Qualla: Waikiki Natatorium War Memorial

Waikiki Natatorium War Memorial: Introduction

Thu, 12 Mar 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Photo credit Kyle Nishioka, CC BY 2.0. Most war memorials ask you to stand and reflect. The Waikiki Natatorium asked you to swim. Built in 1927 as a living tribute to the more than 10,000 men and women from the Territory of Hawaii who volunteered during World War I, the Natatorium was a 100-meter saltwater pool fed by the Pacific Ocean, flanked by Beaux-Arts arches on the Waikiki shoreline. For generations, it served as a gathering place for residents and tourists, a memorial you could use rather than simply observe. It closed in 1979, and has been crumbling in the salt air ever since, caught between those who want to tear it down and those who insist it must be saved.

Image: Kyle Nishioka | CC BY 2.0

Waikiki Natatorium War Memorial: A Memorial Born from Civic Pride

Thu, 12 Mar 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Photo credit Prayitno / Thank you for (12 millions +) view from Los Angeles, USA, CC BY 2.0. The idea emerged in March 1918, when the Daughters and Sons of Hawaiian Warriors proposed honoring the territory's war volunteers. The Honolulu Ad Club took up the cause, and by December 1918 a committee had formed under Colonel Howard Hathaway to bring together civic organizatio...

Image: Prayitno / Thank you for (12 millions +) view from Los Angeles, USA | CC BY 2.0

Waikiki Natatorium War Memorial: Decades of Saltwater and Neglect

Thu, 12 Mar 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Photo credit Waikiki Natatorium from Honolulu, HI, USA, CC BY 2.0. Saltwater is relentless architecture criticism. By the late 1970s, the Natatorium's concrete and steel had deteriorated badly enough that the city closed the pool on safety grounds. What followed was not demolition or restoration but political paralysis. City council support osci...

Image: Waikiki Natatorium from Honolulu, HI, USA | CC BY 2.0

Waikiki Natatorium War Memorial: Sans Souci and the Cable Below the Waves

Thu, 12 Mar 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Photo credit Waikiki Natatorium, CC BY 2.0. Adjacent to the Natatorium lies Kaimana Beach, also known as Sans Souci Beach, named for a hotel run by George Lycurgus in 1893. The name, French for "without worries," was borrowed from Frederick the Great's Sanssouci Palace in Potsdam. Before the Natatorium was built, Kaimana w...

Image: Waikiki Natatorium | CC BY 2.0

Waikiki Natatorium War Memorial: The Memorial That Cannot Decide Its Fate

Thu, 12 Mar 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Photo credit Travis.Thurston, CC BY-SA 3.0. The Natatorium's name, Kaimana, is itself a borrowed thing. It is not an ancient Hawaiian place name but the Hawaiian-language rendering of "Diamond," for nearby Diamond Head. The beach hotel that replaced the Sans Souci, the New Otani Kaimana Beach Hotel, carries the borrowed na...

Image: Travis.Thurston | CC BY-SA 3.0