 Hello everybody and welcome to Think Tech Hawaii's Human Humane Architecture. I am this program's co-host, I'm DeSoto Brown from the Bishop Museum and joining us electronically today are two of our friends, the host of this program, Martin Despang, and then speaking to us from California, Ron Lundgren. And we're going to be talking about a location in California today, but let's get, and you see Ron and Martin on screen with me right now in still photos. And Martin, let's get started with you talking about our first slides. Yeah, let's get that up and you know, sometimes you and I just totally need to get off our walk to understand it better, and thanks to you, Ron, you take us on a very extreme way to the other side of, to that new other side of the Pacific Ocean, to your long beach. And as this slide here might sort of indicate a little irritatingly is while, you know, we don't actually don't have, you see at the top left, you see this interview that Arby Keller did with your friend and business partner, and we're kidding for it, and it's still up online, so I encourage you guys to watch it, while obviously, you know, Ed is proud of everything you guys have done and money off the project youth and spearheading or Ron, but he always goes back to actually for the reason because that book about the case study houses was published by the German publisher, Benedict Passion, and that you know, yes, yes, I have not been a bit so, so it's obviously comprised of the beginning of the firm, the single family residential word that at the bottom right also was featured in a great professional movie about the photographer that was, you know, showcasing and photographing all your work around the Julius Schulman, and he chose for his movie cover of the case study of number 22, the Stahlau-Pierre Clinic, that small world my sister has a chance to visit when Joel Silver, the Hollywood producer was owning it, and he previously lived in an air screen trailer, which is the next movie that Eric Bricker, who's the movie maker's name, made, and it's going to be out soon, it's going to be called Illumination. And then he must have been thinking, well, there was the case study of house number 25, which we see up there, which is the Frank House, which is by Ed. So now he's making a third movie, and they're very professional. You're very excited about the first one was actually married by Dustin Altman. So this has sort of Hollywood's stand, Eric, and you and Eric have been talking quite a bit and you've been educating each other that most of the architects have stayed in California and that region. So as, for example, Pierre Pernick, the two of them had his leader out there in the world, and then one was Ed, and the other one, if we go to the next slide here, is another guy, and you and I just sort of have been stumbling upon the typology we're talking about today, which is higher education every now and then. On the top right is very famous Paul Rudolph's Yale School of Architecture. But probably what comes to your mind the most important foremost is Cranbrook Academy and the top left by a father and son in L.E.L. and Ero Seren. And we've been now putting together all of our memories and thoughts about campuses in the United States. And the bottom row of pictures is very similar to you, Ron, because you're a graduate and alum from that college, which is MIT, and they have below the brutalist Rudolph is an IM pay brutalist, which we are on campus. The initiation of the campus is actually that boomerang looking building by another European immigrant, also to other project is crepti auditorium and MIT chapel, both which you run have witnessed when you were the student there. And let's go on to the next slide. Although Seren made it on the cover of the time magazine, but we were talking to people on the show that he his attitude was not I'm a stark effect. You know, you're very down to earth guy. I'm modern master, just like Ed. Left to him is Drake University, a dorm, which I've witnessed myself. And at the bottom are two pictures of myself from a woman's dorm at the University of Pennsylvania, a very fascinating project. And that one actually has been remodeled recently to its original standards. And go to the next slide. I saw in a little nationalism here me from the row at the bottom left is my period. Where I have to be there with these emerging generations for a future when it was the day before they closed crown all the architecture school building designed by me for renovation by Kirk and Sexton and the bottom right is the day when I moved on to the desert in the five desert red pack students and we visited where it was just completed. So again, I see another campus, you know, very, very kind of signature style associated with the architect claim. And one more example next slide is getting closer to your region, Ron. This is the UC Irvine, William Pereira, having been the master player. And he's mostly known for when you know, I've talked sort of we talked about flying in and out and aviation and the LAX team building at the very top right. Mostly known, he's for the Pan-American high rise in San Francisco. And next to that, it's just more to the type of you were talking about is the Guido Library in San Diego on the campus. And unfortunately, we're