 Human-Humane Architecture Program. I am DeSoto Brown. I am the co-host of this program. Martin DeSpanning will be joining us again in our next episode, which we will shoot next week. And today I am continuing the program I started with the last show that I did, Remembering Lahina. And in this part two, we're going to be focusing on the mid-century period up to the present day of the town of Lahina Maui. And as everyone knows, the town of Lahina was almost entirely destroyed in a tragic fire two weeks ago, just about two weeks ago from the time I'm recording this in August of 2023. And at this moment, the number of dead has risen to approximately 120, I believe. So the real tragedy of this was the loss of life, tremendous economic shutdown, many, many other things to think about. But with the destruction of Lahina comes the requirement to rebuild Lahina. And in the considerations of how Lahina will be rebuilt and redeveloped, I think it's of course necessary to look back at what buildings were there and were destroyed. And there will be a lot of things to consider, a lot of things to think about. And that's something I personally hope that I get to be involved in as that process goes forward. And again, I'm saying this with the idea of wanting to remain optimistic and hopeful looking toward the future and not just dwelling on the terrible tragedy that has just happened. In any case, let us go to our first slide. And as I said earlier, we're continuing from the program last week in which I've already discussed some of the parts of Lahina. And so we're gonna be finishing that up today. And if you would like to, you can look for the previous show, Volume One, to put them both together, to watch them together and see everything that I did on this particular subject. So in these photographs is a very familiar building that formerly stood in Lahina, it is the Pioneer Inn. And that was a hotel. This was a very distinctive cluster of building. It was more than one building. And it has this very distinctive look which is kind of elegant. And also, as we like to say here on human-humane architecture, very easy breezy, meaning that it was open to the air. And in the town of Lahina, this is very important because again, a reminder that Hawaiian name Lahina refers to the cruel sun. So Hawaiians of the distant past recognized that Lahina is a very dry and hot destination and a very dry and hot place to live. In any case, all of the doors of all of the wind, of all of the individual hotel rooms on the second floor of the Pioneer Inn, open to the outside. So that railing that went all the way around, that walkway that went all the way around on both the first and second floors meant that there was a maximum amount of air circulation going along. And also the distinctive coloring of the railings being painted white and the building itself being painted a darker color really was something that was very recognizable. These two photographs, the black and white picture is from 1947. The color picture is from 1970, really illustrate what the Pioneer Inn looked like. And now let's go to the next picture. The Pioneer Inn was named for not any kind of Pioneer or Western or anything to do with the United States so much as it was named for the Pioneer Sugar Mill that was located in the town of Lahina and which was really the crucial feature of Lahina for many years because that's where many people were employed who lived there. Well, the Pioneer Inn opened in 1901 and you will hear statements to the effect that it's the oldest hotel in the Hawaiian islands or it was. I'm not sure that's exactly true because the Moana Hotel opened in Waikiki also in 1901. But the important thing about that 1901 date is it happened decades after Lahina was very important, had been very important in the whaling industry. And yet, even though the Pioneer Inn was never around when there were whalers in the town of Lahina because it wasn't built until decades after that industry had diminished and gone. It's still by the 1950s was being portrayed as having something to do with Lahina's whaling past. So in this photograph from the late 1950s you see that this lady is sitting on that porch and above her is a sign that says old whalers grog shop. Well, no, there were no whalers that ever came to a grog shop at the Pioneer Inn. And I think a lot of people got confused by that because there was always so much promotion that the Pioneer Inn was connected to whaling. Not true, strictly speaking. Next photo. And as part of that entire promotion that played up the romanticized days of the whaling industry in Lahina, there was this carved wooden figure of the old sea captain, the old crusty old salt sea captain standing on the lani of the ground floor, lani of the Pioneer Inn. And he is not exactly the same in both of these pictures. The one on the left is from 1973 and the one on the right is from the 1990s. In the original picture he did not have, one of his legs was missing. He had a wooden peg leg. That's his right leg. And then the picture on the right, you see he's got both legs. Well, innumerable people had their pictures taken with this carved wooden figure. And that's appropriate for a town which came to really be dedicated to tourism in many ways. If this carved figure was still standing at the Pioneer Inn in August of 2023, it sadly was destroyed by the fire which completely destroyed the Pioneer Inn. There is nothing left of it whatsoever because it was an entirely wooden building. And it is one of the many buildings that's completely gone from the town of Lahina now. Next photo. The Pioneer Inn was located in a prominent part of Lahina and as you can see by these two pictures, you can see the Pioneer Inn