A childhood friend recently posted a photograph of children encircling her elementary school playground. The playground and school are about to undergo major renovations, and the playground will be forever changed. She expressed acute sadness at the thought of this important personal landscape disappearing or being radically altered. It was a beautiful image that clearly showed the emotion and connection many children (and grown children) have for this particular spot.
What is it about certain places that encourage us to form a strong human attachment to landscapes in a highly personal way? How does a specific space sear itself into our memories and become so meaningful? Even if the landscape is altered or gone, one could argue that the memories of that place can remain intact. But clearly that is not enough without the place itself. Though the memories exist in our mind, they are infinitely more powerful when experienced together with the landscape.
For me, that special place is the old Hotel Lanai in Hawaii. I was born on the island of Lanai, and during the early 1980s the island was entirely owned by Dole, and was a plantation isle, with its economy revolving around pineapple. At that time the only place to go out for a sit-down dinner was the 12-bed Hotel Lanai. As a kid, when we had the occasion to eat there as a family, my parents would let the three kids run around on the large lawn out front. The lawn is surrounded by massive Norfolk Pines, the signature tree of the island. The town is at elevation, and is tiny (just 2,000 people), so the air is cool and moist; it smells like the country and is blissfully quiet. The hotel has old-style charm, but in typical plantation style is unadorned and tidy. The landscape is simple: mostly ferns and ti leaf plants encircling the hotel, a large sloping lawn, and the colossal Norfolk Pines. As kids, while we waited for our parents to call us back in when dinner arrived, we would run around and play games between those monumental pines. We would also lie down on the lawn, look up at the pines—towering masses against the darkening sky—and tell each other stories. For me this place brings back the feeling of togetherness, safety, and beauty.
Even when my family moved from Lanai to Oahu, we continued to make our way back to the island several times a year. Typically, we would do the 30-minute flight on a late Friday afternoon, after the school and work day, and eat dinner at Hotel Lanai before heading to our old neighbor’s house to spend the night. My ritual upon arriving at Hotel Lanai, from elementary school through adulthood, was to sit on that lawn outside the restaurant by myself, look up at those giant Norfolks, and just breathe. Even to this day there is no place that gives me such calm and brings me back home.
It is these sorts of memory landscapes that make our work powerful. It is up to others to form the relationships and personal attachments to a place, but as designers we have the ability to create beauty and to create the opportunity and setting for the occurrences that are so influential to the human experience.
Photograph courtesy of Mekia Ostrem Earle.
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