Overview

From the time she was little, Julia Morgan wanted to know how everything fit together. Her family often visited San Francisco, where she could puzzle over the many new buildings under construction there. Julia desperately wanted to be an architect--but in the late nineteenth century that was rare for a woman. Julia was not deterred. After several rejections, she finally made it into the prestigious all-male ecole des Beaux Arts, in Paris. She also became California's first licensed female architect and designed over 800 buildings, including newspaper mogul William Randolph Hearst's magnificent San Simeon. With exquisite illustrations, this is the story of a spirited pioneer.

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9780670059645

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The daughter of an engineer and the cousin of architect Pierre LeBrun, Julia Morgan was fascinated with how buildings worked from an early age. She graduated with an engineering degree from Berkeley in 1895, the only woman in her class, then went to France where she sketched and studied and worked at gaining admission to the Ecole des Beaux-Arts (which made her take the entrance exam three times). She came back to California and had a successful career, most famously spending more than 20 years designing and building Hearst Castle (San Simeon). She did battle with tycoon William Randolph Hearst as he changed his mind and his priorities. The text is straightforward and a little dry, betraying little of the will it must have taken for Morgan to forge the career she wanted. Hyman's soft but brilliant colors capture light, space and structure wonderfully but are less successful with figures and faces. Still, an interesting subject for a young biography, one who is not represented anywhere else for this age reader. (author's note, San Simeon facts, bibliography) (Picture book/biography. 8-11) (Kirkus Reviews)

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