Smith and Williams was an architecture firm based in South Pasadena, California and created in 1949. They were noted for their Modernist and Googie design style. The firm developed buildings and master planned communities. The Smith-Williams partnership was active until 1973.
They were described by Robert Winter as being experts in domestic architecture.[1]
Whitney R. Smith and Wayne Richard Williams began working together in 1946. Smith left the architecture firm in 1973.
Whitney Rowland Smith (Pasadena, California - March 13, 2002, Bend, Oregon) attended Pasadena City College, then graduated from USC around 1934. He then worked under Harwell Hamilton Harris and William Pereira in 1939–1940. He taught architecture at USC around 1945. He contributed to four designs in the Case Study Houses; two were built.[2]
January 16, 1911,Wayne Richard Williams (1919Los Angeles, California - November 27, 2007, Leesburg, Virginia) was born in Los Angeles in 1919, and went on to study architecture at USC until World War II, when he designed military buildings. After the war he received his architecture bachelor's degree from USC in 1947. He worked under Smith at USC, then established the firm together. Later, Williams worked for Giuseppe Cecchi's International Developers Inc. Williams became a fellow at the American Institute of Architects in 1964. Williams taught at UC-Berkeley in 1970.[3]
,Master planned communities:
Cal Poly Pomona, 1967 The rapid expansion of colleges and universities in California during the 1950s and 1960s offered many architects the opportunity to design buildings on their brand new campuses. Smith and Williams designed a residence hall, reception center, and cafeteria for the California State Polytechnic University campus at Pomona.
California City was chosen as a building site because of its' [sic] proximity to highways, railroads, military bases, and mining. It also was purported to sit on top of an underground aquifer that would never run dry.