Post #288255 by bigbrotiki on Mon, Feb 26, 2007 11:47 AM

The full blueprint shows just two more of those type of column carvings (they actually were panels covering structural posts) and will be in Tiki Modern (they are all pretty similar). My new book will also show the full cover of Monkeyman's brochure the Tiki ABOVE comes from...which (not to be a stickler) is actually a different one than the one in the mural (compare eyes and mouth). The Tiki above is carved from the rendering on the LEFT in the blueprint, while the mural/bar Tiki I posted on the previous page is taken from the rendering on the RIGHT. They both are deceptively similar.

And now: Dioramas. Taken from the century-old European tradition of creating miniature pictures of landscapes with model buildings and trees to create a 3D effect, Polynesian pop dioramas went one step further than murals. Like the big taxidermy animal habitats in old Natural History museums (which I love), they are a combination of interior landscaping (fake palm trees, rocks, etc) and murals. It all started with places like Bob Brook's Seven Seas and Don The Beachcomber creating fake rainforest windows with tropical downpours, even adding live exotic birds and monkeys in them:

This the cradle of Polynesian pop, Don the Beachcomber Hollywood, at its 25th anniversary, with the rainforest diorama in the back ground.

I got to experience the Kahiki rainforest, especially effective in the bitter cold of the Ohio winter:

Then there were also the miniature dioramas, depicting whole islands, like this one behind the bar of the Bora Bora Room:

an attempt to get closer:

I have no documentation of the Royal Hawaiian Laguna Beach dioramas, when I found them, they were already dilapidated and uncared for, but a few miniature huts were still standing, does anyone have pics?

The most effective ones are of course the full room environments, like this one at Butlin's Beachcomber in England:

And, as my last mural example: Poly pop murals invade the bathroom, in 1964:

Marlite Murals: So "Tiki Modern"!

[ Edited by: bigbrotiki 2007-02-26 12:10 ]