Paul Revere Williams and Pasadenas velvet racists
Pasadena. Town of old homes, tree lined streets, dappled light filtered through leaves, of a certian genteelity often missing in Southern California. A City of acceptance and multiculturalism. Thats the Hype anyway.
Hype is a peculiar thing. It's well polished, and it's the lie, the quartered burl walnut veneer over cheap nasty termite infested pressboard, in one case a waste of wood, in another a waste of words.
Architecture is perhaps the most difficult of all art forms. Becoming an Architect takes many years in school, passing difficult tests and years of working often at below minumum wage, even after you pass the test before they will give you a Architects license. Then the Architect must go get clients, make designs that please both the client and his own artistic and career needs, and somehow get past the bankers and the dim bulbs at the local Building department. It's a Hurculean task to be an Architect.
Imagine on top of all those "normal" difficulties that one is a black man in the 1930's. Imagine that one is never allowed to own land where one builds, that one may not socialize with ones clients, that one must learn to sketch upside down so one will never be sitting next to one's clients, who are white while one is black and therefore always on guard not to offend the sensibilities of American Racism. Such was the case for Paul Revere Williams, who in spite of these almost insurmountable difficulties not only became an Architect but a highly skilled one who was most prolific.
Paul Revere Williams went beyond the facts and circumstances of his race to not only master Historic Style Architecture, but to pioneer "Hollywood Regency" and be the only practicioner to pull off that blend of Historicism and modernism without clunckyness, to pull it off seamlessly as one true thing, and then to move on to a American Organic Modernism. Paul Revere Williams was a MAN, in the sense that Louis B. Sullivan would mean, he owned his work and his effects, completely. He made spaces of trancendant spiritual being. Each of his works, small and large, is a complete work of art, yet a completely useful thing. Most Architects never master a single style. Paul Revere Williams mastered three and was a pioneer in two. What whould he have become, had his skin color not been used to hold him back? What blessings could America have had?
There was two years ago a Paul Williams masterpiece, the Landau house, that was to be demolished. Preservationists swang into action and found someone with an appropriate lot and the means who could and would save it, Anne Marie Villicanna and her husband Robin Salzer. They were ready to place the house on a lot marvellously simular to the lot Paul Williams had placed the house on in the first place, a blessing almost unknown in house saving. Everyone was happy. Then the neighbors found out. Pasadena's would be brahmin class. They were most displeased.
Seems that Ms. Villicanna had bought her lot from her father, Dr. Alex Villicanna. Dr. Villicanna is a well known local plastic surgon, art collector and all round heck of a nice guy. Over the years he has taken a lot of sag out of the old biddies of Old Pasadena, and you would think they would be happy and grateful to have him around, but not so. It seems Dr. Villincanna was born in Mexico City. Thirty years ago, Dr. Villicanna seems to have done the unforgivable, he moved into San Rafael, Pasadena's most uptight elite stuffy neighborhood. The neighbors are most displeased to have this kind, well educated, discrete, genteel man living near them. Seems they didnt want a house by THAT Architect on THAT piece of land. So they swang into action, wrote letters, filed objections and have seen to it that THAT house will not go THERE. When talking to some so called Preservationists, after getting past whatever persnickety code problems they could find or invent, the question, accusation, phrase would come up "You know she's a M e x i c a n" Thats the real deal.
Never mind that Anne Marie is the most Westridge girl one will ever meet. Never mind she does her job well and is professional to the bone. Never mind that Anne Marie represents what the people in San Rafael say they want out of immagrants, that is a totally assimilated into America high quality human being, they remember, ever so quietly that her father and therefore she, is a Mexican. Doesnt matter that her passport is US of A- shes a Mexican. Then they use everything else they can find to cover up what the real objection is.
At least in the old American South, the racists were an honest group. At least they told you, as they told Paul Revere Williams here with restrictive deed covenants, nothing will ever matter to us, your skin in a shade not pale enough. Here and now in their false genteelity, they can not be so forthright, so honest. Here in Pasadena's velvet racism, Paul Revere Williams, one of the best Architects America ever produced will be denied for all time the existence of one of his most treasured masterpieces, and Anne Marie Villicanna will be denied her house, the use of her property, and her equality, all on the basis of skin tone.
