 a most warm welcome back to this our show, Thinkpec Hawaii's Human Humane Architecture, and I'm your host, Martin Desbang. This is my very first show in 2024, because last week, my fellow host, Distotl Brown was kicking off, and we will both be back next week. So for today, we're gonna continue to find out what's going on in Honolulu. We are having the biggest building boom ever since the heydays of statehood here. And while in statehood, trying to question us if we're nostalgic or not, but I think we can say we're not, at least not entirely, when America was at its best and then people who came to Hawaii tried even better, that is as some feel us included, not the case anymore these days. And we try to find out and we thought we find some clues in a fellow city in the heartland of the USA, which is Chicago, Illinois, and we're in our 25th investigation episode of trying to find out. So we also don't wanna have an isolated, insulated view here. We wanna get ourselves out. And I have to say, while I obviously wanna wish us a happy new year, it's harder than ever because what's going on in the world makes it increasingly. And even me having just come back from the holidays where we sent me out half around the world to my native Germany with coming back, these impressions here, it's hard for me to feel like I'm back in paradise when I see fighter jets over me here in Waikiki. And there are two kinds of fighter jets, first the ones that we wish that wouldn't have come back so much, which are the war fighter jets, which are fighting both utmost challenges that we have these days, which is people and planet peacefulness. So they fight both because we kill people with these machines and we also kill our planet with the carbon that these machines put out. But our private sort of passenger machines that get us here, me including, are only better because they're not killing directly but indirectly because they're also climate killers because they have a very, very high carbon footprint, me including. And on top of things, this is the bottom row of pictures here. I came back from the Northern Hemisphere, which is relating then to Chicago because usually even in my very days in Nebraska and then even in Arizona, I could not avoid the Northern Hemisphere and most of my flights back home had to go through the city of Chicago. And in many cases, what you see down there is what happened to me. My plane had to be DI's and you can only imagine, you know, the additional impact on the environment, on that stuff having to be sprayed on the wings there. So this is pretty bad. And, you know, on the on the bottom right, the news quote there is, you know, just trying to probably make me feel better when United Airlines, which is my carrier partner of Star Alliance together with Lufthansa, promised that they will try to make the A380, the Airbus, that I consider to be my plane. You see a little toy model of it in the bottom in the middle there, which is in my little shelf up on my wall next to Nick Cushar poster that reminds me of my American citizenship, which I was granted in that Hawaii theater. So that airplane there was put in place, first introduced the year of 2005 when I returned to the U.S. And I've been flying with this. It's a great plane. It's very comfortable. They got the air pressure right. It's a big plane. And that's why it was, you know, it's not very efficient and effective. Both you need to have a lot of passengers and it consumes a lot of fuel. So it was actually out commissioned during COVID but coming out of COVID and getting us back to almost full capacity as it feels of tourism as our major economy here in Hawaii, it is back. And again, it's back with both a smiling and a crying face, because again, it's good to have it back, but also we have back its environmental impact. And we want to encourage you to think about all these things more than ever these days, whatever you do. Like for example, when mine is a Lufthansa plane, not Singapore Airlines here and it only goes through routes, I flew this time not through San Francisco, but through LAX. So in the airplane, they were serving us as they do dinner and breakfast. So this is my cutlery for dinner and this is the breakfast one. So we also kicked off our first Tim class two days ago, which is the tourist industry management that Martin Anselini, who was our guest for many of the shows, his proposal for Lahaina, the two of us are also now coaching the coming hospitality managers. And we gave this out as food for thought and we said, what's good about it? It's reusable, right? Bad about it is in comparison to this one here and what's the pro of the one is the con of the other one. This is heavy, this is light. So this is reusable, but it puts on weight. So it uses more kerosene as of now. This is basically biodegradable. It even decomposes almost in your mouth, which is a little weird, but it's very light. So again, there isn't just black and white. There's shades of gray in between that we want you guys to look at. LAX again, so coming here, people coming here, in tourism has a big impact. I had in the cold there, I had one day of skiing, which again, we should feel bad about things we do and think about it. The heaviest impact, which I did not know having grown with skis on because my mother is Austrian, high mom is actually not what you do while being there. The ski lift and the increasingly because of climate change, artificial snow, but it's actually getting there. So the closer you are, the less is basically your transit, your commuting. So that is the point. And that's for us here also, how people come here because in the pre-state of days, they came with ships, right? The steam ships by Metz and then came Jet Age and ever since we come with jets. Again, we're not yet there. Hopefully United Airlines is successful with