Julia Morgan
Encyclopedia
Julia Morgan was an American
United States
The United States of America is a federal constitutional republic comprising fifty states and a federal district...

 architect
Architect
An architect is a person trained in the planning, design and oversight of the construction of buildings. To practice architecture means to offer or render services in connection with the design and construction of a building, or group of buildings and the space within the site surrounding the...

. The architect of over 700 buildings in California, she is best known for her work on Hearst Castle
Hearst Castle
Hearst Castle is a National Historic Landmark mansion located on the Central Coast of California, United States. It was designed by architect Julia Morgan between 1919 and 1947 for newspaper magnate William Randolph Hearst, who died in 1951. In 1957, the Hearst Corporation donated the property to...

 in San Simeon, California
San Simeon, California
San Simeon is a census-designated place on the Pacific coast of San Luis Obispo County, California. Its position along State Route 1 is approximately halfway between Los Angeles and San Francisco, each of those cities being roughly 230 mi away...

. Throughout her long career, she also designed multiple buildings for institutions serving women and girls.

Early life and education

Born in San Francisco, California
San Francisco, California
San Francisco , officially the City and County of San Francisco, is the financial, cultural, and transportation center of the San Francisco Bay Area, a region of 7.15 million people which includes San Jose and Oakland...

, she was raised in Oakland
Oakland, California
Oakland is a major West Coast port city on San Francisco Bay in the U.S. state of California. It is the eighth-largest city in the state with a 2010 population of 390,724...

 and graduated from Oakland High School
Oakland High School (California)
Oakland Senior High School is a public high school in California. Established in 1869, it is the oldest high school in Oakland, California and the sixth oldest high school in the state.-Background:...

 in 1890. She graduated from the University of California, Berkeley
University of California, Berkeley
The University of California, Berkeley , is a teaching and research university established in 1868 and located in Berkeley, California, USA...

, in 1894 with a degree in civil engineering
Civil engineering
Civil engineering is a professional engineering discipline that deals with the design, construction, and maintenance of the physical and naturally built environment, including works like roads, bridges, canals, dams, and buildings...

. At the urging of her friend and mentor Bernard Maybeck
Bernard Maybeck
Bernard Ralph Maybeck was a architect in the Arts and Crafts Movement of the early 20th century. He was a professor at University of California, Berkeley...

, whom she met in her final year in undergraduate school, she headed to Paris
Paris
Paris is the capital and largest city in France, situated on the river Seine, in northern France, at the heart of the Île-de-France region...

 to apply to the famous Ecole des Beaux-Arts
École des Beaux-Arts
École des Beaux-Arts refers to a number of influential art schools in France. The most famous is the École nationale supérieure des Beaux-Arts, now located on the left bank in Paris, across the Seine from the Louvre, in the 6th arrondissement. The school has a history spanning more than 350 years,...

.

Denied at first because the school was not accepting women, and a second time because she failed the entrance exam (she claimed in a letter that she had been failed deliberately because she was a woman), after two years she finally passed the entrance exams in the architecture program, placing 13th out of 376 applicants, and was duly admitted. She was the first woman to graduate with a degree in architecture from the school in Paris. American architect Fay Kellogg
Fay Kellogg
Fay Kellogg was described as "the foremost woman architect in the United States" in the early years of the 20th century. She specialized in steel construction.-Education and early career:...

 (1871-1918) was studying in Paris around the same time, advocating for the admittance of women to the school, but acceptance came too late for her to attend.

Career

Upon her return from Paris she took employment with the San Francisco architect John Galen Howard
John Galen Howard
John Galen Howard was an American architect.He is best known for his work as the supervising architect of the Master Plan for the University of California, Berkeley campus, and for founding the University of California's architecture program...

 who was at that time supervising the University of California
University of California
The University of California is a public university system in the U.S. state of California. Under the California Master Plan for Higher Education, the University of California is a part of the state's three-tier public higher education system, which also includes the California State University...

 Master Plan
University of California, Berkeley Campus Architecture
The University of California, Berkeley campus and its surrounding community are home to a number of notable buildings by early 20th-century campus architect John Galen Howard, his peer Bernard Maybeck , and Maybeck's student Julia Morgan...

. Morgan worked on several buildings on the Berkeley campus, most notably providing the decorative elements for the Hearst Mining Building, and designs for the Hearst Greek Theatre
Hearst Greek Theatre
The William Randolph Hearst Greek Theatre, known locally as simply the Greek Theatre, is an 8,500-seat amphitheater owned and operated by the University of California, Berkeley in Berkeley, California, USA....

