Julia Morgan (January 20, 1872 – February 2, 1957) was an
AmericanThe United States of America is a federal constitutional republic comprising fifty states and a federal district...
architectAn architect is trained and licensed in planning and designing buildings, and participates in supervising the construction of a building. Etymologically, architect derives from the Latin architectus, itself derived from the Greek arkhitekton , i.e. chief builder...
. The architect of over 700 buildings in California, she is best known for her work on
Hearst CastleHearst Castle is a palatial estate on the central California coast and a National Historic Landmark. It was designed by architect Julia Morgan for newspaper magnate William Randolph Hearst from 1919 until 1947. In 1957 the Hearst Corporation donated the property to the state of California...
in
San Simeon, CaliforniaSan Simeon is an unincorporated settlement 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 designed multiple buildings for institutions serving women and girls.
Born in
San Francisco, CaliforniaSan Francisco is the fourth most populous city in California and the 12th most populous city in the United States, with a 2008 estimated population of 808,976. It is the eighth most densely populated city in the U.S. and is the financial, cultural, and transportation center of the larger San...
, she was raised in
OaklandOakland is the eighth-largest city in the U.S. state of California and a major West Coast port city, located on San Francisco Bay about eight miles east of the City of San Francisco. Oakland is a major hub city for the Bay Area subregion collectively called the East Bay, and it is the county seat...
and graduated from
Oakland High SchoolOakland 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, BerkeleyThe University of California, Berkeley is a public research university located in Berkeley, California, United States. The oldest of the ten major campuses affiliated with the University of California, Berkeley offers some 300 undergraduate and graduate degree programs in a wide range of disciplines...
, in 1894 with a degree in
civil engineeringCivil engineering is a professional engineering discipline that deals with the design, construction and maintenance of the physical and naturally built environment, including works such as bridges, roads, canals, dams and buildings...
.
Julia Morgan (January 20, 1872 – February 2, 1957) was an
AmericanThe United States of America is a federal constitutional republic comprising fifty states and a federal district...
architectAn architect is trained and licensed in planning and designing buildings, and participates in supervising the construction of a building. Etymologically, architect derives from the Latin architectus, itself derived from the Greek arkhitekton , i.e. chief builder...
. The architect of over 700 buildings in California, she is best known for her work on
Hearst CastleHearst Castle is a palatial estate on the central California coast and a National Historic Landmark. It was designed by architect Julia Morgan for newspaper magnate William Randolph Hearst from 1919 until 1947. In 1957 the Hearst Corporation donated the property to the state of California...
in
San Simeon, CaliforniaSan Simeon is an unincorporated settlement 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 designed multiple buildings for institutions serving women and girls.
Early life and education
Born in
San Francisco, CaliforniaSan Francisco is the fourth most populous city in California and the 12th most populous city in the United States, with a 2008 estimated population of 808,976. It is the eighth most densely populated city in the U.S. and is the financial, cultural, and transportation center of the larger San...
, she was raised in
OaklandOakland is the eighth-largest city in the U.S. state of California and a major West Coast port city, located on San Francisco Bay about eight miles east of the City of San Francisco. Oakland is a major hub city for the Bay Area subregion collectively called the East Bay, and it is the county seat...
and graduated from
Oakland High SchoolOakland 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, BerkeleyThe University of California, Berkeley is a public research university located in Berkeley, California, United States. The oldest of the ten major campuses affiliated with the University of California, Berkeley offers some 300 undergraduate and graduate degree programs in a wide range of disciplines...
, in 1894 with a degree in
civil engineeringCivil engineering is a professional engineering discipline that deals with the design, construction and maintenance of the physical and naturally built environment, including works such as bridges, roads, canals, dams and buildings...
. At the urging of her friend and mentor
Bernard MaybeckBernard Ralph Maybeck was a prominent architect in the Arts and Crafts Movement of the early 20th century.- Early life and education :...
, whom she met in her final year in undergraduate school, she headed to
ParisParis is the capital of France and the country's most populous city. It is 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-ArtsÉcole 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...
. 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.
Career
Upon her return from Paris she took employment with the San Francisco architect
John Galen HowardJohn 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.Among his most famous buildings are the Hearst Memorial...
who was at that time supervising the
University of CaliforniaThe University of California is a public university system in the 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 system...
Master PlanThe 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 TheatreThe 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 FranciscoSan Francisco is the fourth most populous city in California and the 12th most populous city in the United States, with a 2008 estimated population of 808,976. It is the eighth most densely populated city in the U.S. and is the financial, cultural, and transportation center of the larger San...
