 Good to have you all back for another episode of think that Hawaii's human human architecture. We're broadcasting life again from our intercultural intercontinental triangle. With you to sort of brown in Honolulu Hawaii at your Bishop museum. Good morning in Long Beach, California on the West Coast mainland US and me your host Martin the Spang from near Munich Germany. So we are back as the three from the filling station with volume seven and this is by the way our 207th show. And so we're back to the comparison of automobiles and architecture. And why is that run we missed, we had to miss out on you for a little bit because while you have that extreme heat over there at the whole West Coast, and you would desperately need water you unfortunately had the water on the inside of your house we didn't want it right while we here in Europe have the water on the outside as crazy floods. So the world the globe is angry at us and and I know you Ron and myself to we have tried maybe not the very best but we tried hard to do by climatic architecture you've been doing the finest easy breezy resorts in Hawaii and we've been building for my hometown the first kindergarten off the grid for Germany's oldest university and gutting the same thing, but still here we are so we're kind of frustrated. What else can we do and we had tried, you know, in the last 200 shows the best to promote that architecture, especially of that by climatic kind in Hawaii but you know it got us 11,000 views but you know the world is still angry at us so now we're trying a different angle to something that we believe we know that people have a better access to and that's basically their automobile and hopefully through that, we can figure out more about, you know, the future of architecture. Ron you you wanted slides of the slide with a with a gas stations back because we had to stop there at the last volume six but didn't quite get to the point that you wanted to make about the future of these right. Yeah, the fact is that we're looking at some at a slide that has both drawings and photographs of projects and built of garages. We really should take a very long and fun look at those because sooner than we think those are going to become a thing of the past. Consider the fact that vehicle emissions are 28% responsible for those greenhouse gases that are dangerously altering the world's climate through global warming. In fact, manufacturing is a close second at about 27%. In response to that President Biden has vowed to reduce those gases in the United States by 50% at the end of this decade 2030. Frankly that laudable goal seems a very difficult one because even in the very heart of the pandemic lockdown, when people weren't driving and manufacturing was curtailed, we only managed to get greenhouse gases down by 22%. Nevertheless, the only way this can be done is to phase out all vehicles driven by fossil fuels. So in response to that, the presidents of GM and Ford and their counterparts around the world have already and very recently stated and promised that they will only be making all electric vehicles and light trucks by the year 2035 heavy multi axle trucks will follow suit five years later in 2040. So what will happen to gas stations and what is the fast approaching era of the electric vehicles. There are about 107,000 gas stations in the United States. That turns out to be about one for every 3000 people in the country. In American towns and cities. Those gas stations typically were located on very prominent and very visible and easily accessible corner lots. Now we got 107,000 of those that are looking to do what in the future, any replacement new construction on a site where a gas station is, or maybe adding on to it to make it something else. When that break around, all of a sudden, the developer has to face the really huge cost of removing the enormous underground gasoline storage tanks, plus all of the properties soil that has been contaminated by their leakage over the years. The designs of adaptive reuse can be successfully adopted by architects and interior designers for old, empty one story gas stations. And as as the last comment, and this really surprised me two thirds to three quarters of the existing American gas station sales are to customers for food and drink. The primary role of gas stations is as convenient stores. Could some of them continue to be convenient stores. Good question. That's my spiel on why we should look very finely at gas stations, because they will soon be something we see in our rearview mirror. Let me just add Ron that we've already been through a big change in yours and my lifetime from gas stations being garages or service stations that did car repairs to outlets that just sell gasoline, plus food and alcohol. And now, if you want to get your car fixed, you have to take it to pretty much to the dealer that sells the cars. That's already been a major change. The other thing I just want to point out is the coffee place that I go to that is close to my house is a former gas station. So that is an adaptive reuse it's literally the same building that is no longer a gas station but sells coffee. Let's go to the next slide guys per one of my your favorite presentations to solo the island's tradition of innovation. This is truly in addition to that one because it basically points something out. That was absolutely impossible unimaginably at that time it's century of the last century, where I'm from in Germany, nor do we have these cars nor do we have these shelves for these cars. So explain what these are and where they were this photo on a little. These pictures are of a facility that was located at a major car dealership, which is now the Honolulu Convention Center, by the way. This was called Aloha Motors and