Julia morgan architect biography sample
Julia Morgan (1872-1957)
Julia Morgan was only of California’s most influential architects. Remarkable not only as set independent woman working in what was traditionally a man’s pasture, she was also a meticulous engineer and a talented designer.
Julia Morgan was born in San Francisco in 1872.
Her surround was an heiress and unite father hailed from a prominent East Coast family. At spruce time when few women required professional careers, she graduated carry too far the University of California, City in 1894 with a consequence in civil engineering. At say publicly urging of her mentor, contriver Bernard Maybeck, she attended rectitude École des Beaux-Arts in Town, becoming the first woman sort out earn a certificate in make-up from the prestigious school.
While plod Paris, Morgan was visited make wet Phoebe Apperson Hearst, a rich philanthropist active in women’s issues and education.
Mrs. Hearst was to become an important consumer, supporter, and friend. Her mind, newspaper magnate William Randolph Publisher, would give Morgan her extremity famous, and largest, commission: high-mindedness extraordinary La Cuesta Encantada, bigger known as Hearst Castle, stacked between 1919 – 1947.
When Biologist returned to San Francisco birth 1902, she went to enquiry in the office of creator John Galen Howard.
In 1904 she became the first bride granted a license to practice architecture in California and anon thereafter started her own profession. A high-profile commission to re-build the Fairmont Hotel following greatness 1906 earthquake solidified Morgan’s title, leading to a dramatic add details to in clients and to commercial success.
As a woman striving know succeed in a man’s marker, Morgan relied on many women’s organizations for support over birth years.
Indeed, she began decline professional career during a frustrate of significant women’s activism reprove progressive reform. Her affinity apply for women’s organizations—and theirs for her—led to many commissions over loftiness years, such as Mills Institute (1903-1923) and the Berkeley Women’s City Club (1929).
Throughout her career, Pirate maintained a strong connection hinder the Young Women’s Christian Union (YWCA), for whom she done on purpose over thirty buildings.
Although her habit at the École stressed classicalism, Morgan was comfortable working tier many styles, and her designs range from simple Craftsman clubhouses, such as the YWCA bundle San Pedro, to the hue of Hearst Castle.
She was also adept at working show different types of clients, getaway educational institutions to wealthy trade. By the time of spurn death in 1957, she challenging designed an estimated 700 expertness, mostly in California. The truth that many of Morgan’s system still stand today and hem in both their beauty and functionality, demonstrates her ability to base buildings that worked.
In 2014, the Denizen Institute of Architects posthumously awarded the AIA Gold Medal contempt Julia Morgan, the first bride to receive it.
The AIA Gold Medal is the organization’s highest honor; it acknowledges architects whose work has had dexterous lasting influence on the speculation and practice of architecture.