Julia Morgan and Co. : Notes and thoughts on Architect/Client issues and e-quality  

                                                                                        By : Anthony C.Antoniades, AIA , AICP

                                                     This article is dedicated to  the memory of Tassia Antoniadou (1918-1998) ,  Pioneer Greek fashion Designer  .

Like many  male architects I suppose , I was startled in the mid-eighties with the unfamiliar but uniquely beautiful face of a young woman on the  cover of  the booklet "Master Builders", in company with Thomas Jefferson, Frank Lloyd Wright and Henry Hobson Richardson *. This woman was Julia Morgan,  who by then had been totally left out by all the architecture treatises  , including Hitchcock's "Architecture nineteenth & twentieth centuries" and Scully's "American Architecture and Urbanism". I must admit , my first initial attention ,  was motivated by purely  masculine curiosity for the beautiful female , who definitely appeared extraordinary ; a sense of assertive energy dignifiedly controlled under an  exquisitely proportioned face,  immaculate nose and huge fumigating nostrils, arrow  stare and beautiful eyes, everything under a  lavishly elaborate hat , a  porcelain-like human doll of the nineteenth century....        

In a  picture of her mature professional years, in the inside of the little book mentioned above , we have the mature model femininity sculpt by discipline , charm and charisma, knowledge and experience, a  beauty of absolute equality among the genders , an exceedingly beautiful human female being as architect , a role model of the opposite to me sex , I was desperately hoping to encounter  sometime in my own personal reality ..... Despite these first impressions with my encounter with the book and the architect's photographs, let me confess that  I had heard the name a few years before ,  when I was about to go from Texas to  Asilomar , to present a paper at an annual meeting of the ACSA (Association of Collegiate Schools of Architecture, 24 March 1981). Asilomar ("Asylon" +Mar : retreat by the sea) had been designed by Julia  Morgan, and my architectural history colleague the late  Dr. Jay Henry  had reprimanded  me I had not known Julia Morgan was its architect; "Don't you know Julia Morgan ?”. I had run to the library, but could hardly find anything about her at that time. And it  really blew my mind a few years later , when I finally  read the first two pages I ever read about her in my little slender booklet ; It was only then, three or four years after I had experienced her buildings that I really learned about her and realized how important and significant  she had been. Following  the little booklet, I tried to search every bit written about her, while I started to feel extremely  proud for having been at that conference ,  attended keynote lectures by Charles Moore  and Ricardo Legorreta at the main Hall  and had given   my own lecture at a smaller conference hall , and slept  in one of the guest pavilions   she had designed ; the whole environmental ambiance and sensual seduction through her design , had become part of my experiential memories, long before I had  studied and became “academically” and “professionally” aware of her worth . I still remember the smell of the wood everywhere, its masterful mixing with stone, an assembly of shorts I had never experienced before-unfamiliar to my Mediterranean Greek memories ;  The subsequent information  that Julia Morgan had been the architect   not only of this complex , but of 800 other buildings in California really blew my mind ;  how come Morgan had not  become  known earlier ? Frank Lloyd Wright, numbered  approx. 600 projects, Le Corbusier only a few and yes, one town , Valsamakis some 300, myself - a "teacher/architect"...just  only 14 !  

Yet the early 1980's  were tough times in certain ways ; You couldn't find , nor see anything about Morgan in literature, unless you were  to go around and see her buildings, go back and try your hands in archives, at Berkeley ,San Luis Obispo, Los Angeles,  San Simeon, and elsewhere; Yet all this, the days I had started to get  interested in her work  , was the "territory" of American women architects and PH.D researchers ; Julia Morgan was their most well kept secret , property to be safeguarded . Despite all this, I was feeling strongly about her  ; In due course , many among my female students, especially some  feminist militants  ,  were astonished to discover , that Antoniades, a “Greek male chauvinist"  , as most women in America thought of any Greek  born  male to be , was expressing such positive comments on Morgan in his lectures , and how was it possible that he knew  so much  about her and actually had ...slept in Asilomar !

