Paul Williams became renown for designing major buildings such the Los Angeles International Airport and over 2000 homes in Southern California. Many of the most beautiful houses in Hollywood were created by Paul Williams.
Williams was orphaned when he was four, and received little encouragement for his artistic talents. Nevertheless, he enrolled in engineering school at the University of Southern California and won an important architecture competition when he was only 25. When he was 28, he opened his own practice.
While there is no one distinctive "look" to buildings by Paul Williams, he became known for designs which were stylized and elegant. Paul Williams borrowed ideas from the past without using excessive ornamentation. According to one critic, Paul Williams was "the last word in elegant traditionalism."
As a Black American, Paul Williams faced many social and economic barriers. Williams' clients were mostly white. "In the moment that they met me and discovered they were dealing with a Negro, I could see many of them freeze," he wrote in American Magazine. "My success during those first few years was founded largely upon my willingness — anxiety would be a better word — to accept commissions which were rejected as too small by other, more favored, architects."
Being black forced Paul Williams to develop salesmanship and become politically active. He joined the Los Angeles Planning Commission and he became the first African American member of the American Institute of Architects (AIA). In 1957, he was the first Black elected to the prestigious AIA College of Fellows.
"If I allow the fact that I am a Negro to checkmate my will to do, now, I will inevitably form the habit of being defeated."