.

In 1904, she opened her own office in San Francisco
San Francisco, California
San Francisco , officially the City and County of San Francisco, is the financial, cultural, and transportation center of the San Francisco Bay Area, a region of 7.15 million people which includes San Jose and Oakland...

. One of her earliest works from this period was North Star House in Grass Valley, California
Grass Valley, California
-2010:The 2010 United States Census reported that Grass Valley had a population of 12,860. The population density was 2,711.3 people per square mile . The racial makeup of Grass Valley was 11,493 White, 46 African American, 208 Native American, 188 Asian, 9 Pacific Islander, 419 from other...

, commissioned in 1906 by mining engineer Arthur De Wint Foote
Arthur De Wint Foote
Arthur De Wint Foote was a mining and civil engineer who built Foote's Crossing across the Middle Yuba River and Foote's Crossing Road , and designed the hydraulic wheel for the North Star Mine Powerhouse, now a California Historical Landmark.-Early years:Foote was born...

 and his wife, the author and illustrator, Mary Hallock Foote
Mary Hallock Foote
Mary Hallock Foote was an American author and illustrator. She is best known for her illustrated short stories and novels portraying life in the mining communities of the turn-of-the-century American West.-Overview:...

. Naturally, many commissions followed the 1906 San Francisco earthquake
1906 San Francisco earthquake
The San Francisco earthquake of 1906 was a major earthquake that struck San Francisco, California, and the coast of Northern California at 5:12 a.m. on Wednesday, April 18, 1906. The most widely accepted estimate for the magnitude of the earthquake is a moment magnitude of 7.9; however, other...

, ensuring her financial success.

Hearst projects

The most famous of Morgan's patrons was the newspaper magnate and antiquities collector William Randolph Hearst
William Randolph Hearst
William Randolph Hearst was an American business magnate and leading newspaper publisher. Hearst entered the publishing business in 1887, after taking control of The San Francisco Examiner from his father...

, who had been introduced to Morgan by his mother Phoebe Apperson Hearst, the chief patron of the University of California at Berkeley. It is believed that this introduction led to Morgan's first downstate commission by Hearst, circa 1914, for the design of the Los Angeles Examiner
Los Angeles Herald-Examiner
The Los Angeles Herald Examiner was a major Los Angeles daily newspaper, published Monday through Friday in the afternoon, and in the morning on Saturdays and Sundays. It was part of the Hearst syndicate. The afternoon Herald-Express and the morning Examiner, both of which had been publishing in...

 Building, a Mission revival style
Mission Revival Style architecture
The Mission Revival Style was an architectural movement that began in the late 19th century for a colonial style's revivalism and reinterpretation, which drew inspiration from the late 18th and early 19th century Spanish missions in California....

 project that included contributions by Los Angeles architects William J. Dodd
William J. Dodd
William J. Dodd was a Canadian-born American architect and designer who worked mainly in Louisville, Kentucky from 1886 to 1912 and in Los Angeles, California from 1912 until his death. Dodd rose from the so-called Chicago School of architecture, engineering and design innovations of the late 19th...

 and J. Martyn Haenkel.
It's closed but still located at the southwest corner of Broadway and 11th Streets on a city block in Downtown Los Angeles
Downtown Los Angeles
Downtown Los Angeles is the central business district of Los Angeles, California, United States, located close to the geographic center of the metropolitan area...

, awaiting adaptive reuse.

In 1919 Hearst selected Morgan as the architect for La Cuesta Encantada, better known as Hearst Castle
Hearst Castle
Hearst Castle is a National Historic Landmark mansion located on the Central Coast of California, United States. It was designed by architect Julia Morgan between 1919 and 1947 for newspaper magnate William Randolph Hearst, who died in 1951. In 1957, the Hearst Corporation donated the property to...

, which was built atop the family campsite overlooking San Simeon harbor. The project proved to be her largest and most complex, as Hearst's vision for his estate grew ever grander during planning and construction over the decades. It later included The Hacienda, a residence – private guest house complex built in hybrid Mission Revival
Mission Revival Style architecture
The Mission Revival Style was an architectural movement that began in the late 19th century for a colonial style's revivalism and reinterpretation, which drew inspiration from the late 18th and early 19th century Spanish missions in California....