. One of her earliest works from this period was North Star House in
Grass Valley, CaliforniaGrass Valley is a city in Nevada County, California, United States. The population was 14,922 at the 2006 census.-Geography:Grass Valley is located at ....
, commissioned in 1906 by mining engineer
Arthur De Wint FooteArthur 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 FooteMary Hallock Foote was an American author and illustrator.She was born in Milton, New York, of English Quaker ancestry. She was educated at the Female Collegiate Seminary in Poughkeepsie, New York, and the Cooper Institute School of Design for women, in New York City...
. Naturally, many commissions followed the
1906 San Francisco earthquakeThe San Francisco earthquake of 1906 was a major earthquake that struck San Francisco, CA 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 7.8; however, other values have...
, ensuring her financial success.
The most famous of Morgan's patrons was the newspaper magnate
William Randolph HearstWilliam Randolph Hearst was an American newspaper magnate and leading newspaper publisher.Hearst was born in San Francisco, California, to millionaire mining engineer George Hearst and Phoebe Apperson. Following preparation at St...
, who had been introduced to Morgan by his mother Phoebe Apperson Hearst, the chief patroness 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 ExaminerThe 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 project that included contributions by Los Angeles architects
William J. DoddWilliam J. Dodd was a Canadian-born American architect and designer, working particularly in Louisville, Kentucky between 1886 and the end of 1912 and Los Angeles, California from early 1913 to 1930. Dodd rises from the so-called Chicago School of architecture, engineering and design innovations...
and J. Martyn Haenke. In 1919 Hearst selected Morgan as the architect for
La Cuesta Encantada, better known as
Hearst CastleHearst Castle is a palatial estate on the central California coast and a National Historic Landmark. It was designed by architect Julia Morgan for newspaper magnate William Randolph Hearst from 1919 until 1947. In 1957 the Hearst Corporation donated the property to the state of California...
, 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. From this point forward, Morgan became Hearst's principal architect, producing the designs for dozens of buildings, such as Wyntoon (a second castle plus "Bavarian village" of four villas located on of forest on the
McCloud RiverThe McCloud River is a river that flows east of and parallel to the Sacramento River, approximately 50 mi long, in northern California in the United States. It drains a scenic mountainous area of the Cascade Range north of Redding...
near
Mount ShastaMount Shasta is located in Siskiyou County and at is second highest peak in the Cascades and the fifth highest in California. Mount Shasta has an estimated volume of which makes it the most voluminous stratovolcano in the Cascade Volcanic Arc.The mountain and its surrounding area are managed by...
),
The HaciendaThe Hacienda is the current name for a hotel completed in 1930 for use by William Randolph Hearst as temporary housing for his employees and guests and headquarters for activities taking place on the surrounding land...
(a hotel built in a hybrid
MissionThe Mission Revival Style was an architectural movement that began in the late 19th century and drew inspiration from the early Spanish missions in California...
and
MoorishMoorish 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...
style about thirty miles from the Castle), and Babicora, Hearst's Mexican
ranchoRancho is the Spanish term for ranch.A rancho is one of the four Spanish settlements.A 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....
.
The Julia Morgan School for Girls in Oakland is named after her. The school is the only middle school for girls in the East Bay. It occupies Alderwood Hall at
Mills CollegeMills 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...
, a 1924 building designed by Morgan.
Her best-known works not commissioned by Hearst include the
YWCAThe 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...
s in San Francisco's Chinatown,
OaklandOakland is the eighth-largest city in the U.S. state of California and a major West Coast port city, located on San Francisco Bay about eight miles east of the City of San Francisco. Oakland is a major hub city for the Bay Area subregion collectively called the East Bay, and it is the county seat...
, and
RiversideRiverside is the largest city in the Inland Empire Metropolitan Area of Southern California, and is approximately 60 miles east of Los Angeles, and 12 miles southwest of San Bernardino. Riverside is the county seat of Riverside County, and is named for its location beside the Santa Ana River...
, the latter of which is now the
Riverside Art MuseumRiverside 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...
, as well as a
World War IWorld War I , also known as the First World War, the Great War, and the War to End All Wars, was a global military conflict which involved most of the world's great powers, assembled in two opposing alliances: the Triple Entente and the Triple Alliance...
YWCA Hostess House in Palo Alto which has been the site of
MacArthur ParkMacArthur 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:...
restaurant since 1981, the
Mills CollegeMills 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...
