Morgan, Julia

(born Jan. 20, 1872, San Francisco, Calif., U.S.—died Feb. 2, 1957, San Francisco) U.S. architect. She received an engineering degree from the University of California at Berkeley. The first female architecture student at the École des Beaux-Arts in Paris (1898), she later became California's first licensed woman architect. Morgan then commenced 40 years of architectural work that resulted in some 800 buildings, most of them in California, particularly in San Francisco. She opened her own architectural office in 1904, and the devastation of the San Francisco earthquake of 1906 provided her with the opportunity to design hundreds of homes and many churches, office buildings, and educational buildings in the Bay area. She is best remembered for designing William Randolph Hearst's private castle at San Simeon (1919–38).

Find more information on Morgan, Julia. Upgrade to Britannica Online for more on Morgan, Julia.