TRAILBLAZING ARCHITECT

TrailblazingARCHITECT

Victoria Kastner Pens an Intimate Biography of Julia Morgan; The First Woman to Practice Architecture in California

REVIEWED BY KATHY BRYANT

ARCHITECT JULIA MORGAN (1872-1957) was a woman of firsts: first woman to earn a degree in civil engineering from UC Berkeley: first woman to study architecture at the Ecole des Beaux-Arts in Paris; first woman licensed to practice architecture in California.

Over the course of her long career she designed more than 700 buildings, including the Fairmont Hotel in San Francisco, the Herald Examiner Building, many YMCA buildings and the Berkeley City Club, as well as many private homes, churches, schools and museums. She designed in a variety of styles from classical to contemporary. She also pioneered the use of reinforced concrete in buildings so when the Mills College bell tower she designed survived the 1906 earthquake, she became highly sought after.

Julia Morgan is best known as the architect of Hearst Castle at San Simeon, the country estate she designed for William Randolph Hearst in the 1920s and 1930s. Not only was Morgan the architect of this spectacular property, she was also the sole landscape architect and interior designer. Recently The American Institute of Architects’ posthumously awarded her their highest honor, the Gold Medal, as their first-ever female recipient. There’s one more first. Julia Morgan: An Intimate Biography of the Trailblazing Architect Text by Victoria Kastner 240 pages, color and black and white photographs throughout Hardcover 8x10 inches $32.50 U.S. ISBN 978-1-7972-0563-2