These were days of unfortunate battles in America-the '80's and '90's I mean  ; cries, tears, backstabbing   in architecture studios through the offices of Deans and other administrators ; plots and even outright "assassinations" of  people alive, destruction of careers of  innocent devoted people , the victims been sometimes male , other times female , both , faculty and students . Broader "social policies " and "equity practices"  by processes outside of Architecture, through the offices of the undemocratic-medieval  barracuda  AA-EO (Affirmative Action and Equal Opportunity), helped establish and perpetuate the anomaly  ! The stupid "male"/"female" feud, did bad rather than any good , and will continue to do harm  if the two genders do not really approach each other as "real and absolutely equals", as I knew this was the case in my homeland Greece, were man-woman couples were thriving, where there were no such inferiority issues and gender wars, despite whatever the American females had been thinking about Greece, about the stereotype of the “Greek sauvinist male” and the "suffering Greek female” ; I was a firm believer that the discipline , the dedication and the need to be vocationally devout to the inner needs of the field was equally significant for both genders of the human race.   Julia Morgan, as I eventually found out, from my occasional readings and my  visits to  her  projects I was able to visit, was a really disciplined, highly motivated and applied person, absolutely fulfilling the highest standards of devotion to vocation and equality, as anyone could ever hope to find, as anyone was ever trying to achieve. Actually she fully fulfilled , as I subsequently found out the role model of equality her great patron Phoebe Hearst was believing , practicing  and promoting , and as I had since my childhood observed my own mother to be : the Christian Dior educated Tassia Antoniadou,   at the peak of her fashion Design career , just following the Greek civil war after a six months stand in Paris , was running in Athens-Greece an army of 66 worthy Greek women; all decendents of women who a few years back , fifty years before Suzan Anthony and other subsequent "Anthony's" ,  were seamstressing the clothes of the men , who , along with women, as was the case in many instances, fought the Greek revolution...women , absolutely equal to men  !

Phoebe Hearst, had been adamant as to her prerequisites to professional equality since the closing of the nineteenth century. In 1894 she had been quoted to have said : " I wish someone would impress upon the minds of women who desire to or are forced to earn their own living the necessity of doing their work well - of preparing themselves to render excellent service, no matter where they are employed . I become very much discouraged sometimes in trying  to aid women who wish to work" (Robinson 1991, and , p. 261).And as we have been told by Robinson in her great book on the Hearsts, Phoebe Hearst was "Brutally frank" and was stopping support to women who did not apply themselves to the task of discipline and study they had initially embarked upon on some demanding professions (i.e architecture, medicine, law, etc.) , feeling they ought to "stop dreaming and go back to work"(ibid. p. 260).The only editorial suggestion I would make to Phoebe's earlier statement, would be , to change the world "women", to "anyone" , as under terms of equality, everyone ought to do their work well and prepare themselves to render  excellent  services.

Phoebe Hearst , the widow and inheritor as well as the life-long executive of the extraordinary wealth of the nineteenth century mining and land tycoon George Hearst, was key and pivotal figure in Julia Morgan's  life as an architect and “no-nonsense” professional success. Morgan , from a well to do San Francisco family , had properly and politely rejected  the wealthy millionaire's gesture to financially support her studies in Paris ; leaving the funds for others who needed it, she  made it with determined perseverance through the Ecole des Beaux Arts in Paris, being the first woman to get admitted and graduate from this , up until then , all-male institution. Upon  her return to America, after working for "peanuts" as an architect for the University of California at Berkeley, under  the big architect John Galen Howard , with whom she designed collaboratively two major buildings (the Hearst Mining building, and the Greek Theater),  she eventually left to open her own firm in San Francisco in 1904. Sara Holmes Boutelle, has given us a vivid account of the early years , the low salaried position of Morgan at Berkeley   , and her professional relationship with Bernard Maybeck, her teacher, first employer and life-long friend and most trusted favorite architect of Phoebe Hearst , who conducted under her inspiration and financial support the first international competition, for the master plan of the Berkeley campus, as well as for many distinguished buildings ....

Phoebe Hearst , Bernard Maybeck and Julia  Morgan , were obviously a closed knit , mutually respecting , toward  excellence-in-the-task collaborating trio ; they were  perhaps  the most illustrious Client/Architect team , where client intuition, architect talent and mutual trust produced excellent results under the most ideal and community beneficial circumstances;  Had  it not been for the intuitive Phoebe and the solid foundation of this 'triangular" professional circumstance, Maybeck and  Julia Morgan would perhaps have never reached the levels of professional excellence they  reached ; Julia Morgan in particular, who ,unlike the very  “idiosyncratic” and prolific Maybeck, enjoyed the trust and many   subsequent commissions  from Phoebe's “idiosyncratic and highly prolific” son Will, the notorious newspaper, magazine and movie production magnet William Randolph Hearst .Her two major buildings for him, were "The Examiner" Building in Los Angeles, and the most illustrious of all , his personal compound at San Simeon, what came to be known as the "Hearst Castle".

