Non-local architects are usually unaware of Hawai’i’s architectural heritage beyond the kitsch. When these architects are commissioned to work in Hawai’i, the pressures to accept or decline vernacular style does not inevitably affect their process. Altruistic regional designers with anti-colonial sentiments often turn to the inappropriate principals of the international, Sarasota or Googie pedagogy when trying to create a Hawaiian sense of place. Today, misguided architects are contributing to the erasure of the Hawaiian Vernacular.
The work prepared on this page is academic in nature and sources are continuously collected and added to the living bibliography bellow.
Frequent resources
Barthes, Roland. Elements of Semiology. Noonday Press, 1988.
Becket, Jan., and Joseph Singer. Pana O’ahu = Sacred Stones, Sacred Land. Honolulu: University of Hawai’i Press, 1999.
Brigham, William Tufts. The Ancient Hawaiian House. Whitefish, MT: Kessinger Pub., 2010.
Brooks, L. M. “THE POLYNESIAN FAMILY SYSTEM IN KAU, HAWAII. By E. S. Craighill Handy and Mary Kawena Pukui, with a Concluding Chapter on the History and Ecology of Kau by Elizabeth Green Handy. Wellington, New Zealand: The Polynesian Society, Inc., 1958. 259 Pp.” Social Forces, vol. 39, no. 1, 1960, p. 94.
"Cultural History of Three Traditional Hawaiian Sites (Chapter 1)." National Parks Service. Accessed October 30, 2020. https://www.nps.gov/parkhistory/online_books/kona/history1d.htm.
Eco, Umberto. “Function and Sign: The Semiotics of Architecture.” Rethinking Architecture: A Reader in Cultural Theory, Routledge, 1997, pp. 173–186.
Buck, Peter Henry, and Bernice Pauahi Bishop Museum. Arts and Crafts of Hawaii. Reprint of bound volume. ed., Bishop Museum Press, 2003.
Empire of Signs _ Roland Barthes – The line between signal and understanding. Associating different sign data to how we understand the world around us. Transfiguring the diagram into the spatial.
Handy, E. S. Craighill, Pukui, Mary Kawena et al. The Polynesian Family System in Ka-'U, Hawai'i. Polynesian Society, 1958.
Hays, K. Michael. “Critical Architecture: Between Culture and Form.” Perspecta, vol. 21, 1984, p. 14., doi:10.2307/1567078.
Hibbard, Don J.., et al. Hart Wood Architectural Regionalism in Hawaii. University of Hawaii Press, 2010.
Hibbard, Don J., and Augie Salbosa. Buildings of Hawaii. University of Virginia Press, 2011.
Guyer, Paul. “FORMALISM AROUND 1800: A GRUDGING CONCESSION TO AESTHETIC SENSIBILITY.” Filozofija i Društvo (Zbornik Radova), vol. 30, no. 2, 2019, pp. 241–256.
Jorgensen, Kelsy M.Y. E Hoi Ka Ui: Perspectives on Placemaking in Hawaii. School of Architecture, University of Hawaii at Mānoa, 2019.
Kamakau, Samuel Manaiakalani. The Works of the People of Old = Na Hana a Ka Po'e Kahiko. Bishop Museum Press, 1976.
Ladefoged, Thegn N. “Hawaiian Architectural Transformations during the Early Historic Era.” Asian Perspectives (Honolulu), vol. 30, no. 1, 1991, p. 57.
Laugier, Marc Antoine, and Samuel Wale. An Essay on Architecture; in Which Its True Principles Are Explained, and Invariable Rules Proposed, for Directing the Judgement and Forming the Taste of the Gentleman and the Architect .. Printed for T. Osborne and Shipton, 1755.
Malo, David, and Nathaniel Bright Emerson. Hawaiian Antiquities (Moolelo Hawaii). Hawaiian Gazette Co., Ltd., 1903.
Moholy-Nagy, Sibyl. Native Genius in Anonymous Architecture. Schocken Books, 1976.
Ossipoff, Vladimir, and Dean Sakamoto. Hawaiian Modern: The Architecture of Vladimir Ossipoff. Yale University Press, 2008.
Riznik, Barnes. “The Architecture of Charles W. Dickey: Hawaii and California. Robert Jay.” Winterthur Portfolio, vol. 28, no. 2/3, 1993, pp. 201–204., doi:10.1086/496625.
Semper, Gottfried. The Four Elements of Architecture and Other Writings. Cambridge University Press, 1989.
Seiler, Robert M. “Https://Www.ucalgary.ca/.” Https://Www.ucalgary.ca/, University of Calgary , people.ucalgary.ca/~rseiler/semiolog.htm.
Shinohara, Kazuo. “A Theory of Residential Architecture.” Japan Architect, no. 10, 67AD.
Stewart, C. S. Journal of a Residence in the Sandwich Islands, during the Years, 1823, 1824, and 1825: Including Remarks on the Manners and Customs of the Inhabitants .. University of Hawaii Press for Friends of the Library of Hawaii, 1970.