Morgan’s Phoebe Apperson Hearst Memorial Gymnasium, shown here in 1930, may face the wrecking ball. Kastner’s research also confirmed that Morgan was likely not homosexual, as some have suggested, but a woman who simply did not have the time for a romantic partner of any gender. “You don’t save if you don’t expect somebody to do something with it,” Kastner said. “She didn’t like to be interviewed, but she saved an awful lot of stuff,” including 2,462 letters and telegrams between her and Hearst alone. Instead, she learned that Morgan had gotten in touch with clients, asking if they’d like their drawings and plans. Kastner’s recent foray into the archives allowed her to dispel the myth that Morgan had destroyed her papers when she closed her offices, then in San Francisco, in 1950. “In it, she muses about poverty and children and art and her childhood. “For the first time, she was traveling alone, so she would make the same observations about architecture but keep writing when she was alone and, for example, sitting at a cafe,” Kastner said. The final diary recounts Morgan’s travels to Italy on a freighter in 1938-39, revealing a more intimate portrait of the notoriously reserved and publicity-shy architect. Though the Morgan archive already contained the many diaries Morgan had written during her travels, they focused primarily on architecture. What was new for Kastner since researching her last book was the 2005 addition to the archive of a previously unpublished 197-page diary from Morgan’s final years, donated by the estate of Morgan biographer Sara Holmes Boutelle after her death. But two new developments aided in the research for her latest book. Kastner has spent thousands of hours over the decades researching the castle’s history, so has a deep understanding of the architect. She’s now an independent researcher and lecturer. Kastner, who hails from El Cerrito, spent three decades as Hearst Castle’s official historian and wrote, beginning in 2000, what is considered the definitive trilogy on its history, published by Harry N. This is Kastner’s fourth book on the subject. Tickets are $16 and can be purchased in advance on Eventbrite. On Monday at 7:30 p.m., Kastner will give her very first in-person talk about the book at the Hillside Club, 2286 Cedar St., Berkeley. The book’s publication was timed to honor the sesquicentennial of Morgan’s birth in 1872. As its title suggests, the heavily annotated and picture-heavy book incorporates previously unknown details about the architect’s private life, as well as her career. The latest addition to Morgan’s legacy is a new book by the architectural historian Victoria Kastner, Julia Morgan: An Intimate Biography of the Trailblazing Architect (Chronicle Books), published on March 1 and already in its second printing. ![]() In 2014, the American Institute of Architects awarded Morgan its Gold Medal 56 years after her death, the first time the organization granted its highest prize to a woman. Since the 1990s, however, Morgan’s appreciation has gained traction due to new scholarship and a re-evaluation of her work by her modern-day counterparts. ![]() As the title of a 1981 ARTnews article put it, “She Was Considered America’s Most Successful Woman Architect - and Hardly Anybody Knew Her Name.” Over a 50-year career, Morgan would design an estimated 700 buildings, mostly in California, including schools, churches, office buildings, clubhouses, hospitals, several buildings on the UC Berkeley campus, along with dozens of modest family dwellings in both Berkeley and Oakland.Īnd yet, as recently as the 1980s, Morgan was relegated to the lower shelves of architectural history, criticized for lacking a style of her own and even failing to be mentioned by Life magazine as the creator of San Simeon when it became a state park in 1957. Berkeley Info: $16 tickets can be purchased at Eventbrite What: Author Victoria Kastner talks about her new book, Julia Morgan: An Intimate Biography of the Trailblazing Architect When: Monday, April 4, 7:30 p.m. Now recognized as one of the 20th century’s greatest American architects, she did not receive the recognition she deserved during her lifetime, even though she broke the glass ceiling in 1898 by becoming the first woman to be accepted to the prestigious École des Beaux-Arts in Paris, was among a handful of women to receive a civil engineering degree from UC Berkeley in 1894 and would go on to create her most famous work, Hearst Castle, the 120-acre compound of her patron-turned-friend, the newspaper tycoon William Randolph Hearst. ![]() The publication of a new book on Bay Area architect Julia Morgan was timed for her sesquicentennial.
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