It has been written that Julia Morgan was a simple woman ; she did not seek notoriety,  worked endlessly and with devotion ; she designed and supervised her own projects, and was constantly on the run, inspecting sites and materials, being content with little and constant flow of jobs and secured modest profit , rather than sparks of the moment and high stakes, even though some of her commissions were of the highest level. One of her favorite quotes  was : "never turn down a job because you think it's too small ; you don't know where it can lead". Her little projects at first , eventually lead to San Simeon; and then she turned the “Big” money to “little” and in weekly installements. The agreement she negotiated with William Randolph Hearst , for the design and construction of the complex of  his "Cuesta Encantada" , the  "Hearst Castle" as  people call it today , she indicated she preferred to get her fee in $500 weekly installments , rather than get the totals at once (3 1/2 % upon commencement of construction, +2 1/2 % upon completion) .There is no doubt Morgan was a Beaux Arts graduate; She knew and could play historic styles at her fingertips, successfully adapting and transforming them at will, intermingling mortar with art and green, architecture with landscape, life style and engineering ; And above all this, supervising  the whole task of construction, making all these diverse elements real, in the most "inclusivist" sense;  She coordinated  groundwork, site drainage, selection of materials, interior as well as exterior,  everything , in the grandest imaginable scale. The size of the St. Simeon complex in enormous; the Neptune pool , filled with white marble mermaid sculptures , the I intermingling  of green with Art , the endless intermingling of   opposites, the solid with the fragile, the temporary with the eternal , and despite of one's preconceptions against "Hollywood" and set design, is extraordinary ; the views and the  overall aura of everything so neatly interwoven   on that mountain hill is unforgetable. Even for the simple guest today , who will inhale all this in a 45 minute tour, without a chance for a second photo, the various parts of the complex constitute a  life's experience ;  I have come to believe that Julia Morgan and William Randolph Hearst, both under the spell and spirit of Phoebe Hearst, produced on the top of San Simeon, a "Delphi-like destination  for California" ;   I definitely view it as a unique 20th century "genius loci" ,  a meta-twentieth century 'must"  pilgrimage no Barcelona pavilion ever enjoyed.

Morgan and Hearst introduced man-made "sublimity" in an otherwise serene landscape , thus daringly up-grading it , without in anyway disturbing the calm and natural aura of the overall. The reference to the Barcelona pavilion is I believe  relevant , at least for Architects, as both projects were completed in the same year (1929), and even  though they are two completely different things they stand to scrutiny for many reasons, regarding

air-strip  the Ocean the "Castle" 

                                             (All pictures by the author, Sept.2005 )

 fame, notoriety, user opinion etc. No-one today seems to remember anything out of anyone's visit and experience of the actual Barcelona Pavilion (see Fitch 1965), and yet this unknown to the public building became, ironically (through the  media mind you) , the darling of architects, influencing world architecture, while the other one, the media master's personal project, that had been experienced by chords of famous and illustrious users , actors and politicians, businessmen and all kinds of people, remained for many years virtually unknown.  This article is not the place for polemics, "modern" vs. "History" and  "Historicism"; it is rather a place for admiration; Had  Mies  perhaps been called to built for Hearst the outcome would have definitely been different ; probably there would have been no building , as Mies , had he been  honest to his searches ,would have wanted it all glass  and  Hearst had envisioned otherwise; a Mediterranean masonry California project inspired by Hadrian's Villa. Mies, had no humor and Julia

Neptune Pool            Guest House              Outdoor furniture             Typical guest bedroom and Bath

      (All the photos by A.C.A - Digital camera no flash as per guided tour restrictions , Sept 2005)

apparently had ; she actually combined  the design freedom attitude of Maybeck , disciplined by  the professional seriousness of a Mies ;   Julia Morgan, the master Builder , was prepared and well equipped to give  to Hearst what he wanted, to listen, accept criticism and compose; in short she had been an ideal "inclusivist" architect , professionally equipped and client serving ; Wright would have definitely been out of the question, as He and Hearst would  have probably "killed" each-other; but Morgan managed to avoid assassination;  Nor could Corbu have done it; What  Hearst wanted was what Corbu detested, old styles and the whole Beaux-Arts ; But Morgan designed in the Beaux-Arts system , composing historic styles; She even plugged the Theater of  her master's thesis into the project; The Cinema of the compound, is just imperially domestic, democratically imperial. Guests and servants in the same room, all enjoying after a day's work.

