 Hello, and welcome to another episode of Think Takauai's Dokumomo Hauai Show. Today's episode is going to be looking at Edwin Bauer, this is our fourth installment of that, and today I'm your host, Graham Hart. So we've looked at Bauer over a couple of different episodes previously, first about his body of work here in Hawaii, he was a proliferant mid-set tree architect, and then we looked at his life and all the different twists and turns that took in our last episode with a couple of other guests. But today's guest is Brandon Large, and the two of us are gonna be looking at Bauer's work in kind of a bit more of an analysis about the principles of what makes these projects really good and really well suited for Hawaii. So I'd like to thank Brandon Large for being here today. Yeah, thanks for having me. I was able to pull you out of work and do this for me, so thank you. So as I was talking about, we're gonna look at Bauer's projects in a bit more specificity, and we're gonna be looking at some of the ones that he's most remembered for, and then use a few examples of ones that he's been a bit forgotten about, you know, his forgotten projects. So for, to start us off with, this building here in the background is at the former Kaiser Hawaiian Village, it was Kaiser's LA LA Lanai Lanais, built in 1955 by Kaiser, or by Bauer and a couple others. But what we want to talk about is maybe starting with the next slide, is these projects that Bauer is still remembered for, because these are still around. It's the Breakers Hotel and the Hohayana Hotel, built in 54 and 55, and so what about them makes them so good? What do you see here, Brandon? Well, I think they give a really good sense of Hohay. It's a very lush, tropical kind of courtyard condition. The image with the lady sitting inside, she has the doors open, she's experiencing the garden space outside. It's very, very tropical and seems really suitable for Hohay. Yeah, I think both of these projects were, you know, hotels that were built in this period and really helped paint the picture to the rest of the world and really sell the idea of what Hohay was. And sure there's a lot of, you know, motifs and a lot of kind of different things about them that, you know, kind of a little bit more kitsch today, but Bauer kind of started here and then evolved his projects into kind of creating something that works more universally. So I think if we go to the next slide, this is the Oahu'in and the Oahu'in Tower, 56 and 58, and actually Brandon lives here, so let him kind of introduce these projects. Yeah, so here Bauer had kind of taken his hotel idea and expanded it to multi-family dwelling. So on the left side you see the low-rise Oahu'in Limited and it's pretty much the same configuration as the Hwayana. And then on the right side you see the Oahu'in Tower, which is kind of an evolution of some of the ideas he was working on, but also made for a really efficient building because obviously you have a smaller footprint. Yeah, so it's interesting that, you know, as he kind of developed this unit model, which we'll talk about further, he starts kind of scaling it up, up and up, and kind of making it work for more projects. So actually if we go to the next building, this is the Clia, and I get to call this place home. So this was, as you can kind of see, it's basically the Oahu'in Tower, but there's three of them now, and they're kind of in this village of high-rises, right? So he's taken this kind of village garden idea that he had with some of the smaller scale projects and he can get to these high-rise things. So he's you know, continuing to evolve the idea of this Hawaiian urban living. Yeah, you kind of get the best of both worlds. You get high density, but also you get the benefit of having lush gardens surrounding your building and interacting with them on the way, on the way to your unit. I just want to point out, I love this photo of the Clia with diamond head in the background. That's one of the tallest buildings in the area. This is probably like early 60s, late 50s, and now it's the shortest building in the area, but it still is a great place to live. So actually, and then if we go to the next slide, speaking of places to live, this was Bowers apartment building. He lived in it, and the building, or rather the picture in the top left, is how it was when it first opened up. So this is 2170 Cajillo Avenue built in 1959, and the top penthouse level was was Bowers for him and his family. And we went back and looked at how this building looks now and realized that this was actually a part of two identical buildings that are built right next door to each other. And they've been, you know, this is one of his projects that I think have been forgotten about. You know, these buildings have both been renovated in different ways. One of them, the one that his apartment building or apartment unit was actually in, looked like it got updated in the 70s or 80s or something like that with this, you know, this new glass and green mullions and just kind of really taking a lot of the character out of it, out of the original intent of the building. And then