PAUL R. WILLIAMS: REDISCOVERING AN ARCHITECTURAL ICON

PAUL R. WILLIAMS: REDISCOVERING AN ARCHITECTURAL ICON

a collaborative event organized by AIA LA, ULI-LA, So Cal NOMA, USC Architecture, Getty Research Institute, and Architects for Communities LA 

Thought partially lost in a 1992 fire during the civil unrest after the Rodney King verdicts, the archive of renowned architect Paul R. Williams was recently acquired by the Getty Research Institute and the University of Southern California (USC) School of Architecture. The archive consists of original drawings, renderings and photos, magazines, and other records spanning Williams’ impactful career. More than just an archive of his work, this collection represents a window into the important impact he had on the architectural community, in Los Angeles, and around the world—an impact that only a handful of architects practicing at that time in history can claim. Paul R. Williams was simply in a class of his own: an accomplished architect – and the first licensed Black architect west of the Mississippi – who helped shape the Southern California aesthetic as a leading practitioner of mid-century modern design.

This panel, moderated by Christopher Hawthorne, Chief Design Officer for the City of Los Angeles, will explore the breadth of the archive, its discovery, conservation and importance. Mary E Miller Ph.D., Director of the Getty Research Institute will make brief remarks, and the panelists will include Dean Milton S. F. Curry of the USC School of Architecture and Maristella Casciato and LeRonn P. Brooks, Ph.D, curators from GRI.

Speakers:
LeRonn P. Brooks, Ph.D. – Associate Curator, Modern and Contemporary Collections, Getty Research Institute

Maristella Casciato – Senior Curator, Head Architectural Collections, Getty Research Institute
Milton S. F. Curry – Dean / Della & Harry MacDonald Dean’s Chair, USC School of Architecture

Christopher Hawthorne – Chief Design Officer, City of Los Angeles
 (Moderator)

Three-Part Series:
The panel discussion on November 12th will be the first in a three-part curated series of programs that will help us better understand Paul R. Williams’ work and his impact on our community. Part Two and Part Three will be scheduled in early 2021.

LeRonn P. Brooks, Ph.D. – Associate Curator, Modern and Contemporary Collections, Getty Research Institute


LeRonn P. Brooks is the Associate Curator for Modern and Contemporary Collections at the Getty Research Institute in Los Angeles. He is a specialist in African American art, poetics, performance, and Africana studies. As the lead curator for the Getty’s new African American Art History Initiative, he is charged with building and developing collections to promote advanced research in African American art history.

Maristella Casciato – Senior Curator, Head Architectural Collections, Getty Research Institute

Maristella Casciato (architect and architectural historian) is Senior Curator, Head of Architecture Special Collections at the Getty Research Institute (2016-to present). Former full professor at the University of Bologna/Architecture, she has been Mellon Senior Fellow at the Canadian Centre for Architecture, Montreal (2010) prior to be appointed Associate Director of Research at the same institute (2012-2015). She has been awarded a Fulbright fellowship and a research grant at the Institut national d’histoire de l’art in Paris. She has taught history of architecture in many academic programs in the United States, and lectured extensively in Europe and beyond. Since the late 1990s she has been engaged in a research project on Pierre Jeanneret and the planning of Chandigarh in post-colonial India. On this topic she has curated a few exhibitions and contributed to the publication of catalogues and essays. She has been a guest curator at the MAXXI in Rome since the opening of the Museum.

  Milton S. F. Curry – Dean / Della & Harry MacDonald Dean’s Chair, USC School of Architecture


Milton S. F. Curry is Dean and Professor at the University of Southern California School of Architecture; and holds the Della & Harry MacDonald Dean’s Chair in Architecture – positions he has held since 2017. Dean Curry is an academic leader and an accomplished scholar and designer. He has edited and co-edited six serial volumes of Critical Productive Journal and Appendx Journal; and has authored influential essays and articles related to architecture, urbanism, race and cultural theory. Dean Curry worked at the offices of KPF Architects prior to establishing his own design practice, MiltonCurry ProjectStudio.

  Christopher Hawthorne – Chief Design Officer, City of Los Angeles

Christopher Hawthorne is the Chief Design Officer for the city of Los Angeles, a position appointed by Mayor Eric Garcetti. Prior to joining City Hall, Hawthorne was architecture critic for the Los Angeles Times from 2004 to early 2018. With Alanna Stang, he is the author of “The Green House: New Directions in Sustainable Architecture” (Princeton Architectural Press). His writing has also appeared in the New York Times, the New Yorker, Slate, Architectural Record, Architecture, Harvard Design Magazine, Domus, Metropolis, New York, and many other publications. He is Professor of the Practice at Occidental College, where since 2015 he has directed the Third Los Angeles Project, a series of public conversations about architecture, urban planning, mobility, and demographic change in Southern California. Hawthorne has also taught at U.C. Berkeley’s Graduate School of Journalism, Columbia University and the Southern California Institute of Architecture. A frequent collaborator with KCET-TV, the PBS affiliate in Los Angeles, Hawthorne wrote and directed the hour-long documentary “That Far Corner: Frank Lloyd Wright in Los Angeles,” which had its broadcast debut in 2018, and received an L.A.-area Emmy Award for the 2016 KCET program “Third L.A. with Architecture Critic Christopher Hawthorne.” His other professional honors include a mid-career fellowship from the National Arts Journalism Program at Columbia University, the Bradford Williams Medal from the American Society of Landscape Architects and a Residency in Criticism at the American Academy in Rome. Hawthorne grew up in Berkeley and holds a bachelor’s degree from Yale College, where he studied political science and architectural history. He is married to Rachel Fine, executive director and CEO of the Wallis Annenberg Center for the Performing Arts in Beverly Hills; they have two daughters.

A Three-Part Series Organized By:

AIA Los Angeles
ULI-LA
USC Architecture
Getty Research Institute
SoCal NOMA
Architects for Communities LA