Vladimir Ossipoff - Hawaii’s Local Architectural Hero

Architecture is for the most part, a solution to some basic human needs. Primary among those is offering shelter and protecting its inhabitants from the elements. To that end, the practice cannot escape the local conditions, both climatological, and cultural. As such, successful architecture must always be a regional pursuit. Vladimir Ossipoff’s work successfully incorporates this synthesis of very local and Hawaii specific elements into buildings that continue to delight people to this day. Initially working alongside another famous Hawaiian architect Charles W. Dickey, Ossipoff built a reputation and created a huge body of work comprising hundreds and hundreds of designs both for residential clients, and commercial and public spaces. According to Malia Van Heukelem who is an art archivist librarian at UH Manoa, there are over 1300 file folders worth of project files, from over 500 projects spanning approximately 60 years. His story has been well documented by others so rather than attempt to illuminate him in this brief space, I would encourage you to investigate some of the online history. Wikipedia has a good place to start here: Vladimir Ossipoff

Ossipoff’s Maui Projects

While most of his work both residential and commercial exists on O’ahu, we are lucky to have a few houses here on Maui. Link to Maui Projects HERE

The Liljestrand House

Lucky us that we can actually visit one of the most stunning Ossipoff builds ever - the Liljestrand House on O’ahu. I recently visited the house during the Docomomo Hawaii Symposium of September 2019. Amazing event where we got to visit many of the hidden architectural treasures of O’ahu. The Liljestrand house is now under the protection of the Liljestrand Foundation. Be sure to visit their website and see if a tour is possible!

*My goal with Modern on Maui is to introduce people to the joy of architecture and open their eyes to the possibility of creating something very site specific. To that end I include interesting projects that are not on Maui as a springboard for inspiration.

Below are a few more details of the Liljestrand House on O’ahu Photography by Liam Ball