is present in both of them. It was just inland of the Lahina Harbor. And I'm gonna be talking about the harbor in just a minute. But also in the picture on the bottom, you can see the Pioneer Inn is on the right. Then there is this lawn. And to the left is the famous banyan tree which I already discussed in the previous episode that I did. The banyan tree dating from 1873 was badly burned in the fire. But it has been determined to still be alive and it is being given care right now in hopes of reviving it, bringing it back to life. And as Steve Nims, the arborist who is doing overseeing this work pointed out, the tree is not really this, is not as tragic as many of the other aspects of this fire. But I believe that bringing it back to life is very important for how people will be able to look to the future rather than just the tragedy of what's on them right now. And in the other picture, you'll also see the Pioneer Inn in the distance and the harbor right in front of it to the left. Let's go to the next picture. And also a feature right of this same exact area was what was called the old courthouse. And in these three pictures, you can see the courthouse in the 1960s and the 1950s, 1960s is one of these pictures we're taking. The courthouse actually dates back to the 19th century. It was built as a government building and it was called the old courthouse because it had had a courthouse in it but it served a number of other government functions. And so for example, at the time of the annexation of the Hawaiian Islands by the United States in 1898, the courthouse was also the location of the post office in Lahaina. The building, as I said, dates back to the 1800s but in 1925 it was very extensively remodeled and modernized. And at that time, the four pillars were added at the front of the building and that's because in the United States at that time any courthouse or any government building really was considered, it was considered pretty much necessary that you had to have these classical columns at the front that parking back to Greek civilization and Roman civilization, the classical look which was very, very not only commonplace but was considered pretty much a requirement in lots of places in the USA. And so in 1925 these four columns were added to make it look more imposing and make it look more like a government building. The courthouse by the time of the fire in August 2023 was a museum about the history of Lahaina. And tragically, a while the walls of this building are still standing now and the columns are still standing now. Everything else has burned and then combustible burned so there's no roof left anymore. And sadly all of the collections which were housed in the museum were either badly damaged or destroyed in looking at photographs of some of the things in the museum. I think possibly some of the metal objects might have survived but everything else that was burnable is gone and that included a very historic Hawaiian flag which tragically is gone as well. Next photograph. Well, I'd mentioned the harbor and these buildings which were facing onto the harbor. Lahaina did not have a naturally occurring protected harbor and while a number of ships obviously came and went from this port, they did not have a protected harbor to go into like for example, Honolulu harbor is or Pearl Harbor. So to remedy that and not require every ship to anchor offshore, this breakwater enclosed harbor was created. And so in these photographs, you can see the breakwater in the distance. And so this is not a very large harbor but it is protected. And again, a focal point of the town of Lahaina. Originally the harbor just took care of boats which were used for commercial purposes but they were fishing boats. So these photographs taken in the 1960s show fishing sandpans. This is a type of a boat called a sandpan anchored or tied up in the Lahaina harbor. And these small boats were fishing boats that went out every day, caught fish, brought those fish back to shore and those would be sold and consumed right there around the town of Lahaina. But at the time these pictures were taken, the users of the harbor were changing. And if you look at the picture on the bottom on the right, there are some private sailing sailboats or sailing yachts you might say, but those private boats which were owned by wealthy people began to replace the fishing boats owned by not wealthy people which were already using the harbor. And let's go to the next picture and I'll show you what happened after that. As those fishing boats were displaced, the small fishing boats that were just going out to catch fish, commercial other types of commercial boats began to take over the harbor. And these were, as you can see in these pictures from the 1970s and the 1990s, boats which cater to tourists. So there were fishing boats but they were charter boats for people to go out and catch fish just for recreation. And there were boats to go out on whale watching tours and there were boats to just go out for sunset sails and things like that. And that's what the Lahaina harbor ended up being the host by the time of the fire in August of 2023. Next go to the next picture. Here is a very picturesque structure which used to stand on Front Street. It originally was known as the, I'm gonna look at the photograph more carefully here. It was believe it was the Chi Kong Tong Society, but it ended up being called the Wu Heng Society. And this was what was called the Chinese social hall because a number of the Chinese immigrants who were workers in the sugar plantation were single men. They created places like this to gather together for social events and also these social halls also frequently contained religious areas for