1. William Leonard Pereira was an American architect from Chicago, Illinois, who was noted for his futuristic designs of landmark buildings such as the Transamerica Pyramid in San Francisco.
20 Facts About William Pereira
1. 2.
William Pereira worked out of Los Angeles and was known for his love of science fiction and expensive cars, but mostly for his style of architecture, which helped define the look of mid-20th century America.
3.
William Pereira graduated from the School of Architecture, University of Illinois and began his career in his home city.
4.
William Pereira had some of his earliest architectural experience helping to draft the master plan for the 1933 "A Century of Progress" Chicago World's Fair.
5.
William Pereira had two wives, former model and actress Margaret McConnell and Bronya Galef; the latter marriage ending with his death.
6.
William Pereira chose to live in the beautiful Emerald Bay community in north Laguna Beach, and in later life always considered Laguna as his home town.
7.
William Pereira died of cancer at age 76 at Cedars-Sinai Medical Center in Los Angeles.
8.
William Pereira moved to Los Angeles in 1933, and Hal relocated there in that decade.
9.
William Pereira had a brief stint as a Hollywood art director.
10.
William Pereira was the art director for This Gun for Hire, Alan Ladd's first film.
11.
William Pereira was production designer of the drama Jane Eyre, and of the war drama Since You Went Away.
12.
In 1949, William Pereira became a professor of architecture at the University of Southern California.
13.
William Pereira then formed a partnership with fellow architect and classmate, Charles Luckman, in the early 1950s.
14.
William Pereira later worked with Ian McHarg on the plan for the new town of The Woodlands, Texas.
15.
William Pereira designed the campus plans of the University of Southern California, the University of California, Irvine, and Pepperdine University.
16.
In 1967, William Pereira founded Aero Commuter, a Los Angeles area commuter airline that eventually became Golden West Airlines.
17.
William Pereira's son was one of the founders of Air California.
18.
William Pereira is responsible for creating the monumental Spanish-inspired facades that defined Robinson's department stores for nearly 20 years, and he was the architect of Pepperdine University at Malibu, named by the Princeton Review as the most beautiful college campus in America.
19.
William Pereira's most praised and criticized work was probably the Transamerica building, which was completed in 1972.
20.
William Pereira's firm was taken over upon his death by his two primary cohorts, Scott Johnson and Bill Fain.