Alfred Preis

Dr. and Mrs. Edward Lau Residence (1951)

In the Lau Residence Preis developed the plan as a complex sequence of twists and turns beginning with a walled entry to the front lanai porch and doorway from the street. Such complex entry sequences were typical in his more middle – and upper-income 1950s homes. In the Lau Residence, a visitor had to make several right- and left-hand turns from the street to access the formal entry lanai. Not only did such arrangements enhance privacy, but they also resonated with an Asian clientele, in keeping with the spirit of the traditional, Chinese siheyuan courtyard house. Additionally, the walled sequence also dramatized the act of entry by creating a clear barrier from the street to the final threshold.

This elaborate processional pathway continued throughout the house. Preis joined the private and public zones with an irregular, roughly V-shaped plan, creating a rear garden between them. In his plan, walls are set at acute and obtuse angles with many eye-catching details of built-ins, sharp color and material contrasts interrupt passage through the house. By virtue of its angular irregularities, Preis enhanced lighting and exterior views with large picture windows (some of which canted dramatically outwards) and sliding lanai doors. The private wing of the house was particularly complex. It was reached by a small set of black-painted steps, with the hallway oriented at a sharp angle so as to be hidden from the dining room with which it connected; this wing included a small, six-sided guest room with a mirrored wall, a black, trapezoidal, built-in desk, and a dual-height ceiling accented with a swirling cutout painted in chartreuse green. This served to define the utility and dressing areas of the room from the sleeping space.

Like Loos, Preis used color schemes and ceiling levels to demarcate functional zones of habitation. The ceiling of the dining area, for example, was much higher than the lower, red colored ceilings of the main living areas and created a clerestory zone of windows. For the Laus, who were of Chinese descent, he used vivid colors, such as red and jade greens, but he also embraced bold and playful colors evoking Loos’s and Josef Frank’s bright textiles.

In this house and many others, Preis used unusual routes of procession, materials, furnishings, and colors to foster a rich and interactive experience of his architecture, inventing a Raumplan (space plan) with Asian elements for modern architectural space in Hawai‘i. His approach was to divide and segment individual living spaces but still within unified volumes. Preis’s residential work was a direct repudiation of International Style ‘open plan’ modernism (and its various middle-class descendants), which rendered the main living areas of the house visible from multiple vantage points. Indeed, one of his key architectural devices was to insert walls and other features that effectively ‘blocked’ expansive interior vistas, favoring processional and haptic exploration instead. He cultivated complexity, but with a distinct spatial economy, especially in his middle-class houses, where plans were constrained by cost. In these often-small spaces, Preis emphasized the tactile and phenomenological experience of his interiors, making living in even his smaller houses richly pleasurable events.