A Downtown Honolulu Photo Tour

This Mother’s Day I happened to be in Honolulu and I gifted myself a photo shoot jog in downtown.

There were a couple places I wanted to stop by, the main one being the State Capitol.

Of course, I had visited before on a school field trip but that was years ago…

Hawaii State Capitol

Architect: Belt, Lemmon & Lo and John Carl Warnecke & Associates, 1969

Images are shown in the gallery above.

From Wikipedia:

The Hawaii State Capitol is an American adaptation of the Bauhaus style termed "Hawaiian international architecture". Unlike other state capitols modeled after the United States Capitol, the Hawaii State Capitol's distinct architectural features symbolize various natural aspects of Hawaii.

Some of the features seen in these photos:

The columns around the perimeter of the building have shapes resembling royal palm trees. There are eight columns in four rows at either side of the building, representing the eight main islands of Hawaii; sets of eight items appear in other places inside and along the outside of the building.

The Capitol is built with an open-air design, allowing sun, wind, and rain to enter; the central atrium opens to the sky and rainbows can sometimes be seen inside the building when it rains.

A sampling of building facades are shown in the gallery below. A architect friend detected a theme in the photos - deep setting the windows in the curtain wall gives the façades an egg crate type of look. I thought this was a modest attempt at sun shading.

Honolulu is rich in brutalist architecture and I posted some that we saw in this style earlier this year, also in downtown.

This time I re-visited the Bank of Hawaii and had time to round the corner of Bishop and King.

The American Savings Tower stands catty corner from the Bank of Hawaii. I had this rough ripple-textured concrete building and parking structure on my list of places to visit. The blocky overhangs and covers over the vents were unexpected details too!

Finally, I was stoked to wander the sleek landscape design shown below. Love the cascade of water from one pool to the next - a wonderful open space at the corner of Bishop and King.