the other one has some of the original breeze block, some of the original detailing and the way that the paint is still applied to it, but then all of the knives have been enclosed. So I think this is an example of, you know, luckily the buildings that Brandon and I both live in still have, you know, the original intent for the most part, but a lot of his work has been forgotten and they started off with such great principles that made them well suited to Hawaii. So I think we want to kind of spend the rest of the episode looking at what we think these guiding principles were. Let's go to the first slide. So the first thing that we pulled away from Bauer's work is actually this term that mid-century Hawaii architect, Harry Seckel, coined, which is environmental living. And this is this idea of, you know, living with the climate, living with the environment, you know, indoor or outdoor living. It's something that really can be afforded here in Hawaii more than anywhere else in the world, almost. And it's unique to this place. Yeah, and making sure that, you know, whatever elements are used in the building are adapting appropriately to the climate is essentially a way to live outside without having to live outside. Kind of how I'd imagine it. Right, definitely. And, you know, just these three pictures of kind of indoor spaces, but they seem so outdoor, right? So it's embracing the outdoor qualities. Okay, so environmental living in a quick recap. Okay, the next slide is the next principle. And the couple of projects that we've talked about follow this principle as well. And it's this idea of an urban oasis, right? A lot of these projects either were designed in an urban environment or soon became a quite densely populated urban environment. And so he was careful to site the buildings in a way that left space for an oasis, for a garden, for an amenity, for a pool or courtyard, whatever it was. Yeah, so here's the Clio Hotel, which is now just the Clio building, the Hwayana, the breakers and the white sands all with these kind of introspective courtyards. And yeah, so then the next principle is this idea of democratic design. And this was actually a term that we're kind of borrowing from Charles and Ray Eames. And their thought was, you know, how do you design something that's easily accessible to everyone, you know, make it affordable? How do you, you know, add quality to people's lives for everyday occasions? Of course, now all of their work is, all of their designs are very expensive. But at the time, it was about mass production and utilizing technologies of the day to kind of make things more affordable. This is an old advertisement or the development of the Clio and showing the Oahu and Oahu Tower and the Makiki Inn. And, you know, the prices that they're trying to sell these for and trying to appeal to everyone. These weren't luxury buildings. Yeah, I mean, essentially, using the same approach that Charles and Ray Eames did, right? Democratic design saying, okay, let's design something that everybody can enjoy and let's design something that everybody can afford. And I think it's a really smart approach. Yeah, definitely. Okay. And the next principle is human scale. Now, so this one, what we mean by human scale is that you can design a building as, you know, a massive sculpture, you know, a huge high rise or something like that, that, you know, is maybe beautiful to look at from far away, but you can't really picture yourself there. You know, it's kind of hard to see it because it's the mass of it, the scale of it so large that it doesn't have a lot of human quality, right? Very monolithic or monumental. Ours buildings, even though some of them are quite large, they have this kind of tectonics to it that make it smaller scale, make it feel comfortable, make it feel human really. So here's a picture of the breakers, but here's, you know, you can see a couple of people in that photo and just kind of relate to them, you know, standing up on the lanai, being out on the pool. You know, these are kind of places you'd want to be. It's very homey. It's very human. Exactly. And you can you can understand exactly how big the building is, even from a distance, because the elements, the elements are pretty clear as to what they are and how, you know, how they relate to the human scale, as opposed to, like you mentioned, some towers that have gone up where they'll stack three levels together. And from a distance, you have no idea how tall that is except for relative to maybe another building nearby that has some semblance of human scale to it. Yeah, totally. Okay. And then the next principle, the next slide here is kind of going off of that. But it's the aesthetic quality that these buildings have. So yes, they were designed economically. And yes, they were designed, you know, very functionally. But there's also a nice sculptural quality to them, you know, just for an example, this stairwell on the outside of this building was the railing is left open versus, you know, on the breezeway outside, it's solid, you know, it serves this play of kind of light and shadow and, you know, tilting things