converting the A380 into hydrogen. But until then, again, we can do the carbon trading and pay extra and try to offset it. But it's still, we have that burden here. We have that impact that we carry. So having gone through LAX also architecturally, again, this cutlery has also, we have the Venice Biennale Curatorship just announced for 2025. It's an Italian, Carlos Redi, who's doing everything that one should do these days. He's all over the place, maybe a little lost, but we might say that because I'm the same and our emerging generation is doing that too. The last Italian having curated the Venice Biennale was, and the turn of the millennium was Massimilano Fuchta's fellow Italian who gave out the agenda of ethics and aesthetics. So there is the aesthetical part, which in the sort of existential threat of mankind and womankind in that order, because we men do cause most of the harm to the world, aesthetic seems to get on the back burner, but we shouldn't because there is something about nature as our best raw model that we should return to and nature is beautiful in a performative way. This cutlery as the link in the middle at the bottom is by Wolf Carnagel. This is a legendary German Gestaltter who has created this one here. And this is why it lasts. Things that are designed, gestalted in a beautiful way, they last. And it's an increasing awareness of us that one of the main columns that we call sustainability is lasting, keeping things in the life cycle. That is true for everything. That is true for automobiles, for cutlery, for clothing. And it's certainly true for architecture because this is what the show is about, human human architecture. And the main piece that LAX, which I went through in our main mid-century modern master, Ron Lindgren has just sent me his newest or asked his newest movie recommendation, which is Ferrari, the beginning of Ferrari from the 1950s. Thank you, Ron. And you said the two of us are automobile fans, the Soto and I, but you are the third one and we have to reconvene our respective show to this extent. Again, airplanes and automobiles are vehicles for thought to think about so these mobile devices, so to speak, are vehicles for thought for immobile as how in the German and the French language we call real estate. So the most recognizable real estate piece of architecture that's been around is that thing that we see in the top rows. And this is from the 1950s, early 60s by architect William Pereira and Lukman. Pereira is of a Portuguese descent, which we have a lot of ties to here on the island. And he's also known, I flew out to San Francisco and in San Francisco, he's known for what he had built a decade later, which is the Trans American Pyramid, which is still considered to be one of the most iconic lasting and therefore sustainable high rises. Actually, some argue, including us, more sustainable than what's recently been built in topping it in height, which is the Salesforce Tower by Cesar Peli. And we will talk about that a little bit later in this show. So a little bit more about this theme building here, which is that sort of space age spider thing that ever since this one, nothing better has been built. And this is kind of ironic and striking. You see in the very center of the image shows what's around it these days. These are pictures I took just three days ago. You see that very hideous tower to the left of it, which is probably from, I couldn't even find the date when it was built. It looks like the days when I had to go to architecture school in the early 90s, when postmodernism had just hanged. And it's this kind of really desperate attempt to make something that looks historic but isn't. And then there is these lighting pictures that look futuristic, but not anywhere close to what that theme building there is, which is, again, talking movies, there's just Priscilla out, which is the movie about the life of Priscilla Presley, Elvis Presley's wife. Last year, there was one of the many other and the most recent Elvis film out. And there is a scene, I think, that we have a reference to in our, probably coming up in our automobile architecture show where Elvis and Priscilla drive in the Mercedes 600 to the airport. And it's specifically staged then around that most iconic building. And people dismiss it as the Hollywood architecture and from that sort of Bauhausian point of view of structural and material honesty is a steel structure that covers itself up with makeup and that stucco fell off some years ago. So there's all this criticism. And you can say this building doesn't really have a function and necessary and essential function. It's not a navigation tower, like we assume the tower, the ugly tower to the left of it in the middle picture. But it is a very iconic building. And the image is that the middle on the left and to the right is pictures I took on my moving here to Hawaii in 2012 when it had been reanimated because it originally had something very, very innovative and provocative that has a lot to do with us in Hawaii because it had this restaurant that was a revolving restaurant. And that reminds us of one of our favorite buildings show quoted in the middle at the top, this is the Alamoana building by John Graham. Same year in 61, this was America at its best, right? Everywhere it tried to do the coolest stuff. The Alamoana building was not just cool but also cool literally and figuratively because it was recognizing our tropical condition here and it had retractable sun shading louvers that unfortunately in these bad 90s that I was talking about somewhere they took off and was cranking up the AC and ever since is there, you know, too naked. So we're saying bring it back. So also here they brought back the restaurant at Disney and its Imagineering Department was maybe going a little too over the board with the