Kelema Lee Moses

“Island Modernism/Island Urbanism” centers architectural modernism in the Pacific Basin. Island cities offer a place-based perspective to architectural and urban studies that take into account spatial limitations, where architects and planners are compelled to develop inventive approaches to balance economic interests, environmental issues, and indigenous imperatives. Through an examination of the design processes, political actors, and policies involved in the construction of the Hawai’i State Capitol, the project explores Honolulu’s mid-century built environment within the context of US empire and Native Hawaiian self-determination. By emphasizing the strategies involved in constructing the State Capitol in Honolulu's Civic Center, the book critiques notions of the US city by confronting the (dis)junctures between Hawaiian epistemologies of space/place and Euro-American planning traditions.