religious practices relating to Taoism, Confucianism and Buddhism. Well, this prominent building I gradually fell into disrepair by the 1960s and early 70s. And as Lahaina began to embrace its historic past and began to restore its historic buildings in these two photographs you can see the difference between the original Wu Heng Society building looking pretty run down on the left and then a closer view of the building after it had been restored starting in the 1970s. And it was turned into a Chinese museum. And again, as I said, it was in a prominent location on Front Street. Many, many people walked past it, thought it was an interesting building and went inside to just find out a little bit more about Chinese history here in the Hawaiian Islands. Well, obviously being a wooden building, this picturesque and interesting, uniquely architectural building has been completely destroyed. And again, as I said at the beginning of the program, this brings up the question of are buildings like this going to be replicated or rebuilt in Lahaina? And if so, what is that process going to follow? But we'll see in the coming years how all of this plays out. Next picture. Here is the Baldwin Museum. And this was a group of three structures which all were connected to an early missionary to Lahaina, Mr. Baldwin. These structures were built starting, I believe, in the 1830s. And of course, as time passed, they were not only used by the family, but also by a succession of other tenants over the years. And eventually these two became, in the 1960s, a museum. And while there wasn't a lot of original 19th century materials still in the houses, it was refurnished with appropriate furniture and other materials from the time period in which it was created, and it also became a museum. Although it's not immediately apparent, the buildings, the walls of these buildings are stone. It obviously has wooden exterior portions, but because the walls are stone, even though the entire buildings were gutted, there are no roofs anymore, everything inside was destroyed, the walls are still standing. This is a building, or this is a complex, which again can be viewed as potentially restorable, even though unfortunately all of the collections have been lost as well in the fire. Next picture. Here is the Lahaina Public Library. This was a building built in 1955. It has a typical Hawaiian style architectural look. It has a double-pitched roof, and it has stone pillars using native rocks, which were mined or taken from the ground right here in Lahaina. And it has again, a classical and elegant look, which is typical of architecture that developed here in the Hawaiian Islands. And this was known as an Hawaiian look. Unfortunately, of course, this building too has been destroyed. It was located right next to the pioneer inn, and the walls again are still standing, but not anything else. The roofs are gone, and obviously all the contents, all the books, all the burnable material inside has been destroyed. And I know that the Hawaii Library Association has put out a call for libraries throughout the Hawaiian Islands to consider donating books to the Lahaina Public Library when it starts to get back on its feet and or is housed in a building that is still standing. And again, is this building to be restored? This is the question that many people are gonna be asking of this and other structures in Lahaina. Next photo. There are more recent developments in Lahaina, which were related to tourism and the number of tourists who are coming for shopping to Lahaina. This is a complex which was built in the 1970s, which was called the Whalers Marketplace. And it's built to look like a little piece of New England. The buildings are looking like a little cluster of New England buildings. That is a reference to not only where the missionaries came from, who settled in Lahaina, but also the whaling industry ships. And I've always thought this was kind of weird and out of place because we're not in New England, obviously, that is a move point now because again, being made of wood, this entire cluster of structures was completely destroyed and is no longer standing. Next picture. Another shopping complex was located right in the center of Lahaina. And if you look at the picture on the bottom right, you'll see it's just inland of the pioneer inn. And this was called the Wharf, originally, and then it became known as the Wharf Cinema Center. And it was very typical of buildings from that time period. If you remember the ward warehouse here in Honolulu, they both were made of raw, unfinished wood. This is something which was popular at that time as it was more of an environmental consciousness. And this is a large complex. It had three stories. And let's go to the next photograph. And in this structure, when we see the interior, you'll see that in this picture in the early 1980s in the upper right, you'll see that raw, unfinished wood was really typical of what I was talking about as well as the interior fittings of the water feature and the angular appearance of the various parts of this courtyard. As time passed, the Wharf Cinema Center was extensively changed. It had a large restaurant placed in the center part. And it also was painted so that it no longer looked at 70s, but looked more typical of or similar to the buildings which were surrounding it on either side. And again, excuse me, this was a three-story structure. So it had a lot of businesses in it. And yes, being entirely made of wood, as I keep saying, it was entirely consumed by the fire and is completely destroyed now along with all the businesses in it and all of their merchandise. Next photo. Now let's look at some religious structures. This is the Lahaina