, Spanish Colonial Revival, and Moorish Revival
Moorish Revival
Moorish Revival or Neo-Moorish is one of the exotic revival architectural styles that were adopted by architects of Europe and the Americas in the wake of the Romanticist fascination with all things oriental...

 styles. It was located a day's horseback ride inland from Hearst Castle next to the Mission San Antonio de Padua
Mission San Antonio de Padua
Mission San Antonio de Padua was founded on July 14, 1771, the third mission founded in Alta California by Father Presidente Junípero Serra, and site of the first Christian marriage and first use of fired-tile roofing in Upper California.-History:...

 near Jolon, California
Jolon, California
Jolon is an unincorporated community in Monterey County, California. It is located south of King City, at an elevation of 971 feet . Jolon is located in the Salinas Valley in a rural area located about 6 miles from Mission San Antonio de Padua, and is part of Fort Hunter Liggett.The town was...

. Her work on 'the Castle' and San Simeon Ranch continued until 1937, ending only due to Hearst's declining health.

Morgan became William Randolph Hearst's principal architect, producing the designs for dozens of buildings, such as Phoebe Apperson Hearst's Wyntoon
Wyntoon
Wyntoon is the name of a private estate on the McCloud River in rural Siskiyou County, California, owned by the Hearst Corporation. Famous architects Willis Polk, Bernard Maybeck and Julia Morgan all designed structures for Wyntoon....

 which he inherited. It is also a 'castle,' with a "Bavarian village" of four villas all on 50000 acres (202 km²) of forest reserve which includes the McCloud River
McCloud River
The McCloud River is a river that flows east of and parallel to the Sacramento River, long, in northern California in the United States. It drains a scenic mountainous area of the Cascade Range north of Redding...

 near Mount Shasta
Mount Shasta
Mount Shasta is located at the southern end of the Cascade Range in Siskiyou County, California and at is the second highest peak in the Cascades and the fifth highest in California...

 in Northern California. She also did studio and site work for the uncompleted Babicora, Hearst's 1625000 acres (6,576.1 km²) Chihuahua, Mexico
Chihuahua, Mexico
Chihuahua, Mexico, may refer to:* The State of Chihuahua in Mexico* The City of Chihuahua, Chihuahua, its capital...

 cattle rancho
Rancho
Rancho may refer to:*Alta California land grants in the 19th century; see Ranchos of California*Rancho High School, a North Las Vegas high school*Rancho Los Amigos National Rehabilitation Center**Rancho Los Amigos Scale...

 and retreat.

YWCA projects

Julia Morgan’s affiliation with the YWCA
YWCA
The YWCA USA is the United States branch of a women's membership movement that strives to create opportunities for women's growth, leadership and power in order to attain a common vision—to eliminate racism and empower women. The YWCA is a non-profit organization, the first of which was founded in...

 began when Phoebe Apperson Hearst recommended her for the organization’s Asilomar summer conference center. The Asilomar Conference Center
Asilomar State Beach
Asilomar State Beach is a state park unit of California, USA, providing public access to rocky coast and dune habitat on the Monterey Peninsula. The property includes the Asilomar Conference Grounds, a conference center built in 1913 that is now a National Historic Landmark...

, no longer YWCA but State-run, is still in Pacific Grove
Pacific Grove, California
Pacific Grove is a coastal city in Monterey County, California, USA, with a population of 15,041 as of the 2010 census, down from 15,522 as of the 2000 census...

 near Monterey, California
Monterey, California
The City of Monterey in Monterey County is located on Monterey Bay along the Pacific coast in Central California. Monterey lies at an elevation of 26 feet above sea level. As of the 2010 census, the city population was 27,810. Monterey is of historical importance because it was the capital of...

. Morgan also designed YWCAs in California, Utah, Arizona, and Hawaii.

Five of the Southern California YWCA buildings were designed by Morgan.
The 1918 Harbor Area YWCA in a Craftsman building is still standing, as is the 1926 Hollywood Studio Club YWCA. Morgan’s Riverside
Riverside, California
Riverside is a city in Riverside County, California, United States, and the county seat of the eponymous county. Named for its location beside the Santa Ana River, it is the largest city in the Riverside-San Bernardino-Ontario metropolitan area of Southern California, 4th largest inland California...

 YWCA from 1929 still stands, but as the Riverside Art Museum
Riverside Art Museum
Riverside Art Museum is an art museum in the historic Mission Inn District of Riverside, California. A non-profit organization, its mission is to "to serve the varied communities of the Inland Empire by providing visual art of the finest quality and related educational and interpretive...

