Alfred Preis Displaced: The Tropical Modernism of the Austrian Emigrant and Architect of the USS Arizona Memorial at Pearl Harbor

By Axel Schmitzberger, Stephen Phillips, August Sarnitz and 2 more

The first publication to catalog the complete works of architect and arts advocate Alfred Preis, a Viennese modernist who fled Nazi-occupied Austria and transformed regional Hawaiian architecture, with his best-known project being the USS Arizona Memorial at Pearl Harbor.

Architect, planner, and arts advocate Alfred Preis (1911–1994) dedicated his many creative talents to his beloved, adopted home, Hawai‘i. Born to a Jewish family, raised, and educated in Vienna, Preis became an exile after escaping from Nazi-occupied Austria in 1939 and briefly being interned as an “enemy alien” when the United States entered World War II. Preis emerged as one of Hawai‘i’s leading modern architects in the 1950s and 1960s. His celebrated architectural career spanned twenty-three years. In this time, he designed almost one hundred and eighty completed projects ranging from residences, schools, commercial buildings, and public parks. His new, regionalist vision for architecture and planning were specific to the Hawaiian context, its people, its tropical climate, and its stunning landscape. Preis’s crowning achievement was his design for the famed USS Arizona Memorial at Pearl Harbor in 1962. 

This is the first publication to examine Alfred Preis’s body of work in architecture, which spans from 1939 to 1963, including not only several acclaimed public projects but also illustrating the transition from a European modern language into a regional modernism, unifying both cultures in distinct and pioneering ways. 

In later years through his legislative work, Alfred Preis became a visionary advocate and leader for the public arts, creating the first 1% law in the United States, which stipulated that 1% of all public building construction be used for the purchase of public art.

• Language: English
• Publisher: DoppelHouse Press
• Release date: Sep 20, 2022
• ISBN: 9781954600164

Axel Schmitzberger

Axel Schmitzberger is a licensed architect and professor at California State Polytechnic University, Pomona. Including his current engagement, he has taught at various academic institutions in the United States, Taiwan and Austria in the areas of Architecture, Multimedia and Graphic Design. He practiced in various architectural design and multimedia offices on internationally recognized projects prior to relocating to Los Angeles. After working for Morphosis Architects on several international buildings, he pursued his own practice APLATFORM, a multidisciplinary design office, and academia. He is the recipient of several awards for his internationally published residential, commercial and graphic design work. He has in the past received grants from the PCI foundation and the Austrian Ministry of Art, Culture, Civil Service and Sport. In 2019, he co-curated the exhibition Resident Alien — Austrian Architects in America at the Austrian Cultural Forum in New York. This was followed by an online exhibition on the Austrian-Hawaiian architect Alfred Preis in collaboration with the Austrian Foreign Ministry and Laura McGuire of University of Hawai‘i at Mānoa. He currently divides his time between working in his practice APLATFORM and teaching. He resides in Los Angeles, Hawai‘i and Austria.

Book preview

Cover: Alfred Preis Displaced, The Tropical Modernism of the Austrian Emigrant and Architect of the Uss Arizona Memorial at Pearl Harbor by Axel Schmitzberger

Co-published by DoppelHouse Press and Pacific Historic Parks

Texts © 2022, the authors

Images © Preis Family Archive, except where noted

Cover image: USS Arizona Memorial, Graceful Deck Arches. 1962, Alfred Preis with Johnson & Perkins.

Hawai‘i State Archive, M498.3-12-1-012.

Back cover: Rasterized image of Alfred Preis 1960. © Raymond M. Sato. Courtesy of the Honolulu Museum of Art.

All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any means, including electronic, mechanical, photocopying of microfilming, recording, or otherwise (except that copying permitted by Sections 107 and 108 of the U.S. Copyright Law and except by reviewers for the public press) without written permission from the publisher. You must not circulate this book in any other binding or cover and you must impose this same condition on any acquirer.

