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Director Hull pictured here in front of the saved post office. Coconut "postcards" played a part in a successful community effort. 5/15/20: Kaua‘i Planning Director Ka‘āina Hull recognizes the crucial function of cultural sites and historic properties in place making. The Kamehameha Schools and University of California, Berkeley alumnus began work at the Kaua‘i Planning Department in 2007; he later served a few years as its deputy director before being named to the top post in 2018. Always interested in urban planning, Hull understands that government can play a significant role to protect and preserve our cherished places through its ability to establish and enforce building regulations. To further those goals, he has strengthened the Kaua‘i Historic Preservation Review Commission, which reviews applications to alter historic places, by providing the group both legal analysis and an in-house planner to write reports of its recommendations based on current preservation standards. These changes have formalized the commission’s determinations and increased its authority with decision-making bodies such as the Kaua‘i Planning Commission and Planning Department. Hull has further sought to advance county awareness of historic preservation by encouraging planning department staff and other county employees to attend preservation conferences and training workshops. He has also gone well beyond the call of duty to ensure the preservation of endangered places, such as the unique Līhu‘e Shell station, designed in the 1930s to resemble a traditional Hawaiian hale and the historic Lihue Post office, where he took the lead in the Kaua‘i government’s efforts to preserve the important site, which the United States Postal Service had targeted for disposal. Historic Hawai‘i Foundation is pleased to recognize Ka‘āina Hull with an Individual Achievement Award for his leadership in planning [...]

May 8, 2020 - A Preservation Award will recognize the McKinley High School Senior Core Building (Building W) this year. The oldest public high school in Hawai‘i, President William McKinley High School is listed on the National Register of Historic Places. The Hawai‘i State Department of Education recently undertook a large scale rehabilitation project at one of the core historic buildings on campus, Classroom Building W, a two-story structure which faces the Quad.  It was the first extensive project at the Senior Core Building since it was originally constructed in 1940. Prior to repair, blackout paint from the World War II era could still be seen on the building’s windows. The project prioritized much needed utility updates, accessibility improvements, and restoration of historic windows and original 1940s-era artwork to the Senior Core Building. The 2019 project took place in two phases, which allowed classes to continue throughout the school year with minimal impact to students. Designer of record MASON Architects, Inc. notes, “The building is an early example of master architect Vladimir Ossipoff’s work. It features artistically significant glazed terra cotta decorative elements manufactured by Gladding McBean and cast stone bas relief lintels created by artist Marguerite Louis Blasingame as part of the Works Progress Administration (WPA) program in Hawai‘i. The use of terra cotta embellishment on the buildings at McKinley represents the most extensive use of this material on Spanish Colonial revival style buildings in the Islands.” The building before and after rehabilitation. Also notable are the building’s wide, wrap-around open lanais that simultaneously provide beautiful views, natural ventilation, and protection from weather. California-based Gladding McBean Company supplied terra cotta materials to the school in 1940, and was again retained for the current project. [...]

May 8, 2020 - The theater performance of “My Name is ʻŌpūkahaʻia” will be recognized with a Preservation Programmatic Award for the one-man play which highlights the story of Henry ʻŌpūkahaʻia, the Native Hawaiian who traveled to New England and inspired the American Board of Commissioners for Foreign Missions to send Protestant missionaries to the Hawaiian Kingdom. Henry ʻŌpūkahaʻia was born in 1792 at Kaʻu on the island of Hawaiʻi. When he was ten years old, his family was killed in the wars of Kamehameha, and when he was 17, an American sea captain offered to take him along on the ship’s voyage back to New Haven, Connecticut. ʻŌpūkahaʻia learned English on the trip and sought out more education once he arrived. The future Reverend Edwin W. Dwight, then a senior at Yale, met him in 1809 and agreed to help him find tutoring in English grammar and other subjects of a typical public school curriculum. By 1818, Dwight wrote that ʻŌpūkahaʻia had begun “reducing to system his own native tongue. As it was not a written language, but lay in its chaotic state, everything was to be done...he had made some progress towards completing a Grammar, a Dictionary, and a Spelling-book”. After converting to Christianity, ʻŌpūkahaʻia had planned to return to Hawaiʻi to preach with the First Company of missionaries but contracted typhus fever and died in 1818 in Cornwall, Connecticut at the age of 26. The play “My Name is ʻŌpūkahaʻia” is written and performed by actor Moses Goods, a native of Maui. A theater class while he was a junior at Maui High School taught Goods that he enjoyed the creativity and experience of live audience performances. He went on to study [...]

4/30/2020 - The Ho‘opai Archaeology Apprenticeship will be recognized with a Preservation Programmatic Award as an innovative program that allows for hands-on learning while embracing Hawaiian culture and tradition.  It is a beautiful example of what can be accomplished by balancing traditional thought with modern technology. The Ho‘opai Archaeology Apprenticeship, described by founder Tanya Lee-Greig, principal of ‘Āina Archaeology, is a “vocational opportunity to learn archaeology through a Hawaiian lens and be equipped with the skills to protect, preserve and document Hawai‘i’s historic sites.” In Hawai‘i where land use and culture are an integral part of our values and way of life, we need to protect all that encompasses this place we call home. The mission of Ho‘opai derives from the Hawaiian word pai, which means to urge, encourage, and excite.  The program, explains Greig, aims to “urge and encourage those who join the apprenticeship to see beyond normal academic perceptions, and we want to stir up excitement about preserving our ‘āina. Like the pai fern, we are dependent upon our kumu. With these thoughts, we see Ho‘opai as a catalyst to nurture an individual’s growth, but to also deepen their roots to Hawai‘i.” It is vital, especially here in Hawai‘i, to always circle back to the mo‘olelo of those who came before us. We need to show respect for our ‘āina and that is exactly what Ho‘opai is striving to do through education and experience. A striking component of this apprenticeship is that it “allows individuals to have the opportunity to reconnect to places that would otherwise be inaccessible or unknown.” Buried deep beneath the surface, there are stories to be discovered and told. In the right hands, the history found within these places [...]

Front cover of the Francis Haar: Disappearing Honolulu exhibit brochure4/30/20: A Preservation Award in Interpretive Media will recognize Francis Haar: Disappearing Honolulu, an exhibit last fall consisting of a film and photographs at the John Young Museum of Art - University of Hawai‘i at Manoa. In the words of exhibit curator Gaye Chan, “Haar’s photographs and film are valuable documents of a not-so-distant past that capture one of Honolulu’s diverse communities in the midst of urban displacement -- a theme that remains relevant today as Honolulu undergoes another period of transformation". In the early 1960s, Hawai‘i had completed urban renewal designation and procedures that would demolish 75 acres encompassing the A‘ala Triangle and areas mauka of North Beretania Street. The redevelopment was named the Kukui District Urban Renewal Project. With demolition scheduled to start in January 1965, a trio rushed to capture on film the community of A‘ala, which until December 1941 had been the center of Honolulu’s Japanese residential community, businesses, and venues for entertainment. The trio was Stephen Bartlett, planner and reporter, Kenneth Bushnell, artist and teacher with a studio on the second floor of the iconic A‘ala Pawn Shop building, and Francis Haar, a photographer and creator of documentaries. They began their filming and documentation in November 1964 and continued through mid-January of the following year. However, due to a shortage of funding, the film was not finished until 1968. As Francis’ son, Tom recounted, “They applied for a grant to then Hawai‘i Governor John Burns who turned them down with a cynical reply as to ‘who would be interested to document this flea-infested section of old Honolulu?’” “It is a fantastic film,” said Chan, “of a style that was [...]