(instrumental music) Alfred Preis/Architect: But I can only say that the two architects,  when I came brand new from Vienna, who moved me, I didn't know who they were.

I could  hardly speak English at that time, but there were Claude Steihl and Val Ossipoff.

(instrumental music) Alfred Preis/Architect: Val Ossipoff is about four years older than I am.

I thought he was my father.

That means I had so  much awe, so much respect for his ability, that I would have considered inconceivable that he could  be only about three or four years older than I am.

That's all it is.

He was president at that time of  the AIA, and we became really, really close then.

George Johnson/Architect: But I've seen him take jobs where he knew there were, was more potential,  and he and jobs that were well into the working drawings where you say, you know, really  don't like it, let's start over again.

I mean, we would have incurred thousands and  thousands of dollars in expenses.

And he'd, and he'd just dropped that job and start all  over again.

So, he wasn't a greedy man when it came to accomplishing the type of design he  wanted at all.

I remember a couple of jobs.

Greg Goetz/Architect: But he had no qualms about it.

I mean, I shouldn't say no qualms.

He had a few qualms about it  because, you know, he had a lot of monetary loss.

Frank Gray/Architect: This Greg is because he wanted to do it, not the client.

He just  decided that he didn’t like it.

That’s the unique thing.

You know, a lot of architects  say, the client likes it, so what the hell.

Greg Goetz/Architect: That's why he was called an architect's architect.

And he really  was very conscientious about that, and money was not the prime object, no  matter what how many jokes we make about it.

Ruth Goodsill/Client: One of the nice parts about Val is that once he's built your house, he sticks with you.

If  you need to remodel a bathroom or you need to do, oh, any little, tiny job that isn't really  worth his time and must be an awful bother, he still does it as though it were  the biggest job in the country.

Alfred Preis/Architect: I always had faith, probably more wishful thinking than faith that  it is impossible to design and build in Hawaiʻi without responding to its cultural and geographic  climate.

And there were others who said, look, that's nonsense.

We all work with magazines.

We're  doing basically only what the magazines show us.

So, we have, now for the first time, an  award which has an outright objective to encourage architects through  incentive of honor and reward, they get even a cash reward, a cash  award, and Val won the very last one.

Vladimir Ossipoff/Architect: Yeah, it was a surprising piece of news, but naturally, it's welcome.

But  you know that recognition had to take place for a structure which had  been up for at least 25 or 30 years.

Narrator: This would seem to be a peculiar requirement.

Vladimir Ossipoff/Architect: No, I think it's a very good one, because so it isn't the flash  in the pan sort of thing.

Narrator: Vladimir Ossipoff designed this house for Dr.

Linus Pauling, Jr.

and his wife.

The  completed result of Mr.

Ossipoff's design has been deemed worthy by a committee of his peers for a  prize, the SFCA Hawaiian Architectural Arts Award.

The award had been established by Alfred  Preis before he retired from the service of the State Foundation on Culture and the  Arts.

Its objective is to stimulate among Hawaiʻi's architects and building patrons an  effective interest in a design for Hawaiian style living, a lifestyle that reflects  the natural assets of this island culture.

Sid Snyder/Architect: Our biggest concern is probably directed around how best to use the land in a more  dense fashion than what we've been accustomed to, and how to how to keep the landscaping, how  to keep the plants, how to keep the outside into our lives.

How do we not enclose our  apartments and put glass in our lanais, which, which is done because, because  there's noise and dirt.

Makes one wonder, how do we how do we come up with our  what we used to call indigenous style, or appropriate architecture for a great climate,  beautiful place, enhance all the natural values.

Narrator: If architecture is to give a sense of place rather than merely  extending a fashionable trend of the moment, then what quality best describes us in our  place, our place of Hawaiʻi?

Informal?

Yes, our informality is what mainland observers  seem quick to appreciate.

What else?

What about dignity?

Isn't that an impression we'd like  to give to the rest of the world, the world that visits us or would like to visit us?

Therefore,  what gives us a better sense of place than an architecture which is both informal and dignified.

This is the architecture of Vladimir Ossipoff.

Would you like to construct a home or an office?

The building process is long and complicated.

It requires many decisions.

Perhaps the  most crucial decision you will make is in selecting someone to guide you through  the building process.

That someone will be your architect.