Graphic Design: A_PLATFORM. www.aplatform.design

Fonts: FF Unit Pro, Radikal

Copyediting: Helga Schier, www.withpenandpaper.com

Catalogue Editor / Exhibition Curator: Prof. Axel Schmitzberger, R.A.

Exhibition Design: Axel Schmitzberger at A_PLATFORM

10 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1 First Edition

Library of Congress Publishers Cataloging in Publication Data

Names: Schmitzberger, Axel, author. | Phillips, Stephen John, 1967-, contributor. | Sarnitz, August, contributor. | Long, Christopher, 1957-, contributor | McGuire, Laura, contributor.

Title: Alfred Preis displaced : the tropical modernism of the Austrian emigrant and architect of the USS Arizona Memorial at Pearl Harbor / [written and edited by] Axel Schmitzberger; [with contributions from Stephen Phillips; August J. Sarnitz; Christopher Long; and Laura McGuire.]

Description: Includes bibliographical references and index. | Los Angeles, CA: DoppelHouse Press and Pacific Historic Parks, 2022.

Identifiers: LCCN 2022936347 | IBSN 978-1-954600-14-0 (paperback) | 978-1-954600-16-4 (ebook)

Subjects: LCSH Preis, Alfred. | Architects--Austria--Biography. | Architects--United States--Biography. | Exiles--Austria--History--20th century. | Architecture--Hawaii--History--20th century. | Architecture, Modern--20th century. | BISAC BIOGRAPHY & AUTOBIOGRAPHY / Artists, Architects, Photographers | ARCHITECTURE / History / Contemporary (1945-) | ARCHITECTURE / Individual Architects & Firms / Essays | ARCHITECTURE / Regional Classification: LCC NA680 .P74 2022 | DDC 720.92/2--dc23

ISBN: 978-1-954600-14-0

ebook: 978-1-954600-16-4

Made possible with funding and support from:

ALFRED PREIS

DISPLACED

THE TROPICAL MODERNISM OF THE AUSTRIAN EMIGRANT AND

ARCHITECT OF THE USS ARIZONA MEMORIAL AT PEARL HARBOR

EDITED BY AXEL SCHMITZBERGER

For my son Tycho Aeneas Schmitzberger.

ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

This project and its publication history began in 2020, which was a challenging time for many. But my interest in Alfred Preis and his work emerged earlier, in 2018–19, with the exhibition Resident Alien – Austrian Architects in America, curated by Stephen Phillips and me, at the Austrian Cultural Forum in New York. This show attempted to align the many Austrian architects who ventured to the United States in the past century and to examine their peculiar connections to the U.S. and each other. It was at this time that Friedrich St. Florian mentioned Alfred Preis but I was unable to access material and include his work in the show. Fast forward a few months to the beginning of the pandemic, where in conversations with the then Austrian Consul General Andreas Launer the collaborative idea was born to produce an exhibition honoring the architect of the USS Arizona Memorial. After relocating to Hawai‘i, I met Assistant Professor Laura McGuire through Martin Despang of the School of Architecture at the University of Hawai‘i at Mānoa. She had published papers on the work of Preis and was in the process of preparing a biography with Jack Gilmar and Don Hibbard. Through her insights and collegiality, I was able to finally assess the scope of the work of Alfred Preis and together we managed to put out an online exhibition at the end of that same year.

I am also indebted to Jack Gilmar who has been sharing his knowledge and excitement about the architect. His collection of images by David Franzen and plans contributed to the digital archive I have been building. It is also important to acknowledge the historian and preservationist Don Hibbard who over the years built a project list that served as the initial basis for organizing hundreds of news clippings, articles, publications, photos and drawings that were stewarded by various entities and institutions: Foremost the Preis family, Jahn-Peter, Erica and grandson Laka Preis-Carpenter, who hold, and generously shared a vast treasure of belongings, writings, photos and drawings, the most instrumental source for this project. I want to thank David Franzen who photographed many Preis buildings over the years, the

