Aloha Spirit

Hawaii’s Influence on the California Lifestyle

April 16 - July 27, 1997

The exhibition “ Aloha Spirit – Hawaii’s Influence on the California Lifestyle” was produced and designed by the staff at the California Heritage Museum, and was open from April 16 to July 27, 1997. The exhibition presented a look at the Golden Age of Hawaii and the objects manufactured for its tourist industry. It covered a period from the turn of the century to the post-war years, ending around 1960 when jet travel changed the Islands and their way of life forever.

If there is such a thing as the Aloha Spirit, it is the penchant that Islanders have for inviting the outdoors in and the indoors out. More than a specifically tropical ambience, it is this smooth, harmonious interplay between interior and exterior that is the signature of the Hawaiian style. Foliage, flowers, breezes, colors, light – in the island home they flow in and out unobtrusively, cheerfully blurring the boundaries between the two worlds.