This can be a rather personal  matter.

Sometimes the architect may select you.

Vladimir Ossipoff/Architect: I had a client the other day, pretty good-sized client.

I considered whether I should do work with  him or not.

And after considering him for a while, I telephoned and said that I would not,  because I think our tastes were too disparate.

Narrator: A building is as good as its client, so wrote  architecture critic Ada Louise Huxtable.

Alfred Preis/Architect: Without a good client, you can't do a good building.

Vladimir Ossipoff/Architect: A poor client gets a poor job.

It's a reflection of the client  every time it's a team effort.

George Johnson/Architect: I'm actually quoting Val when I say that, he said that  many, many times he needs, he needs a good client to do a good job.

And  I think that's that's something I respect, and it's something that I'll never forget.

And I like to think that I work the same way.

Ruth Goodsill/Client: He also had windows across the front of the house.

And we said, we didn't want those windows.

And he  said, well, what do you want?

We said, books.

And he said, yeah, yeah, yeah, good idea.

I can see  that that's that's the end of that conference.

And we had two or three other conferences of that  sort.

And then, of course, as it was building, every now and then, Val would say, How do you like  that?

And we'd say yes or no, and and it changed if we didn't like it.

But yes, you you were not  you were involved in what he was doing, but you weren't bothered.

You knew you were working with  someone who knew more about it than you did.

Alfred Preis/Architect: It is necessary for an architect to learn to  find out what an owner needs, not what an owner wants.

Because what an owner says he wants is  not necessary, what he needs, and he doesn't know better, because whatever your ability,  you're building, not for now, but for later.

George Johnson/Architect: The Outrigger Canoe Club, when  he was explaining this to the members when we're showing them making a  formal presentation to all the members.

Frank Gray/Architect: Oh, I know when.

Catch phrases that you use when your client is not really buying  what you want.

Remember when we were talking about that, yes, and I said, well, you know, how do you  how do you make them understand that you know, that they really don't understand what they're  seeing, that it really be good.

And you said, well, Val has a very simple way to do  that.

And he says, when you like it, no, no when you see it, you'll like it, right?

When you see it, you'll like it.

I never had the guts to use that.

That's a good  one.

When you'll see it, you'll like it.

George Johnson/Architect: And another this is when they started really getting too involved in the design, you  know, he would just come and say, let me do it.

Frank Gray/Architect: Let me do it.

George Johnson/Architect: You know.

I mean, let me design it, you know.

And he always wanted the client's  input, but not beyond a certain point.

Ruth Goodsill/Client: Oh, and then I told Val what I wanted, which was a nice square house with a veranda  all the way around it, two stories.

And he said, well, he didn't build that kind of house.

He would build me one I'd like better.

Vladimir Ossipoff/Architect: You know what's a good client, one that agrees with you, not  necessarily, but also reasonable dialog, and one that can see your point of view  and accept to accept it from time to time.

Ruth Goodsill/Client: And I said, I don't know about that Val and he said, well, look at the  plans, and we'll see.

And of course he was right.

Vladimir Ossipoff/Architect: As Francis Oda said not too long ago, in the case of another client,  says you have to go through a long educational process with this client.

And  I said, well, I'm too old to go through long educational process now, and that's  we've done that many, many times.

Silly, as though, as though we knew better than  well.

I think in the field that I'm in, I know more about it than the client usually  does.

So, educational process does take place.

Alfred Preis/Architect: I'm coming now into the generation that I'm surrounded by, 80-year-old  architects.

You don't have to be young when you're an architect.

You don't have to work  by inspiration.

You can work with experience.

Vladimir Ossipoff/Architect: There's an old saying about inspiration too,  that inspiration is 90% perspiration.

You know that.

You've heard that?

And I think that's  very true.

So, I don't look for inspiration.

Alfred Preis/Architect: Experience alone is a major contribution, because architecture is not really the  building of buildings, but the setting of stages for life.

And the more you know  about life, the more interesting the spaces.

Vladimir Ossipoff/Architect: I think the excitement is in arriving  at what you think is a solution.

Alfred Preis/Architect: And he's doing it just right.

He figured it out and he arranged it cannot  be done better.

He created and established an office.

That means he trained the staff, young  people who came to Honolulu, more or less his apprentices took work with him and  became architects in his office.

