Skip to main content

Paul Revere Williams

By Anonymous
Degnan Residence, La Canada Flintridge, 1927
Degnan Residence, La Canada Flintridge, 1927

Paul Revere Williams’ (1894–1980) work as an architect continues to stand the test of time. He continues to be known for an extremely impressive portfolio of home design in Southern California spanning nearly 2,500 projects. To this day, demand remains incredibly high for his signature houses. Bret Parsons, head of an architectural division of real estate brokerage handling high end properties in Beverly Hills, reiterates this in emphasizing that “They’re an absolute pedigree for someone to have in their arsenal” (Bates). Many of the most popular houses include luxurious expressions made for many of Hollywood’s stars and celebrities of the time. Notably, houses of Frank Sinatra, Lucille Ball, Cary Grant, Danny Thomas are some names that lived in Williams’ conceptions. On the theme of luxury, his portfolio also includes the architecture and visual identity for the iconic  Beverly Hills Hotel. Pictured below, his work carries incredible cultural significance in this Californian mythos surrounding the golden era of Hollywood. Grand entrances, cozy layout design, curving staircases are all signature touches that Williams’ incorporated into both high end and his community works. 

Entrance to the Beverly Hills Hotel, designed by Paul Revere Williams

Williams’ body of work is far from merely high end housing for Hollywood’s richest. After starting his own architecture practice at age 28, many projects spanned into numerous works on public spaces. He continued throughout his career to progress to include “a number of civic, cultural, and commercial projects, including churches, banks, hotels, and schools” (Hawthorne). As celebrated in a portrait below, Williams’ variety of work can be exemplified in numerous sections of LAX airport as well. Throughout all of these initiatives, his design remains timeless as a result of a challenging of both architectural visual forms and social acceptance within the industry. 

Shulman's portrait of Williams in front of the Theme Building at LAX

Even with his tremendous talent and amassing catalog of architecture, Williams’ had to confront his race continuously as one of the only architects of his stature in the 1920’s. His granddaughter highlights this tension in her explanation in an interview with NPR how he “taught himself to draw upside down so white clients wouldn’t be uncomfortable sitting next to him” (Bates). Furthermore, many of the neighborhoods of his projects used restrictive covenants to prevent individuals of his skin color or race to inhabit properties. Even in seemingly “progressive” western states like California, these covenants offer one insight into how restrictive structural racism works to divide. Through perseverance, Paul Revere Williams’ legacy is one of innovation and craftsmanship. In many facets, Williams was a pioneer in using design and architecture to traverse beyond racially segregating social systems.

Work Cited

Bates, Karen Grigsby. “A Trailblazing Black Architect Who Helped Shape L.A.” /NPR/, NPR, 22 June 2012, www.npr.org/2012/06/22/155442524/a-trailblazing-black-architect-who-helped-shape-l-a.

Hawthorne, Christopher. “Paul Revere Williams: From the Center to the Margins and Back Again.” Architectmagazine.com, Architect Magazine, 17 Apr. 2017, www.architectmagazine.com/awards/aia-honor-awards/paul-revere-williams-from-the-center-to-the-margins-and-back-again_o.


Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

John Warren Moutoussamy

By
John Warren Moutoussamy John Warren Moutoussamy studied architecture at the Illinois Institute of Technology and graduated in 1948, a mere 26 years after McKissack & McKissack became the first black-owned architecture firm in the United States (Fazzare and Olson). Moutoussamy studied under Mies Van Der Rohe, and Mies’ strong exterior style and structural design is evident in his work throughout the Chicago area. After finishing his education, Moutoussamy became a partner in the Chicago Architecture Firm, Dubin Dubin Black & Moutoussamy, making him the first African-American in U.S. history to become part of a major established architecture firm (Goldsborough). Later in his career, Moutoussamy also played prominent positions at the Art Institute of Chicago, Loyola University, and the Chicago Plan Commission                As an architect, Moutoussamy followed the style of Mies Van Der Rohe in many of his wor...
Post a Comment
Read more

Althea McNish, Trinidadian Textile Designer

By
By Katrina Filer Born in Trinidad but living in the foggy, grey world of London in the 50s, Althea McNish brought the colorful inspiration of her birthplace to the British textile scene. She was descended from former Black slaves who had fought for the British in the war of 1812, and she was born while Trinidad was still a colony, 38 years before they gained independence. Her impressionist-style prints based in the Caribbean's natural beauty were groundbreaking, pushing the way that her contemporaries looked at fashion, interior design, or anything else that could hold a pattern. Surrounded by a culture that constantly appropriated the art of its colonies (Trinidad included) and deep in a white male-dominated field, McNish still found her place in the fashion and textile industry, wielding genre-defining abstractions of tropical and floral beauty.  Angela Cobbinah. Althea McNish in 2008. Photography courtesy of the Camden New Journal. McNish's early life in Trinidad was charact...
Post a Comment
Read more

Beverly Loraine Greene (1915-1957)

By
Beverly Loraine Greene was born October 4 th , 1915 in Chicago Illinois. Although she was born during a time where she was not accepted in the professional world she never stopped moving towards her goal of becoming an architect. In 1936, Greene made history by becoming the first African American female to earn a bachelor of science degree in architectural engineering from the University of Illinois at Urbana Champaign. Although she was “ amidst a sea of white male faces” at school, Beverly was known for having a calm presence that allowed her to focus on her difficult education (Illinois.edu). After graduating she began to search for a job in the industry, albeit the many obstacles in her way. Although it was difficult to find work at first due to racial discrimination, Greene’s talent and drive landed her a job with the Chicago Housing authority. This made her the first African American to be a part of the Chicago Housing authority, a corporation that oversees the housing in the cit...
Post a Comment
Read more