Every Friday, starting today, I’ll be highlighting a building from one of our research books.

Aluminum in Modern Architecture, 1958 mostly discusses office buildings, but I managed to find a very unique building that is also tied to Northern California history. The Kaiser Hawaiian Village geodesic dome was manufactured in Kaiser’s Oakland shipyards, then shipped to Hawaii and built onsite in a record 20 hours. The building made a great event venue, being that the interior was not interrupted by any structural supports and it could inherently withstand hurricane gusts. Unfortunately, it couldn’t withstand progress and it was demolished in 1998.

ps, the book itself is quite attractive, with the inside cover and first page made of shiny silver “aluminum” paper, followed by an overleaf of aged drafting paper.

photos:
Life Magazine 2 page ad about the dome:  click here
under construction:  Popular Mechanics 1967 article.

An interesting article on Henry J. Kaiser’s involvement in Hawaii:  http://archives.hawaiireporter.com