interior kind of Jetsons like but it was nice. And the picture at the very bottom the very middle on the right is one of the most delicious I think it was a spicy chicken burger that you see there that I've ever been eating. A little did I know that the year after the restaurant has closed and has ever since been closed and the building really waits to be reanimated with some meaningful function. There's a Bob Hope veteran institution at the bottom that's very meaningful run. You're a veteran in many ways. Also a Vietnam veteran, that's good but we need that restaurant back. We also need the restaurant back in the Alamwana building. And both had been rotating and they're both now locked. So we need to unlock them, bring that back because again, it is shocking that ever since LIX, LIX was by the way also designed by Pereira, the whole thing and the horseshoe layout is a little bit annoying I have to say from a point of view of a passenger because it's a long, very unattractive walking along with caps and cars and not interesting scenery along the way. So there's some serious need for some updating, some upgrading. But again, the centerpiece of that one is really up to these days, the coolest. So we need to get America back to its coolest period. That gets us to the next image because it was even intended to be even cooler because this was the original idea that the spider is sort of the water down compromised. It was by Pereira again envisioned to be this gigantic dome. And while we're pulled this from NPR the comments are manifold. Some say, hey, great, these were the greatest days which we agree on. Some then say, which is also legitimate in these days of climate change just would have been a big microwave and look at the amount of glass. And but we say there's technology out there today that we pointed out actually in the last show, episode number 24, how one could retrofit that Helmut Jan building in downtown Chicago. So it was very visionary. And again, we had that too. DeSoto just talked, show quote top right about the Kaiser dome that was built around the same days. And the other big show quote at the top left is our show about Henry J. Kaiser's avant-garde with the Kaiser dome is the most funky example of that one. And again, that did not happen. And unfortunately for us, the Kaiser dome is gone. Fortunately, LA still has the theme building. So talking welcoming architecture when you come with aviation, please go back to our tropical brutalist shows where we were looking at our airport which is by the legendary Vladimir Asipov which is where DeSoto grew up in a house designed by him. Here up the diamond had volcano. And the airport was recognizing our tropical climate. It was very easy breezy. And it's decreasingly that because what they do to the airport is not living up to the additional dimension of innovation that it has. And in fact, next slide where I came from is actually now reconnecting us to Chicago although this is Munich. This is Munich, Germany. This is my destination and my departure point. And this is how I am greeted pretty much. And you see two pieces of architecture. One is the one on that big banner which is what we have been talking about a lot. And we will continue to be which many consider us included. The best architecture that we Germans have ever been coming up. And this is the 72 Olympics by Fry Otto and Günter Behnisch here used by this cell phone service provider O2 as a backdrop. And the architecture it's placed around is the airport center. And this is by Chicago based but German born architect Helmut Jan who we talk a lot about in the show and we will sort of continue to do this here. And doesn't this architecture look very Hawaii, right? This is roof architecture. This is what we should have here. It protects you from the main elements of the rain and the sales from the sun. So while we have that in Munich, Germany and the recent sort of additions to the airport does not have that to that extent at least not in such a thoughtful way. There's some solar panels and some canopies there but they don't really serve this function here that this year saves. There's also I remember that Helmut was blamed and I think even sued for some really fancy stairs that had glass pavers and people in the snow slipped on it and broke their legs. So I think it needed to be retrofitted to some concrete. Again, we don't have that snow here so we could do these things but we don't do these things anymore here these days. So I took this picture here upon arrival around Christmas. You see the Christmas market there and you also see a gringe at the very top right which Soda would say, hey, this is the Germans adopting American culture. So next slide. So this slide here is Chicago Airhair International Airport and the author of the D.O.M. book that we had as a guide it was just out and I was given the confidential digital version that I had promised to destroy which I did and it's author Vladimir Belogolovsky here. I respect the lot because he's doing what we're dinking around and doing on a volunteer basis once a week. He's doing this to make a living, to write about architecture and being an architectural critic. So he's the pro. And I'm also jealous of him because we took on to write the Honolulu city guide, Distoto and Bill Chapman and Don Hibbert with the students. And Vladimir took, I wouldn't say the easy way out but for him the comfortable way out because he said, okay, there has been so many architectural guides about because Chicago is considered to be one of the cradles of modern architecture. So there's so many books about the history of the Chicago School of Architecture, Louis Sullivan, you know, Frank Art Wright with Oak Park, Mies van der Rohe that he says, I want to start in the late 70s. And that's why there's a heavy emphasis on postmodernism and