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Julia morgan buildings12/27/2023 ![]() How could the decadence of something like the Neptune Pool, which architect Charles Moore deftly describes as “a grand liquid ballroom, for the gods and goddesses of the silver screen,” be conjured by such a diminutive, Quakerish figure? How did Hearst recognize in Morgan the vehicle to interpret his dreams? The answer is in the rigor of her Beaux-Arts training Morgan had a head full of palaces and opera houses already designed as a student in Paris. Obviously this is because of the mystique associated with the place, but also because no matter what we can know about her, the disconnect between personality and product remains compelling. San Simeon, or simply Project 503, as it was known in her office for almost three decades, remains Morgan’s most fascinating work. The architect Julia Morgan designed a number of important California buildings, including San Simeon and this Gregorian cloister in Oakland. Do we really think there would have been a Citizen Kane, at least the story we care about, without Xanadu? Epic myths require imagery to hang them upon. In the end, Julia Morgan built more than a unique house for a powerful man she built a backdrop so visually compelling that it allowed Hearst to become one of the great characters of American life. Morgan’s librarian (the subject of a new novel, Belle Greene, out in June), who is the reason we have Manhattan’s Morgan Library as we know it today. But Julia Morgan’s career and legacy are also about something else: She is a member of one of the most intriguing clubs in the world, that of women who built the myths of great men. The range of Morgan’s work in its entirety is magnificent, and appreciation of it has risen in recent years. Kastner, who was the official historian at San Simeon, was told on her first visit that “an architect named Julia Morgan built the entire estate, but we don’t know anything about her.” She is also among the most accomplished: the first female graduate of the Ecole des Beaux-Arts, in 1902, an honor bookended by her becoming the first female recipient of the AIA Gold Medal, posthumously in 2014. ![]() Morgan was one of the most prolific, modest, and elusive characters in the history of the profession, as this month’s Julia Morgan: An Intimate Biography of the Trailblazing Architect, by Victoria Kastner (Chronicle, $32.50), demonstrates and decodes. That would have been just fine with Julia Morgan, the enigmatic designer of San Simeon (the palatial California estate of newspaper mogul William Randolph Hearst) and around 700 other distinguished buildings. ![]() When Life magazine published a 14-page cover story in 1957 on the impending opening of San Simeon to the public, no mention was made of any architect-which is about how things stood for the next several decades.
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