Like a classic typeface, he is elegant, everywhere and yet invisible. His hand has helped define the very shape, style and architectural substance of Los Angeles. Owing to this nation’s peculiar perspective, he was also responsible for conceiving a unique method of drawing upside-down so as not to up- set clientele by having them sit beside a black man.

Paul R. Williams, who died in 1980 (and along with his wife, is interred at the Inglewood Park Cemetery), was responsible for more than 3,000 homes, building and the occasional international airport’s signature building. Nevertheless, the reason he was compelled to innovate the style of sketching that would make most architects have fits were they forced to draw upside-down, is also the reason why his buildings remain so well-known but his name has been lost to the relatively few decades since Williams designed them.

From a bevy of celebrity homes in Beverly Hills, to a clutch of mansion for captains of industry in Pasadena, to Saks Fifth Avenue, to the LAX theme building and the Ambassador Hotel and the renovated Beverly Hills Hotel and, beyond, one should understand that an exhaustive list could be a book in its own right. If not, perhaps the L.A. Times might clarify it: “If you have a picture in your mind of Southern California in the 1950s and the early 1960s, you are quite likely picturing a building created by Paul Williams.”

There is much written about Williams being black and an architect—and too of- ten, in that order. Meanwhile, there is no dearth of talk of the relative few and far-flung buildings of Richard Neutra, the rare and crumbling buildings of Frank Lloyd Wright, the big shiny, centrally located pleasure domes of Frank Gehry—all of whom are called American architects. For all the nostalgia and enthusiasm over these past and present architects—all of whom are certainly brilliant—their collections fail to hold a candle to Williams’ endearing influence in southern California architecture.

Williams, ironically, had much to say about striving to be colorblind even as his clientele were able to make clear their distress by not allowing Williams to reside or shop in most of the buildings he designed. Owing to the present state of cultural relations in Southern California, the proliferation of Williams’ buildings and the constant reminder of how mod- est Williams made himself despite his architectural, stylistic and design superiority, it may well be several more generations before Williams, too, may be regarded as an architect.

In the meantime, perhaps we can all strive to be as forward-looking as Williams’ futuristic designs, and do more than merely cruise by the Paley Residence, or the MCA Building or any of the many iconic buildings along Sunset Boulevard—and seek out books by and about the man.

Williams wrote two books, both of which were penned after having contributed his architectural talents to the U.S. Navy during World War II. Both titles aimed to help folks participate in the design of their own homes. Both The Small Home of Tomorrow (1945) and New Homes of Today (1946) have been recently republished by He nessy + Ingals.

There were also a number of essays by Williams, works that, unlike his two books, tackled the problem of being a black architect among privileged white clientele. In “If I Were Young Today,” Williams talks about how he overcame the racial prejudice of others so that those others could reside, work and shop in buildings that at the time were the vanguard of modern architecture. Grant- ed, Williams was a great architect; unfortunately, he has never been celebrated despite his having not “allow[ed] the fact that [he was] a Negro to checkmate [his] will to do now” and defeating the “habit of being defeated.” Williams’ massive oeuvre remains seen everywhere albeit all too unknown.

Two books by and about Williams were published in the mid-1990s by the architect’s granddaughter, Karen E. Hudson. In Paul R. Williams, Architect: A Legacy of Style (Rizzoli, 1994), Hudson made a splendid effort despite the dearth of materials created by the tragic destruction of the Broadway Federal Building. In it was a considerable archive of Williams’ files, notes, sketches and more. Fortunately, Hudson had already begun work on that title as well as on Paul R. Williams: The Will and The Way (Rizzoli, 1994), and so the legacy that may have been intentionally forgotten and then inadvertently destroyed, was saved. Hudson also published another title last April, also via Rizzoli, titled Paul R. Williams: Classic Hollywood Style. (A review of the book will be in the January 2013 edition of the Chronicle.)

Despite all the lingering peculiar aspects that threaten to overshadow the vast sprawl of Williams’ work—some of which can be found in Washington, D.C. as well as Bogota, Columbia—there is a burgeoning revival to celebrate the great man’s contributions. With hope, we should all become a part of helping to recall Paul R. Williams as not just an African-American architect, but an American architect.