Michael H. Anderson, RA (BASE Architecture)

This two-story structure in Compton, designed by BASE Architecture, serves the community with programs focused on senior citizens, activity spaces, a gym, and a media room. The center is named after Compton’s first black mayor, who was elected in 1969.

Barbara H. Bouza, FAIA, (Gensler)

The Fountainview at Gonda Westside is a housing complex for seniors run by the Los Angeles Jewish Home. The Playa Vista project was designed by a team at Gensler under managing director Barbara Bouza.

Gabrielle Bullock, FAIA, (Perkins + Will)

Pei Partnership served as the design architect for the structure, with Perkins + Will serving as the executive architect for the prominent hospital.

Charles E. Fleming, AIA & Carey K. Jenkins, FAIA (Jenkins Fleming Architects)

The firm of Fleming, Jenkins Architects was part of a three-architect team that worked on the hospital, but Fleming, Jenkins alone was responsible for the design of the dormitory for physicians. The hospital, Watts’s first, was a major milestone. According to an article in the December 1974 issue of Ebony magazine, a commission headed by a former head of the CIA concluded that one of the main causes of the Watts uprising was “the absence of even one adequate and accessible medical facility within the community of some 400,000.” The hospital opened in 1972.

James H. Garrott, AIA

Not to be confused with the other Golden State Mutual Life Insurance building on West Adams Boulevard, this Spanish Colonial Revival structure is considered the insurance company’s first permanent home. It was commissioned specifically for the company, once the largest black-owned business west of the Mississippi, and built in 1928. It’s listed on the National Register of Historic Places and is also a city Historic-Cultural Monument.

According to the application for national historic status, the architect, Garrott, “was one of the two most notable African American architects in Los Angeles; the other was Paul Williams.” Garrott was the second black member of the AIA (after Williams). Garrott also collaborated with Gregory Ain on a Silver Lake office building which the two men shared.

Paul R. Williams, AIA

This five-story office complex, designed in the Late Moderne style by famed architect Paul R. Williams, opened as the company’s new headquarters in 1949. The lobby still contains two original murals—“Exploration and Colonization” by Charles Alston​ and ​Hale Woodruff’s “Settlement and Development.” Together the pieces were named “The Negro in California History.”

The black-owned business folded in 2009, but the building remains a stunning marker of achievement.

Robert Kennard, FAIA, (Kennard Design Group)

Inspired by the success of Paul R. Williams, who designed mansions for celebrities and the LA elite, Robert Kennard began his career creating residential designs. He later shifted to work on public buildings, the New York Times wrote in Kennard’s 1995 obituary. According to SoCal NOMA, this police station was one of his last works.

James E. Silcott, AIA

Silcott was the first African American project architect for both Los Angeles County and the University of California. In addition to this UCLA eye clinic, Silcott designed the UCLA Boathouse at Marina del Rey and the Inglewood Courts Building.

Norma M. Sklarek, FAIA (Gruen Associates)

Norma Sklarek, the first black woman to become a licensed architect in the U.S., was the director at Gruen Associates at the time when Cesar Pelli, then a partner at Gruen, designed the Pacific Design Center’s blue building, nicknamed the Blue Whale. Sklarek’s duties at Gruen included “coordinating the technical aspects of major projects” including the Blue Whale, according to the Los Angeles Times’s obituary for Sklarek. In its obituary for Sklarek, Inc. magazine explained that she was responsible for the actual building and construction of the Blue Whale.

Gregory K. Williams, RA (MASS Architecture & Design)

The Culver City eatery inside the Helms Bakery complex won an award for restaurant design from the AIA in 2011.

Harold L. Williams, FAIA (Harold Williams Associates) and Mark E. Graham, AIA (WLC Architects)

WLC was the lead architect on the building of the school, which was completed in 1996. Harold Williams Associates was the associate architect. The school is constantly touted as a success story for sending many graduates to top-tier colleges. The school is fronted by an enormous concrete relief public art piece by Tina Allen depicting Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. and Dr. Charles Drew.

Paul R. Williams, AIA

The building is attributed to Pereira & Luckman, but Williams was part of the team that designed LAX’s striking Theme Building. The trailblazing architect made a name for himself designing homes for such clients as Frank Sinatra and Lucille Ball and Desi Arnaz. Williams was the first African American member of the American Institute of Architects and later became the organization’s first black fellow in 1957.

Paul R. Williams, AIA

A city historic-cultural monument, the house Paul R. Williams designed for himself and his family is a gem in Lafayette Square, a neighborhood of stunning historic homes. The residence is a graceful mix of Hollywood Regency hallmarks—oval spaces, sweeping curves—and more Modernist influences, seen in the home’s International-style exterior, says The Paul R. Williams Project. The house came on the market for the first time ever in December 2017 and sold about three months later for a little under its $2.395 million asking price.

Prior to 1948, Williams would not have been able to live in Lafayette Square, The Paul R. Williams Project notes. The community was off-limits to non-whites via a so-called restrictive deed covenant, which prevented African-Americans, Asians, and other non-whites from living in the neighborhood. Williams built his home here in 1952.

Williams, Garrott & Young

Built in 1929, this church was built for the congregation of St. Phillip the Evangelist Church, the first historically African American congregation in the Episcopal Diocese of Los Angeles and the second oldest historically black Episcopal parish west of the Mississippi, according to the church’s city landmark application. The structure was designed by Williams, Garrott & Young; the Williams was Paul R. Williams, and the Garrott was James H. Garrott. Williams was a member of the congregation and also oversaw the design of the parish hall, according to the LA Sentinel.

Roy Sealey, AIA

The gloriously Googie Edgewater Inn was built in the lead-up to the 1967 World’s Fair, which was planned for Long Beach but never materialized. According to Longbeachize, the hotel held 200 rooms and suites, two cocktails lounges, meeting space to 1,500 people, a “yacht catering service,” and the nation’s first yacht dealership in a hotel. Each hotel room had either a courtyard or oceanfront view. The flashy exterior included “a folded-plate roofline,” screens of concrete block, and a collection of Y-shaped piers that touched the roofline.

Architect Roy Sealey studied at USC and worked in the office of Paul R. Williams before striking out on his own. The Edgewater Inn, more recently called the Seaport Marina Hotel, was demolished in October 2017.