Hot Hawaiian `Tropical Modernist' Architect Gets Honolulu Show

Review by Robert Hilferty

Jan. 9 (Bloomberg) -- Vladimir Ossipoff's 1964 ``War on Ugliness'' in Honolulu didn't stop the mediocre high-rises from cluttering the beaches of Waikiki. Yet whatever architectural beauty the city boasts today owes much to Ossipoff's output, the focus of an exhibition currently at the Honolulu Academy of Arts.

``Hawaiian Modern: The Architecture of Vladimir Ossipoff'' highlights 30 of his 1,000 Hawaiian buildings through models, plans, drawings and photographs.

Ossipoff (1907-98) was born in Russia, raised in Tokyo and educated at Berkeley. In 1931 he moved permanently to Honolulu. ``Hawaii was the ideal place to do modern architecture,'' Dean Sakamoto, 46, the exhibition's curator, told me as we strolled past exquisitely rendered models. ``After the war, there was a need to build new schools and houses, and there was actually land here.''

The architect initially modified, then completely laid to rest the prevailing Territorial style -- a mix of colonial genres, from Spanish Mission Revival to Italianate. (The Royal Hawaiian Hotel, which still graces a once pristine Waikiki, is a good example.)

As Hawaii moved toward statehood, which it gained in 1959, Ossipoff introduced modernist elements into his eclectic -- and pioneeringly green -- designs. ``He designed with the climate,'' Sakamoto said. ``Before building, he'd figure out where the prevailing winds and rains were coming from, how to protect from the sun.''

Detailed Woodwork

Ossipoff hated air-conditioning and shunned high-rises that blocked trade winds and obscured ocean views. ``He was concerned with not only how a building looks but how it fits,'' Sakamoto said. ``And as you move around the building, the site is revealed through its openings and views.''

The inland Goodsill House, which I had the opportunity to visit, has no front door. You follow a path to the backyard, where a central garden is framed by the house on three sides. A low-angled overhang extending from the roof creates the home's main social space -- an outdoor living room.

There's another living room inside, with built-in bookshelves, wooden grilles and shoji-style windows. The master bedroom is an intimate masterpiece of redwood, with bed, desk and cabinetry executed by the Japanese carpenters Ossipoff employed for the detailed woodwork in his homes.

Goodsill's outdoor living room led to what Sakamoto believes is Ossipoff's greatest contribution to modern architecture: the ``living lanai'' building. An indigenous Hawaiian structure, the lanai is an open-sided wood frame with a roof of thatch or dried leaves. Ossipoff transformed the idea in extraordinary ways.

Airport Garden

When Blanche Hill asked him for a beachfront summer house in 1961, he created a flat-roofed complex of small interiors linked by exterior spaces. The main wing's living room can be completely opened or enclosed with a system of sliding panels. Very modern, yet very Hawaiian.

Clare Booth Luce was so taken with Hill's house (now demolished) that she commissioned one that, at some 7,000 square feet, was three times as big. Ossipoff preferred a smaller scale for homes, but this one recently sold for $11.6 million. Ossipoff homes are hot items on the market.

He perfected the lanai form at the Outrigger Canoe Club on Waikiki beach. But its grandest realization is Honolulu's airport, which Ossipoff modernized in the '70s. Alongside reinforced concrete and steel, he incorporated native woods -- unusual for airports -- and gardens. Unfortunately, the hub's openness is now considered a security nightmare and may soon be altered.

Always in Hawaii

Another signature project was the 1962 IBM Building, a seven-story structure covered by a sculptural concrete grille that functions as a glare-reducing, pigeon-proof abstract design. The Thurston Memorial Chapel, set on a pond, recalls ``what Frank Lloyd Wright did with Fallingwater,'' Sakamoto noted. Davies Memorial Chapel incorporates unfinished timber and exposed concrete, playing with light through stained-glass windows in a mode reminiscent of Le Corbusier.

Ossipoff was recognized in architecture journals worldwide and won numerous awards, but he never built outside Hawaii, where he worked until his final year.

``Hawaiian Modern'' continues until Jan. 27. In the fall it travels to the Yale University School of Architecture, then to the Deutsches Architekturmuseum in Frankfurt, Germany. Information: http://www.hawaiianmodern.org/ .

(Robert Hilferty is a critic for Bloomberg News. The opinions expressed are his own.)

To contact the writer of this story: Robert Hilferty in New York at rhilferty@verizon.net .

Last Updated: January 9, 2008 00:13 EST

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