Recounts the life of the architect whose projects included designing the Hearst Castle at San Simeon, California.

Julia Morgan was born into a world that doubted the ability of women, but her mother and grandmother taught her not to listen. Not only did she graduate college as the only woman in her class getting a degree in civil engineering, she went on to attend Beaux-Arts in Paris. As the best architecture school in the world, many were surprised when she passed the entrance exams, and even more so when she finished the five-year program in three years! After becoming the first woman to receive an architecture license in California, she opened her own business and was quickly singled out by William Hearst, who admired her imaginative style and unique projects. With his funding, she built Hearst Castle, one of the most famous buildings in California. It was her largest and most complex project, but by no means her last. She went on to build and advocate for the YWCA and Mills College, which both worked to advance women's opportunities.

Julia Morgan was born into a world that doubted the ability of women. After becoming the first woman to receive an architecture license in California, she was quickly singled out by William Hearst, who admired her imaginative style and unique projec

Julia Morgan was a pioneering woman architect, best known for Hearst Castle, in the vanguard of Beaux-Arts design and style in the first half of the twentieth century. Julia Morgan was truly a pioneer of her time—among other accomplishments, she was the first woman architect to be licensed in California, in 1904. Through her remarkable life and legacy, this book celebrates the Beaux-Arts architecture of California. Focusing on Morgan’s most famous project in the state, Hearst Castle, to which she devoted more than 30 years of her life, this volume also examines, for the first time, Morgan’s fabulous early buildings in the style. Morgan designed more than 700 buildings across California, many of which are designated landmarks today. Deepening the reader’s understanding of California archi-tecture, this book also places into context Morgan’s ambitions, her influences and inspirations, as well as her daily practice and challenges as a woman shaping an extraordinarily prolific and highly successful career in a man’s world. To better understand the Beaux-Arts training Morgan underwent in Paris, the reader is taken through the challenging, highly arduous Ecole des Beaux-Arts curriculum, which Morgan completed, a lone woman among men. Also explored, in detail, is the story of how the studio and kilns of California Faience, a Berkeley ceramic artisan’s shop, became the supplier of tens of thousands of tiles designed by Morgan and overseen by Hearst himself to decorate their architectural master-piece overlooking the Pacific Ocean.

How Julia Morgan came to design the Berkeley City Club in 1930, why the clubhouse is an architectural masterpiece, and what uses it has seen over the past 85 years.

Meet the brilliant, fearless, and ambitious Julia Morgan. In 1883, eleven-year-old Julia visits the amazing new Brooklyn Bridge—an experience that ignites within her a small but persistent flame. Someday, she decides, she too will build an astounding structure. Growing up in horse-and-buggy Oakland, Julia enjoys daring fence walks, climbing the tallest trees, and constantly testing her mother’s patience with her lack of interest in domestic duties and social events. At a time when “brainy” girls are the object of ridicule, Julia excels in school and consistently outsmarts her ornery brothers—but she has an even greater battle ahead. When she enrolls at university to study engineering, the male students taunt her, and the professors belittle her. Through it all, however, Julia holds on to her dream of becoming an architect. She faces each challenge head-on, firmly standing up to those who believe a woman’s place is in the home. Fortunately, the world has yet to meet anyone like the indomitable Miss Morgan. Drawing Outside the Lines is an imagined childhood of pioneering architect Julia Morgan, who left behind her an extraordinary legacy of creativity, beauty, and engineering marvels.

Biography of Julia Morgan one of the first women to graduate in civil engineering from the University of California, Berkeley, and the first women to earn a certificate in architecture from Ecole de Beaux-Arts in Paris