Cityscape

Honolulu is certainly no Hong Kong, or Sydney, and from five miles out you probably wouldn't know our skyline from that of any other city without including the Ko`olau mountain range. But I think Honolulu has a fair bit of personality, and its urban architecture - although a bit confused - often worth a second look.

What are your favorite buildings - be they skyscrapers or historic estates? What are your least favorite structures? One thing I've learned, in any group, the two lists often include the same places.

I don't care what some people say. From the UH campus to downtown Honolulu, this city isn't ugly. Just... different. About as mixed and muddled as our people and politics.

I love mansions and palaces and museums... but modern high-rise architecture has always intrigued me. When I discovered Skyscrapers.com, I quickly rushed to contribute some of my own photographs to its Honolulu section. There you can find odd facts and figures about some of the tallest or most significant buildings in Hawaii.

The buildings I like best are distinctive - whether or not they'd fit any aesthetic definition of "attractive." So, the buildings on my list are the ones folks have a love-hate relationship with.

The First Hawaiian Center is an easy favorite — and if you spend any time inside, you'll see even some of the small details add to its appeal. But what about Harbor Court? (I think I'm its only fan!) Or the Waikiki Landmark (with its open middle)? Or Nauru Tower?

Some would say One Waterfront Tower started the "weird building" trend. I'm glad for it, though. Most buildings built in the 70s here are drab, beige, square blocks of boring.

Comments

I'm old fashioned; I like the A&B building on Bishop, the C&C bldg on Fort, and the Dillingham Transportation Bldg on Bishop. Of the new stuff I like the Pacific Guardian bldg on Kapiolani, among others. I found a site which gives a nice guided tour of downtown, btw. I'll fault them a little on grammar in spots, but the pictures are nice. :)

That's a neat site, but more than anything, it makes me think of ways I'd do it differently. Heh.

Our older buildings are definitely striking, and have more history than most buildings in other U.S. cities I'm sure. Even the small little office buildings on Merchant (with their old-fashioned facades, even though they now contain copy shops and secondhand clothing stores) have excess personality.

One newer buidling I like mixes the classic and modern, but I don't know what it's called (I call it the Ghostbusters Building). It's downtown but bordering the Capitol District, on (I think) Hotel and Alakea? Almost orange, with blue windows. Gothic yet futuristic, it's almost begging for giant gargoyles.

My favorite is the Immigration building. Whoever is responsible for that hideous security wall they've put between the columns should be tarred and feathered.

Second would be the Academy of Arts, then Alexander and Baldwin.

(Right across the street from Immigration is second on my list of worst buildings, those twin condo monsters. I once overheard a mainland architect on the bus saying "they not only put up one ugly building, they put up TWO of them!)

(First on the ugly list? The tallest building in Hawaii, of course.)

Don't forget those awful monstrosities out on the Ewa plain, standing all by themselves. There's a twin (triplet?) next to Lele Pono at Moanalua and Kaonohi.

I always thought of those two as giant Jacob's Ladders. Oh, what I'd do with a digital camera and a good effects program...

Believe it or not, a HawaiiStories blogger previously lived in the 'triplet' at Kaonohi. (And I grew up on Kaonohi, albeit several miles up the ridge.)

Interestingly, Panther's answers prove my point that when it comes to island buildings, some people love the ones people hate. I like the First Hawaiian Center tower.

Though I don't think there are many fans of One Waterfront (the purple monstrosities Lisa and Vince called remote controls, but I called giant urinals). How they get away charging $1 million for penthouse suites, when you couldn't pay me to live there, I'll never understand. Especially with the smell...

I think One Waterfront is what my father calls the "paperclips."

Heh ... I like to call Harbor Court "the churros."

That First Hawaiian building looks an awful lot like the Flatiron Building on the intersection of Broadway, Fifth and 23rd Street in New York City. Coinkydink?

Well, I like the Hawaii Convention Center, but I wish the building stood out more from the surrounding landscape. The entrance is hemmed in by tall buildings all around, which is a pity, because the sails are pretty and very distinctive.

(Then again, I'm a bit biased, having been used to the unique design of the Oregon Convention Center.

First on my ugly list would be the building I worked in for a year and half...the 677 Ala Moana (formerly Gold Bond) Building. Just one big massive slab whose parking garage never lines up right with the floors...yuck.

One of my favorite buildings on Oahu is actually abandoned, and is apparently destined to be torn down. It's the old sewage pumping station (yeah, I know, weird building to be a favorite, yeah?) at the corner of Keawe and Ala Moana. I always thought that it was a great building, and stood out and had charm and character.

Aw, I love that building. I hope they only renovate it.

Believe it or not, I like a lot of the funky 2- and 3-story walkup 'dingbat' apartment buildings in Makiki, Mo'iliili and Kapahulu. There are lots of them on Kapiolani Blvd., Young St., Beretania St., everywhere. 'Dingbats'(the term originated in Los Angeles, where the style first originated in the '50s and '60s)are usually painted in bright pastel 'Polynesian' colors (turquoise and peach are classic) and have large ornamental motifs or the building name in a fancy typeface to give the building 'character'. Names frequently evoke monarchy days, such as the 'Ala Wai Regent'. Camp through they may be, to me these humble abodes represent the end of an era when there was an actual attempt to create a uniquely Hawaiian atmosphere in architecture (even in working-class dwellings), rather than the NYC-wannabe crap that fills Honolulu streets nowadays. When I come back to Honolulu I hope to live in a dingbat!

The Gold Bond Building is ugly, I'll agree there. As for the sewage pumping station, I'd always been curious about it. Isn't it near the old immigration building Panther mentioned above?

I had no idea 'dingbats' had any distinctively local style in them. I just figured they were cheap to build on cheap lots, and rent fairly cheap. (Even though rent in a closet-sized 'dingbat' apartment will still easily clear $600 a month.) I lived in a oddly charming corner lot 'dingbat' in Waikiki.

They are all over, that's for sure. There's a whole cluster between upper Kapiolani Blvd. and Date Street, probably a dozen deep, sharing a network of not-quite-streets. Lower University, and yes, Makiki (where I live) are almost exclusively populated by them.

I have to say, though, only a few really exhibit any personality to me. Indeed, only a few have the campy color scheme. (A common shade of pink used reminds me more of Miami than California or Hawaii.) I know one quirky one is "Rainbow Villas," a 'dingbat' on the mauka side of Kapiolani across from Hard Rock Cafe. Not only does it have a name (not all do), but it wears it proudly in big, rainbow-color painted letters.

The name thing is notable, though. Most of the buildings where I live have them, even the little ones. (Mine, sadly, does not. I just call it 'the blue one.')

As far as living in one of these buildings I think Kapiolani Manor on Makaloa St (across from Daiei, next to the Pan Am Building) has a pretty good view of the city. Even if your room is facing some weird part of Honolulu you can always go to the pool on the top floor and see a good portion of the city.

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