Bell Tower, the former St. John's Presbyterian Church (now the Julia Morgan Center for the Arts) in
BerkeleyBerkeley 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...
, the
Chapel of the ChimesThe Chapel of Chimes was founded in 1909 as a crematory and columbarium. The present building dates largely from a 1928 redevelopment based on the designs of the architect Julia Morgan...
in Oakland, the
Asilomar Conference GroundsAsilomar State Beach is located on the Monterey Peninsula in the city of Pacific Grove, California, USA. Asilomar State Beach and Conference Grounds sits on 107 acres and offers overnight lodging and views of the forest, surf and sand.Asilomar State Beach is a narrow one-mile strip of sandy...
in
Pacific GrovePacific Grove is a coastal town in Monterey County, California, USA, with a total population of 15,522 as of the 2000 census. Pacific Grove is located between Point Pinos and Monterey, at an elevation of 151 feet ....
near
Monterey, CaliforniaThe City of Monterey in Monterey County is located on Monterey Bay along the Pacific coast in Central California. Variants of the city's name are recorded as Monte Rey and Montery. Monterey lies at an elevation of 26 feet above sea level. As of 2005, the city population was 30,641...
, the sanctuary of Ocean Avenue Presbyterian Church at 32 Ocean Avenue, San Francisco, where [Mission Bay Community Church] also meets, the
Berkeley City ClubThe 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, and several houses on San Francisco's Russian Hill. Some of her residential projects, most of them located in the San Francisco Bay Area, may be categorized as ultimate bungalows, a term often associated with the work of
Greene and GreeneBrothers Charles Sumner Greene and Henry Mather Greene , who established the architectural firm of Greene and Greene, were influential American architects...
and some of Morgan's other contemporaries and teachers.
Morgan is buried in Mountain View Cemetery in
OaklandOakland is the eighth-largest city in the U.S. state of California and a major West Coast port city, located on San Francisco Bay about eight miles east of the City of San Francisco. Oakland is a major hub city for the Bay Area subregion collectively called the East Bay, and it is the county seat...
.
California Governor
Arnold SchwarzeneggerArnold Alois Schwarzenegger is an Austrian American bodybuilder, actor, businessman, and politician, currently serving as the 38th Governor of the state of California....
and First Lady
Maria ShriverMaria Owings Shriver is an award-winning American journalist and author, and the First Lady of California. She is married to actor and California Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger, and is a member of the Kennedy family.-Early life:...
announced on May 28, 2008 that Morgan will be inducted into the
California Hall of FameConceived by First Lady Maria Shriver, the California Hall of Fame was established at The California Museum for History, Women and the Arts to honor legendary 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 ArtsThe California Museum for History, Women and the Arts, mostly known in its abbreviated form, The California Museum – 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 will take place December 15th and her great-niece will accept the honor in her place.
Books
- Boutelle, Sara Holmes (1988). Julia Morgan, Architect. New York: Abbeville Press.
- Morgan, J. (1976). Architectural drawings by Julia Morgan: beau-arts assignments and other buildings. Oakland, Calif: Oakland Museum, Art Dept.
- Steilberg, W. T., & Morgan, J. (1983). Some examples of the work of Julia Morgan. San Francisco: Architect and Engineer of California.
- Morgan, J., Hearst, W. R., & Loe, N. E. (1987). San Simeon revisited: the correspondence between architect Julia Morgan and William Randolph Hearst. San Luis Obispo, Calif: Library Associates, California Polytechnic State University.
- Morgan, J. (1987). Berkeley houses by Julia Morgan. [Berkeley, Calif.]: The Association.
Further reading
- Longstreth, R. W. (1977). Julia Morgan, architect. Berkeley Architectural Heritage publication series, no. 1. [Berkeley, Calif.]: Berkeley Architectural Heritage Association.
- University of California, Berkeley. (1986). Julia Morgan, architectural drawings: inventory of holdings, College of Environmental Design. Berkeley: The College.
- Pasadena Cultural Heritage Commission. (1988). Report on reuse of the Julia Morgan YWCA building: YWCA & YMCA Pasadena, California. New York: Halsband.
- Quacchia, R. L. (2005). Julia Morgan, architect, and the creation of the Asilomar Conference Grounds: including a comparison with Hearst Castle. [Virginia Beach, Va.]: Q Pub.
- McNeill, Karen (May 2007). "Julia Morgan: Gender, Architecture, and Professional Style." Pacific Historical Review, pp. 229-267.
External links