We have come such a long way, have we not?
Hype is a peculiar thing. It's well polished, and it's the lie, the quartered burl walnut veneer over cheap nasty termite infested pressboard, in one case a waste of wood, in another a waste of words.
Architecture is perhaps the most difficult of all art forms. Becoming an Architect takes many years in school, passing difficult tests and years of working often at below minumum wage, even after you pass the test before they will give you a Architects license. Then the Architect must go get clients, make designs that please both the client and his own artistic and career needs, and somehow get past the bankers and the dim bulbs at the local Building department. It's a Hurculean task to be an Architect.
Imagine on top of all those "normal" difficulties that one is a black man in the 1930's. Imagine that one is never allowed to own land where one builds, that one may not socialize with ones clients, that one must learn to sketch upside down so one will never be sitting next to one's clients, who are white while one is black and therefore always on guard not to offend the sensibilities of American Racism. Such was the case for Paul Revere Williams, who in spite of these almost insurmountable difficulties not only became an Architect but a highly skilled one who was most prolific.
Paul Revere Williams went beyond the facts and circumstances of his race to not only master Historic Style Architecture, but to pioneer "Hollywood Regency" and be the only practicioner to pull off that blend of Historicism and modernism without clunckyness, to pull it off seamlessly as one true thing, and then to move on to a American Organic Modernism. Paul Revere Williams was a MAN, in the sense that Louis B. Sullivan would mean, he owned his work and his effects, completely. He made spaces of trancendant spiritual being. Each of his works, small and large, is a complete work of art, yet a completely useful thing. Most Architects never master a single style. Paul Revere Williams mastered three and was a pioneer in two. What whould he have become, had his skin color not been used to hold him back? What blessings could America have had?
There was two years ago a Paul Williams masterpiece, the Landau house, that was to be demolished. Preservationists swang into action and found someone with an appropriate lot and the means who could and would save it, Anne Marie Villicanna and her husband Robin Salzer. They were ready to place the house on a lot marvellously simular to the lot Paul Williams had placed the house on in the first place, a blessing almost unknown in house saving. Everyone was happy. Then the neighbors found out. Pasadena's would be brahmin class. They were most displeased.
Seems that Ms. Villicanna had bought her lot from her father, Dr. Alex Villicanna. Dr. Villicanna is a well known local plastic surgon, art collector and all round heck of a nice guy. Over the years he has taken a lot of sag out of the old biddies of Old Pasadena, and you would think they would be happy and grateful to have him around, but not so. It seems Dr. Villincanna was born in Mexico City. Thirty years ago, Dr. Villicanna seems to have done the unforgivable, he moved into San Rafael, Pasadena's most uptight elite stuffy neighborhood. The neighbors are most displeased to have this kind, well educated, discrete, genteel man living near them. Seems they didnt want a house by THAT Architect on THAT piece of land. So they swang into action, wrote letters, filed objections and have seen to it that THAT house will not go THERE. When talking to some so called Preservationists, after getting past whatever persnickety code problems they could find or invent, the question, accusation, phrase would come up "You know she's a M e x i c a n" Thats the real deal.
Never mind that Anne Marie is the most Westridge girl one will ever meet. Never mind she does her job well and is professional to the bone. Never mind that Anne Marie represents what the people in San Rafael say they want out of immagrants, that is a totally assimilated into America high quality human being, they remember, ever so quietly that her father and therefore she, is a Mexican. Doesnt matter that her passport is US of A- shes a Mexican. Then they use everything else they can find to cover up what the real objection is.
At least in the old American South, the racists were an honest group. At least they told you, as they told Paul Revere Williams here with restrictive deed covenants, nothing will ever matter to us, your skin in a shade not pale enough. Here and now in their false genteelity, they can not be so forthright, so honest. Here in Pasadena's velvet racism, Paul Revere Williams, one of the best Architects America ever produced will be denied for all time the existence of one of his most treasured masterpieces, and Anne Marie Villicanna will be denied her house, the use of her property, and her equality, all on the basis of skin tone.
We have come such a long way, have we not?
posted by Red Taliesin at 3:46 PM
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