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

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.

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.

Stephen Phillips, FAIA is an architect, scholar, historian, curator, and educator. He is principal architect at Stephen Phillips Architects (SPARCHS) and Professor of Architecture at California Polytechnic State University, San Luis Obispo. He is the Founding Director of the Cal Poly Los Angeles Metropolitan Program in Architecture and Urban Design. Phillips received his B.A. from Yale University, M.Arch. from University of Pennsylvania, and Ph.D. from Princeton University. He has previously taught at U.C. Berkeley, UCLA, SCIArc, CCA, and Art Center College of Design. Phillips is the recipient of numerous awards, grants, and fellowships including those from the Getty Research Institute, the Smithsonian American Art Museum, the Graham Foundation, the Bruno Zevi Foundation, the AIA, and the ACSA. Building designs by Stephen Phillips Architects (SPARCHS) have been published internationally in DOMUS, Der Spiegel, The Architect's Newspaper, Dezeen, 7x7, the San Francisco Chronicle, and Sunset Magazine, among other notable newspapers, magazines, and journals. Phillips is the author of L.A. [Ten]: Interviews on Los Angeles Architecture 1970s-1990s (Lars Müller Publishers, 2014), and Elastic Architecture: Frederick Kiesler and Design Research in the First Age of Robotic Culture (MIT Press, 2017).

August Sarnitz is a practicing architect and Professor Emeritus of Architecture, Architectural History and Architectural Theory at the Academy of Fine Arts Vienna. After his studies at the Academy of Fine Arts, and the post-graduate studies at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT 1981/82), he earned a doctorate degree in Technical Sciences Architecture from the Vienna University of Technology in 1983. He held various positions at the Academy of Fine Arts, including Chairman of the "Senate" (2003-2006). He has lectured regularly and participated in international symposia in Europe and the United States, South America and New Zealand. The focus of his scientific work has been on contemporary and modern architecture, urban design and emigration architecture in the 20th century. He has been a guest professor at the University of California, Los Angeles, (1988) and at the Rhode Island School of Design, (1990). He has curated a variety of exhibitions on urbanism, architecture and art. August Sarnitz was awarded a number of prizes and awards, including: Visiting Fulbright Professor Prize (1990), Institute of International Education Scholarship (1982), New York William Shepherd Fund.

Christopher Long is Martin S. Kermacy Centennial Professor of Architectural and Design History at the University of Texas at Austin. He studied in Graz, Munich, and Vienna, and began his teaching career at the Central European University in Prague. He has published widely on various aspects of Central European and American modernism. His recent books include The New Space: Movement and Experience in Viennese Modern Architecture (New Haven and London: Yale University Press, 2016); Essays on Adolf Loos (Prague: Kant, 2019); Adolf Loos on Trial (Prague: Kant, 2017); Adolf Loos: The Late Houses (Prague: Kant, 2020); and, most recently, Jock Peters--Architecture and Design: The Varieties of Modernism (New York: Bauer & Dean, 2021).

Laura McGuire is a U.S.-based architecture and design historian. She is an Assistant Professor of Architectural History, Theory, and Criticism at the School of Architecture at the University of Hawai'i at Mānoa, where she teaches undergraduate and graduate courses in architecture and design history and theory. She has also taught at the School of Architecture + Design at Virginia Polytechnic Institute and at the School of Architecture at the University of Texas at Austin, where she earned her Ph.D. in Architecture. Her research focuses on modernist American and Central European architecture and design of the interwar twentieth century, especially the role of Jewish émigrés and refugees on design theory and culture in the United States. She is currently writing a book on the architect Alfred Preis, a refugee from Nazi-occupied Austria, who designed some of Hawaii's most significant examples of midcentury modern architecture. Her essays on Alfred Preis and Frederick Kiesler have appeared in numerous books and journals, including Docomomo Journal, Umění - Art, Interiors, The Routledge Companion to Art Deco (Routledge, 2019), Frederick Kiesler, Face to Face with the Avant-Garde: Essential Essays on Networks and Impact (Birkhäuser, 2018) Architectures of Display: Department Stores and Modern Retail (Routledge, 2017), Endless Kiesler (Birkhäuser, 2015), Frederick Kiesler: Theatervisionäre - Architekt - Künstler (KHM/ Brandstätter, 2012), and Norman Bel Geddes Designs America (Abrams, 2012). She also edited and translated the English edition of Ursula Prokop's The Architects and Designers Jacques and Jacqueline Groag: Two Forgotten Émigré Artists of the Vienna Modern Movement (DoppelHouse Press, 2019).