But Morgan , unlike  her mentor Maybeck, who had been excellent in construction detailing, sometimes of the most bizar and complicated nature, was no different to Wright, or to Bruce Goff, or to Corbu , when it came to some  detailing ; some little trivials , appear remote from the grand design, and many young architects neglect  . At this point, Hearst would probably have prefered the  immaculate detail  perfectionism  of  Maybeck’s  “First Church of Christ” in Berkeley , even of Mies, but as the case was , Morgan took note of her client’s criticism and frank remarks, and she  improved the  details. Let us see what happened :  Following the first rain storms water from the hilltop water made apparently its way under the  door sills; And  William Randolph wrote to his architect  , "suggesting that the doors to "A" House be made water and draft proof with metal weather strips. If antique with metal doors (do)not permit this , don't use antique iron. Let's have COMFORT AND HEALTH before so much art. The art won't do us any good if we are all dead of pneumonia." (Nancey E.Loe,1988, 2005,  p.71). His architect apparently did her best, but some problems continued; And perhaps this time, the problems were not with her but with the construction workers and the on-site foreman . In this instance Hearst complained :"...we are drowned, blown and frozen out. The trouble is not merely with the weather. It is with the houses. ....Before we build anything more let's make what we have built practical, comfortable and beautiful. If we can't do that we might just as well change the names of the houses to Pneumonia House, Diphteria House and Influenza Bungalow. The main house we can call the Clinic. I am not coming back to the hill until we put the small houses on a liveable basis...". Loe's quotation from the Hearst note goes on... Firmness, commodity , Delight ! Firmness and the "Health of the house" was primary ; Was this Hearst or were these the suggestions of Morgan for these harsh words, to have the strong pen of her male client impose finally his order to the male foremen? Perhaps that was the case, as we read further down, that "Hearst didn't leave the Hill" as he had initially threatened , but "that weekend he and Morgan considered various methods of weatherproofing the buildings..." (Loe 1988,2005 p. 72) . ...Unlike  Le Corbusier, who under the circumstance of a leaking roof in living room , which had made a lake in the living room of a house he had design, and who responded to his clients, ''I am an architect not a plumber" , leaving a paper boat to sale on the water lake on the floor (Antoniades 1979,p.17 ), Morgan displayed exemplary professionalism ...Hearst would have probably fired any male stuborness under such circumstances, and he would have certainly been right!

The  chapter on the "Golden years at San Simeon" ,  of the illustrated biography of William Randolph Hearst by Nancy E. Loe , is a treasure; it provides a  condensed description of this great project , its construction process and the overall architect/client relationship, their mutual give and take, their exemplary collaboration. Which really brings me to the issue of great clients, something which eventually counts more for any great project and the successful  realization of a noble intention and talented design proposal.  Hearst had it apparently in his DNA to be a great client; because perhaps greater and more persistent to him, in much grandeur and socially sensitive scale was his mother ;  Phoebe Hearst, had not only conceived the significance of education, from Kindergartens to Universities, and the significance of appropriate buildings and environments to house such activities, but more so , conceived , and financially supported the planning and construction of several such grandiose projects; Top among them was the Plan for the University of California at Berkeley, several of the buildings in this campus, as well as the Asilomar, schools and Kindregartens. She also got involved in several projects in Washington DC, such as the  conception , planning and financial support of the National School for Women, and the Restoration of the George Washington's river-front home at  Mount Vernon (Robinson p. 316). Yet her involvement with everything related to Berkeley  was her more grandiose and architecturally  didactic undertaking .  Regarding the preparation of the Berkeley plan, she suggested the idea of an international architectural competition, the first one of its kind to ever take place , and she  saw the  conclusion of the competition process .The   first prize went  to the French architect Emile Benard - who had never seen the actual site-(Robinson, pp . 292,293). Subsequent events   lead to Benard's withdrawal , while  the final implementation and realization of his plan , as revised and "locally adapted" by New York Architect John Galen Howard, who is often referred by some writers as the person who won  the competition, which apparently is far from true, were observed and followed carefully , receiving the final approval of Phoebe ...Everything regarding  the Berkeley plan, took place under the consultation , direction and professional orchestration of  Phoebe's  trusted and  favorite life-long friend, the Berkeley teacher/architect Bernard Maybeck. He was also the teacher,  mentor and life-long friend and professional  collaborator of  Julia Morgan . Phoebe  hired  both of them in team or separately ,  for several of her private buildings and estates . Most unusual and highly significant as conceptual and architectonic masterpiece, was a complex of two buildings,   the   Phoebe Hearst Berkeley residence and the "Hearst Hall" . Both buildings were designed by Maybeck and were tightly connected by an elevated passageway  . This complex demonstrated best to anything else Phoebe Hearst's, love for education and students and the architects far advanced thinking into what came to be discussed much later as "flexibility" in architecture; Because the "Social Hall" had been conceived as a temporary building, to act as a center/exhibition Hall for the Berkeley Plan competition, as well as temporary "student center", to be moved later to a permanent location. It was  conceived , if you will, as a "social extension of her own living room", a much larger and uniquely imaginative and technologically advanced architectonic piece, not only to act as a background for the presentation of new and innovative campus design ideas from all over the world, but also  to inspire and enhance the discussion  in ambience; The "Social Hall", with "flexibility", "temporariness"  and "light -weight" appear today to have been  part of its initial conception . The building featured  first time used laminated wood arches, and provided a spiritually grand interior ; The dignified "gothic" interior ambience , a "historicist" design stroke undoubtedly,  was transformed into 20th century "cubism" in the exterior . The 

