Donald M. Hisaka Collection
Scope and Contents
The Donald M. Hisaka Collection spans the years 1962-2007 and documents Hisaka’s career as architect and educator. The Collection is organized into five Series: Personal Papers, Professional Papers, Office Records, Project Records, and Joseph Kaempfer Projects.
The Personal Papers are limited and include family photographs and travel slides from a trip to France.
The Professional Papers consist primarily of course syllabi and reference files for classes. Also included are lecture notes, drafts of speeches, documentation of a research project, and the proclamation declaring Don M. Hisaka Day in Columbus, IN for Hisaka’s work on the Bartholomew County Jail.
The Office Records consist primarily of records used to market the firm, Hisaka & Associates, including awards, award submissions, and portfolios. Also included are clip files related to projects of the firm, its principal, and major client Joseph Kaempfer, as well as administrative files, professional portraits, and correspondence.
The Project Records make up the bulk of the Collection and contain photographs, slides, drawings, and a small number of files. Well-documented projects include the Bartholomew County Jail in Columbus, IN, a city noted for recruiting innovative modern architects to design their buildings, the Old Orchard Country Club in Ibaraki, Japan, and the tasting room and museum for Takara Sake in Berkeley, CA.
The Kaempfer Project Records contain documentation for projects commissioned by client Joseph Kaempfer and his development company. Records consist of files, photographs, slides, and drawings. Well-documented projects include two office buildings in Washington, D.C., the McArthur Glen Designer Outlet Mall in Livingston, Scotland, and a private residence for Kaempfer in Maine.
Dates
- Creation: 1958-2007
- Creation: Majority of material found within 1962-2001
Creator
- Hisaka, Don (1927-2013) (Architect, Person)
Access Statement
Collection is open for research.
Publication Rights
All requests for permission to publish, reproduce, or quote from materials in the collection should be discussed with the Curator.
Biographical Note
Donald Hisaka was born on Bacon Island near Stockton, CA in 1927. His parents were first generation immigrants from Japan and raised Don and his five siblings on an impoverished potato farm. However, after the attack on Pearl Harbor the Hisaka family was relocated to Rohwer War Relocation Center in Arkansas where Don met his future wife, Michiko Oga.
After the war, the Hisakas returned to California and Don worked as a houseboy while attending Stockton Junior College before enrolling to study architecture at the University of California, Berkeley. He went on to earn a Masters in Architecture from Harvard University. Following graduation from Harvard in 1953, he began working for Minoru Yamasaki in Detroit. After five years with Yamasaki, Hisaka was awarded the Fulbright Hays Fellowship in conjunction with a Wheelwright Fellowship from Harvard allowing him to spend a year in Italy and travel the world, studying architecture in Greece, India, Thailand, and Japan.
Upon his return to the United States, Hisaka began working for Loebel & Schlossman Associates in Chicago. A few years later he was asked by Dalton-Dalton, a large firm in Cleveland, to be their Director of Design. A year later he opened his own firm in Cleveland where he practiced for nearly 20 years. In 1978, Hisaka accepted a teaching fellowship at the Harvard Graduate School of Design and moved to Cambridge where after a few years, he started another firm. In 1992, he returned to UC Berkeley as the Howard A. Friedman Visiting Professor of Practice in Architecture in the College of Environmental Design. He continued practicing until a few years before his death in 2013.
Sources:
“Don M. Hisaka.” San Francisco Chronicle. 3 Mar 2013, accessed 28 March 2016.
Hisaka, Don. Don Hisaka’s Never-Ending Odyssey. Autobigraphy draft, 2012. Donald M. Hisaka Collection, Environmental Design Archives, University of California, Berkeley.
Segall, Grant. “Don M. Hisaka rose from an interment camp to design a famous jail: news obituary.” The Plain Dealer. 1 Mar 2013, accessed on 28 March 2016.
Extent
36 Linear Feet: (1 carton, 32 document boxes, 26 flat folders, 22 tubes)
Language of Materials
English
Abstract
The Donald M. Hisaka Collection spans the years 1962-2007 and documents Hisaka’s career as architect and educator. The Collection is organized into five Series: Personal Papers, Professional Papers, Office Records, Project Records, and Joseph Kaempfer Projects. The Project Records make up the bulk of the Collection and contain photographs, slides, drawings, and a small number of files. Well-documented projects include the Bartholomew County Jail in Columbus, IN, a city noted for recruiting innovative modern architects to design their buildings, the Old Orchard Country Club in Ibaraki, Japan, and the tasting room and museum for Takara Sake in Berkeley, CA.
System of Arrangement
The records have been organized into five series (detailed below), which have then been further arranged into subseries in accordance with the guidelines published in the Standard Series for Architecture and Landscape Design Records (2000, Kelcy Shepherd and Waverly Lowell). Within each series, original order has been maintained when evident; however, much of the collection arrived with no evident order. In these cases, an order has been imposed by the archivist.
Custodial History
The collection was housed in the Hisaka residence until it was donated to the Environmental Design Archives by the Hisaka family.
Funding
Arrangement and description of this collection was funded by the Hisaka estate and the Friends of Donald Hisaka.
Source
- Abel, Thom (Photographer, Person)
- Korab, Balthazar (1926-2013) (Photographer, Person)
- Sweezy, Sam (Photographer, Person)
Genre / Form
Topical
- Title
- Donald M. Hisaka Collection
- Status
- Completed
- Author
- Finding aid prepared by Cailin Trimble
- Date
- May 2016
- Description rules
- Describing Archives: A Content Standard
- Language of description
- English
- Script of description
- Latin
Repository Details
Part of the University of California, Berkeley. College of Environmental Design. Environmental Design Archives Repository