February 24th, 2021

Over a career spanning nearly 60 years, from the early 1920s until his death in 1980, architect Paul R. Williams created some 2500 buildings in and around Los Angeles. No easy feat for any designer, but especially for Williams who, as a Black man, “by law, could not live in some of the places [where he designed homes]. Particularly in Flintridge, where he designed his first home in his own office, the land deed said a Black person could not even spend the night.”

Perhaps motivated by the desire to create homes for families, having lost his own parents to tuberculosis at the age of four, Williams persevered without Black architect mentors or role models and engineered new ways of working in a hostile field. Famously, according to his granddaughter and biographer, “he taught himself to draw upside down so white clients wouldn't be uncomfortable sitting next to him." She also says that Williams toured construction sites with hands clasped behind his back because he wasn't sure every person would want to shake a Black man's hand— and so he gave them the option of extending their hand first.

In spite of these racist hurdles and warnings that "your own people can't afford you, and white clients won't hire you," Williams went on to establish what is now considered the standard of glamorous Southern California architecture: think luxurious, curving staircases in Spanish Colonial Revival-style homes nestled in their natural surroundings. Williams is also responsible for the Theme Building at LAX (pictured), the Beverly Hills Hotel (including the sign in his handwriting and the iconic colors), and St. Jude Children's Hospital in Memphis, which he designed secretly and for free.

Ever the pioneer, Williams was the first Black architect to become a member of the American Institute of Architects in 1923, and in 1957 he was inducted as the AIA's first Black fellow. Reflecting on his career in a 1937 essay titled “I Am a Negro,” published in American Magazine, Williams wrote:

I came to realize that I was being condemned, not by lack of ability, but by my color. I passed through successive stages of bewilderment, inarticulate protest, resentment, and, finally, reconciliation to the status of my race. Eventually, however, as I grew older and thought more clearly, I found in my condition an incentive to personal accomplishment, and inspiring challenge. Without having the wish to “show them,” I developed a fierce desire to “show myself.” I wanted to vindicate every ability I had. I wanted to acquire new abilities. I wanted to prove that I, as an individual, deserved a place in the world.