 overall mass was a "cube" articulated  by severe portions of solid and strategically placed elements of "transparent" on either side of the exteriorly expressed "gothic arch". The tower, attached to the opposite of the Hearst residence side of the Social Hall, was actually enhancing the idea, of a building calling the passer-by : "Here’s where all the action is" !...In this building there was actually very much going on, the display of the first in the world architectural competition, and the lively discussions of  Berkeley students, who used to congregate and often spoke with Phoebe Hearst, till it was moved a few years later  into its more permanent location ; it was unfortunately burned in 1922. This unique building, had been totally left out of analysis  and scrutiny by  twentieth century major architecture critics ,while recent students and young instructors who became aware, presumably following its publication in Robinson's book, from where I take the pictures above,  attempt to reconstruct it from the pictures , analyze  its structure and give information about it in term papers and in their internet sites (i.e see:   Zanger and Riggs 1995); Although Hitchock ,  refers to Maybeck as "an architect of great originality and surprising versatility",  he leaves it just there; The same is true for several others, more recent American writers and Historians, who although through  some positive passing comment  here and there , by-pass him quickly, for reasons that I am not aware off, but that appear to me to day inexcusable; I would dare suggest that Bernard Maybeck, was apparently way ahead of his time, both conversant in history, and well aware of what the period was after : simplicity and light weight construction . As Hitchock advances his Berkeley survey, he  glorifies John Gallen Howard (the man who implemented the Berkeley plan, designed the Hearst Memorial Mining Building and the Greek Theater, both with Julia Morgan as collaborating architect, and  - eventually became the Dean of the School of Architecture  ) and refers on "...one or two other things by Maybeck)(Hitchock, pp. 332,333), the word in italics being mine, indicating perhaps his real feelings for Maybeck. I believe, Maybeck, was not just "original" and "versatile", but "highly inclusivist", as he was able to massage everything, including "History" and "technology" into architecture of the period, most significantly , serving the needs of client and contributing to the overall "CONCEPTUALLY". I believe, all this would not  have happened , had  the "intuitive" client Pheobe Hearst, been absent from the equation.  In collaboration  with Julia Morgan, Maybeck designed and excecuted  the Hearst Gymnasium for women.

Maybeck's First Church of Christian Scientist, Berkeley 1910, (photo by the author 1966

Throughout all this , there was a San Francisco, Berkeley, Paris, Beaux-Art connection as all of them had lived and been influenced by France culturally ,while the architects  had all studied in the famous French school. The Beaux-Arts, was definitely about Art; Exquisite draftsmanship , revival of ancient styles, and deep belief  in competitions; Architecture, was considered above everything else a high art . A favorite saying  of Julia Morgan, aparently shared by her other Beaux-Arts friends, was :"Architecture is a visual art, and the buildings speak for themselves". Yet what is really remarkable is that she , as well as Maybeck , had a very peculiar notion of the professional matters such as fees, etc, which apparently appealed to high gear clients such as Phoebe , and later to her son, William Randolph Hearst ; Both , Maybeck and Morgan, have been reported by their biographers, to have a rather peculiar contempt for money, in favor of their Art. Actually Maybeck, would even come to the point to offer his design services even free of charge, if he knew he had a client who was going to do exactly what he had imagined and designed for him and his needs; Had it not been for his wife, who was also a life-long friend of Phoebe Hearst, Maybeck would probably be working for her for nothing, as soon as he knew there was a continuous flow of commissions that would permit him to realize his creative design impulses; He was paid a regular $100 salary per week from Phoebe Hearst, for the design sevices of the projects he was designing for her. It was apparently from him that Julia Morgan acquired her similar habit, asking from William the $500 per week fee we mentioned already earlier. We shouldn't forget that there were other creative architects, who also preferred to be underpaid and have their visions realized, rather than lose their commissions to others because of the obstacle of a high fees; Le Corbusier got only $4000 as his fee for the plan of Chandigarh. Such issues, obviously pose professional dilemma  , especially under the  professional predicament of  liability insurance fees  architects have to pay to day. It is interesting to consider that these low paid great architects had developed a love for small projects, and Morgan actually was saying that no commission should be turned down because of its size. "Never turn down a job because you  think  it is too small; you don't know where it can lead" (Julia Morgan Quotes-see the Internet). She preferred likewise, to cut down the long time expectation of a high percentage fee , and be paid instead  , less amount and continuously.

Some might think of Phoebe Hearst as an eccentric  , which was obviously the case in many respects of her son, who not only built like his mother , but also "built" in the broadest sense in his own finally chosen mettier, Journalism; Not only he lounged most of the newspapers and magazines we know today (from Harpers Bazaar, to Cosmopolitan), but he was the actual inventor of "Yellow Journalism", producing News on the basis of pre-design scenarios, and staging of events he was systematically conceiving. He went even as far as to produce the USA-Cuba war, as is well documented; His ability to  "invent" and  stage "scenarios", was furthered by his involvement in production in Cinema, which apparently found additional outlet in architecture , in the overall concept, the "staging" and the overall "theatrics" of his own Castle at San Simeon. Julia Morgan, had really her concepts ready, actually "Client script and Client Given".  It appears that all of them, operated in the most mutually supporting way, all of them aspiring to the same cultural making and the same love for greatness and the out of the ordinary.

