Gilbert Lester Leong (1911-1996) was a

Chinese-American Chinese Americans are Americans of Han Chinese ancestry. Chinese Americans constitute a subgroup of East Asian Americans which also constitute a subgroup of Asian Americans. Many Chinese Americans along with their ancestors trace lineage from m ...

architect An architect is a person who plans, designs and oversees the construction of buildings. To practice architecture means to provide services in connection with the design of buildings and the space within the site surrounding the buildings that h ...

who designed churches and public buildings in the

Los Angeles Los Angeles ( ; es, Los Ángeles, link=no , ), often referred to by its initials L.A., is the largest city in the state of California and the second most populous city in the United States after New York City, as well as one of the world' ...

area. He was the first Chinese-American to graduate from

USC USC most often refers to: * University of South Carolina, a public research university ** University of South Carolina System, the main university and its satellite campuses **South Carolina Gamecocks, the school athletic program * University of ...

with a degree in architecture. His designs helped shape the architecture of

postwar In Western usage, the phrase post-war era (or postwar era) usually refers to the time since the end of World War II. More broadly, a post-war period (or postwar period) is the interval immediately following the end of a war. A post-war period c ...

Los Angeles and

Chinatown A Chinatown () is an ethnic enclave of Chinese people located outside Greater China, most often in an urban setting. Areas known as "Chinatown" exist throughout the world, including Europe, North America, South America, Asia, Africa and Austra ...

. Leong was also a co-founder of the

East West Bank East West Bank (), the primary subsidiary of East West Bancorp, Inc., is the largest publicly traded bank headquartered in Southern California, United States. It was founded in 1973 in Los Angeles to serve the Chinese American community in S ...

in 1973. The bank was set up to serve the Chinese American community in

Southern California Southern California (commonly shortened to SoCal) is a geographic and Cultural area, cultural region that generally comprises the southern portion of the U.S. state of California. It includes the Los Angeles metropolitan area, the second most po ...

Education

*Leong studied painting and

sculpture Sculpture is the branch of the visual arts that operates in three dimensions. Sculpture is the three-dimensional art work which is physically presented in the dimensions of height, width and depth. It is one of the plastic arts. Durable sc ...

Chouinard Art Institute The Chouinard Art Institute was a professional art school founded in 1921 by Nelbert Murphy Chouinard (1879–1969) in the Westlake neighborhood of Los Angeles, California. In 1961, Walt and Roy Disney guided the merger of the Chouinard Art In ...

under

Millard Sheets Millard Owen Sheets (June 24, 1907 – March 31, 1989) was an American artist, teacher, and architectural designer. He was one of the earliest of the California Scene Painting artists and helped define the art movement. Many of his large-scale bu ...

degree in architecture (1936)

Career

After graduating from the University of Southern California with a degree in architecture, Leong worked with architects Paul Williams and

Harwell Hamilton Harris Harwell Hamilton Harris, (July 2, 1903 – November 18, 1990) was a modernist American architect, noted for his work in Southern California that assimilated European and American influences. He lived and worked in North Carolina from 1962 until ...

. Leong eventually began to work on his own. Leong designed both residential and public buildings in his career. He had an influence on the postwar California architecture of Los Angeles.

Exhibitions

*In 1936 the work of Leong was featured at the

Los Angeles Museum of Contemporary Art The Museum of Contemporary Art, Los Angeles (MOCA) is a contemporary art museum with two locations in greater Los Angeles, California. The main branch is located on Grand Avenue in Downtown Los Angeles, near the Walt Disney Concert Hall. MOCA's or ...

. The exhibition was entitled "Oriental Artists". *In 2012 Steven Wong and Floridia Cheung highlighted Leong's work at the

Chinese American Museum The Chinese American Museum (Chinese: 華美博物館; abbreviated CAM) is a museum located in Downtown Los Angeles as a part of the El Pueblo de Los Angeles Historic Monument. It is dedicated to the history and experience of Chinese Americans ...

in an exhibit called "Breaking Ground", alongside three contemporaneous Chinese American architects active in Los Angeles:

Eugene Kinn Choy Eugene Kinn Choy (1912–1991) was a Chinese-American architect best known for designing the Cathay Bank headquarters in Chinatown (1962–66) and several private residences in the Silver Lake neighborhood of Los Angeles. He was the second Chines ...

Helen Liu Fong Helen Liu Fong (January 14, 1927April 17, 2005) was a Chinese-American architect and interior designer from Los Angeles, California. Fong was an important figure in the Googie architecture movement, designing futuristic buildings like Norms Res ...

, and Gin D. Wong.

Designs

Other designs by Leong include: * Tract homes for builder

George Ponty George may refer to: People * George (given name) * George (surname) * George (singer), American-Canadian singer George Nozuka, known by the mononym George * George Washington, First President of the United States * George W. Bush, 43rd Presiden ...

in the Ponty-Vanowen (

San Fernando Valley The San Fernando Valley, known locally as the Valley, is an urbanized valley in Los Angeles County, California. Located to the north of the Los Angeles Basin, it contains a large portion of the City of Los Angeles, as well as unincorporated ar ...

) and Ponty-

Anaheim Anaheim ( ) is a city in northern Orange County, California, part of the Los Angeles metropolitan area. As of the 2020 United States Census, the city had a population of 346,824, making it the most populous city in Orange County, the 10th-most p ...

developments. * Homes for Judge

Delbert Wong Delbert Wong (, May 17, 1920 – March 10, 2006) was the first judge in the continental United States of Chinese descent. Early life and education Delbert Wong was born in Hanford, California on May 17, 1920, and raised a short distance away in ...

(1954) and Dr. Miguel Tirado (1959) in the

Silver Lake Silver is a chemical element with the Symbol (chemistry), symbol Ag (from the Latin ', derived from the Proto-Indo-European wikt:Reconstruction:Proto-Indo-European/h₂erǵ-, ''h₂erǵ'': "shiny" or "white") and atomic number 47. A soft, whi ...

neighborhood of Los Angeles. *Interior court and authentic Chinese garden in the Pacific Asian Museum in Pasadena. Co-designed * Logo for the Chinese Historical Society of Southern California

Personal

Leong was born in 1911: he was the son of Chinese immigrant parents. He was the first Chinese American to graduate from USC with a degree in architecture. Leong served in the U.S. Army during World War II, and worked for Paul R. Williams after the war. Leong and his family owned the Soochow Restaurant in Los Angeles. Leong co-founded the

in 1973. Leong died in Pasadena California on August 23, 1996. Leong married Florence "Sissee" See in 1942; she was the daughter of Chinatown businessman Fong See and the great-aunt of novelist

Lisa See Lisa See (born 18th February 1955) is an American writer and novelist. Her books include ''On Gold Mountain: The One-Hundred-Year Odyssey of My Chinese-American Family'' (1995), a detailed account of See's family history, and the novels '' Flower N ...

, who documented the family's history in her memoir ''

On Gold Mountain ''On Gold Mountain: The One-Hundred-Year Odyssey of My Chinese-American Family'' describes 100 years of author Lisa See's family history, providing a complex portrait of her family’s hard work, suffering, failures and successes as they moved fro ...

'' at Sissee's request. Leslee Leong, the daughter of Gilbert and Florence, inherited the F. Suie One Co., which had been founded by Fong See.

References

External links

* * Includes images of private homes and public buildings designed by Leong. {{DEFAULTSORT:Leong, Gilbert 1910s births 1996 deaths Chinese architects American architects of Chinese descent 20th-century American architects Architects from Los Angeles Modernist architects USC School of Architecture alumni United States Army personnel of World War II