just reading before the show, his master plan has pretty much not only ignored but also in large parts been undone, which is very unfortunate. Not so much the one you will talk about Ron today, which is not unknown. So we're going to make up for that. So it's your stage now, please introduce us when you're taking us. Yes, the next slide is of a sort of dreamlike traditional quad, a modest space, but very recognizably a place for university learning. You know, in the previous programs that highlighted it killing us were contributions to modern Hawaiian architecture. I hope that we use all three demonstrated his real affection for the island. They became a second home. And that's certainly where much of his best work exists. He longed working and living in Honolulu. He also loves spending a tremendous amount of time of his career and carefully guiding the growth of what became California State University Long Beach. Way back in 1962, the trustees of the 23 state colleges had appointed him as the master plan architect for a 323 acre site. And what most people don't know is that he held that tenure. He held that position for nearly 40 years, which was a record in American education history. His primary goal for the campus, as you can see in this slide, I think, was to create a memorable visual image for the school. And there were some halcyon growth years that he oversaw because his student population grew from 10,000 to 38,000. Now, there was a very admirable sustained clarity of making for this campus, in which an original mid-century modern style of architecture was maintained and is still being maintained over decades. In Long Beach, that style was never considered passé or outdated. And frankly, such an attitude has resulted in a modest, handsome, architecturally unified and beautifully landscaped campus that I believe remains a wonderfully humane setting for university education. We're going to look now at some photos that I happily took in the recent past. And while we look at examples of how unified it is and how beautifully landscape and other considerations about the campus' success as a visual work of art, I'll mention some principles that might even be considered a recipe for successful campus planning, maybe anywhere over the long term. We're starting now. Well, I said you age. How about that? Yeah. Well, we're starting with that very traditional memorable quad with beautiful mature trees. If we go to the next slide, one of the principles that Ed Killingsworth had was that he as campus master planner needed a sidekick, but an equal sidekick. He talked to the university president into establishing a position called University Campus Landscape Master Planner, who also had great authority in making decisions about what the campus would look like. This composite of photos, there was a very interesting feature that that architect at level, without support, created on campus, it's a small Japanese island, a small Japanese garden, designed strictly to be a quiet rescue and a place maybe done online during exam week, not only for students, but for Harriet Sackleley. And we also want to mention that at the very top left, this is actually a model. And that was done by your business partner Larry Stricker that we're going to do two shows about his monolani and the e-lani later. And tell us about the size of that model and the size of Larry's hand. When you meet Larry Stricker, he's about a six foot three Norse Viking with the beard and you know, the whole fierce look, enormous hands, or I should say paws, but he could build models like an angel. In the upper left hand corner you're seeing a tiny little aerial view of a university model of the entire university. And here it was the Japanese garden itself. And that Japanese garden is about in reality, about two inches long. And Ron, this has been And Ron, this has been continuously updated and preserved and maintained, correct? Yes, it is such a great campus tool to use for, for example, parents of students who are going to be going to that school, who can get an overview of what the campus really is all about before they then go out and explore it with their boy or girl who is going to attend school there, and also exploring 40 years of development of the campus. And as I was saying, in the next slide, talking about landscaping, one of the precepts they had killers would always had was that frankly, if the architecture could basically be hidden behind the landscaping, that was his preference. And here's the case where there's a very dense world of trees, mature trees that are concealing one of the first buildings ever put up on campus, a building by activities with which was originally a mid-rise administration building. And I also recall, Ron, that you said there was, in many cases, there wasn't really a bunch of money. So I had basically had the sort of fundraising money for trees and we have this very special peach tree background today, which you saw at the very beginning. And then I think lack of money also gets us to the next page, because there was this artist program, which if I recall correctly what you told me, the material was donated, but then the artist donated their creativity, right? It's the next page. Yeah, this helped to organize what was the first international