it was actually an amalgamation of another car dealership as well called Murphy Motors. It was for a time, I believe the largest Chevrolet dealership and the entire United States, what that meant was that they had to store quantities of cars, even though that's a very big site. So they did this by building this innovative, essentially parking structure, but because it was the cars were not being driven by individual owners. They were loaded and unloaded by the elevator device that you see in the center between the two buildings. And this was only used by the professionals who worked there you never saw. You really couldn't see this very clearly from the street when you drove by because it was mostly enclosed, and you didn't see what was going on. It was this system in which cars were picked up and placed in a parking space and then brought down when it was necessary for a dealer to to sell them or somebody wanted to buy them. So this is something that's been done sometimes for parking lots or parking structures for privately owned cars, but it was probably one of the unique situations in the USA, where this has been done by a car dealership. Well, and once again, Hawaii had that as having been so innovative at that time and we wish and we want to bring that innovative nature back and we refer at the top right on slide three here on image three. It's basically a show from that's how time flies by from December 2017, where we were basically in dress that's where where I will be going as well on over the weekend over the coming weekend to see my parents again before I come back to you to buy a soda and that's addressed and that's, as we said there on slide three the glazed manufacturing plant by VW where they're used to make their, which gets the closest in for VW to these big boats here, which was the faton the I didn't really sell that well. I think you guys never got it. It was never imported. So they discontinued that. Now they do what we see on image two is the ID three, which is their new, there we go electric line electric serious, and it just started at the beginning to manufacture that so the, the, the architecture the building is in the prime location in Dresden and the historic next to a park, and it prides itself to be absolutely zero emissions and clean, and now making much sense to also produce a zero emission, absolutely clean car there. And by the way, Ron you were talking about Biden and Harris's agenda of 2035, being off the fossil for individual passenger cars and that's in compliance with back to teamwork with the European political business. So that's exactly the agenda of the European Commission's president also left on the line 2035 and I will you guys charge me to check this out and take pictures so I will. But let's go back to what we see here because these cars again. We talked before this photo you got your German beetle back then so there were VW dealerships there were BMW and Mercedes dealerships, but the American car manufacturers decided to not have dealerships for their these cars and in Germany at that time. So I know only knew that from playing with them in the sandbox, watching movies and dreaming of these. And I just taught you the term, how did we call these. You called them Strycen Kauza. Very, very good. Very good. Very good. It's good. And what does that mean. It means street cruiser but in this case, the word cruiser is not used as it would be in the United States to devote to describe driving along the street in your car that you want to show off. Instead in Germany, it prefers to a type of ship, because in naval terms, there are different types of classes or sizes of ships so there are battleships and there are aircraft carriers and there are cruisers. So Germans used it to mean cruisers like big boats. And as Ron pointed out cruising also in the United States or in English can mean looking for sex. So a word that has a lot of baggage. Different connotations. Yeah, let's go to the next slide. Before you guys get too excited how the show will proceed. I will disappoint you because it's staying within architecture and automobiles primarily, but it is about people and it's about, you know, attitudes. And so, here we go. This is a little longer monologue sorry for you guys but you said it's okay to understand me better where I come from literally and figure to be speaking. So because it took me until a quarter of a century of age to finally get to that holy land. You're a United States of America as a student with a scholarship a president scholarship by the University of Nebraska. And I will never forget when I flew in into Omaha, Nebraska, there were some other exchange students that were more part of the direct exchange between the two universities. And they were in this German embassy which was an old house turn of the century that they donated to these exchange students, and they had this beige Buick the Sabre 70s. And they were coming up in Omaha from the airport and I will never forget, when this is not out of bond right so this was cruising because you can't go fast 65 or whatever miles per hour. And then this wobbly suspension basically, you know, got me to got me to Lincoln. And then this is for my students to listen, what their professor did when you know he was their age. He basically did what guys, I told you before left about that. Well, you said that they could take the first days off from class to go buy themselves a car because everybody needs a car or at least that's what you figured out or were told when you were in Lincoln Nebraska. Well, even worse it's like if you have no car in the US it's like having no legs, and that's true to certain degrees right. I basically walked, indeed, as far as I could many blocks to find used car dealers on old street