Wenceslaus Sarmiento

Wenceslaus Sarmiento, also known as W.A. Sarmiento (1922 - ) is a Peruvian-born American modernist architect.

Sarmiento studied in various locations in South America, for eighteen months in the office of Oscar Niemeyer, before coming to the United States. He served as the head designer for the Bank Building Corporation of America from 1951 through 1961, after which he founded his own sixty-person Sarmiento Associates office based in St. Louis, Missouri. He retired in 1980.

Sarmiento designed hundreds of banks and other buildings in the postwar years of bank modernization in downtowns, and the construction of new suburban bank towers. His larger work appears as crisp International Style with a visible influence from Niemeyer, perhaps most obvious in his largest project, the 1968 Phoenix Financial Center on Central Avenue, Phoenix, Arizona. The smaller branch banks tend to be more playful, eye-catching, Googie projects.

Mr. Sarmiento lives in Santa Monica, California and is still active in the preservation of his buildings.

Major Work

* Pioneer Savings Bank Building, on Wilshire Boulevard, Los Angeles, 1953
* First Security Bank Building, Salt Lake City, 1955
* Fidelity Federal Savings & Loan Building, California, 1956
* Glendale Federal Savings and Loan, Glendale, California, 1959
* Newport Balboa Savings, Newport Beach, California, 1963
* Chancery Building, on the grounds of the Cathedral Basilica of St. Louis, circa 1965
* Phoenix Financial Center, Phoenix, Arizona, 1968

Sources

* [http://www.nationaltrust.org/news/2006/20061102_npa_first_security.html National Trust page on the preservation of the First Security Bank in Salt Lake City]
* [http://www.you-are-here.com/modern/panorama.html photo of a Sarmiento branch bank]
* Googie Redux, by Alan Hess