Alfred Preis

In some houses, used the idea of the Japanese tokonama – an alcove in traditional Japanese houses for the display of prints and flowers – to create elevated alcove rooms for dining and other functions. Preis exercised changes in floor levels not only because they added visual and spatial interest to his floorplans, but also because they recalled Adolf Loos’s Raumplan idea that different activity zones could be articulated by changes in floor levels. In this way, he sensitively merged the architectural ideas of two immigrant cultures – both Eastern and Western – which, like him, had come to Hawai‘i for the promise of a better life.

In most of his buildings, he emphasized low and horizontal profiles, so as to maintain a subdued quality in relationship with the surrounding ocean, mountain peaks, and vivid greenery, evoking a respect for the ‘aina, the all-encompassing Hawaiian word for land. He never sought to compete with Hawaii’s own natural beauty but took its peaks and hills as a design inspiration. Some of this was practical: since ground termites and other insects were constant nuisances, he usually elevated his houses off the ground using post and beam foundations. Still, many of his buildings engaged in an architectural dialogue with place. His signature butterfly roof (roofs shaped like an inverted V) visually connected his buildings with the jagged mountain cliffs that rose high above valleys. This is particularly true for his hillside houses – with residential building sites tucked into the sides of steep hills, Preis used these challenging topographies to create floor plans with multiple levels: sometimes there were steep exterior stairway entrance sequences, while at other times he used only subtle changes between floor levels. By elevating his houses and designing sectional variations in his floorplans, he maximized views of the beautiful landscapes, emphasizing the strong visual and physical connections with the outdoors.

He frequently attempted to dissolve the separation between inside and outside, both visually and physically. Using large picture windows and horizontal ribbon windows, he gave his clients the best possible views of the mountain ranges or the ocean. At times, he also designed interior courtyard gardens with plantings to forge contemplative moments with common tropical vegetation.

The directional orientation of his buildings increased passive ventilation and cooling. Electricity was expensive in Hawai‘i and air-conditioning was a luxury. Instead, and in both public, commercial, and private commissions, Preis opted to design strategically raised rooflines set with rows of clerestory windows. Whenever practical, his plans and sections optimized access to cooling trade winds from the Northeast. He avoided arranging main living spaces to catch the full glare of midday light and instead oriented most picture windows and indoor-outdoor lanais to capture the softer morning or evening light.

His use of materials was robustly regional. Because it was expensive to import mainland-manufactured building materials to Hawai‘i, regionalist architects devised ways to fabricate designs with locally available and economical materials. Although some architects might have seen costly imports as a limitation to their design work, Preis used the situation as an opportunity. He embraced the practical and ornamental qualities of abundant materials like ohia, lava rock, monkeypod, brick, concrete tile, and locally fabricated concrete.

Preis, along with colleagues like Vladimir Ossipoff, also took great advantage Hawaii’s carpenters’ talents. Most local carpenters were of Japanese descent and carried professional craft knowledge passed down through generations. Preis used their experience and techniques with relish. Japanese architectural elements, like sliding wooden shoji screens and cabinetry, for example, became important features in his residential work. Preis’s thus designs reflected the material culture and the architectural labor force Hawai‘i itself.

In both public and private buildings, Preis embraced the many traditions, forms, materials, and colors reflected in the breathtaking diversity of the Hawaiian landscape and its peoples. He distilled these into architectural solutions that were lively, beautiful, and sometimes unexpected. Above all, his buildings were intrinsically suited to the tropical climate responded to local modes of life.

The Broader Picture: Austrian Émigré Architects and Their Impact on America

To view Alfred Preis only within the context of Hawai‘i would be a misunderstanding of the broad and often interconnected movement of Austrian emigres. And while many of the emigrated Austrian architects of the twentieth century have found due note in various publications and historic research, Alfred Preis’s role in the canon of émigré work has consistently been left out. This may be due in part through the fact that the Hawaiian archipelago not only forms a geological anomaly but also finds itself culturally and geographically almost in the middle between Asian and Western civilizations. With this remoteness in the context of global affairs and the mainland came a shift in attention and attentiveness that favored the continental United States. It may also be that Preis’s career as architect stopped at his peak recognition with the U.S.S. Arizona memorial from 1962, when he positioned himself into becoming Hawaii’s main Art and Culture advocate.

Even though a few former compatriot architects engaged in architectural projects on the islands – Victor Gruen with the Waialea Shopping Center in 1955, the Financial Plaza of the Pacific in Honolulu from 1968, or Herbert Bayer with the Aspen Institute in Punalu’u from 1975 and a Waialea high-end residence from 1961 – Preis’s interaction with former Austrians remains obscured in history. In addition, Preis’s work appears more relevant to the shaping of a regional modernism, which positions him clearly more as an outlier, but pairs him kindred with Ernst Plischke’s path in New Zealand, Simon Schmiderer’s engagement in Puerto Rico, or the work of Walter Loos in Argentina.

The connecting tissue of the so-called modern architects, the “second wave” after Josef Urban, Frederick Kiesler, Paul T. Frankl, Rudolph Schindler and Richard Neutra, who all arrived prior to World War II, is less based on an overarching national consciousness rather than a common environment in education and culture. They were equipped with a liberal, dogma-free view, emerging from the post-monarchical, socialist Vienna. This was paired with the ability to reduce some of the principles to a stripped-down, pragmatic format for the new environment, particularly that of a fast growing industrial nation such as the United States. Those principles are not expressed through a common style but more through a critical approach that countered hollowed-out, over-rationalized modernism. This can also be seen in the varied work of Austrian émigré modernists, all of whom were forced to escape the persecution and oppression of the emerging Nazi regime. It is within this context that we find relationships to the work and position of Alfred Preis among others.

Further waves of Austrian emigrants, starting in the 1950s, were also in search of new opportunities. Among them were Raimund Abraham, Friedrich St. Florian, Hans Hollein, Haus-Rucker & Co., and Bernhard Leitner, soon followed by Mark Mack, Christoph Kapeller, and a whole new generation of architects closely linked to Peter Noever’s MAK Center programming. All brought with them similar ideas and principles that were less driven by formal commonalities than with a common intellectual base and social upbringing. As several of the post-WWII architects returned to Austria, they brought with them renewed academic attention to the prior émigré wave, thus engaging in a bi-cultural exchange that is ongoing to this date. In architecture, this has left traces that now allow the deep connection between Austria and the United States be viewed in a more complex, intertwined way. Not only has recent research exposed the personal relationships of some of the emigres, but also some emerging, common architectonic principles traced over the past one hundred years, which was recently presented in the exhibition Resident Alien – Austrian Architects in America.

These relationships require further in-depth scholarly attention. Adolf Loos’s idea of a Raumplan and Material Plan, may have for example direct presence in Rudolph Schindler’s Space Architecture, yet Schindler’s use of innovative, experimental materials expressed horizontality and clerestory windows were the beginning of a strong personal aesthetic. This also set him apart from the so-called International Style. Similarly, one could recognize both Loos’s Raumplan and Schindler’s Space Architecture in elements of Preis’s residential work. However, it remains unclear whether the influence was that of exposure to the work of both or a parallel development of related ideas rooted in the education and context of Vienna of his time. It is certain, though, that the environment of Vienna at the beginning of the twentieth century, with its social, humanistic, and liberal ideas has created a strong presence in the architecture of the United States; and it continues to do so.