Phoebe Hearst, was a blessed super-capitalist !  Lucky among the luckiest of the people, to find herself swimming in wealth and capable enough to administer and keep it , yet vividly concerned about the good, the public good as served best via architecture. In this grand blessing, Julia Morgan proved to be her final pick ... in this sense Julia Morgan was blessed as well..... I finished this time's visit with a repeat stop at the Los Angeles EXAMINER building. I wanted to see it once more, before Thomas Mayne erects his glass-steel addition to the adjacent block. I don't think it will be bad; On the contrary; I expect his steel and glass proposal to display some of the playfulness, to counteract the "business-like restraint" (see also Moore, etc. 1984, p.30) ,so robustly was able to instill upon it , Julia Morgan, through the "Californian Mission" style ; I only  regret there is no William Randolph Hearst to "client" him around;  ....Where have really the great patrons gone? Or are we contend with the  endless ranchburger - estate style of the  Bill Gates private house?

I  could continue on this subject, but it is perhaps much better if you read about Phoebe, Hearst , Maybeck and Julia Morgan, by yourselves; The book by Judith Robinson is great !and so are the books in the market on Maybeck and William Randolph Hearst ;  Don't be put off by initial thoughts you may have that the Robinson book may be a case of "Feminist" production; it is not. Phoebe Hearst emerges as a superb, disciplined, paradigm, of a human who happens to be female, blessed by fortune, one of those fortunate individuals ,who as J.P. Getty said about himself "always had a reserved seat in life" (see Getty,  pp. 19,20).  And obviously , so was the case for William Randolph. ....And so we could think perhaps of Julia Morgan ; God had reserved a seat for her  in the bus  of commissions , of "repeat commissions and repeat clients" I should say ; Could you  really imagine how many buildings she would have built had she been a daughter of our internet, e-mail and "e"lectronic  age ?  I am absolutely certain, she would have made a lot, as I am absolutely certain Phoebe would have actually advanced  her own success at inconceivably Olympian Heights ...those heights of worth and e-quality  .....

......Yet , once again: where have all the great architectural patrons gone?

.

.........Postscript note: This piece was written for the Greek Architects ; and for every architect I suppose; But as I am more aware of Greeces' today's Hearsts, I kind of did it for the Greeks; I had no desire to play it smart and "show off" my compatriot architects of the "exotic" architectural spots I have visited and photographed , but rather as a piece of evidence, to tell and shout at the "richies" of this land , to shake them with  the precedent  of some really worthy  predecessors, and to call on them for something nobler .  Today's  Greek  tycoons ,  with some very few exceptions,  pride themselves for  their  football teams , their  private yachts or their Dior dress appearances ( I do pride for the Dior connection of my late mother but for other reasons)  , but do little from what I am aware of , read in the newspapers or hear on TV, to enhance architecture; Exception to all this , and they deserve public praise , are some members of the Goulandris family , Nicki and Eliza with her husband Vassilis, and Lazaros Efraimoglou with his foundation of Greater Hellenism. They have provided museums and other educational facilities for their homeland; most others, especially from the younger generation and those who ripped off  Stock market and  European Government money's did very little with their own private funds, while , some who did, did it for purely political and self promoting business purposes . As I said, most of   them , the rumor has it, change their yacht like shirts, sometimes on an annual basis,  they cater to the architecturally "unworthy", many among the not so "glamorously" rich destroy the environment with real estate proposals and complicated undertakings that are not for the public good  ; instead of buying large pieces of land and donating them to  state for public parks, as was the case with the Hearsts,  just buy these magnificent pieces , in the name of "development" , for  real estate and financial deals ,  and in most cases  the architectural taste  of most of them  goes  not a step beyond the taste of the  Las Vegas Mafia Dons' suburban Kitch or some low immitations of J.Paul Getty's Shutton Place , whenever it comes to their own houses, or to  properties they buy in England .....

Notes/Bibliography:

Note on pictures: All the pictures presented here ,except the portraits and the Book cover, and those of Maybeck's Hearst Hall were taken by the author following visitation of projects. 

The Hearst Hall was scanned at low resolution from the book "The Hearsts" by Judith Robinson , for documentary and no commercial purposes whatsoever, as this article in the Internet , being in line with all the others by this author , is done with no commercial incentive and no monetary profit, its sole goal being "communication with colleagues and possibly other interested parties , strictly educational".Better quality pictures of the building can be also found published in Woodbridge 1996, p.78 below.

