Architect. His best-known design is that of the USS Arizona Memorial, which floats in the waters of Pearl Harbor astride the sunken World War II battleship without touching it. Son of Ignatz Preis and Irma (Heim) Preis. He studied architecture at the Vienna Technical University and after graduation worked for a time in the city. Although he belonged to the Roman Catholic faith, his father was Jewish, which was dangerous in the late 1930s. (Indeed, most of his family perished in the Holocaust.) He and wife Jana wed the day Hitler arrived in Vienna, March 14, 1938. After much effort, they were able to leave Austria. They emigrated to the United States with the help of the Catholic Refugee Association. They journeyed from Cherbourg, France to New York, arriving April 6, and reached Hawaii in June 1939. By the time the U.S. entered the war 2.5 years later, Preis—Hawaii's first European architect—had designed more than 20 homes and had just passed certification exams required by the American Institute of Architects, or AIA. Preis was detained the evening of Dec. 8, 1941 and held for three months following the attack at the Sand Island detention center, along with others of Japanese and German extraction. Upon his release, he worked for the Department of Public Works of the Territory of Hawaii and also opened his own office. Although he designed such works as the entrance to Honolulu Zoo, and Honolulu's First United Methodist Church, his landmark design was that of the Arizona Memorial, the iconic memorial that was dedicated in 1962 by President John F. Kennedy. Chosen from among submissions from several other designers, Preis's vision was for a memorial that would prompt visitors to explore their own feelings. "The structure sags in the center but stands strong and vigorous at the ends, expresses initial defeat and ultimate victory," he noted. "The overall effect is one of serenity. Overtones of sadness have been omitted to permit the individual to contemplate his own personal responses." Additionally, the memorial met Navy specs for not touching the sunken ship; being able to accommodate 200 visitors at a time; and resembling a bridge. Preis expanded the scope of his career to embrace promotion of arts and culture education in the new state of Hawaii. He was the first executive director of the Hawaii State Foundation on Culture and the Arts, where he served from 1966 to 1980. During his term, he supported an effort that in 1967 made Hawaii the first state to require companies to donate one percent of construction costs for public art. Decades later, public spaces and buildings statewide are dotted with a variety of such works. Also during his stewardship, the foundation and the state Department of Education established the Artists in the Schools program, created to provide opportunities for elementary and secondary students to work with local professional artists.