these pages here that I'm holding his book showing for example, again the Thompson Center that we were talking about last time and it's retrofitting for Google and these beautiful postmodern drawings on the top right out of Talmud's office. And also when you come to Chicago and you leave Chicago internationally United Airlines hub isn't Chicago, but I just updated myself. There are plans to move it permanently to Chicago, hopefully not because they have just, they were out there in the burbs and they have moved actually to what used to be the Sears Tower, which is now renamed as the Willys Tower but they used to be in there or they're still in there recently but they want to move to a Denver instead. So, but this United Airlines terminal again built in the mid 80s by Helmut is really kind of iconically memorable and it is very, you know, Helmutish and it reminds me of Arcaneering which one year in my school of architecture in my youth I had with Werner Stobach as my structural professor and he was teaming up with Helmut and their theme was Arcaneering. And that only lasted for a while. Dan, our patron told me there were two egos clashing into each other so that only lasted so long. So another connection to us is here that we had Jeannie Gang come and we dedicated many, many shows to her because we thought she did the most ambitious high-rise tower in our Cacaaco that we encourage her to do that a little bit better to stay a little bit less sort of suggestive but be more explicitly natural and perform more natural but Jeannie is certainly one of the most promising, you know, stars in the orbit of architecture and the female architect and we need more of these. So we're very happy to also see at the bottom right Jeannie is commissioned to design the next extension of the Chicago O'Hare global terminal. So that's what I will go through if I again transition through Chicago again. And you see here that it looks like it's the hybrid construction of concrete and wood and it's a joint venturing as we point out at the very bottom there in the text between her firm Studio Gang and guess who? Solomon Court will be wins which is that firm that we see here predominantly blessing us with high rises that we wish they would be more environmentally and with that culturally responsible. So again, hopefully, you know, if whoever developer comes back, maybe, you know the Solomon Court will be wins guys, man needs again the teamwork with Jeannie and hopefully they take our criticism as it's meant to be constructive as to go to the next level of making their architecture the equivalent to our nature here, which is most beautifully performing both literally and figuratively. So in the three minutes left, let's still go to the next slide because this is another reference to automobiles and architecture. The office of Helmholtz is so, I guess, luring for our patron, Dan Kubrick that as Joe quoted at the very top in the left that he when I met him had a Pontiac GPO which Ron by the way, again Ferrari Ferrari was owning that title for a model of their car and Ford was challenging that. And while in these days, they probably would sue each other back then and it was more supportive and they basically had a race and Ford won and they could keep that. Dan then basically because of the obsession with Porsche's in the office of Helmholtz Jan that we will see next week or next week we're gonna go back which I'll tell you in a minute because that's important how we will do the next two shows but after that when we reconvene and do the volume 26 of this one year you will see where that obsession comes from. So this is Dan's mid-70s to mid-80s model the Porsche, the Porsche has always never mind times move on and their architecture moved on and Dan also drives a Boxer which is a new Porsche new kind of Porsche but this 911 iconic one has always been kept and Dan goes to the extent that at the bottom left you see that he also works on the engines the guts of his car is in his loft he lives pretty close to downtown which we were pointing out at the beginning of the show and you can see his place is a hybrid of a car shop and a dwelling. And at that time about now a year ago or more than a year ago almost one and a half years ago when we did the footage for the show here Dan was moving the office from where it was previously which will remind you with a slide when we do pick up from here but here you will see where he moved it to the office which is the Wrigley building. Yes, it's that chewing gum company that now actually stops doing chewing gum. Ironically I find this is from 1921 this is Brayhem Anderson Probst and White one of the firms that our Tropical Tutor Bill is excited about so Dan again moved it. So an office and contemporary architectural office recognizes the legacy of architectural quality and so it is with automobiles will be treasure the legacy of the 911. So next week is important because the Soto end a project that he will put at the very end of his show which is about the beginning of a statehood and actually just predating statehood and these are small hotels in Waikiki before everything went on steroids and got big and this was 70 years ago and that was when the Soto was born so the Soto's birthday is coming up so next week he will sort of lead into that and then conclude with the breakers hotel and Ethel please listen to me because I will finally show up at your breakers hotel the week after and we will do the anniversary celebration footage with you for the Soto and your breakers so please look forward to that. So until then you see the accumulated viewer you are down there so please keep joining us keep subscribing us keep supporting us this way because we're doing this all voluntarily so we do this thank you for that and until next week please stay people and planets peaceful. Bye bye.