* The "company" of my title are not Jefferson, Wright and Richardson, but Pheobe Hearst , her son William Randolph Hearst, and  Bernard Maybeck the architect and life-long friend of Julia Morgan .  I trust I ought to be afforded the license of the present title (because Julia Morgan actually never had such title for her office: she simply called her office: "Julia Morgan , Architect" - see:Boutelle 1995, p.42) ; and I believe I may be afforded this license because I highly appreciate and value the work of Julia Morgan , her professional and compassionately human stature, all of which  will be amply substantiated in detail , to whoever reads the  monograph of Boutelle 1995 below.

Anthony C.Antoniades,AIA

Bibliography 

1. Antoniades , Anthony C."Texas towns and Design education" , Annual Meeting ACSA, Asilomar, 24 March 1981

2. Antoniades, Anthony C. "Architecture and Allied Design", Kendall/Hunt publishing co. Debuque-Iowa, 1992,  p.192

3.Antoniades, Anthony C. "Architecture from Inside Lens : Jokes and stories about celebrated architects", "A+U"(Architecture and Urbanism), in English and Japanese, Tokyo, July 1979, pp.3-21, p.17 (Frank Lloyd Wright under a similar circumstance ,when a client complained that the roof of his  living room was leaking over his armchair, had responded: "move the chair".  ibid.p.17) 

4. Boutelle , Sara Holmes, "Julia Morgan" in "Master Builders: A guide to famous American Architects",  National Trust of Histroric Preservation,Washington D.C, 1985,  pp. 132-135

5. Boutelle , Sara Holmes, "Julia Morgan Architect" Abbeville press, New York 1995 (the major reference on Julia Morgan-multiple general references in the present text, mostly to substantiate comments made by the present writer on Morgan as a person, her love and attitude toward colleagues and children, i.e see Boutelle pp: 23,25, 30, 31, 39 , 46,47). Also primary reference on Morgan Buildings throughout her career. The most authoritative source on Julia Morgan to date. A Highly recommended reading , with a rather compassionate and human attitude on the Morgan/Maybeck professional and student/"Mentor" professional life-long  relationship, even though  Boutelle takes the position that Maybeck was not a "Mentor", but rather that his life-long friend Morgan facilitated him by making her office available in several instances he had need of appropriate space to work his large scale projects out. There is a very subtle  academic tipped-toe game "played" between Boutelle (whose book on Julia Morgan came out first) and Woodbridge, whose book of Maybeck followed. It is very interesting that both  authors acknowledge the help and interviews they received from Jacomena Maybeck, the daughter in Law of Maybeck, and it is very possible that there may be some latent and  agenda in the writing of either of them regarding their respective interpretation of the information gained on the Morgan/Maybeck professional and career subtleties. Despite the significance of the two sources , there are still several questions un-answered , on the very "human" and personal life style level , perhaps the task of a future biographer ), and on the absolutely "substantial" level, regarding the contribution of either architect on the field of architecture in absolutely "architectonic terms", that is, who and to what extend contributed with their life-long work and example to the advancement of the architecture of the century they lived . We may admire them and be fascinated by both of them, and we may  feel  outraged  on the unfairness of their exclusion,   but an assessment of how they weigh  within  the overall context of twentieth century ideology(ies) and efforts for advancement of architecture, spatially as well as wholistically, has yet to be assessed; And this is perhaps  the task of further research and  critical appraisal .

6.Scully , Vincent, "American Architecture and Urbanism", Praeger Publishers, New York, 1969, pp.133-145 (It is interesting to note that Scully makes certain substantial references to Bernard Maybeck , and other California Architects of the time, but makes no reference whatsoever to Julia Morgan, who had actually collaborated and even made the working drawings of several Maybeck buildings; such as the Hearst Memorial Gymnasium for women-p. 135, for which he gives her no credit whatsoever).

7.Gebhard David, "Shindler", Viking , New York, 1971 . This source, also significant because it was written by an author well aware of the twentieth century California scene, makes no reference whatsoever to Julia Morgan, even though it makes several references to Maybeck, to the Hearst Hall,and to occasional influence of Maybeck on Rudolph Schindler (i.e pp. 58,and picture of the Hearst Hall no.36).

8. Hitchcock,Henry Russell "Architecture ninetheenth &twentieth centuries" , Penguin Books, Baltimore-Maryland, 1958 (see photo p. 148,etc.)

