When the Honolulu Academy of Arts opened the exhibition Hawaiian Modern: The Architecture of Vladimir Ossipoff last November, it coincided with the centennial of the birth of one of Hawai'i's most influential architects.
   
Vladimir Ossipoff, born in 1907 in Vladivostok, the son of a Russian military attaché, was raised in Tokyo where he attended western schools until he was 16. Following the devastating Great Kanto Earthquake of 1923, the Ossipoff family immigrated to the United States. Midway through the voyage, Ossipoff's ship docked in Honolulu where he spent a night in Waikïkï before sailing on to California.
   
Eight years later, after graduating from the University of California Berkeley School of Architecture in 1931, Ossipoff returned to Hawai'i. There he embarked on a career that spanned 60 years, designing over 1,000 public and private projects, and ushering in the age of modern architecture in Hawai'i. 
   
Hawaiian Modern, the first exhibition to reveal Ossipoff's extraordinary life and prolific career, was the brainchild of its curator and designer, Honolulu-born architect Dean Sakamoto. Based in New Haven, Connecticut, Sakamoto is on the faculty at the Yale School of Architecture and principal of Dean Sakamoto Architects, LLC.
   
Sakamoto came up with the idea of an exhaustive study of Ossipoff's work as a comprehensive research, exhibition and publication project which he first proposed to the Honolulu Academy of Arts in 2001.
   
Stephen Little recalled being contacted by Sakamoto in 2002 when he took over as director of the Honolulu Academy of Arts. "Recognizing that Ossipoff was the greatest architect in Hawai'i in the 20th century, I was astonished that there was no book or serious study of his work and contribution to architecture." Little immediately backed the idea of an Ossipoff exhibition for what he called his "elegant design, great attention to detail and materials and, above all, sensitivity to the environment." Little explained: "This exhibition is important not only to honor Vladimir Ossipoff's life and career, but to hopefully stimulate a broad dialogue about the future of architecture in Hawai'i."
   
Over the next six years Sakamoto pursued the project which would bring him back to Hawai'i multiple times to examine Ossipoff through files, documents, drawings, oral histories, photographs and the buildings themselves. Together with art photographer Victoria Sambunaris, Sakamoto visited countless Ossipoff buildings, documenting over 50 structures for a book that completes the Ossipoff project.
   
Interviewing Ossipoff's wife, family and some 60 others, Sakamoto gained access to Ossipoff's personal and professional files, records and original drawings through Ossipoff's former partner, Sidney Snyder, Jr., president of Ossipoff, Snyder & Rowland Architects, Inc. Meticulously kept notes were combined with archival photographs by renowned photographer Robert Wenkam to shine a beacon onto Ossipoff's remarkable legacy.
   
"Ossipoff wasn't localized; he was a cosmopolitan, very aware of what was happening around the world," Sakamoto said. "He read international journals, he traveled and he was eager to incorporate the contemporary." 
   
Today the Hawaiian Islands are peppered with landmark buildings bearing Ossipoff's name from the Honolulu International Airport (1970-78) and Outrigger Canoe Club in Waikïkï (1963) to schools, chapels, academies, banks and libraries across the state. But it is the Ossipoff home where his guiding principles are best observed.
   
Hawaiian Modern, the exhibit, seeks to examine five primary Ossipoff design themes:  Revealing the Site; Hawaiian and Modern; Darkness and Air; Native Materials and Modern Tectonics; and the Living Länai. Sakamoto explained: "Take Modern Tectonics. Ossipoff believed that one must incorporate native materials and modern technology. Ossipoff was not just a designer who knew how to make things look nice; he knew how to structure and using the latest technology was important to him."
   
Ossipoff buildings like the Diamond Head apartments (1958) and the IBM Building (1962) were very advanced for their time, reflecting Ossipoff's interest in new technology, but whenever possible he used native Hawaiian materials like lava stone, ohia and koa wood and sandstone from Waianae. According to Sakamoto, the IBM building within Ward Centers in Honolulu illustrates how Ossipoff blended modernity with traditional Hawaiian motifs. He compares the six-story building to a museum piece, today surrounded by towering high-rise, dark glass-faced condominiums. 
   