sculpture, university sculpture symposium in the United States. And what he and all of the university officials were thinking was that they wanted to breed large scale public art to the students and the faculty. And they didn't have the money to do it. And so the ploy was to invite very well-known sculptors from all over the world to design sculptures and work with local Los Angeles manufacturers who would create them. The manufacturers provided the materials and in some cases, some incredible technical advances just to have them built. And the artist, they managed to get several free weeks in beautiful California for free, but they donated their time in their designs. You control the next slide, which you have. That's what my favorite. That's why I choose it by Claire Falkenstein, this very sort of Harry Bertoya ask as to refer to a colleague of hers, you know, maize thing in that in that water pond and that reflecting pool next to the Edmund building that right? Yes. And Claire Falkenstein is a real hero in all of Long Beach in that there's a lot of her public art throughout the city. But this was the largest piece in Long Beach. And again, she donated the time and the design. And as a present, there are 23 such very large scale public artworks scattered around the campus to be enjoyed by public students and faculty. Very clever. Okay, in the next in the next slide was seen a kind of visual representation that the campus was developed over 40 years in what was originally a mid century modern style. And here you see these very light porticoes flying in and out amongst larger buildings to create pathways from building to building in a very mid century modern way. Oh, it doesn't look pass a to me. And it is that sort of design mentality is still being followed today. It looks beautiful too. Yeah, and let's check out that the sort of the instigating at the end building by a little closer on the next slide, because that one is my favorite. Yes, right. Yeah. This was a community for us very first building on campus. It was meant to be the first thing one saw when one drove into the formal entry to the campus, not so much for students, but for the visitors and the parents of the students. It was a multi story admin building of modest crisp, as you can see in the detailing with his signature beam extensions, which in this case supported an entire wall of louvers that protected the offices within from East and West Sun. And in the next slide, you can see Larry through his model on the left. And this very crisp, and what I think is a very handsome nine story admin building. And it doesn't remind us that the total about kikendall hall absolutely. Absolutely. We have to talk about again, because there's some sad news that we have a chair for the Dallas three after that. So this here is here on those louvers on the exterior do not move. They are fixed, correct? In that exterior wall. Yes, that that is correct. They held away from effect. They're held away from the grazing of the offices, nearly five feet out. Yeah. One thing I might say also about the photographs that shows the crisp building is that you see a sort of handsome looking material at the end. And it was a it was called a peach ruffle brick, and it had a gray mortar, one of Ed's stipulations that if he was going to be master planner, was that all throughout the campus, they would only be a limited and modest materials palette. And so every building on campus has to have walls or some walls utilizing this brick as a way to have a unified and the congenial architectural ensemble. It's good for him. And I think it's it's remarkable that it lasted as long as his as it did. I've never been to this campus, but I'm very anxious to see it someday having now visited it just visually through you and telling us more about it. And I'm anxious to give you that guide. Okay, let's continue. Let's go to the next slide. Yeah. On the next slide that we designed and talking peachy. This is the very peachy shot. Yeah. Yeah, I don't I don't know if this is if someone took this shot at a one of those, you know, peachy sunsets at some point around the curve, but that or it's a brush fire in the background. Ed actually completed six buildings on the campus, because he wanted to set some standards for design excellence. And the second busiest building on campus was the campus bookstore which you see here, a very simple pavilion raised up on the left side of the building. And the next one is the building that we had a lot of use with a nice outdoor space beneath it. And again, with full walls of louvers, in this case, facing through East. And in the next slide of the piece in this goes away. And we see kind of a mid century black and white photograph showing the that sort of around the campus bookstore. And shading trousers, which can just be fine. Yeah, especially in the next in the next slide, another unifying design strategy, especially in the buildings that at design, was that whatever if it was housing or if it might have been an office or classrooms, these lower as buildings were all, well, the proper word families, they were all festooned with these troubles structures, very light steel columns, supporting shade elements overhead, creating a very human scale. And again, being found all throughout the campus. All