slightly to kind of give it a little bit more interest in the continental building up in the corner there. You know, that could have been it's an office building could have been designed as just a plain box. But really, it's this composition of volumes and spaces, which gives it a lot more interest than it really needed to have in order to get the kind of the function done. So now that we've kind of introduced these principles, we know how do they work is what we kind of want to dive really into for the rest of the episode. So I think, I think we'll just jump right into how it works in the next slide here. The first thing is just the layout of the building, you know, buildings got a function, got to work. And a lot of these buildings that we're talking about are either multifamily or hotel, they have, you know, living units, and then they have circulation. And that's the basic programming of each level. And from the get go, Bauer's successful projects have what we call a single loaded corridor, meaning that the corridor serves units only from one side, rather than having units on both sides of it. So what this does is that it gives the unit itself an exterior wall on two sides, meaning that you can have light and air come in through it, where if you have a double loaded camp, it's just, you know, you can maybe get some light in on one side, but then the other can, you know, side doesn't have that same condition. Yeah. Okay. Yeah, basically, you summed it up. Yeah. And a lot of the buildings now, of course, a lot of developers want this high efficiency. So they think, you know, let's double load it. Well, you all of a sudden you lose the potential to get cross ventilation. So then you're required to condition your space, which ends up costing a lot more money for the developer, but also doesn't make for a very immersive space. You don't, you don't know where you are. You could really be anywhere in the world. So I think we're both big components of the single loaded corridor. Yeah, definitely. I mean, and yeah, in Hawaii, right, this exterior corridor, we call them breezeways, right? I mean, it's, it's something that really can be done so successfully in Hawaii. So it's, it's, you know, should be kind of thought of at the get go of when designing these kind of types of projects. So let's go to the next slide. So now that we're kind of breaking it down into the unit itself, how do you see these principles working? So the first one, environmental living, you know, by having that single loaded corridor, you can pull the air and the natural ventilation right through the building. And, you know, by having louvers on one side and sliding doors on the backside, you get this great venturi effect. And, you know, I live on a eighth floor open air apartment building, right? You know, open air, you know, home. And you get this privacy that you only really get on the eighth floor that you wouldn't get maybe sometimes on a single family home even. Yeah, exactly. And I think going with the environmental living, you can kind of notice the overhangs on both sides. So you have, you have kind of these outdoor spaces. You have the overhang, which of course is keeping the sun off of your glazing, which is another big thing that people should be considering when designing buildings in Hawaii is keep the sun off the glazing because then it keeps your interior space a lot cooler, especially if you are cross ventilating it. Yeah. And so actually, Bauer deals with this kind of solar shading in different ways here at the Kulia and some of his other kind of more high rise. You know, he uses these overhangs to kind of help shield things and provide these open spaces. But sometimes the buildings are, you know, laid out in such a way that there is no overhang like the Oahu and does it slightly differently, right? Yeah. So the Oahu and has no overhang. So how Bauer treated that was instead of having glass, he just put Florida ceiling, redwood, jealousies. So you can close them when the sun's aiming onto your unit and keep the sun out pretty nice, you know, most of the time. But then still lets the air come through. Exactly. Yeah. Okay. So that's how environmental living works at the unit scale. For the next principle, this urban oasis thing. So we talked about kind of at this larger scale how Bauer leaves space on the site for gardens and amenities and courtyards. But how that affects your unit is actually kind of interesting as well. I mean, you're in these urban conditions. A lot of times you're going to be either faced with looking at a building next door, because there's not much room, or you can create a view because you don't have these views anymore. Yeah, exactly. Yeah. Not everybody can afford a really nice view nowadays in Hawaii, especially. So creating interior views, interior gardens, also spaces that people interact with as they're going to their building. So it's kind of this passive interaction with some version of the tropics, right? Even though it is this kind of scripted, choreographed, tropical setting, it definitely evokes that. And I think we experience in both of our buildings as well. Yeah. I