ALA MOANA OFFICE BUILDING GLOWS IN THE AFTERNOON SUN - NARA - 553789

La Ronde was a restaurant
Star Bulletin (accessdate 31 July 2016) in

Honolulu Honolulu (; ) is the capital and largest city of the U.S. state of Hawaii, which is in the Pacific Ocean. It is an unincorporated county seat of the consolidated City and County of Honolulu, situated along the southeast coast of the island ...

,''Ala Moana Center''
Emporis (accessdate 31 July 2016)

Hawaii Hawaii ( ; haw, Hawaii or ) is a state in the Western United States, located in the Pacific Ocean about from the U.S. mainland. It is the only U.S. state outside North America, the only state that is an archipelago, and the only stat ...

. Built in 1961''Towering Ties''
Briale Morand (accessdate 31 July 2016)''Ala Moana Building''
Ala Moana Center (accessdate 31 July 2016) and designed by John Graham''Ala Moana Center, Architectural History Report'' page 37-39
Mason Architects (accessdate 31 July 2016) it was the first

revolving restaurant A revolving restaurant or rotating restaurant is usually a tower restaurant eating space designed to rest atop a broad circular revolving platform that operates as a large turntable. The building remains stationary and the diners are carried on ...

in the United States''Some Construction and Housing Firsts in Hawaii'', 72nd Annual Report, 1963, page 108 (11)
Hawaiian Historical Society (accessdate 31 July 2016) (preceding the " Eye of the Needle" restaurant in Seattle) and the third''A Brief History of Buildings That Spin''
Anthony Paletta, Gizmodo (accessdate 31 July 2016)''A Moveable Feast: A Brief History of the Revolving Restaurant''
J S Graboyes, Duckpie (accessdate 31 July 2016) of its kind (after
Phil Dotree, Interesting America (accessdate 31 July 2016)''Pie in the skies – revolving restaurants''
Jan Whitaker, Restaurant-ing through History (accessdate 31 July 2016) the

Florian Tower Florian may refer to: People * Florian (name), including a list of people and fictional characters with the given name or surname * Florian, Roman emperor in 276 AD * Saint Florian (250 – c. 304 AD), patron saint of Poland and Upper Austria, al ...

and the

Cairo Tower The Cairo Tower ( arz, برج القاهرة, ''Borg El-Qāhira'') is a free-standing concrete tower in Cairo, Egypt. At , it was the tallest structure in Egypt for 37 years until 1998, when it was surpassed by the Suez Canal overhead powerline cr ...

) in the world. The restaurant is now closed.

The Building

The restaurant is situated at 1441 Kapi'olani Boulevard in the

Ala Moana Ala Moana (meaning ''path to the sea'' in Hawaiian) is a commercial, retail, and residential district of Honolulu, Hawaii. It is located between Waikiki and Moiliili to the east, and Kakaako and Honolulu Harbor to the west. King Street, to th ...

district at the 23. floor of the Ala Moana Building adjacent to the shopping mall Ala Moana Complex. The restaurant's revolving part has a diameter of about 16 feet (5 meters) with a seating capacity for 162 guests, the office building has a total height of 25 floors and 298 feet (91 meters) including an

observation deck An observation deck, observation platform, or viewing platform is an elevated sightseeing platform usually situated upon a tall architectural structure, such as a skyscraper or observation tower. Observation decks are sometimes enclosed ...

at the top. The

rotational speed Rotational frequency (also known as rotational speed or rate of rotation) of an object Rotation around a fixed axis, rotating around an axis is the frequency of rotation of the object. Its unit is revolution per minute (rpm), cycle per second ...

was 1 rotation per hour.

History

The building was designed by John Graham Jr. of the

architectural Architecture is the art and technique of designing and building, as distinguished from the skills associated with construction. It is both the process and the product of sketching, conceiving, planning, designing, and constructing buildings o ...

firm

John Graham & Company John Graham & Company, or John Graham & Associates was the name of an architectural firm, founded in 1900 in Seattle, Washington, by English-born architect John Graham (1873–1955), and maintained by his son John Graham Jr. (1908–1991). The f ...

. The building was completed in 1960 and inaugurated 21 November 1961. At that time, it was the highest building in Honolulu. Graham later received a patent for the revolving design in 1964 (US patent-nr 3125189''patent Graham 1964''
Google patents (accessdate 31 July 2016)). Later, the restaurant changed the name to "Windows of Hawaii" but closed completely in the mid-1990s. The premises were converted to office space and the floor was welded into place. One revolving restaurant remains in Hawaii, called Top of Waikiki.

References

External links

close-up La Ronde (Flickr)close-up (Waymarking)image (Flickr)image (Star Advertiser)image (Flickr)over view image (Flickr)over view image (Historic Hawai‘i Foundation)images collectionimage (1962, Hawaiian Church Chronicle)
{{coord missing, Hawaii 1961 establishments in Hawaii Buildings and structures in Honolulu Landmarks in Hawaii Tourist attractions in Honolulu Buildings and structures with revolving restaurants 1990s disestablishments in Hawaii Restaurants established in 1961