Art & Statues
Julia Morgan: The Road to San Simeon by Gordon Fuglie
Julia Morgan: The Road to San Simeon by Gordon Fuglie
Published in 2022 by Rizzoli Electa, this 304-page book examines the career of Julia Morgan, the first woman licensed as an architect in California and the designer behind Hearst Castle. Edited by Gordon Fuglie with contributions from architectural historians Jeffrey Tilman, Karen McNeill, Victoria Kastner, and Elizabeth McMillian, the book is organized into seven chapters that place Morgan's work within the broader context of the American Renaissance and the Beaux-Arts training she and her contemporaries received in Paris. While Hearst Castle remains its central focus, the book also examines Morgan's earlier California buildings in the Beaux-Arts style for the first time in this depth, tracing her development across a career that ultimately produced more than seven hundred buildings. The cover reproduces the tiled Roman Pool at Hearst Castle, its deep blue and gold mosaic work reflected in still water beneath an ornate colonnade. It stands as one of the most thorough treatments yet published of Morgan's architectural legacy.
Fuglie and his co-authors trace Morgan's career from her training at the École des Beaux-Arts in Paris, where she became the first woman admitted to the school's architecture program, through her return to California and licensure there in 1904. The book gives particular attention to her thirty-year collaboration with William Randolph Hearst on San Simeon, examining both the architectural ambitions behind the project and its place within the broader tradition of American Gilded Age estate architecture, while also situating Morgan's earlier work within the cultural currents that shaped Beaux-Arts design on the West Coast.
Gordon Fuglie is a curator, art historian, and writer focused on the historical and contemporary legacy of California architecture and art. His co-authors bring specialized expertise in Morgan's career and in Hearst Castle specifically, giving the book a depth of scholarship built from multiple perspectives rather than a single narrative voice.
This book is a significant addition to the literature on Julia Morgan and California Beaux-Arts architecture, valuable both for its treatment of Hearst Castle and for its attention to Morgan's lesser-known early buildings. It holds strong appeal for collectors interested in American architectural history and the broader story of women's contributions to the field.
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