Jodo Mission. This is a Buddhist sect. And if you're not familiar with it, Buddhism has a number of different sects just as Protestant Christianity does. And there were two features of this complex that you see in these pictures here. One on the left is a wooden pagoda. And on the right, a large bronze statue of Buddha. The pagoda is completely destroyed except for the base and the first story which were made of concrete. And the Buddha statue is still standing and because it was made of metal, it was not damaged by the fire and particularly because it had no wooden structure around it to burn. So it's still standing while everything around it has been destroyed. Next picture. Here is the Lahaina Methodist Church. And I don't know the exact year that it was constructed but it does resemble a number of other structures here in Honolulu large homes that were built in the early 1900s, say from 1900 up to the 1920s in Nuanu and in Kaimuki and in Manoa in which there is a large structure, there's a large rock base, as you can see by the main steps that are going up to the front door of this. This building also, as you can see in the picture on the right, both of these photos are from 1973. This was a wooden building. The only things remaining now are those large cement steps and the wooden, or not the wooden, the stone pillars which were around the base of the building that held it up above its basement. This also is completely destroyed now. Next picture. Here's the Waenae Church and I'm gonna consult my notes right now to give you some history of some of the dates of this historic church. It began in 1823 and in its early decades, it went through a number of different small buildings, but in 1859, a new stone church was built and this was like the other buildings. I've been talking about stone walls with wooden structures attached to that, obviously. In 1894, that burned down and it was demolished and replaced by the wooden church that you see in this slide here which is located on the left and that was dedicated in 1897 and I believe that was designed by C.W. Dickey, a famous local architect. This wooden church was damaged by fire in 1947. It was rebuilt in 1948 and then it was destroyed entirely by high winds in 1951. At which point the building that you see on the right was constructed and dedicated in 1953 and at that point, the name Waenae was changed to the name Waola Church and keep your eye on those two pictures on the right because you can see the distinctive upward pointed facade in the front that is cement block and then of course there's a spire beyond that. Now let's go to the next photograph. And this is a picture taken by Po'otella Hansen who was a member of the home of the fire department when the fire department from home visited the day after the tragic fire in Waenae and as you can see the Waola Church is just a shell, burned down shell and that facade with the upward pointing roof much of that fell inwards into the inside of the church and so it is no longer standing and this is all that remains of that 1953 building. Next picture. Well Waenae Church slash Waola Church is known today as primarily for its cemetery because Lahaina was for many years the seat of the Hawaiian government in the 19th century and a number of prominent Alegis were buried in Lahaina many of them had a place called Moku'ola, Moku'ola, excuse me, which is a story which I'm not gonna be able to get into today because there's a great deal more to it than I have time for but some of those important Alegis their remains were removed from their original place and put here in the cemetery next to the Waenae slash Waola Church. This is a photograph from probably about 1970 of some of those burials. And in the next picture, fortunately again this is a photograph from Polkhella Hansen. We can see on the left that those two monuments are still standing in the church yard in the graveyard even though the church to the right has been completely destroyed. So that's also because there was nothing wooden around them there was nothing to burn and also they are made of stone. So there are a handful of survivors of important monuments or structures still in Lahaina today which we can be grateful for. Next photo. I wanna end on a more optimistic note not everything was destroyed. Not everything I've been talking about up till now has been completely destroyed, ruined, damaged but this church, the Maria Lanakila Catholic Church somehow managed to survive completely intact. So it is one of the buildings which we can look to again for some sense of optimism and with some feeling for the future that they will be a rebuilding of Lahaina. And finally, we will end with this photograph which is Front Street as it appeared in the late afternoon or dusk on a day in 1959. And this obviously no longer looks like this today and obviously again if you know what happened during the fire you know that all of this has been destroyed except for one of these buildings which is concrete and is still standing. Again, I'm looking forward to the reconstruction and the revival of Lahaina. I hope to be able to be involved in some respect in terms of being able to talk about historical things as Lahaina's future is thought about, considered. And there are many, many things to consider as that process goes forward. Thank you for joining me. Please, if you are watching this right about the time of the fire, consider giving monetary donations towards all the many, many needs that are present in Lahaina right now. Again, thank you for joining me. I'm DeSoto Brown. This was Think Tecawaii's Human Humane Architecture and I look forward to seeing you again on a show in the very new future. Until then everyone, aloha.