Hawaiian Arts Alliance and its former director Teri Skilman, The Hawai‘i State Archive and State Archivist Adam Jansen, Laupāhoehoe Community Public Charter School Dean Kurt Rix, the Hawai‘i Department of Education via Kelly Ann Nakamoto, Photographer Olivier Koning, National Park Service Superintendent Tom Leatherman, Pacific Historic Parks, Art Archivist Librarian at the University of Hawai‘i at Mānoa Malia van Leukelem, the Bishop Museum and archivist Desoto Brown and importantly, Jay and Susan Wenkam who granted kind permission to use discovered Robert Wenkam images. Thanks also go to Tom Haar who granted permission to use images from the Francis Haar collection. I am grateful for the support and interest by August Sarnitz, Stephen Phillips and Christopher Long who along with Laura McGuire contributed valuabe essays to this catalogue. I extend my thanks to the many owners of existing Preis houses, among them strong supporters Rebecca and Jordan Kandell, Hans and Becca Nielsen, Micah Smith and Heather Rectenwald, Mary Yamashita and Steve Pickering. I want to thank students of the UH Mānoa School of Architecture, their Dean Bill Chapman, the Dean and Chair at Calpoly Pomona, Lauren Bricker and George Proctor; immense gratitude is extended to students at Calpoly Pomona: Veronica Arevalo-Pena, Aaron Cruz, Eric Cubacub, Karen Meza-Morales, Matthew Rodriguez, Hannah Skinner and alumna Sofi Aubin-Pouliot.

The exhibition and catalogue would not exist without the support and help of the Austrian Consulate General in Los Angeles, Consul General Michael Postl and Manager of Cultural Affairs Simone Bliss, The Honorary Consul of Austria in Hawai‘i Dr. Johann Urschitz, the Mayor’s Office in Honolulu, The Austrian Cultural Forum in New York and its director Michael Haider. Mahalo nui loa to all the welcoming people in Hawai‘i, the Liljestrand Foundation, Docomomo Hawai‘i, and Tim Schuler.

Love and gratitude to my most stalwart support for everything, my wife Jessica.

TABLE OF CONTENTS

Acknowledgements

Preface

Axel Schmitzberger

Introduction

Stephen Phillips

Refugee

Axel Schmitzberger

Student

Alfred Preis, The Formative Years in Vienna, 1932–1938

August J. Sarnitz

Apprentice

Axel Schmitzberger

Pioneer

Axel Schmitzberger

Developer

Axel Schmitzberger

Space Maker

Axel Schmitzberger

Modernist

Alfred Preis and the Austrian Modernist Diaspora Shared Perspectives: The Wiener Wohnkultur and The New Space

The Crisis of Modernism in Austria

Christopher Long, Ph.D.

Advocate

The USS Arizona Memorial — A Timeline

Axel Schmitzberger

Correlator

Alfred Preis and Frank Lloyd Wright: In the Nature of Materials

Laura McGuire, Ph.D.

Art Czar

Axel Schmitzberger

Work Overview

Axel Schmitzberger and Laka Preis-Carpenter

Alfred Preis Biography

Bibliography

Image Credits

About the Authors

Index

Alfred and Jana Preis on board the freighter Sawokla enroute to Hawai‘i. Preis Family Archive.

PREFACE

Axel Schmitzberger

In essence, this is a book about architecture.

The career of Alfred Preis, which spans almost six decades of unwavering commitment to architecture, the arts, his constituents, and the islands of Hawai‘i, produced a varied and complex œuvre, too large and encompassing to cover in this first exhibition on his work. Uncovering the life and work of Alfred Preis (1911–1994) already presents the typical challenges any reconstruction work does: how to establish an archival history and how to contextualize the work, the environment, or period in history. With it comes the task to catalogue the architecture and find its correlation with events in time. Preis’s life was rich in many aspects: He was a Jewish refugee, a suspected enemy alien, an architect, a collaborator, an advocate, an art connoisseur, a music savant, a planner, a thinker, a politician, a family man, and a husband. Each cited aspect could and should be covered in a separate tome given the intensity of his life.