mean, you can just see from the photo, looking out from the interior outside, this building doesn't have a view of the diamond head or the ocean. It has a view of palm trees, which evokes to me just the same feeling of being in the tropics. And so that's really what it's about is because you're creating these great indoor-outdoor spaces, you want to have something nice to look at. So then in the next principle, the democratic design principle. Well, so now what we mean by this is these buildings were built in a way that was most economically feasible. It was built very functionally. By looking at even just the CMU, which is the concrete masonry units in the CLEA, there are a stacked bond rather than a running bond. And the wall lengths are in the module of the CMU, meaning that you don't have to cut it. You don't have a bunch of half blocks, which would save a lot of time and labor and material when they were constructing these things. So there's a lot of thought to just how big the building is and how it's constructed. But then that construction, those methods wind up being the finished material. So doing them in a way that's expressed and honest and pleasant to look at and economical, that's like three wins right there. Yeah, the win, win, win. Yeah, even in my place that we have the single wall construction, redwood jealousies infilling the unit. And what was interesting about that, of course, it was kind of a very common building material at the time. But even the amount of detail paid to the finish of the material. So it was bleached in the case of the Oahuyn, which helped to lighten up the space. They didn't want to just throw these dark redwood panels up. They wanted to kind of treat them in a way that was going to feel a little more comfortable and domestic. Yeah, it looks very homey, that material. So then in the next slide, there's this human scale thing. And it's kind of fascinating how Bauer designs the details of some of his buildings to have multiple function. So we talked about this area previously about the environmental living and letting all the light and the air through with these jealousies on the front, but also just standing in the breezeway. The way that it's designed with the solid railing is that when people look up at the building, you have privacy, they don't see you walking along, you know, walking through the breezeway. Rather than having a glass rail, which they do a lot of times nowadays. But then also when you're on the breezeway itself, one complaint about having single load of corridors is oh, people can look into my unit. Well, Bauer's kind of figured out this way that if you're going to have, you know, ventilation and light coming in, a really block out being able to see in at this high level, you know, because people are always going to be walking by. So people can't see into the units, but light and air can still come through. Exactly. And even the depth of the corridor, right? I mean, he really understood what people could experience at that, at that depth, and just design the entire building kind of to accommodate for that. And it's also interesting, because we've already talked about a few things that these that these balconies and overhangs have done. So this is just another one of those things, right? I mean, it provides and provides the kind of the sculptural quality of the building, protection against the sun, and the rain allows the breeze in the rain, but also privacy. So it solves maybe three or four problems with with one design solution. Yeah, really, I mean, in just this detail, there's a lot going on and you can kind of see, you know, with a person standing there, how it works at these different levels. We had kind of thought about before that, even though these buildings were built economically, you'd think that you might lose the human scale, you might lose a quality to the space, rooms might get too tight, might get, you know, kind of unfriendly. But the size are really proportionate. And really, they feel right when you're in them. Yeah. Oh, yeah, totally. So the rooms aren't too big. They're not too small. You don't, you don't ever want to be in a really, really big bedroom. It's just not comfortable. There's there's a certain kind of size that it would feel right. And he kind of nailed that he didn't didn't scale it down, because maybe it was a more affordable place. He just kept it right at the sweet spot. And I think the same thing for the living space, kitchen, everything, it just works. It works really, really well. And we, we live in the same size unit. And I think we both feel the same way. It's just super company. Even at times, it feels maybe a little, a little bigger than it needs to be. But but then you kind of sit back and you're like, Oh, this is just perfect. Yeah. Yeah. Well, and there's so much built in, you know, kind of storage and functionality to a lot of it that, you know, you don't need a lot of extra, you know, you don't need a basement that people put in a little storage and you know, random stuff. And it's just just enough space to kind of fit everything that you need for living in in the urban tropics. Yeah, so