We converged on the Design Within Reach store at Ala Moana Center, where architectural historian Don Hibbard gave us an overview of Kapiolani Boulevard's history before we hit the street for a guided tour of 12 buildings put up between 1938 and 1971.
Things I never knew until Hibbard told us: There was no Kapiolani Boulevard until it was paved out of swampland around 1924 to 1928. It was the first major street in Honolulu to be designed for the automotive era, and you can see this in the way lots were used—freestanding buildings with eye-catching exteriors, each surrounded by its own parking lot. The street started as two lanes and has been steadily widened, right up to the monkeypod trees that were planted along its length.
The docents had done their homework for each building. Even better, the architects themselves were on hand for two stops, with Frank Haines telling us about the Kenrock Building (1951) and Sid Snyder, who worked with Vladimir Ossipoff, filling us in on Ossipoff's Hawaiian Life Building (1951). Here's Sid now, with his drawings:
I've been living on or near Kapiolani Boulevard for seven years and never noticed some of the details that were pointed out to me today. For example, on the Ewa side of the Seaboard Finance Building (1956)—you know, the building by the driveway to Republik nightclub—rough wooden forms were used to give the concrete wall a basket-weave grid that echoes the square panes of dark-tinted windows on its other sides:
Today's event was dubbed "Kapiolani Boulevard: Honolulu's Miracle Mile," and I admit, I found that a head-scratcher. I've never heard it called that in all my life! But as Hibbard explained, it was Paradise of the Pacific, predecessor to today's Honolulu Magazine, which dubbed it that in a 1949 article about the street's exciting new developments. The nickname hung in until about the the mid-1950s.
I missed the ’50s. Most of the ’60s too. All of my life, Kapiolani has been one of Honolulu's dumpiest thoroughfares, and, while it's getting better, some stops on the tour are still stuck in that mode. That building next to 7-11 which, until recently, was home to adult toy store Backseat Betty's? When built in 1948, it was the squeaky clean Alexander Brothers Building, enhanced with tens of thousands of dollars worth of now long-lost neon. And that run-down glass box with Jazz Minds in the back and a succession of x-rated peepshows up front? In 1949, that was the shiny, new Boysen Paints building. (Which, incidentally, has the same cladding of thin, reddish-brown Arizona sandstone bricks as the Kenrock Building because both were designed by Cy Lemmon. He liked the stuff.)
Can you imagine some innocent, young 1948 newlyweds standing in the Boysen Paints showroom, picking out colors for their first home? Can you imagine them thinking, "Oh, I can totally see this place becoming a porno palace!" And yet ... it did. To be fair, Jazz Minds classes up the joint a lot, especially given that its corner of the building was, 20 years ago, home to the phenomenally decadent Wild Horse Showroom.
All I can tell you is, they didn't show horses there.
But pendulums swing and Kapiolani is changing. I was stunned today to see that the Walgreens-which-used-to-be-Tower-Records was just torn down. Coming soon, a new Walgreens building. I hope its architects looked around the neighborhood for inspiration. If Kapiolani really is turning around in the near future, we might end up with a fascinating street on which first generation modernism stands side-by-side with examples of the early 21st century Modernism Revival that's so much the rage these days.
Architecture buffs, check out more photos and details from the day at docomomohawaii's Facebook page. And keep an eye out for the group's monthly talks, too.
Postscript: Within the past few weeks I've experienced two cultural moments at Ala Moana Center. I was among the 100 or so people who descended upon GameStop for the midnight release of Grand Theft Auto V—poised to be The Biggest Entertainment Event in the History of Forever with $1 billion in sales already. And then this lovely day of architecture history hosted at Design With Reach. Interesting that each event had similar turnouts.
I know it's fashionable, among a certain sensitive, highly educated demographic, to bemoan shopping centers as temples of mindless consumerism, as cultural wastelands, as examples of All that is Wrong with America. Well, get over yourselves, sensitive people. Malls are our Forums and I predict that, to survive in an age of social media and online shopping, malls will have to make themselves essential for actual face-to-face encounters between live humans with common interests. And this will be awesome.
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