november newsletter

Mahalo to all of those that came to this year’s Tour Day event.
To watch a recording of the event, check out this link on YouTube.
To view the tour booklet from this year, find it here on our Modernism Library.
 
The 2021 Annual Walking Tour was on Alfred Yee | A Modern Pre-Cast Pioneer. The event focused on Alfred Yee, one of the most influential and innovative structural engineers in Hawaii’s history.  Yee helped design some of Honolulu’s most complex structures, including Alfred Preis’s floating Arizona Memorial to Ossipoff’s Diamond Head Apartments, the first precast & prestressed concrete tower in the country. 
 
The tour featured guest speakers: Suling Yee, Chang Nai Kim, Myles Shimokawa, Roy Noda, Tim Goshi, Jimmy Lam and Ian Robertson.
 
The tour included eight projects from the Waikiki / Ala Moana area. Projects included are 1717 Ala Wai, Waipuna Apartments, Ilikai Hotel, The Equus, Sunset Tower, Ala Moana Hotel, Ala Moana Parking Garage phase II, and 1350 Ala Moana.
 
Thank you to our sponsors: Fung Associates, AHL, Akamai Structural LLC, Allison-Ide Structural Engineers, Down Stream Inc, GRMP, HonBlue, KAI Hawaii Inc, Martin Chock Carden, Nagamine Okawa Engineers, Tadpole Studio, and TileCo Inc.
Co Inc.

Congratulations to the two teams from Hawaii to receive awards at this year’s Modernism in America Awards. The event was November 11th in New York.
 
The 2021 winners from Hawaii include:
 
AWARD OF EXCELLENCE
Pālehua Cabin and Guest Cottage (Kapolei, HI)
 
CITATION OF MERIT
Tropical Modernism at University of Hawai‘i at Manoa (Honolulu, HI)
 
Docomomo US is pleased to announce fifteen recipients of the 2021 Modernism in America Awards. These projects highlight the best in preservation practice by today’s architects, designers, preservation professionals, and grassroots advocates. This year’s awards recognize model preservation efforts that elevate original design intent while adapting to current day needs, inventory and survey projects that synthesize large swaths of information into digestible content, and critical advocacy initiatives that put public input and education at the forefront.
 
See the full list of winners here.

Bob and his favorite cat, Lucky. Photo by Graham Hart.

It is with great sadness that we announce the passing of Bob Liljestrand. Bob had many careers and while he was best known as President of Liljestrand Foundation, he was also a hospital administrator, an architectural designer, an award-winning filmmaker and photographer.   
 
Bob dedicated the last 17 years of his life to saving his childhood home, the Liljestrand House.  After his father Howard passed away in 2004, Bob was determined to save the house and make it available to the public in perpetuity. Along with his wife Vicky, he co-founded the Liljestrand Foundation in 2007.  Bob and his brother Eric sold their respective homes in order to pay the estate taxes and in 2015, they gifted the Liljestrand House to the Foundation with the stipulation that it could never be sold for the benefit of an individual. That he managed to navigate the innumerable and seemingly insurmountable challenges associated with transitioning a private residence into a public museum speaks to his passion and tenacity. 
 
Bob gave us all a priceless gift.  A house that is not only a preeminent example of architect Vladimir Ossipoff’s work but also tells a story of twentieth century Hawai`i – the time, the place and the people who made an extraordinary home.
 
Going forward, the Foundation will continue to be governed by a volunteer board of directors.  And the mission of preserving the house and making that preservation beneficial to the community will remain the same. 
 
We are going to miss Bob immeasurably but know that his legacy will live on in his family, the Foundation he created, the stories he told, and the house he grew up in and fought to save.
 
Bob was a long time supporter and friend of Docomomo HI, and we will be forever grateful for all that he has done, and all that he has shared with our community.
 

The Goodshill House, designed by Vladimir Ossipoff in 1954 for Marshall Goodsill, and once owned by the Honolulu Museum of Art, is back on the market. Listed at $3.2M, this historic residence is of great importance to Ossipoff’s architectural legacy and Hawaii’s architectural history. To learn more about the house, see the links below: