Fifty-six years after her death, the Board of Directors of the AIA voted today to honor the AIA Gold Medal to Julia Morgan, FAIA (1872-1957) — the first woman to ever receive the award. Morgan will be honored at the AIA 2014 National Convention and Design Exposition in Chicago.
Considered as the AIA's highest honor, the Gold Medal recognizes an individual's work that has majorly influenced the theory and practice of architecture. Morgan's most famous works include Hearst Castle; Asilomar YWCA in Pacific Grove, CA; and St. John's Presbyterian Church in Berkeley, CA.
Here are more details about Julia Morgan:
"Morgan won a litany of firsts she used to establish a new precedent for greatness. A building technology expert that was professionally adopted by some of the most powerful post-Gilded age patrons imaginable, Morgan practiced for nearly 50 years and designed more than 700 buildings of almost every type. The first woman admitted to the prestigious architecture school at the Ecoles des Beaux-Arts in Paris, Morgan designed comfortably in a wide range of historic styles."
"Exceptionally bright from a young age, she was one of the first women to study civil engineering at the University of California-Berkeley, where she caught the eye of AIA Gold Medalist Bernard Maybeck, who taught there. He gave Morgan what he would give the best and brightest of any gender: a recommendation to apply for the Ecoles des Beaux-Arts.
But there were two problems: She was a foreigner, and subject to unstated, but strict quotas, and a woman. No female had ever been admitted. She failed the first entrance exam; her second exam was discounted for no other reason than her gender. She was finally admitted after her third try. She completed the entire program in 1902."
"Back in Berkeley, Morgan went to work for architect John Galen Howard, designing buildings for her undergraduate alma mater. In 1904, she became the first women licensed to practice architecture in California, and opened her own firm."
"An early project was an open air Classical Greek theater; the first such structure in the nation. After the 1906 San Francisco Earthquake, much of the city was leveled, but her greek theater survived, providing her with a level of unprecedented credibility. In addition to this project solidifying her reputation, the project also brought her closer into the orbit of Phoebe Apperson Hearst, a university booster and mother to publishing magnate William Randolph Hearst.
Word of Morgan’s skill with reinforced concrete spread across California. She began to take advantage of the material’s groundbreaking plasticity and flexibility in imaginative, new ways, savoring opportunities to clamber through scaffolding at buildings sites to inspect the work."
"What stands out most is the vast array of architectural styles she employed: Tudor and Georgian houses, Romanesque Revival churches, and Spanish Colonial country estates with an Islamic tinge. Her late-period Beaux-Arts education gave her the ability to design in these historicist styles, gathering up motifs and methods from all of Western architectural history to select the approach most appropriate for each unique site and context.
Morgan joined the AIA in 1921 as only the seventh female member. She is the 70th AIA Gold Medalist and joins the ranks of Thomas Jefferson (1993), Frank Lloyd Wright (1949), Louis Sullivan (1944), Le Corbusier (1961), Louis I. Kahn (1971), I.M. Pei (1979), Santiago Calatrava (2005), Glenn Murcutt (2009), and Thom Mayne (2013)."
20 Comments
Super cool! Both her and her work AND the desire to recognize her by the AIA!
I'm ambivalent about this one.
While it was excellent to recognize Julia Morgan, maybe it should have been with an honor not typically given to *living males? Could they not find a living woman architect worthy of the honor - they had to comb through the history books? Will we see Charlotte Perriand and Lilly Reich over the next several years?
I can see the flip side. If they had created a different award, they would have gotten criticism for that - not finding her worthy of the award that males typically have received.
Maybe a smart starting point could have been to recognize a living woman first and then, after a couple of years, start revisiting the past. After all, per the article, Jefferson wasn't called up until '93.
Ah, well. Progress nonetheless!
I'm guessing they're going back in time and moving forward to avoid controversy. DSB is the controversial topic right now; selecting Morgan gives them a chance to strategize for coming years.
Strange. I admire her work, but is the Gold medal now going to be retroactive to all great architects who lived or is it to be an instrument of righting the wrongs of the past? I'm not against honoring previous great architects but that seems like a wide pool of talent to draw from. When's John Wellborn Root getting his award?
Here is an article that adds some context.
I didn't realize that Donna, thanks. Maybe I should pay more attention to the institution I pay dues to.
Yep, I just cut that dues check last week. Ouch.
I also just signed this petition re: prison design.
When the AIA is going back to award architects in the 1950s, you know America has become Europe....
And we shall live in our past forevermore. Here's to the Chinese century!
So the AIA and the arch media have discovered a new hustle: Women architects!
How is this any different from the Starchitecture boom?
How about we get back to looking at the qualities of design, not marketing?
Darkman how about a clear, logical, academic takedown of why Morgan's architecture isn't good enough and her practice isn't groundbreaking enough to deserve this award? Can you present that?
Didn't think so.