. Her 1925 Long Beach Italian Renaissance branch has been demolished. The "gorgeous" Pasadena
Pasadena, California
Pasadena is a city in Los Angeles County, California, United States. Although famous for hosting the annual Rose Bowl football game and Tournament of Roses Parade, Pasadena is the home to many scientific and cultural institutions, including the California Institute of Technology , the Jet...

 YWCA is being acquired by the city for restoration and public use in 2010, after several decades of abandonment, closure, and slowly falling apart.

She also designed YWCAs in Northern California
Northern California
Northern California is the northern portion of the U.S. state of California. The San Francisco Bay Area , and Sacramento as well as its metropolitan area are the main population centers...

, including those in San Francisco's Chinatown and Oakland
Oakland, California
Oakland is a major West Coast port city on San Francisco Bay in the U.S. state of California. It is the eighth-largest city in the state with a 2010 population of 390,724...

.

Mills College and other projects

The following are her contributions to the women's college Mills College
Mills College
Mills College is an independent liberal arts women's college founded in 1852 that offers bachelor's degrees to women and graduate degrees and certificates to women and men. Located in Oakland, California, Mills was the first women's college west of the Rockies. The institution was initially founded...

 in the East Bay foothills of Oakland, California
Oakland, California
Oakland is a major West Coast port city on San Francisco Bay in the U.S. state of California. It is the eighth-largest city in the state with a 2010 population of 390,724...

, which, like her work for the YWCA, were done in the hopes of advancing opportunities for women:
  • The El Campanil, which is believed to be the first bell tower
    Bell tower
    A bell tower is a tower which contains one or more bells, or which is designed to hold bells, even if it has none. In the European tradition, such a tower most commonly serves as part of a church and contains church bells. When attached to a city hall or other civic building, especially in...

     on a United States college campus and the first reinforced concrete structure on the west coast. Morgan's reputation grew when the tower was unscathed by the 1906 San Francisco earthquake. The bells in the tower "were cast for the World's Columbian Exposition
    World's Columbian Exposition
    The World's Columbian Exposition was a World's Fair held in Chicago in 1893 to celebrate the 400th anniversary of Christopher Columbus's arrival in the New World in 1492. Chicago bested New York City; Washington, D.C.; and St...

     (Chicago-1893) and given to Mills by a trustee". It is not to be confused with The Campanile, a nickname for Sather Tower
    Sather Tower
    Sather Tower is a campanile on the University of California, Berkeley campus. It is more commonly known as The Campanile due to its resemblance to the Campanile di San Marco in Venice, and serves as UC Berkeley's most recognizable symbol. It was completed in 1914 and first opened to the public in...

    , the clock/bell tower of nearby UC Berkeley. Morgan helped draft parts of the UC Berkeley campus under John Galen Howard, but the Sather Tower was not her design.
  • The Margaret Carnegie Library (1906), named after Andrew Carnegie's daughter.
  • The Ming Quong Home for Chinese girls, built in 1924 and purchased by Mills in 1936, which was renamed Alderwood Hall and now houses the Julia Morgan School for Girls.
  • The Student Union (1916)
  • Kapiolani Cottage, which has served as an infirmary, faculty housing, and administration offices.
  • Mills's original gymnasium and pool, which have been replaced by the Tea Shop and Suzanne Adams Plaza.


Her other projects include the redesign of the landmark Fairmont Hotel in San Francisco after it was damaged by the earthquake of 1906. She was chosen because of her then-rare knowledge of earthquake-resistant, reinforced concrete
Reinforced concrete
Reinforced concrete is concrete in which reinforcement bars , reinforcement grids, plates or fibers have been incorporated to strengthen the concrete in tension. It was invented by French gardener Joseph Monier in 1849 and patented in 1867. The term Ferro Concrete refers only to concrete that is...

 construction.

The former St. John's Presbyterian Church is now the Julia Morgan Center for the Arts, on College
Avenue in Berkeley, California
Berkeley, California
Berkeley is a city on the east shore of the San Francisco Bay in Northern California, United States. Its neighbors to the south are the cities of Oakland and Emeryville. To the north is the city of Albany and the unincorporated community of Kensington...

