Finishing touches are being applied to the design for a waterless representation of the ocean to replace dysfunctional reflecting pools around the state Capitol, paint dot by paint dot applied by roughly 2,000 people across Hawaii.

Native Hawaiian artist Solomon Enos, selected by a state panel in March to craft the appearance of the reflecting pool conversion, is nearing completion of the artistic phase, in which he enlisted the public to add tiny textural details to an underlying painting he made to convey an abstract vision of the waters surrounding islands in the Pacific Ocean.

The aesthetic result is a composite mural of acrylic paint on two big sheets of canvas, one for each pool basin area, that will be drastically enlarged and transferred to about 6,300 thick glass tiles to be placed around the Capitol building, serving as Ewa and Diamond Head lanais for public and special-­event use where the chronically problematic reflecting pools used to be.

Enos, who guides each participant to a specific area with a select color to make five to 10 dots on his underlying paintings and lets his dot-makers record where their work should appear on the Capitol grounds, describes the work as a form of community art produced as fine art to last for generations in a public place.

“It’s a way to celebrate a degree of individualism, because people can see their dots, within a communal effort,” he said. “It’s the idea that you harness community to create great works.”

Some members of the community, however, have raised concerns and objections with the pool conversion plan initiated last year by the state Department of Accounting and General Services.

Pool problems

The impetus for getting rid of the reflecting pools, while staying true to the original design of the Capitol building where the water feature represented the ocean, was a culmination of problems with the pools dating back to when the Capitol opened in 1969.

Trouble included an inability, despite expensive regular maintenance, to keep the water from stinking and leaking into the building’s basement, which includes House and Senate chambers, support staff offices and parking.

DAGS is spending about $45 million, according to the governor’s office, for contractors to fix leaks in the two pool basins and to repair structural and electrical system damage that has been an issue even after the pools were emptied in 2020, as rainwater infiltrated the building through the waterproofed basins.

The repair work began in 2023 and is expected to be finished by the end of the year.

To avoid resumed trouble with maintaining water quality and having that water eventually work its way through new waterproofing membranes, a committee formed at the request of DAGS in 2023 explored ways to replace the pools with something dry that resembled water and would uphold the symbolic representation of the ocean.

Original architects of the property, a predecessor to local firm AHL and San Francisco-based John Carl Warnecke and Associates, intended for parts of the building to symbolize volcanoes rising out of the ocean, while pillars supporting the building represent palm trees.

DAGS, in a recently published environmental assessment for the conversion project, said a waterless representation of the ocean holds true to the original design intent.

“The State Capitol building’s symbolic elements are an abstraction of the elements they symbolize,” the agency said in the report. “For example, while the columns symbolize palm trees, they are not constructed of palm fiber. The walls of the two legislative chambers symbolize volcanoes but are not literal volcanoes. Similarly, the proposed pool treatment would symbolize the ocean without using water.”

Yet some local historic preservationists and other community members have objected to the conversion plan.

Restoration urged

William Chapman, dean of the University of Hawaii at Manoa School of Architecture and director of the university’s Historic Preservation Program, said in written comments on the environmental report that the intended work will alter the character of the Capitol, which is on the Hawaii and National Registers of Historic Places.

“The proposal will lead to a very hot and stark environment and compromise a significant historic site and architectural treasure,” Chapman said. “Surely there must be a way to retain a water feature that doesn’t leak.”

Hawaii architect Hale Takazawa called the DAGS plan a misguided maintenance problem solution that sacrifices the spirit of the original Capitol design and might become highly contested if there was more community vetting.

“The decision to remove water from the equation entirely is a step away from the very essence of what the pools represent: Hawaii’s intrinsic connection to the ocean,” Takazawa said in written comments. “This move not only strips the Capitol of an essential symbolic element but also misses an opportunity to reconnect the building to the natural hydrology of the area.”

Takazawa suggested that the brackish water supply that previously fed the reflecting pools could be restored and combined with natural filtration systems.

Another local architect, Willa Trimble, also urged DAGS to pursue restoration of the watery pools.

