing is dwelling. And so again, this is a brutalist parking garage and up there is a couple of the quotations from the many brutalist parking garages we have on our island. So there's another kind of a reference. Once again, we're having winter right now so you can't survive in a repurposed for dwelling parking garage here in Hanover, Germany. It's freezing cold, but you can in Honolulu. So be aware of our unique selling proposition of having the most perfect climate in the world. Next slide. Next slide is showing another typology of Karl-Heinz-Wilke. This is what used to be designed as the British embassy in my hometown. It's an exoskeleton. He was the master of steel. Here you can see a Corten steel exoskeleton column. And that reminds us of our Aloha Stadium, which is currently proposed to be redeveloped. The excuse is there's too much corrosion there and too much rusting. But then again, does that mean it's worth tearing it down and remodeling it? Or could you try to save it in basically doing some bone replacements? We're just throwing this out as an alternative because once again, I was just talking to old Maya, my friend, old, who was basically saying and wrote an article about, you should try to maintain a building as much as you can because you can never make up for the carbon footprint wasted. If you replace it with something that's not anywhere close to be built without a carbon footprint. So next slide here, talking repurposing when the British embassy moved out of this building, Wilka moved in with his office and him personally with his residence. You can see the little pictures up there. And again, brutalism is something that National DoCo Momo has been picking up saying we're turning, all these projects are turning basically 50s, so 70s turning 50s. And so we're basically sensitizing us and the public about that these are treasures. You can see the project here is very heavy on what we think every building in Hawaii should have lanai is right. Every basically unit, even having been office space before is basically now has a lanai and the concrete is basically interesting. They used in a more tectonic way as an applied non log bearing facade versus our most favorite and famous building of tropical brutalism, which is the Royal Hawaiian shopping mall on Kalakaua Avenue that we've been reporting about and we quote on the top right. Next slide, another project by a father Brown is here, which used to be the army offices school which he built in later in the late 70s. You can see what the soda was recognizing and really sort of praising was this sort of corrugation of concrete. I have a very personal relationship to that because as you can see Joey, my oldest son up there in this building, I was able to get myself out of a life of having to serve as a lieutenant of reserve for the German military. So leaving Hanover Germany and spending the last couple of minutes here back in Hawaii, next slide here in Honolulu is basically what the Soto keeps me updated. This is a project on the left by the architect of my dwelling Ernest Hara in downtown Honolulu from the 80s where he was staying true to modernism and having not been caught up in postmodernism, so kudos, but unfortunately now what you can see where we're shocked to see what happened to the gold bond building, there's someone who's sort of redraping the building with some glass and turning something that potentially shades into thermal mass, which is really bad, while one could have been cladding it with this German product that we call Taimo, which is by Glasbau Han, which are these triple glazed passive house, really high energy efficient louvers that one could have reglazed the building and could have enhanced its energy performance. Next slide. Also, I think we have to criticize ourselves when it comes to, because that's a bank building. So we've been reporting on the American savings banks, there probably we as members need to speak up more. I know that Tropical Rockwood is a member of the American savings bank and I have to admit I got some mail today by look at that sign up there up here, which is that spark cusser. So I'm a member of the spark cusser, so I should speak more up. Next slide is also shocking news of Tosoto here, showing us what happens to the Walgreens building on Kapiolani Boulevard that we've been reporting about being very critical to be very invasive, a greedy development to begin with and after some years now I've been closed down and being refitted and we're afraid, it's only be built as an interim phase to finally redevelop that as a high rise next slide. And as a high rise we're worried about because the architect is architect Hawaii and they're also in charge of the Mandarin Oriental that you can see at the very top. And next to the side, they're doing this one alumina building and all of them seem to be one again more invasive hermetic nature and we're basically recommending, for example, architect Hawaii to the gentleman we see at the very bottom left, at top left, who's Frank Haynes, who's a founding principal in architect Hawaii and they're doing this phenomenal building as for example, the Kenrock building that now gets redeveloped by the tower we see on top. And you see that the nature of architects Hawaii at the very beginning was tropical exotic, was biochlamatic. So we kind of appeal to the firm and basically say, look at that, look at your own roots and basically try to return to them. Which it gets us to the last slide, is this possible? We think, yes, the emerging generation thing. So we're working on these primitivas which are way more than what we see on Capulani Boulevard, it's trees, the big trees. And so we're thinking in the tradition of Frank basically make more stacked lanai easy breezy towers. And we're currently working on primitiva three which is inspired by the great Fry Otto. And so at the top right, you see what we're working on and this gets us to the end of the show and announcing that we're gonna have one of our mentors for the next three shows who's Larry Medlin who was a personal collaborator with Fry Otto has been working with him on the 67 American Pavilion in Montreal. He has been best friends with a great Conrad Waxman and he has been dancing, invited to dance by Janice Joplin and if, I don't know, takes anything else to get you more excited to tune back in next week for our 132nd episode of Human Humane Architecture. And until then obviously stay healthy and happy first and foremost, but increasingly again, tropical exotic. Bye-bye.