Born and raised in Vienna, Austria, Preis spent his early architecture career in Vienna. He studied at the Vienna Technical University, earned his Architecture diploma in 1938, and worked as a site manager for Redlich and Berger and as a freelance designer for interiors, furniture and store fronts. Although of Jewish background, he converted to Roman Catholicism in 1936. Newlywed, he and his wife fled Austria in 1939 in the face of the German annexation of his homeland and emigrated to the U.S. with the help of the Catholic Refugee Association.