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HOTEL GREAT NORTHERN
118 West 57 Street
New York 19, N.Y.

January 13, 1958

Mr. Murray Turnbull
Chairman, Department of Art
Fiftieth Anniversary
University of Hawaii
Honolulu, 14
HAWAII

Dear Mr. Turnbull:

Your letter of December 12th has just been forwarded to me from Japan and I hasten to write to thank you for thinking of me in relation to your plans for a garden with meaning.

I have always wanted to work in Hawaii, and to do something under the auspices of your University would, of course be ideal.

You will understand that I have heretofore hesitated about having anything to do with war memorials, to the point of turning down three invitations to cooperate with architects on the Corregidor Competition.  However, in view of your comments about such memorials, I gather that something which does not necessarily glorify war may be accomplished.  You mention that fact of my part Japanese ancestry and my continuing interest in both cultures as making me an appropriate choice.  That the meaning of the monument is to be this mutuality really raises my hopes.  Hawaii is the place, after all, where the fratricidal nature of the last war is best understood, and where some sort of protest against the suicide of the next may be raised.  I can think of no more sympathetic support for such a project than that of your University.

The question of money though important is secondary to this.  After all only such a thing of a scale as can be paid for can be built.  I should have to plan within the possible limits of your budget.  I could not do something too small for the reason that my fee then be out of proportion.

As to conditions and terms, may I say that it is difficult to say what my fee should be without knowing more about the size and nature of the project, the materials to be used etc.  However, as I imagine all this, too, is still nebulous and must be determined, in part at least, by what I bring up as a solution, I propose the following: That I spend 1 month in Hawaii, at a period after June 1958 which is agreeable to both of us, during which I will make all studies necessary to determine the nature and scope of the "garden" memorial.  For this creative effort, I should be paid $4,000.00, plus the equivalent of my fare from New York, there and back.  I should be told about how much may be spent and I will