Early on it became very clear that this project cannot be a mere biography, yet personal information is needed to analyze his work and his collaborations. The consistent overlap of his volunteer activities, his agendas and opinions are strongly reflected in the expression of his architectural body of work. This weaving of agencies gradually leads to his many other accomplishments and his most valuable contributions to the State of Hawai‘i: his cultural advocacy as the director of the State Foundation on Culture and the Arts (HSFCA), and as president of the Hawaiian Arts Alliance. The long journey and the groundbreaking achievements of that phase in his life are fascinating, complex, and extensive, yet will need to be set aside for another time.

The architectural work of Alfred Preis can be seen as a manifestation of a designer with delicate skills and contemporary sensibilities, prescient of changes in the thinking about environment, egality, and equality. The available canon tells the story of a young architect arriving in an alien environment, so very different from his Central European, urban life and training in Vienna. It exhibits his struggles, and his adaptability that would combine regional pragmatism with Austrian modernism, ushering in a local, regional modernism. The readiness for change in Hawai‘i, his chosen new home, is well-documented.

It is therefore a peculiar oversight that Alfred Preis is not reviewed more critically, and his work is not discussed as extensively as that of some other fellow Austrian emigrants. It may be a coincidence of the remoteness of the Hawaiian archipelago, the locality of his buildings, and a long period of little interest in localized architecture. Additionally, the charge to catalogue the work of Preis is daunting — in the span of only twenty years he produced around 160 built projects, most of them by now significantly altered or destroyed, and documentation either lost or difficult to access. It further emerges that his most recognized building, the outstanding USS Arizona Memorial from 1962, may be a crowning moment in his career but needs to be viewed in the context of his other excellent, but less documented work. It becomes mandatory to understand his development from apprentice at the Hawaiian firm Dahl & Conrad, who gave him the first building experience and training, to a busy, mainly residential architect. This path is well-visible through approximately 1000 news clippings, many discovered photographs, and drawings. Together with the presented variety in the body of work, an insight into the development of Hawaiian modernism between 1939–1963 clearly materializes.

It also generates a chance to reflect on displacement, opportunity, and adaptability. It illustrates the fusion of cultural and contextual influences from both worlds, forging, as repeated so many times in history, novelty and progress alike. Preis, as a Jewish refugee, was not only new to the tropical climate and culture but also new to the scale of difference in society. Yet, without hesitation, he applied his social upbringing and skills, and positioned himself as an architect and advocate for the people of Hawai‘i, their natural resources and heritage. He is remembered by many as an opined, focused person, skillful and convincing speaker with a strong sense of social and environmental justice. His personal diaspora and change he underwent is embedded in the nuance of his work and the care of planning. All flows into an understanding of the people as part of a collective, towards building for a greater good.

ALFRED PREIS DISPLACED Exhibition design by Axel Schmitzberger. © David Plakke. Courtesy of the Austrian Cultural Forum New York.

In many ways, Alfred Preis’s development holds similarities to other political refugees from Austria at the time. Many were equally unrooted and displaced, forced to immerse themselves in a foreign context. And like other architects, such as Victor Gruen, Elisabeth Scheu-Close, Ernst Plischke, Heinrich Kulka, Walter Loos, Liane Zimbler and Ella Briggs, he developed a distinct local response to the environment he found himself in. However, Preis’s career significantly differs since he had very little architectural experience in his home-country and had escaped as a fresh, untainted, educated architect to be trained in architectural practice in Honolulu. This created a unique balance between careful Viennese academic doctrine and local pragmatism. Thus, he also differs from the likes of Harry Seidler or Charles Paterson (né Karl Schanzer), who received their education already outside of their birth country. The fact that Hawai‘i was in a state of radical change, still a territory and emerging out of World War II with a