Vladimir Ossipoff/Architect: Yeah, you know, I'm the father of you know, an awful lot of architects here.

George Johnson/Architect: I think it varies with the client.

I think it really does.

I think a lot  of clients you can't possibly intimidate at all, and they're going to tell you you're  working with someone like a jayver or something like that.

You're  not going to intimidate them.

Alfred Preis/Architect: And when he felt it was time to retire, quote, he sold his office to his staff under the  condition that his own little design office will be permanently open to him.

He can come  there anytime he wants to, sit there, read or whatever he wants to.

But he has so  many clients and so many buildings which need to be altered, improved, built at or to that  they're coming back.

He has so much to do now.

Vladimir Ossipoff/Architect: I heard yesterday, or the day before, about a  firm which got themselves a billion-dollar job, they were very content.

But, not for me, not at this time in life have enough  problems with smaller projects.

Rod McPhee: And memorial services.

Same thing.

Alfred Preis/Architect: He's not only doing alterations, he's doing new work, new projects, which  seemed somehow in connection with older ones.

Narrator: Mr.

Ossipoff had done an elementary building for the Punahou School.

Later, he designed their chapel.

Today, Punahou President Rod McPhee discusses a future project  for Mr.

Ossipoff, a Library and Learning Center.

Rod McPhee: What?

How much more space will we have in the library itself  than we now?

Double.

Double the space.

Alfred Preis/Architect: So, he will stay young.

Architecture is a very rejuvenating profession.

Vladimir Ossipoff/Architect: And it'd be nice, you know, because you'll see the stairway  going up in easy stages?

Alfred Preis/Architect: Well, because you're constantly confronted with new problems.

Vladimir Ossipoff/Architect: Where that power thing is behind the wall.

Alfred Preis/Architect: They can be technical, but in most cases, when you're really at architecture,  you're dealing with people and their problems.

Vladimir Ossipoff/Architect: Well, no, the one main entrance, but there'll be another one.

I've been in practice for since  1936 which is what now 36 to 86 is 52 years now.

And certainly, I've had disagreements with some, but mostly, mostly my clients,  have become friends of ours.

Narrator: Ours, meaning Mr.

Ossipoff and his wife, Lynn.

Ruth Goodsill/Client: She's saying, you know, Val did the most wonderful wall the other day  for so and so, who was blonde and she needed a wonderful kind of a pink color behind her, and Val  did it, and she just looks wonderful in that room.

And so, you think to yourself, maybe Val would  do me a wall that would help my appearance?

Vladimir Ossipoff/Architect: I guess I try to reflect the reflect the client.

And as Rod McPhee, Dr.

McPhee,  said a few minutes ago, I mean, they like the intimacy that is  created by this particular shape.

Alfred Preis/Architect: Whatever the client says the architect is doing.

So, the architect ultimately has authority  and responsibility for doing it, but takes a risk that the client may be dissatisfied, and that's  the problem now.

That's the real problem.

Vladimir Ossipoff/Architect: That's a very dangerous thing, you know.

You want to be innovative.

You want  to try things.

You want to do something that has not been done.

And you're gambling with someone  else's money.

He's entrusted you.

The client has entrusted you with a considerable sum of money.

You can be just do the tried and true thing only, but there is not much fun there is it.

So,  you have to try to innovate from time to time.

Ruth Goodsill/Client: And then I said I was tired  of houses where I walked in the front door and knew right away  where the bedrooms were and where the TV set was and where everything I  wanted some surprises.

He said, okay.

Vladimir Ossipoff/Architect: Our construction costs here are much higher than they are in California.

So, what they do in California would cost so much more here.

I think our construction  here is residential construction anyway, is we use less expensive means of getting  at a result.

We have to.

And people, we have to and people are still amazed at  how much things cost, well, as you well know.

Ruth Goodsill/Client: And then we went down to his office when the bids came in, and everybody chose  a figure that he thought the bid would come in at.

And it's very important, of course, we knew that  we could afford X amount for this house and not much more, if any more.

And the first bid came  in, it would have made the Rockefellers cringe, Vanderbilts cringe.

It was just way up there in  the stratosphere.

We were one woman did faint when her bids came in.

She fainted because they came  in so low.

We almost fainted because they came in so high.

