William Bill Leonard Pereira (1909 - 1985) was a somewhat eccentric and remarkably prolific architect who worked out of Los Angeles, known in his time for his love of science fiction and expensive cars but mostly for his unmistakable style of architecture, which came to define the look of mid-20th century America.

Pereira's buildings were often quite stark and sterile in their appearance (owing largely to the science fiction of the era) but with a certain flair that made them unmistakable.

Career as an architect

Born in Chicago, Illinois, he and his brother Hal moved to Los Angeles in their early 20s. After working as a solo architect during the Great Depression and a brief stint as a Hollywood production designer, he finally hit it big when he formed a partnership with novice architect Charles Luckman in the early 1950s. The duo went on to design some of Los Angeles's most well-known buildings, including the famed Theme Building at Los Angeles International Airport.

After parting ways with Luckman in 1959, Pereira formed the third and final company of his career, William L. Pereira & Associates. In the 1960s and 1970s, Pereira and his team completed over 250 projects. His buildings were easily identified by their unmistakable style, often taking unusual forms such as pyramids and ziggurats. His buildings usually projected a grand presence, heavy-set in appearance and often sitting atop "pedestals" that were themselves an integral part of the building. Many of his buildings were complimented by water features and some were almost entirely surrounded by water. The Los Angeles County Museum of Art, for instance, was a complex of three Googie-esque buildings rising up out of a lake and interconnected by a series of causeways and bridges.

Pereira's material of choice in creating his unique geometric forms was pre-cast concrete. Working in this medium, he could create his impressive facades by simply attaching them as panels on to the steel frame of the building.

Legacy

By the time of his death in 1985, Pereira had over 400 projects to his name. Out of this immense body of work, only two have really stood out in the public mind: the master-planned cities of Irvine and Newport Beach in Orange County, California, and the Transamerica Pyramid in San Francisco, California.

His firm was taken over upon his death by his two primary cohorts, Scott Johnson and Bill Fain. He is survived by his wife Bronya Galef, and sons Arthur and William Jr.