What's holding us back?
By David Polhemus
Advertiser Editorial Writer
I read with aching envy the other day a New York Times report on MIT's Stata Center, a bold and stylish new complex devoted to computer science and artificial intelligence.
Envy, because this is the sort of thing Hawai'i badly needs and probably never will have.
Architectural superstar Frank Gehry (designer of the Guggenheim Museum in Bilbao, Spain, and the new Disney hall in Los Angeles) says his latest work, located in an industrial section of Cambridge, Mass., "looks like a party of drunken robots got together to celebrate."
The man running the place sees it as "a toy box at dawn," ready for the kids to play with (www.nytimes.com/2004/05/13/arts/design/13MIT.html).
The building, a geek's delight designed to encourage daring and innovation, is obviously itself the product of daring and innovation. It cost $300 million (compared with the Hawai'i Convention Center at $350 million and the new Burns Medical School at $150 million).
"The Stata Center may be one of the smartest buildings on the planet," enthuses the Times, "not just for its computer-assisted design, but also for the minds assembled inside," including the man who invented the World Wide Web, the writer of the first version of Word, the father of modern linguistics, and six MacArthur genius award winners.
That the technological creme de la creme are lining up to work there just makes Hawai'i's struggle to harness high technology as an engine of economic growth that much harder.
Can Hawai'i catch up to places like MIT if it avoids risk-taking? One clear indication is the brow-knitted resistance to UH's Evan Dobelle, whose bold thinking is interpreted here as arrogance.
Architecture in Hawai'i has been particularly disappointing in its avoidance of risk. It's hard to imagine anyone of Gehry's explosive creativity being made comfortable here.
The biggest missed opportunity in many years, of course, was the new School of Architecture building in Manoa.
Instead of realizing the much-discussed "Hawaiian sense of place," the architect was directed to reflect the accidental hodgepodge of the rest of the campus.
Doesn't it take your breath away that its first floor is a parking lot?
The Hawai'i Convention Center was a far better attempt, but it was crammed onto land too small to let it blossom.
What used to pass as Hawai'i architecture — a rip-off of
Spanish colonial styles — today has evolved into a pleasant, economical and all-too-ubiquitous design of tiled roofs and ersatz palm-tree columns.
That's the design for our new medical school's exterior, so bland compared to Gehry's new building at MIT. But the contrast will be even greater indoors. Instead of featureless laboratories and classrooms, MIT's geeks get whimsical design, bright colors, skylights and huge windows, espresso machines and abundant communal space.
What's holding us back?
Reach David Polhemus at Letters@honoluluadvertiser.com.
