Talk Story
An architectural signature for Honolulu's skyline?
I CAN'T take credit for the idea. After all, it's as old as history. But I was tickled to hear that the Hawaii Community Development Authority is considering building an architectural "signature icon" in Kakaako 10 months after I proposed it right here.It's the old if-we-build-it-they-will-come theory and it began in antiquity.
Remember the Seven Wonders of the Ancient World? Six of them have gone missing: the Hanging Gardens of Babylon, the statue of Zeus at Olympia, the Temple of Artemis at Ephesus, the Mausoleum at Halicarnassus, the Colossus of Rhodes and the Lighthouse of Alexandria.
However, the oldest of the seven, the Great Pyramid at Giza, is still packing them in 4,500 years after it put Cairo on the map.
Today's modern wonders of the world include six towers (Toronto's CN Tower, the Eiffel Tower in Paris, New York's Empire State Building, London's Big Ben, the St. Louis Gateway Arch and Kuala Lumpur's Petronas Towers), three dams (Hoover Dam, the Aswan High Dam in Egypt and South America's Itaipu Dam) and two canals (Panama and Suez).
There are also two statues (Cristo Redentor in Rio de Janeiro and Liberty in New York Harbor), the Mount Rushmore Monument, the Golden Gate Bridge, Sydney's Opera House and the "Chunnel" beneath the English Channel.
LET'S ASSUME dams, bridges, canals, tunnels, temples and tombs are unlikely subjects for Kakaako redevelopment. That leaves towers, statues, gardens or opera houses as possible precedents for Honolulu's "signature icon."
I hate to throw cold water on the often-broached aquarium idea, but it's clear that most classic attractions stand up to highlight the host city's skyline. Unless we think tall, an ocean science center or technology museum won't work either -- they're too mundane, too low to the ground.
Diamond Head, jutting 761 feet above the ocean, is Honolulu's natural signature. Rising above the waterfront in counterpoint, a tower -- or a building with a unique profile like Sydney's Opera House -- would offer a memorable image and breathtaking views. It would be a visitor magnet, a fitting successor to little Aloha Tower, which is now dwarfed by downtown office buildings.
Naysayers should consider these facts: In 1889, the Eiffel Tower was built at a cost of $1.5 million. In a little more than a year, ticket sales recouped its entire cost. Since then, more than 192 million people have visited it. In 2000, this single Paris attraction admitted more than six million people, almost as many as visited the entire state of Hawaii.
Eero Saarinen's 630-foot Gateway Arch cost $15 million to build in 1965. Each year it attracts more than 3 million visitors to downtown St. Louis, a city otherwise lacking in charm.
When it was first built, starting in 290 BC, the white-marble-clad Alexandria Lighthouse was the tallest building on Earth at 380 feet, or 40 stories high. Of the six ancient wonders now missing, it survived the longest, enduring several earthquakes before an Egyptian sultan razed it in 1480 and used its stones and site to build a fort.
The lighthouse was the only ancient wonder with a practical purpose. For sailors on a treacherous coast, it was the symbol of safe harbor. During the day, a mirror flashed a beam of reflected sunlight 35 miles out to sea; at night, fires in the tower showed the way to refuge. According to legend, the mirror could detect enemy ships and set them on fire.
The lighthouse was so famous Rome stamped its image on coins. Pharos, the name of the island on which it stood, became the French, Italian and Spanish word for "lighthouse."
Imagine such a fabulous structure in Honolulu.
John Flanagan is the Star-Bulletin's contributing editor.
He can be reached at: jflanagan@starbulletin.com.