"The geometric patterns on the sun screen around the IBM building are like a tapa cloth combined with the aesthetic of the keypunch card which, in 1962, was how computers were driven," Sakamoto said.
   
In preparation for the exhibit, Sakamoto and his staff created detailed analytical basswood models as a means of assessing 15 of the 30 Ossipoff projects presented in the exhibit. The representations include the Liljistrand, Pauling and Blanche Hill residences and Ossipoff's own Kuli'ou'ou home near Koko Head where he lived from 1958-1988. Built to scale, the models are not merely representations of the buildings, but designed to examine thematic aspects of each structure. For example, the Pauling residence reveals the site, atop a hill, illustrating how Ossipoff fit the house to its unique location.
   
"I think first and foremost was Ossipoff's awareness of his surroundings," Sakamoto said. "Buildings need to comply to their environment and most of Ossipoff's work falls into this category of compliance. He was a master in his ability to be modest and restrained, allowing the environment to dominate yet produced a design and experience which was always dynamic."
   
Sakamoto called Ossipoff buildings, in particular the residences, structures of integration which were part of a larger whole. He said Ossipoff was a critical thinker who understood that every building impacts the overall environment just as Ossipoff's buildings reflect how the environment impacts every building.
   
The success of Ossipoff's architecture was based on principles, not just appearance and his homes addressed key environmental conditions—wind direction, the location of sunrise and sunset, the site's topography and whether the home was makai (by the sea), mauka (by the mountains) or elsewhere. The elements dictated the pitch of the roof, the depth of the overhang and selection of materials.  Climate influenced the location of the entry and how to articulate the windows.
   
Describing what Sakamoto called Ossipoff's comfort strategies, he said, "Ossipoff recognized the key to comfort in design in the islands was not just letting the sun in, but keeping the sun out. Also, letting the wind in, but knowing that with the trade winds come rain. Wherever you live in Hawai'i, you get morning and afternoon sprinkles, so Ossipoff developed strategies of deep shade coupled with views. Open spaces had to be protected from the rain while maintaining openness."
   
It was what Sakamoto dubbed the "living länai" that he calls Ossipoff's greatest contribution to architecture in Hawai'i. He considers the Blanche Hill house the best example of a länai residence. "Blanche Hill was basically all open except for the master bedroom. Everything else was exposed to the elements. In the case of the länai building, Sakamoto said, "it's really not about the building, rather what's around the building."
   
Other länai-type Ossipoff buildings include the Honolulu Airport and Outrigger Canoe Club in Waikïkï, a significant portion of which is covered by an arbor and open to the beach. Sakamoto called it "the länai perfected." When Ossipoff designed the modernization/expansion of the Honolulu International Airport, he took what he learned designing the Blanche Hill house and Outrigger and increased the scale to create a modern, open structure with limited air conditioning as a grand manifestation of the länai.
   
Sidney Snyder explained that his former partner liked to simplify designs, yet often incorporated magic and mystery into how a building was entered or the sequence of views a visitor would experience. Ossipoff was concerned with how people moved from the point of arrival to the home, which, for him, was a stage for living. He wanted to give people an experience and so an Ossipoff entry was never a straight shot, nor was a view set dead ahead. 
   
"Val was quick," said Snyder. "In a few minutes a project could be turned from ordinary to special with something as simple as color and texture."
   
The Ossipoff house had an openness of light, the element of surprise, and above all it was well integrated with its setting. In Hawaiian Modern, this integration and Ossipoff's ability to build a rapport with clients is also revealed. Ossipoff's wife said that he always built a home that fit the owner. When a concerned client questioned the quick-witted architect, he would answer, "Don't worry, you'll like it when you see it."