Well, it seems that that contractor had  not read the plan sufficiently, and he had not, had not done his homework, so that his  plan was way off.

The next two bids came in very reasonably, and one of them we  chose.

But it was an exciting experience.

Alfred Preis/Architect: A contractor essentially wants to do as little  as possible for as much as possible.

On the other hand, the architect once said the  contract is doing it as well as possible.

Vladimir Ossipoff/Architect: You know, why do roofs leak?

It's not, not because they're designed incorrectly.

It's because they're applied incorrectly.

You have to rely on someone else's  performance.

A lot of troubles in this business, an awful lot of troubles.

One thing I am not, never have been, and never will be, is a cut rate artist.

Cut rate artists, you get cut rate jobs.

Alfred Preis/Architect: But when you worked with basically craftspeople, it depended on  your attitude to them.

If you exuded faith, they never cheated you, and they  did the best they really could.

Vladimir Ossipoff/Architect: Those who cut corners, perhaps are successful for a while.

And  we don't use contractors who do that, because, as I say, you don't  get you get what you pay for.

Narrator: When an architect designs a stage for living or working,  one wonders if it's possible to allow this creation the power of encouraging one's  capacity to grow the one who will use it.

Born in Russia as the son of a Russian diplomatic  family.

Mr.

Ossipoff spent his boyhood and youth in Japan.

One might consider this  itself an enormous opportunity to grow.

George Johnson/Architect: Val always felt that the Japanese architecture,  the traditional Japanese residential architecture, adapted better to Hawaiʻi than it did to  Japan.

And I think he's absolutely right.

Thin walls.

I mean, they do freeze in the  wintertime there that adapted better better to here, with all the flexibility and that  sort of thing that you need here in Hawaiʻi.

Ruth Goodsill/Client: Val does not consider this a Japanese house.

For him,  it's Hawaiian contemporary.

Vladimir Ossipoff/Architect: It was suggested to me by my mother said, why don't you  become an architect?

All right?

I think the need to define a problem and try to  solve it, probably you can grasp it more easily than I could as an artist.

An artist has a very  difficult time, I think, sitting before a blank canvas and deciding what to put on it.

We work  within certain constraints, which is a help.

There's the constraint of the topography,  there's the constraint of the budget, there's the constraint of taste,  there's the constraint of construction.

So, by the time you solve all these constraints,  in a sense, you have an easier time of it than a sculptor who has a block of marble before him  and must within that block create something.

Chip away at it, to create something.

It would be  very difficult, and I don't think I could do it.

Could stop at this line, so  the red door really will go.

Narrator: Mr.

Ossipoff is a learning man and a teaching man.

His secretary for 15 years  said you could not work with him without learning something.

He's also known for not failing to  recognize the contributions of his associates.

Vladimir Ossipoff/Architect: Yes, and I think the other thing is that I can appreciate what they're doing, yeah.

And one person is not appreciated,  it's it's death, isn't it?

Alfred Preis/Architect: I think what might keep me desperate is to be rebuilt.

There’s a few  decent buildings there, but most of are not.

Vladimir Ossipoff/Architect: Well, I won't live long enough, you won't live long enough, but  eventually it will be rebuilt.

Alfred Preis/Architect: But you see, what we are talking about is eternity, yeah, that's  right, we are not talking about our lives.

Vladimir Ossipoff/Architect: That's right.

So, it will be rebuilt.

Alfred Preis/Architect: Yeah, but you can encourage it, not by doing what most American cities did, abandon  what they had, let it rot and move somewhere else.

Because this is what would happen if we permit  a new Waikīkī being established somewhere else.

Vladimir Ossipoff/Architect: Although, as I say, I'm pessimistic about the whole thing, still,  there are encouraging things.

Another one of the very encouraging things is how much  better downtown is than it used to be.

Narrator: Informality and dignity.

Two qualities evident  in the distinguished architecture of Vladimir Ossipoff, two qualities we like to  see in this place we call Hawaiʻi.

There is finally a discreet sense of privacy  in an Ossipoff design.

Isn't a sense of privacy helpful to our notion of dignity?

What place does  Mr.

Ossipoff assign privacy in his buildings?

Vladimir Ossipoff/Architect: I think it's a very, a very important ingredient.

I think a short answer tells the  story.

I mean everything else can be assumed.

(instrumental music)