which is the main street in Lincoln Nebraska and at both ends of it. I found a billboard with your car. This photo right. My Volkswagen, my Volkswagen Beetle. And who was, who was around it. Well, you said that weird Wally was the name of the guy who had this used car lot and there were ads with him, where he just his bathing suit curled up in the front trunk open trunk of a VW Beetle as his image that he was showing to the world. And that says scandalous as I can get in the heartland where you're from wrong right. So weird Wally basically then I saw this on slide number three, that 72 Plymouth Fury light blue black vinyl top and I fell in love with it. And I stopped by there over and over again at some point a black Cadillac convertible was driving by with weird Wally in it. I, you know, I should have known better because yes, I watched movies, American movies. So which profession is the most untrustworthy and corrupted in American movies. Used car salesman. No. So I asked that most regardless I asked that you know it was green behind my ears young kid I basically said is this a good car to drive to buy to drive and he laughed and maybe said young kid what do you want to hear. You want to hear this is the greatest car in the world I'm not going to tell you because I don't know it's an old car. Yes it was built to last but it might break down at the next corner. I don't know. So that was, you know, you know, this is the heartland people are honest there. The little dishonesty was that he said well you know it's the only thing that doesn't work. And that was not dishonest there was honest to but he said the AC and here comes the dishonesty he said you don't really need that, but it was August in the heartland so give me a break when I got off the plane it was someone through it went out in my face. But even that one turned out good because when parents came to visit me I had some time to spend in my car before they flew in and I played around at the lower part of my dashboard there was a little switch. And I flipped it and ice cooled air blew in my face and so he didn't even know about that aftermarket switch down there. So it was all great. And so this car you know we all know you know I had other older cars and I still have our twingo or Mercedes are, you know a one we will get to sorry a tool get to later. But this will always have been the best car in the world that I will ever had, because it never gave up on me talking loyalty we talked about that before. But it never broke down except that one time where the timing chain broke, and if we can go to image number eight, the guy on the right to the left by the way is me was still here on, and the guy on the right is Dan Kubrick, my dear buddy, and he was And he basically took me under his wing, and he was able in a brutally cold night in a garage of that German embassy he was fixing that timing chain that I had no clue how to do it. And he took me under his wing. And when you first introduced first had me over to his house his parents house and Omaha which is in a typical suburban subdivision and when he opened the tool stall garage door. And what I looked at me was what we see on image for, and what is that one guys. That's a GTO isn't it. That is a GTO that's a Pontiac GTO and there's the, there's the, there's the story behind these were the days when they were still you know pride and ethics and, you know people didn't stew each other when they had some argument. And this is the, there are there are GTO Ferraris to and when the Americans had the guts to want to steal that that name they basically fought it out by racing, and guess what the Pontiac one, they could keep it. And one on number five on image five is one of the very few ones around still that we spotted on our main O Street, which is Kapahulu Avenue in our front yard disorder. And so, Dan really then became a really good friend and when my parents needed to go back. They rented this on number seven this 1980s 90s. And so we drove it all the way from Lincoln, Nebraska to New York City, which is half across the whole continent and made a stopover in Chicago to finally there you know still we were young and wild so we wanted to keep cruising it we ended up in the bronze and stop at any stoplight on a red one because there was some burning trash cans around and we didn't want the car to be to be robbed. And the color gold for a car. I want to, you know, compare to the building we see here so finally we get to architecture, because this is the HDR headquarter in Omaha, Nebraska and Ron you know from your colleagues this is one of the largest corporate architectural firms in the country in fact in the world, and that's the original headquarter building. And here we go it's basically a Bauhausi and box, but the difference is what the color, where does the color come from and what's behind the color or what is the color. The color is gold and the color you're saying comes from actual gold, either impregnated into the glass or as a as a film over the glass which as you said was to help mitigate glare and excessive sunlight. And you were pointing out that in Europe, nobody would ever make gold put gold windows on a plain square glass box. In the United States. Yes, in fact, people will do that and you heard the rumor or the claim that there were maybe hundreds of thousands of dollars worth of gold included in these windows just to make it even more prestigious. Exactly. So there's something very patriotic very heroic. Maybe we can say there's a bling factor in there that's probably more American than German. And I have to add for, you know, again with with Dan when no for just like for you guys you said this sort of before we, we didn't even want to call these big boats. So for us, they were just the