Julia Morgan

Julia Morgan (January 20, 1872 – February 2, 1957) was an American architect and engineer. She designed more than 700 buildings in California during a long and prolific career. She is best known for her work on Hearst Castle in San Simeon, California. Morgan was the first woman to be admitted to the architecture program at l'École nationale supérieure des Beaux-Arts in Paris and the first woman architect licensed in California. She designed many edifices for institutions serving women and girls, including a number of buildings for the Young Women's Christian Association (YWCA) and Mills College. In many of her structures, Morgan pioneered the aesthetic use of reinforced concrete, a material that proved to have superior seismic performance in the 1906 and 1989 earthquakes. She embraced the Arts and Crafts Movement and used various producers of California pottery to adorn her buildings. She 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.