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In 1867, Charles Morgan, a Connecticut mining engineer with a weakness for get-rich quick schemes, came home from a trip to California determined to tap the young state's profitable veins of gold and silver. Morgan's wife, Eliza, shared his excitement after he regaled her with tales of wealthy city life, and the two moved to Californiain 1870. There they raised five children; among them was Julia Morgan, born January 20, 1872.
Although she was rather sickly as a small child, Julia became strong willed and "tomboyish"as a teen. She pursued education enthusiastically at a time when most girls of her age were strongly encouraged to travel and marry. Eliza Morgan, however, recognized her daughter's talents in high school and was supportive when her daughter decided to attend the university.
When Julia Morgan entered the University of California at Berkeley in 1890, she was one of 100 women studying there; in 1894 she was the only woman to graduate from the College of Engineering. During her undergraduate studies she met the architect Bernard Maybeck.
Bernard Maybeck taught Geometry at the University, but hosted popular architectural lectures in his home. Julia was greatly impressed by Maybeck's style; his woody buildings seemed to blend in with the scenery as though they grew there. Maybeck influenced Julia to continue her education at his alma mater, the French Ecole de Beaux-arts in Paris, where she was the first woman to pass the entrance exam.
In the midst of her two year stay at the school she was visited by the Maybecks and Phoebe Apperson Hearst, wealthy widow and philanthropist, who took an interest in the young architect.
Having earned her Ecole de Beaux-arts certificate, Julia returned to Oakland and began her career as an architect. Most of her initial contracts were residential; old school chums and friends of the family were eager to enlist her talents. Phoebe Apperson Hearst had not forgotten her and wasted no time enlisting her talents for the Hearst University of California building team, headed by architect John Galen Howard. As his assistant supervising architect, Julia created the Greek Theater using reinforced concrete - a technique not well known in the United States at that time. Julia's first major commission for a new building was St. John's Presbyterian Church, which now houses the Julia Morgan Center.
Morgan's Career really took off when Maybeck asked her for assistance in building a gothic castle for Phoebe Hearst. It was during that time that she left the office of John Galen Howard and opened her own firm in San Francisco. She was employed to rebuild the Fairmont hotel after the great earthquake of 1906 that destroyed most of San Francisco. The beautifully restored building became a social center for the city and a home to wealthy families displaced by the earthquake.
Perhaps her longest and greatest architectural project was the famed Hearst castle, located in San Simeon, home of William Randolph Hearst, son of Phoebe Apperson Hearst.
A Chronological History of Julia Morgan
1870s Morgan family moved to Oakland. Music lessons, trips east to visit relatives, summers in Monterey Bay area, and close family ties were characteristic.
1872 January 26, Born, San Francisco, second child of Charles Bill Morgan and Eliza Woodland Parmelee Morgan, three brothers, Parmelee, Avery, Gardner, and one sister Emma (married Hart North). Maternal grandfather was a prosperous cotton broker.
1890 Graduated form Oakland High School. Interest in architecture may have been kindled by Pierre Le Brun, who married her cousin. As there was no architecture school west of the Rockies, enrolled in engineering course at the University of California. Became Kappa Alpha Theta.
1894 Graduated with B.S. in Civil Engineering, on of the few women to have completed that degree. Took course with Bernard Maybeck in descriptive geometry and architecture.
1895 Worked for Maybeck and was in charge of building Professor Lawson's first house.
1896 With Maybeck's enthusiastic encouragement, and as a result of rumor that the great Ecole des Beaux-Arts in Paris was possibly going to open examinations to women, and with her family's financial endorsement, set off for Paris with school friend, Jessica Peixotto (later to become a distinguished professor of economics at Berkeley). In Paris, enrolled in the atelier of Marcel de Monclos.
1897 Unsuccessful in her first efforts to be accepted at the Beaux-Arts because as Monclos said, they "did not wish to encourage young girls," gained favorable criticism from Jean Louis Pascal, 1866 Grand Prix Winner and director of one of the choicest ateliers. Letters from Maybeck, as well as from Will Aldrich of the American School in Rome, and from the American Ambassador in Paris urged the Beaus-Arts to accept Morgan if she passed the examinations.
1898 Changed to atelier of the 1890s Prix de Rome winner, Bernard Chaussemiche. Worked intensively with sympathetic criticism. Went to night classes in drawing and full-time work of the atelier. Had an apartment near the Beaux-Arts, at 15 Rue de Guenegard, where brother Avery, also a graduate of the engineering course at Berkeley, joined her to share housekeeping, atelier life, and travels in Italy, Spain, and France. November 9 brought the hard-earned acceptance as the first woman to gain admission with a rank of 13th out of 392.