9. Loe, Nancey E., "William Randolph Hearst", Companion Press , Bishop California , 2005 (multiple references)

10. Getty , J.Paul, "As I seet it", The J.Paul Getty Museum, Los Angleles 2003 (pp.19,20,Sutton Place pp.225,232)

11. Robinson Judith, "The Hearsts: An American Dynasty", Telegraph Hill Press, San Francisco, 2002, pp.82(on Yellow Journalism) 84,85,269,270, 316,317,320,371, 382 (on Suzan Anthony), also references as appropriate in Text

12. The Lehrer show, "Patty Hearst"

13.Franklin Deborah, "When one Man's Castle was his home", VIA magazine, January 2003, and also see the Internet

14. Larry King, interview with Patricia Hearst in Larry King Live , "Patricia Hearst discusses the Presidential Pardon",  Aired Jan 31, 2001, 9 pm.ET.   There is a beautiful video clip reference  by Patricia  Hearst on herself and other Hearst grandchildren swimming in the Neptune pool, and hiding behind the Nereid sculptures at the amazement of the last group of Tourists who were visiting the place ; as the tourists were leaving the pool , they would suddenly see the serene surface to start waving ; as they could not see the hiding children they were probably thinking the place was haunted.  When the Hearsts turned the park and the Castle to the State , the family had permit to visit the place and use the pool in after hours. See: Video Clip "Secrets of San Simeon" in Larry King above.

15. Roth, L.M, "Bernard Maybeck" in Journal of the Society of Architectural Historians, 1/1985, pp. 84-85

16.Roth, L.M, "Julia Morgan, Architect" by Sara Holmes Boutelle, a book review, Journal of the Society of Architectural Historians, 3/1989, pp. 297-299

17. Julia Morgan Quotes : "never turn down a job because you think it's too small ; you don't know where it can lead", "Architecture is a visual art, and the buildings speak for themselves", "My buildings will be my legacy...they will speak for me long after I am gone". See : Internet

18. Moore Charles, Becker Peter, Campbell Regula,  The City observed: Los Angeles , Vintage books, 1984 ( Charles Moore thought highly of Julia Morgan . He and his co-authors, were  among the first to write about Morgan's professional dimension, saying that she had " a no-nonsense practice".  See Moore etc. 1984, p.30)

19. James Marston Fitch in his essay on Aesthetic Education mentions that he personally didn't recall to have met anyone who had personally experienced the Barcelona Pavilion, while he refers to Sibyl Moholy Nagy who had told him that everything on the pavillion was based on four available photographs (those published in almost every book or article on Mies van der Rohe).See Fitch: "Experimental Basis for Aesthetic Decision" in Annals of the New York Academy of Sciences, 1965 (p.120), see also Antoniades "Architecture and Allied Design" Kendall/Hunt , Debuque Iowa p.1992, p. 192)

20. Wiseman Carter, "Shaping a Nation: Twentieth-Century American Archtitecture and its makers", W.W Norton and company, New York, 1998, pp. 88-90 ( describing Maybeck as "the quintessential renegade"-"...a man full of bizzard behavior ...who embodied a special freedom of thought"(p. 90). He makes no reference at all to Phoebe Hearst, nor does he mention the Hearst Hall.

21. Woodbridge Sally .B. "Bernard Maybeck Visionary Architect", Abbeville Press PUblishers, New York, 1996, This  the most authoritative source on Bernard Maybeck, with excellent photography, with unique description  and critical appraisal of the  the pioneering Hearst Hall (p.76- 79); the   author though appears kind of reserved on the Maybeck/Morgan professional relationship, being rather "reserved" on Julia Morgan throughout ( i.e pp. 85 ), giving the impression that she is attempting to hide some "bitterness" that probably existed here, perhaps from the Maybeck "family" side toward Morgan (i.e see footnote no.5 above) ; may be ! some further future research and further anecdotal and personal information may cast more light on this issue in the future...

22. Matthew Zanger and Brint Riggs ARCH 461/561 Spring 1995, in Chris H. Luobkeman and Donald Pehng, www.darkwing.uoregon.edu

23. An invaluable visual source on Julia Morgan can  be found in the Internet The site Julia Morgan Index and pictures of her buildings taken by Mary Ann Sullivan is  maintained  by Mary Ann Sullivan, sullivanm@bluffton.edu . 

24. For some excellent pictures of the Hearst Memorial Mining  Building  in Berkeley Campus , of Architect John Galen Howard, for whom Julia Morgan was the Draftsperson, and has been mentioned by several authors as “co-architect”, see: http://www.mse.berkeley.edu/HMMBarchitecture.html. This building is listed in the national Historic register: see http://www.berkeley.edu/news/berkeleyan/1998/0715/mining.html

25. Henry, James R., The Woman's Suffrage Movement in Dayton and Montgomery County, 1912 to 1919.  Henry, Oxford, OH,  1977 Dayton

26 .Anthony, Susan B.(Suzan Browell)  An Account of the Proceeding on the Trial of Suzan B. Anthony, on the Charge of Illegal Voting, at the Presidential Election in Nov., l872, and on the Trial of Beverly W. Jones, Edwin T. March 5th and William B. Hall, the Inspectors of Election by whom her Vote was Received, Daily Democrat and Chronicle Book Print, Rochester, NY, l874.

©Anthony C.Antoniades

Go to MAGAZINE index or to

Greek Translation of article in Mag09.2.htm.pdf

Πατείστε εδώ για Ελληνική μετάφραση του ανωτέρω αρθρου