right, and how that progressed over time, hearing more in the first hand experience, let's go to your beach to the next slide. You know, this slide is one of the really makes me happy. Someone came up with the idea of putting these giant letters, go beat, which is the athletic cry of all of the all of the nearly 38,000 students who go here. What this is throwing, you're seeing a bit of a building again with that Kelly's worth columns that are very handsomely designed with re-entered quarters and extended extended bees. But this is something that I designed 26 years after at Kelly's were designed the original union. And I wasn't about to invent the wheel. And we were going to maintain that it's a very modern look, leaving that even today, the freshness about it, the human scale that it provides is a worthwhile endeavor to attempt to maintain. And Bravo that you did it, I mean, it's timeless and Bravo that you that you carried on Ed's work. And obviously, you being a disciple of his, so to speak, you were capable of doing so. And I'm very grateful that you did and thank you. In the next slide, the upper left hand corner is just again, a portion of Larry's model always updated every year, which showed the student union, which is actually a sort of collection of pavilions. But I needed to make a sort of marker at one of the most busy intersections where buses and cars come together to let students off. And so I created this little blaze pavilion. No one can not know what it is. As you can see, it says University Student Unions. And then it led to a bridge that spanned across ground falling away, that eventually connected to the original original union. And in the next slide, you just see some details of that of the inside of that glazed pavilion, and that campus marker for the student union. In the bottom in the bottom of the left hand picture, you see some kind of handsome looking stone materials. This was one of the one of the design strategies I had that failed, unfortunately. The idea where you see what looked like little posters that are set into them was that was where telephones were supposed to have been installed. And of course, no one uses anything except their cell phones anymore. So that that gesture came and went. I'm not your fault. That's right. But you can see my version of Ed's mid-century modern architecture there. And the next slide, you see Ed's original design, where there is some monumentality to his sorting columns and beams. On the left is actually just a portion of a two-story interior courtyard, which is used all day long in good weather by the many foods that have to be located on that floor. And in the next slide, there's Ed's victim again. Two pictures, three. Yes, it's a monumental building and it's a large building, but it is partly concealed and it's certainly humanized by being next to and behind a very handsome alley of mature trees. And you know, one of the things that really struck me about this picture is that the size and the shape and the color of the tree trunks really complements and goes with the columns and the coloring of the building. So the scale of the trees, the way they've been pruned so that they've got their exposed trunks, same color as the background, they go together absolutely marvelously. And I don't know if that was planned. I think it was a happy accident that as the trees grew, they were so complimentary to the finished building. Back from the very close relationship between the campus master, campus planner and the landscape planner, this kind of what looks like a happy happenstance was actually planned from the start. Yeah. It's just that it took decades of growth. I'm sure that when the campus was rather fresh and raw, that it didn't have this handsome garden ambiance. No, there's a lot of shade too. And of course, as you said, when this was new, the shade would not have been there. The trees were immature. Now, I want to ask you that because I just because, you know, on behalf of the three of us, I even when you asked me to, you know, share my thoughts about the very current topic of our president wanting to make architecture classicist again. And you were on at many times pointed out that that adds and you filing our classicist. But as we can see here, very humanized, very elegant, very sophisticated classicist, which unfortunately, can't really expect from our current president, right? No, not him and the people who surround him either. But that is a very painful subject that I don't think we want to go into. This is going to be our last slide for today. We're going to be continuing this trip through this school campus in our next one or two shows. And Ron, thank you very much for taking us on this trip, explaining it from the standpoint of a person who actually participated. And again, as I said, it makes me want to go visit it and walk around and look at it. And Martin didn't happen to be here today because of illness, but he should be with us for our next show. But this is in San Francisco, not to get better again and go on this extended spring break to your beach. Yes, that's right. Okay, so thank you, Ron. Thank you, Martin. Thank you viewers for being with us. And we will see you next time we are on Think Tech Hawaii's human humane architecture until then, aloha.