The Waikikian - Part 6

The lot that the hotel was built on was long and narrow, extending from the road to the ocean. Between the two-story buildings, George Walters, the project landscaper, planted palms, guava, ti, and mock orange along the garden path between the buildings. Several years later, the tropical plants and landscaping that were planted during construction really started to give the hotel it's lush tropical atmosphere.





If you followed this garden path, it would lead you to the hotel pool, the ocean lagoon, and the Tahitian Lanai, the Hotel's restaurant and bar.




The Tahitian Lanai quickly became a local favorite hangout with the restaurant, and the piano bar.

The Waikikian - Part 5

Here's another interior shot of the Ravi lobby. Note the circular staircase that winds up the carved tiki center pole.







"Large tikis, carved by Edward Malcome Brownlee from old pilings, were placed at the entrance and throughout the hotel grounds." You can read more about Edward Brownlee in Jeff Beachbum Berry's excellent book, Intoxica. In the background you can see the small shack on the beach that acted as the construction office during the buildout.





"Brownlee also carved large wood ornaments for the high corner's of lobby's parabloid roof. When these heavy carvings were fixed to the roof, they began to deform the thin shell at those corners in an unattractive curve. The roof was sound from an engineering standpoint, but it was not envisoined with the architect's idea idea to add these heavy ornaments. The compromise solution, disliked by the structural engineer, was to strech a cable between the ends, although he felt it would be seen as a reflection or poor design."

The Waikikian - Part 4

The Roof! One of the elements that made the Waikikian so special. "Wimberly used the roof form to create a unique feature that agreed with traditional Polynesian design. During the design process Wimberly used soap bubbles on wire frames to model the difficult form in three dimensions. Shortly after the Waikikian opened, the Honolulu Advertiser ran several articles in early October 1956, featuring the hotel and its distincitve roof. It was called an outstanding Honolulu landmark and a 'photographic must'."






"Besides choosing the roof form for its association with traditional Polynesian buuildings, Wimberly stated that he knew that something out of the ordinary was needed for the Waikikian becasue he was building in the shadow of Henry Kaiser, whose Hawaiian Village Hotel had just opened next door."






The graceful roof rested on only two points. Vertical uprights steadied the shell to keep it from rocking, but they did not support it.

The Waikikian - Part 3

Let's take a closer look at the lobby building, it really was a unique design to Honolulu and turned a lot of heads. Note the palms blowing in the wind, evidence of the constant tropical breeze Pete was so fond of.







This was a luggage tag from the resort.




An interior shot of the lobby from a 1978 hotel flyer.

The Waikikian - Part 2

The Waikikian had 100 rooms spread across of eight buildings including, the main lobby building with the unique 'hyperbolic parabolid' shaped roof.




The main 2-story buildings housed the guest rooms. At the lagoon end of the building was the Tahitian Lanai, the hotel's restaurant and bar.





The last structure on site was the six story tiki tower.

The Waikikian Hotel - Part 1

A great way to kick off this blog is to showcase the Waikikian Hotel, a shinning example of extreme tiki architecture. The Waikikian Hotel, billed as Hawaii's Most Beautiful Hotel, was built in 1956 in Waikiki, Hawaii. It was designed by a local architect named Pete Wimberly and his Honolulu architectural firm Wimberly & Cook.



Pete was responsible for establishing the tropical resort design style in Hawaii. Prior to the mid 1950's, most of the architecture of the resorts on the islands in Hawaii were based on plantation or colonial designs. Pete's exotic designs in Hawaii included the The Waikikian, the International Market Place, Don the Beachcomber Restaurant (Pete and Don Beach were close personal friends), The Coco Palms Resort, the Kona Hilton and several more.

Pete was a very laid back personality and would show up to his office in shorts, short sleeve shirt and sandals while others in the profession were wearing suits and ties to work. One of his quirks was that he hated air conditioning. He would close off the vents in his office and open the windows to allow the constant tropical breeze found in Hawaii to flow through his office. He echoed this philosophy when he designed the Waikikian. The resort did not have AC.

Pete excelled at the conceptual designs of his projects. He would comment that his job was to create sketches and the other architects in his firm would be responsible to create the plans and designs based on his rough sketches. Here is one of Pete's drawings for the Waikikian.






Based on this sketch, a color rendering was created. It was also reproduced and sold as a print in the lobby of the hotel.

New Tiki Architecture Blog Begins!

Aloha, Friends!

Welcome to my new blog. I have created this blog to showcase the exotic and fantasy design elements associated with Polynesian Pop culture. Look forward to lots of great eye candy with each future post.