There are plenty of quality women architects working today that are deserving. If you look at the work, it looks deserving in 1950 (or perhaps 1880) but not today. Unless we are looking for a return to Beaux-arts.
It's a bizarre admitting that they are basically looking for a woman first, and the work is really not the issue.
I'm not the only one to make this complaint, several women critics have done so.
I love it! The best way to marginalize a minority is give them an award taht is so ridiculus that it's clearly mocking them. (like a Nobel Peece prize just for being black president!)
Catch the hint girsl, you are not wanted in archtectrure unless you are already dead. Bwahh ha ha ha , oh that is too fucking funny. Rotflz !!!
They're not saying the work is not the issue. You can't say that about Moegan because her work is fantastic. They're saying it's time to make sure talented designers and innovators are honored whatever their gender may be, and that oversights from the past need to be addressed. Why else would Thomas Jefferson have been awarded so long after *his* death?
Darkman you realize she was one of the first architects to use reinforced concrete, right? The first woman admitted to the Ecole? Working in one of the most revered styles in our history when it was brand new? Your refusal to see her as deserving of this award is entirely based on her gender. It's despicable.
Darkman: It's a bizarre admitting that they are basically looking for a woman first, and the work is really not the issue.
Donna Sink: Your refusal to see her as deserving of this award is entirely based on her gender. It's despicable.
Darkman is suggesting that gender should not figure in the decision of recipient and not that the recipient should be excluded on the basis of the gender. I do not see what is despicable in his/her statement. The statement might be criticized (i suggest one such way below) but i do not read any underlying misogyny in his/her statement. Unless one wants to (mis)read whatever one wants, that is...
One could well ask the question whether being a woman AND an architect AND an exceptional one at a time when being all three was much more difficult put her well ahead of some (merely) exceptionally talented male architect. I imagine that one could argue that the award is being given for the overall contribution to the architectural profession - not only in terms of her architectural oeuvres compares to another's but also in addition to her distinction as someone who, by the virtue of her own practice, helped the profession open up to more women architects. In turn, yes its probably also a symbolic signalling from the AIA, no? It must be. And why not?
Even if, lets assume, that she didn't deserve it by sheer output - well, the professional world (let alone the architectural one) has a long history of unjustly disqualifying women without men getting irked by it...why should men now get their knickers in a knot over 'unjustly' qualifying women :o)
If they are going back and pulling Thomas Jefferson in the mix, the award's agenda clearly goes beyond great architects. It's great architects who may also have other distinguishing factors about them, and like many awards, the politics of the day reflect the times of the award. There's an infinate number of excellent architects as there are many politicians and scientists who are deserving of praise, to run with the Nobel Prize criticism, it's what other good can be accomplished by giving the award.
Julia Morgan's eclecticism works against her as the fluidity with which she employed historical styles tends to shadow her actual abilities as a great designer of space. Some people will get hung up on the politics of aesthetics and refuse to see how well a solution was rendered as is evident from some comments.
"There are plenty of quality women architects working today that are deserving. If you look at the work, it looks deserving in 1950 (or perhaps 1880) but not today. Unless we are looking for a return to Beaux-arts."
You work with in certain styles, regardless of where your work is located, and you are not deserving of recieving an architectural award. I must have missed that memo.
and why limit ourselves to post houmous awards? Let's try giving one pre-houmously next year. I nominate the unborn future starchitect child of Kenye West. Im sure he'd be hmbled ot accept such a n honour!
over and oot.
@ Donna Sink & Thayer D.
You both are on point, and your comments are refreshing. Thank you :)
Regarding:
"There are plenty of quality women architects working today that are deserving. If you look at the work, it looks deserving in 1950 (or perhaps 1880) but not today. Unless we are looking for a return to Beaux-arts."
The best architecture, from what I've gathered, is timeless. It may exemplify a mode of thinking from one generation or another, but it remains relevant in the context of history when examined through the lens of the present. Although Julia Morgan's work isn't referred to in many contemporary conversations (in local Los Angeles, at the very least), possibly because of the lack of higher recognition in her time, Morgan's work is clearly relevant and bolstered by her personal achievements.
Every time we discuss the relevance of historicism, ornament, and stylization versus the purist use of light, sound, and material structure and the breadth of conversations that exist in between, the work of Julia Morgan stands as one thorough exercise of an Architect's thesis, regardless of gender. She gathered her ideas and practiced them daily. I, for one, am inspired to do so myself, and am grateful to those that thought this relevant.
Yes, next time, give the award to a living woman - can't wait to see who it is - likely Zaha. Wish it was another woman, personally. I don't think Starchitect = Gold Medal, and would like to see it go to an architect with an incredible handle on materiality - we'll see....
Julia Morgan's architecture seems to be beside the point here. These awards have become WAY too political. When Sen. Diane Feinstein is sending letters to the AIA it seems like something has gone terribly wrong.
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