1899 In her two years of work in the Second Class, her reports of "Values" lists 17 "Mentions" and 2 Medals in mathematics, architecture, and design. At this time, she politely refused Phoebe Apperson Hearst's offer of assistance, secure in her own position and confident that she could justify her family's support.
1900 In August admitted to the First Class, where she remained for 2 years with 8 "Mentions" and 2 medals. She left when 30, as that was the outside age permitted.
1901-1902 Worked as architect for Chaussemiche and completed at least one commission on her own, a building in Fontainebleau, for which drawings and full specifications have been preserved.
1902-1903 Returned to Oakland, California. Went to work doing drafting for University Architect, John Galen Howard of Berkeley. Jobs included the Greek theater and the Hearst Memorial Mining Building.
1904-1906 Practiced in San Francisco after 1906 in Merchants Exchange Building (presently Chartered Bank of London) on California Street. For a short period before 1911 formed a partnership firm, Morgan and Hoover, with former head draftsman in Howard's office. Hoover returned to the east coast in 1910 and after that the practice was "Julia Morgan, Architect." First conspicuous commission was in Oakland for Mills College, a reinforced concrete bell tower, 1904, to be followed by the Library, 1906. Next was the structural repair of Herbett Law's Fairmont Hotel, which had buckled in the San Francisco fire before it had even been opened. Followed by completion of the design of the interiors at the Merchants Exchange, and press of orders for residential, commercial, and institutional buildings, as far away as North Star Mines in Grass Valley.
1908 Important jobs: St. John's Presbyterian Church in Berkeley, King's Daughters Annex in Oakland, Ransom and Bridges School in Piedmont, Kappa Alpha Theta House in Berkeley, and apartments (Katz Flats in Berkeley).
1915 Work shows range and variety: YWCA's in Oakland and San Jose, Foothill Club in Saratoga, the Auditorium at Asilomar, the Potrero Hill Settlement House, San Francisco, and Glide house in Berkeley.
1919 William Randolph Hearst proposes "something more comfortable" for his hilltop at San Simeon, as a memorial to his mother, and as a setting for his art treasures. This captured the imagination and tested the skills of Morgan, who had integrity to keep this building project going for the 20 years. Important institutions, such as Berkeley Baptist Theological Seminary and numerous residences, were underway.
1920s Institutional work Y.W.C.A.s continued, Honolulu's is still considered an architectural landmark. The Emanuel Sisterhood (now the Zen Center in San Francisco) built in 1923. Churches include Ocean View Presbyterian in San Francisco, Thousand Oaks Baptist in Berkeley, Chapel of the Chimes in Oakland and Daughters of the Golden West in San Francisco. Designed with Maybeck the Phoebe A. Hearst Memorial Gymnasium for Women at U.C. A serious mastoid operation left Morgan with her face unsymmetrical and her gait uneven.
1923 Berkeley Fire. Many Morgan houses lost, many new ones built afterwards, with less use of redwood and shingles, more concrete. Many country houses were built.
1929 University of California grants L.L.D., with President William Wallace Capbell citing her as:
Julia Morgan, distinguished alumna of the University of California; artist and engineer; designer of simple dwellings and of stately homes, of great buildings nobly planned to further the centralized activities of her fellow citizens; architect in whose works harmony and admirable proportions bring pleasure to the eye and peace to the mind...
1930 Berkeley City Club and Y.W.C.A. Residence in San Francisco. Interview "Christian Science Monitor," Nov. 27, 1931. New Hearst project, Wyntoon, led to an exploratory trip to Europe and several Bavarian village houses on the McCloud River. Great houses were still built, such as Bow Bay House at Lake Tahoe for Else Schilling.
1940s A Museum of Medieval Art was to have been a final significant contribution. Built around a monastery which had been brought from Spain by Hearst, it was in numbered crates ready to be set up. Quarrels about location and funding stalled the plan. A fire, some say arson, burned most of the packing cases. The project did not go forward. Travel continued to be a favorite recreation. 1947 saw a freighter trip around South America.
1950-1957 Closed her office. Instructed the building superintendent to burn her files, and destroy any business records except plans claimed by clients. Her orders were followed. Died February 1957 at the age of 85. Major state monuments, Asilomar and San Simeon.
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