DLNR HISTORIC SITES CALENDAR 1995

 

 

Many refer to the 1920s and 30s as the "Golden age of architecture in Hawai`i." It was a time when consideration of Hawai`i's strong sense of place - its environment, local materials and multicultural traditions coalesced in a regional architectural movement.

Hawai`i raised architect C.W. "Pop" Dickey helped develop this special architecture along with other members of Honolulu's design community including Hart Wood (First Church of Christ Scientist, Alexander & Baldwin building in partnership with Dickey), Bertram Goodhue (Honolulu Academy of Arts), Claude Stiehl (Church of the Crossroads), Catherine Jones Thompson (landscape architect for Board of Water Supply pumping stations) and Harry Sims Bent (Pineapple Research Institute). By 1926, Dickey had returned home after a twenty year hiatus in California. He reestablished his architectural partnership with Hart Wood, and obtained as one of his first commissions three cottages to be built on the grounds of Clifford Kimball's Halekulani Hotel.

With the construction of these modest buildings, Dickey introduced to Hawai`i a new, regionally appropriate architectural design for small cottages. At the time, the architect noted, "I believe that I have achieved a distinctive Hawaiian type of architecture. The cottages seem to fit the landscape. They are simply designed, gathering character from the roof." These simple, frame cottages featured screened lanais, lava rock footings and columns, and double-pitched hip roofs. The latter, with its characteristic break at the eave line, provided protection from the sun and rain while allowing for convenient opening of casement windows. Dickey would use this roof form on many subsequent buildings, and it became known as the "Dickey" or "Hawaiian style" roof. Dickey claimed the roof was inspired by Hawaiian thatched houses, but a more direct prototype may have been the Wai`oli Mission on the island of Kaua`i. This church had been erected by Dickey's missionary grandfather, William P. Alexander, and had been restored by Dickey & Wood in 1920.

The style introduced by Dickey in the Halekulani cottages caught on quickly in Honolulu, as witnessed by the similar styling of the Niumalu Hotel, which was completed in 1927. Nowhere was the idea of "Hawaiian style" more important and fitting than in the Islands' residential neighborhoods. For the next ten to fifteen years, homes in this style proliferated. Large sliding and casement window are frequently used to capture a scenic vista or frame the view of a lovely garden. Lava rock, tropic plantings, as well as occasional oriental and Hawai`i decorative motifs, characterize the varied cultural influences on these homes. With their simplicity and openness, they are gracious reminders of Hawai`i's unpretentious lifestyle and hospitality, born of another era.

excerpt from introduction

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