normal thing, right. So for him, my, my 72 Plymouth fury compared to his goat, which is the nickname of his GTO, which is like a joke, right. But he know how sort of affiliated this was my first real shot. So I was very emotionally attached. So when I had to leave to go back to Germany to continue my college there. I took it on and and you know he drove it for a little while and he told me there was this accident with his little midsize Japanese car that had almost collateral damage. And the only thing you could see at the big boat furious that was the chrome coated, you know, big steel, you know beam bumper just you know had like two millimeters, you know was offset there's something that that's how heavy they were built right. And so that you know cars obviously represent culture. And again, here, here we go architecturally that you guys took on the old Bauhaus you know idea and pushed it to a significantly different level. And so the next slide as probably the last one for today to tell you another since I'm in the storytelling mode let's use the last couple minutes for the, for the next story, because one of my friends in in in high school. His father, and we know this gentleman a little bit from the slides to the at the top right, but his here it's about his father, his father was a banker and a honorary console of Panama. He was a very successful guy and he was part of the people racing he had horses and he raised them on the racing track we we still have in an over surprise surprise, but he was very low key and humble and just like wrong minds as an article we just wrote about our most great president Jimmy Carter right who still lives in his talking architecture $160,000. You know cheap house he bought 40 years ago and he still lives in it and asked why he never bought something more expensive he said I was never interested in I was never interested in money, or to show off the money right. And in this case, similar, which car did this very, you know, wealthy guy drive that is very familiar to you this photo. Well, I don't know if that's the exact same car but he drove an old Volkswagen beetle that I don't know if it was rusty or not but it certainly wasn't a very prestigious or expensive car. It was a pretty beaten up one because I remember that as a little kid because they took me to the racing tracks, and then he got peer pressure from his peers in his in his league. And we just threw in that the very you know 123 the images there they all drove Mercedes s classes. I don't know if we had those voices in Hanover but certainly the seven series. And so they said you got to have something you know of that that sure. And he did. When we go to the very bottom right image there. The number, I forgot to number 12 I guess it is. He got himself what you got himself a large Lincoln continental and I don't know if this is the exact same car it's just a. I was back in the day I was a kid I don't know if I even had a camera I was one of the Kota cameras if I, but I didn't know I had to Google as one of the exceptions to the rule, right to our rule of not violating copyright. So that was a sneaky way to basically said okay guys you got what you wanted, but I stay true to myself right I'm not interested in showing off with shiny new cars right he stayed with a beaten up. And, and, you know, the, the his son is now the largest developer in Hanover, we talked about that his architect his main architect which by the way my sister ones was was skiing and she said that one of the, the up to she bars there and the guy was setting her up and said yeah you know I'm from Hanover not knowing that she originally is to and he basically said yeah we have basically made an architect, and that architect was the one who converted fathers brown banking tower that we dedicated to go to and were somewhat critical because we said you know if you have an original building, just like we drove by a, I have to share with you guys pictures, just before the show we came back from a vintage automobile car dealership. And that I have to give it to you the solo there was a, an old beetle with a number of 53 from the Herbie movie back then. Oh yeah yeah and it was, it was imported from a thing from Turkey or something like that oh no Cecilia so it's a good shape because it has no rust. And that one is worth now I think the price tag was like 30,000 euros. And so, again, if you have an original one, keep it in the original right because the original color, you know is worth more than a repaint job right and that certainly applies to automobiles as to architecture because if you have an original from its century by one of the modern masters, might it be by, you know, Wilka as here in Germany, or might it be by killingsworth and Lindgren and Ron getting close to the end of the show please show your shirt. Oh yes, I'm celebrating being back with you doing some co hosting. So here is my Holly Clonny t shirt, and I'm wearing it proudly today and thinking of getting back to Hawaii as soon as possible. And relative to what we just said, we know it was under renovation. So we're very anxious and curious and still hopeful to see it having been renovated in respect to its original, just again with the cars and the original color. Holly Clonny is one of the most keepers and certainly in its originality. So, let ourselves be surprised by the Holly Clonny corporation that that is the case. And with that, we've been eating up all the time or I have been majorly and I will have to continue for a little longer next week to end my story of the Americano and my obsession with the shots and points us to then turn it back to you guys and your automotive obsessions that are relevant to architecture. Alright guys and everyone else. See you next week for that. Bye bye.