46 Facts About Julia Morgan

Julia Morgan was an American architect and engineer.

Julia Morgan designed more than 700 buildings in California during a long and prolific career.

Julia Morgan is best known for her work on Hearst Castle in San Simeon, California.

Julia Morgan designed many edifices for institutions serving women and girls, including a number of Young Women's Christian Association and buildings for Mills College.

In many of her structures, Julia Morgan pioneered the aesthetic use of reinforced concrete, a material that proved to have superior seismic performance in the 1906 and 1989 earthquakes.

Julia Morgan embraced the Arts and Crafts Movement and used various producers of California pottery to adorn her buildings.

Julia Morgan sought to reconcile classical and Craftsman, scholarship and innovation, formalism and whimsy.

Julia Morgan was the first woman to receive the American Institute of Architects highest award, the AIA Gold Medal, posthumously in 2014.

Julia Morgan later cofounded the Shasta Iron Company, which was dissolved in 1875 after limited income.

In New York, Julia Morgan met her older cousin Lucy Thornton, who was married to successful architect Pierre Le Brun.

In New York, Julia Morgan had been sick with scarlet fever and was kept in bed for a few weeks.

Julia Morgan was dedicated to her education and a professional career in architecture.

Julia Morgan enrolled in the University of California, in nearby Berkeley, where she studied Engineering, as there was no architectural program.

Julia Morgan attended Berkeley during a time of growth for women's involvement which took place between 1889 and 1891, when women were founding clubs and gaining access to new spaces and extracurriculars.

Julia Morgan helped to create a chapter of the YWCA during her time as an undergraduate student which made it possible for women to use the gymnasium.

Julia Morgan encouraged Morgan to continue her studies at the prestigious Ecole nationale superieure des Beaux-Arts in Paris where he had distinguished himself.

Julia Morgan met with these women and was exposed to their feminist views; they discussed how to increase the influence of women in professional careers.

In early 1902, as her birthday approached, Julia Morgan submitted an outstanding design for a palatial theater.

Julia Morgan worked on several buildings on the Berkeley campus, providing the decorative elements for the Hearst Mining Building and an early proposal for Sather Gate.

Julia Morgan was the primary designer for the Hearst Greek Theatre.

In 1904, Julia Morgan was the first woman to obtain an architecture license in California.

Julia Morgan was chosen because of her then-rare knowledge of earthquake-resistant, reinforced concrete construction.

Julia Morgan employed tiles, designing many of them herself, from California Faience.

Julia Morgan became William Randolph Hearst's principal architect, producing the designs for dozens of buildings, such as Phoebe Apperson Hearst's Wyntoon, which he inherited.

Julia Morgan did studio and site work for the uncompleted Babicora, Hearst's 1,625,000-acre Chihuahua, Mexico, cattle rancho and retreat.

Julia Morgan designed YWCAs in Northern California, including those in Oakland and in San Francisco's Chinatown.

Julia Morgan made many architectural contributions to Mills College, a women's college in the East Bay foothills of Oakland, California.

Julia Morgan designed six buildings for the Mills campus, including El Campanil, believed to be the first bell tower on a United States college campus.

Julia Morgan helped draft parts of the UC Berkeley campus under John Galen Howard, but the Sather Tower was not her design.

Ransome's undermining of Julia Morgan's ability led to less trust in her work and praise veiled in gendered rhetoric at the time.

Julia Morgan's reputation grew when the tower was unscathed by the 1906 San Francisco earthquake.

Julia Morgan designed the Margaret Carnegie Library, named after Andrew Carnegie's daughter, and the Ming Quong Home for Chinese girls, built in 1924 and purchased for Mills in 1936.

Julia Morgan designed the original gymnasium and pool, since replaced by the Tea Shop and Suzanne Adams Plaza, the first reinforced concrete structure on the west coast.

From 1922 to 1925, Julia Morgan was enlisted to design a home to provide convalescent care to San Francisco's elderly women.

The beautiful Julia Morgan building is owned and operated by the San Francisco Ladies' Protection and Relief Society, one of California's first philanthropic organizations, established in 1853.

Julia Morgan considered St John's Presbyterian Church, in Berkeley, California, her finest Craftsman-style building.

Julia Morgan designed the World War I YWCA Hostess House in Palo Alto, built in 1918 and later to become the site of the MacArthur Park Restaurant.

In 1908, Julia Morgan designed the residence of James Henry Pierce at 1650 The Alameda in San Jose, which features rare California timber.

Julia Morgan was never married and had no known romances.

Julia Morgan kept a low profile and lived modestly, in spite of her wealthy clientele.

Julia Morgan died on February 2,1957, in San Francisco, California, at age 85.

Julia Morgan's body was buried in the Mountain View Cemetery in the hills of Oakland, California.

In 2006, a children's picture book titled Julia Morgan Built a Castle was published and is available in many public libraries.

On May 28,2008, California Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger and First Lady Maria Shriver announced that Julia Morgan would be inducted into the California Hall of Fame, located at The California Museum for History, Women and the Arts.

Julia Morgan was the 2014 recipient of the AIA Gold Medal, the highest award of the American Institute of Architects.

Julia Morgan was the first female architect to receive this honor.