Julia Morgan was an extraordinarily prolific Bay Area architect who in the 47 years of her career completed over 700 projects, more than any other architect of her time. In Berkeley alone, she designed over 100 buildings, including such varied masterpieces as the wooden 1910 Julia Morgan Theater in Craftsman Style (originally St. John’s Presbyterian Church, 2640 College Avenue), the elegant 1928 Mediterranean stucco mansion (2821 Claremont Avenue), which served for years to house the University’s vice-president, and the 1930 Berkeley City Club (2315 Durant Avenue), a medieval fantasy executed in reinforced concrete that is listed on the National Register of Historic Places. With its unique combination of Moorish, Romanesque, and Gothic elements, the Berkeley City Club manifests Julia Morgan’s creative eclecticism as well as her solid engineering skills.

Berkeley is studded with dozens of simple but elegant Craftsman Style shingled houses that Julia Morgan built for clients, among them her sorority sisters, faculty members, and other friends and family, even including a house for her mother and sister at 2404 Prospect Street (later demolished). Outside the Bay Area, she is known for her YWCA commissions throughout California, Utah, Arizona, and Hawaii, but above all for Hearst Castle at San Simeon, that is also listed on the National Register of Historic Places.

Born in San Francisco and raised in Oakland, Julia Morgan found her calling in Berkeley where she took a degree in civil engineering in 1894 while living at Kappa Alpha Theta, the university’s first sorority. Her engineering studies provided a sound foundation for architecture, and her sorority sisters and friends became future clients. In 1902, she became the first woman to earn a certificate at Europe’s premier architecture school, the École des Beaux-Arts in Paris. She is also the first woman architect to win the American Institute of Architects Gold Medal, awarded posthumously in 2014.