let's go to the next principle. So the aesthetic quality, we talked about that kind of the bigger scale of the building, how, you know, he spends a lot of time making these sculptural compositions. But then at this smaller scale, I think it's about the elements and the details that he brings in, and how those kind of start to paint this picture of Hawaii. So yeah, there's many different examples, but yeah, so he kind of has kind of this like a centralist attitude towards making the building itself. And then when it comes to the details, or, or, you know, the types of doors or the textures that are that he's providing, they really kind of evoke this kind of Tropicana feeling, right? So, you know, he has the matchstick lines that you can see in the bottom left there, and also actually the right side. But also just, you know, the patterning in some of the breeze blocks, or there's a number of different things. Yeah, I mean, so he's really kind of pulling from the vernacular language of the tropics and the Pacific, right? So he's using things like shoji doors, and, you know, the matchsticks, like you said, and other kind of elements that, you know, evoke either Polynesia, or Asia, or just kind of Hawaii Ana, right? You know, he's kind of pulling that some of that from his hospitality experience. But he's bringing these into multifamily, even some of his church and office projects, to kind of continue, you know, reminding people that they're living, working, doing whatever in, in Hawaii. And you don't really design a building that doesn't look like that. Yeah, but it provides good context. And I think, especially when they were built, there's probably a very, very comforting thing for people to see. Yeah, so that brings us to our next slide, which we're going to spend some time on, the kind of wrap up, you know, and summarize what we've been talking about. So our did, you know, over 30 projects that we know of, you know, we were kind of compiling a list. And I swear every month we find out that he did another project is, you know, something that gets uncovered. But all of these buildings that he did have this kind of same level of thought to it. And, you know, we think use these same principles as originally intended, you know, in 50, 60 years on, you know, a lot of these buildings have been altered remodeled or forgotten about, and people use them differently. So they've, they've kind of, you know, have gone into a little bit of a disappearance or not as efficient as they originally intended to be. But we think these buildings kind of show and provide for us is a successful model to follow for future development. And, you know, there's other models that are kind of brought into Hawaii that maybe aren't as as appropriate. And those are the ones that people most of the time, you know, pick up on and develop here in Hawaii. And so we think that these buildings are so interesting, not only because they're great old buildings to look at, but because they work so well here. Yeah, and that's that's a good note for sustainability. A lot of the developers are trying to or being encouraged to make sustainable buildings. But, you know, they're kind of starting off on the wrong foot a lot of times if they take a few steps back and look at what some of these old buildings are doing pre air conditioning, pre all that stuff, pre solar panels, what how do you solve problems with what you have? And and also how do you make it affordable? You know, people, people who are buying these units don't want to be paying a ton of money, but they still want to live in comfort. So I mean, can you can you again, design a building using these principles that belongs in the tropics that's affordable? And that's extremely comfortable and nice to live in. Yeah, definitely. I mean, I think we're, you know, we've talked about this, they were less interested in the fact that these are old buildings, but we're more interested in the fact that these are good design buildings, well designed buildings. Exactly. And when we want to advocate for good design, at the end of the day. And so kind of, you know, to segue out of this, you know, a lot of these buildings at mid century, all kind of evoked these or follow these same principles that we're looking re looking at again today, you know, sustainability, passive ventilation, but also just something that looks really inviting and is talks about the regional character of Hawaii, and its architecture. And I have to make a quick plug for what all of these think tech shows hosted by Dokumomo are leading up to. So in September, at the end of September of this year, we're going to be hosting our Dokumomo National Symposium. Very excited about Brandon's actually going to be hosting a walking tour of the Makiki area and showing off the Oahu and some other sign up. Yeah, sign up. Definitely. And sign up for the whole conference in general. It's going to be a great, great week to be, you know, embracing the architecture of Hawaii. And yeah, I want to thank everyone again for joining us for this show. And we look forward to seeing you all in September. And I think that's all. Thank you.