“Replacing actual water with a waterless facsimile is truly sad,” she said in written comments on the environmental assessment.

State Sen. Karl Rhoads (D, Nuuanu-Downtown-Iwilei) encouraged DAGS to keep the reflecting pools to honor the original vision for the building.

“I refuse to believe we cannot find a fix for the problems we have had with the pools over the years,” Rhoads said in written comments. “There are certainly much larger pools in public places where similar difficulties have been overcome. The pool in front of the Lincoln Memorial is an example.”

The Historic Hawai‘i Foundation objected to DAGS concluding that its plan would have no significant impact on the historic landmark.

“HHF objects to the proposed finding (of no significant impact) and thinks it cannot be sustained under the statute and criteria,” Kiersten Faulkner, the nonprofit organization’s executive director, said in written comments. “HHF is deeply concerned about the expansion of the maintenance project into one that significantly changes the character of this iconic design.”

The State Historic Preservation Division, part of the state Department of Land and Natural Resources, did not submit comments on the environmental report, though DAGS said the division has been informally consulted. A formal review by SHPD is pending and required.

Plan proponents

Tom Cook of Manoa and the Honolulu Board of Water Supply expressed support for the DAGS plan in written comments on the environmental report.

Cook called the plan appealing and said he hopes that it endures as a representation of the ocean.

Everyone or near everyone who has contributed to the design work led by Enos to carry out the DAGS plan presumably also supports the project.

Board members of the State Foundation on Culture and the Arts, a state agency for arts, selected Enos from among 122 applicants seeking the design job for the Capitol pool transformation.

The artist’s commission is $233,507. His vision for the work is based on his in-person impressions of nearshore waters and aquatic life around islands throughout the state plus others including the Marshall Islands, Samoa, French Polynesia, Midway, New Zealand and the Northwestern Hawaiian Islands.

In the design by Enos, each of the 24 Capitol building pillars, or figurative palm trees, in the pool basins also represent the base of an island, including some with volcanic color tones, in a marine environment.

Over the last three months or so, Enos, who is also the volunteer artist-­in-residence at Capitol Modern, the state art museum overseen by the foundation, has been welcoming the public to help paint the new virtual watery landscape around the state Capitol in a gallery room at the museum, which is in the No. 1 Capitol District Building next to the state Capitol.

Enos also has taken the two canvases to Maui, Hawaii island and Kauai for public contributions.

“It’s building consensus as we go because we’re building it as we go,” he said, adding that about half the participants have been children.

Project timing

The last general opportunity for the public to participate is scheduled for Nov. 1 from 5 to 9 p.m., though groups potentially can still arrange visits through Capitol Modern to contribute to the work during the last two weeks of November.

Before a public event Saturday, the work was about 85% complete, according to Enos, who also has added thousands of dots to his underlying painting.

The canvases will be vastly enlarged and transposed onto nonslip laminated glass tiles, each one about 3 feet by 3 feet, to be made in Paderborn, Germany, with colors sealed between layers of the glass.

Enos expects to deliver the canvases to the glass maker in December and that fabrication will be completed by late 2025.

Anticipated installation of the tiles in 2026 is to be done in conjunction with other work planned by DAGS to support the conversion.

This other work includes a rigid Geofoam insulation in the pool basins, tile support footings and plumbing to deliver rainwater, which would drain between tiles into the basin, to the municipal storm drain system.

Other work includes restoration of architectural lighting to illuminate the building and the glass tile surface, a widened concrete terrace around the basin area, a glass railing around the edge of the terrace, and concrete “collars” around pillars and the House and Senate chamber walls that may possibly function as bench seating.

The collar and terrace additions would reduce the size of the combined basin area by 30% to about 55,000 square feet from about 78,000 square feet, according to the environmental report.

DAGS said the art and conversion work is estimated to cost $11 million to $12 million.

If plans are realized, completion is expected in late 2026 for a possible unveiling in January 2027, when the next governor of Hawaii would be inaugurated.

The DAGS environmental report also notes that the pool basin structure is being preserved so reflecting pools with water could be restored one day “if future technologies ensure reliable operations.”