. Others are the Chapel of the Chimes
Chapel of the Chimes (Oakland, California)
Chapel of the Chimes was founded in 1909 as a crematory and columbarium in Oakland, California. The present building dates largely from a 1928 redevelopment based on the designs of the architect Julia Morgan. The Moorish- and Gothic-inspired interior is a maze of small rooms featuring ornate...

 in Oakland, the sanctuary of Ocean Avenue Presbyterian Church at 32 Ocean Avenue, San Francisco, where Mission Bay Community Church also meets, and the large Berkeley City Club
Berkeley City Club
The Berkeley City Club, formerly known as the Berkeley Women's City Club, was organized by women in Berkeley, California in 1927, to contribute to social, civic, and cultural progress...

, adjacent to University of California. Her work also included a World War I
World War I
World War I , which was predominantly called the World War or the Great War from its occurrence until 1939, and the First World War or World War I thereafter, was a major war centred in Europe that began on 28 July 1914 and lasted until 11 November 1918...

 YWCA Hostess House in Palo Alto
Palo Alto, California
Palo Alto is a California charter city located in the northwest corner of Santa Clara County, in the San Francisco Bay Area of California, United States. The city shares its borders with East Palo Alto, Mountain View, Los Altos, Los Altos Hills, Stanford, Portola Valley, and Menlo Park. It is...

 which was later the site of the MacArthur Park Restaurant
MacArthur Park
MacArthur Park is a park in the Westlake neighborhood of Los Angeles, California, named after General Douglas MacArthur and designated city of Los Angeles Historic Cultural Monument #100.- Geography :...



Some of her residential projects, most of them located in the San Francisco Bay Area
San Francisco Bay Area
The San Francisco Bay Area, commonly known as the Bay Area, is a populated region that surrounds the San Francisco and San Pablo estuaries in Northern California. The region encompasses metropolitan areas of San Francisco, Oakland, and San Jose, along with smaller urban and rural areas...

, may be categorized as ultimate bungalows, a term often associated with the work of Greene and Greene
Greene and Greene
Greene and Greene was an architectural firm established by brothers Charles Sumner Greene and Henry Mather Greene , influential early 20th Century American architects...

 and some of Morgan's other contemporaries and teachers, express the Arts and Crafts Movement
Arts and Crafts movement
Arts and Crafts was an international design philosophy that originated in England and flourished between 1860 and 1910 , continuing its influence until the 1930s...

 in the American Craftsman style
American Craftsman
The American Craftsman Style, or the American Arts and Crafts Movement, is an American domestic architectural, interior design, landscape design, applied arts, and decorative arts style and lifestyle philosophy that began in the last years of the 19th century. As a comprehensive design and art...

 of architecture. Several houses are on San Francisco's Russian Hill, as was her own residence.

Legacy

Julia Morgan is buried in the Mountain View Cemetery in the hills of Oakland, California
Oakland, California
Oakland is a major West Coast port city on San Francisco Bay in the U.S. state of California. It is the eighth-largest city in the state with a 2010 population of 390,724...

.

California Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger
Arnold Schwarzenegger
Arnold Alois Schwarzenegger is an Austrian-American former professional bodybuilder, actor, businessman, investor, and politician. Schwarzenegger served as the 38th Governor of California from 2003 until 2011....

 and First Lady Maria Shriver
Maria Shriver
Maria Owings Shriver is an American journalist and author of six best-selling books. She has received a Peabody Award, and was co-anchor for NBC's Emmy-winning coverage of the 1988 Summer Olympics. As executive producer of The Alzheimer's Project, Shriver earned two Emmy Awards and an Academy of...

 announced on May 28, 2008 that Julia Morgan would be inducted into the California Hall of Fame
California Hall of Fame
Conceived by First Lady Maria Shriver, the California Hall of Fame was established at The California Museum for History, Women and the Arts to honor individuals and families who embody California’s innovative spirit and have made their mark on history...

, located at The California Museum for History, Women and the Arts
The California Museum for History, Women and the Arts
The California Museum, formerly The California Museum for History, Women and the Arts – home of the California Hall of Fame – is housed in the State Archives Building in Sacramento, one block from the State Capitol...

. The induction ceremony took place on December 15 and her great-niece accepted the honor in her place.

The Julia Morgan Ballroom at the Merchants Exchange Building
Merchants Exchange Building (San Francisco)
The Merchants Exchange Building was rebuilt in 1904 at 465 California Street, San Francisco. Designed by architects Daniel Burnham and Willis Polk, who were working in Burnham's San Francisco office at the time, it was built in 1903, substantially destroyed in the 1906 earthquake and fire and ...

 in San Francisco was named in her honor.

Books


Further reading


External links

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