“What made Julia Morgan different?”: Exploring the early years of a superstar architect

Julia Morgan wasn’t just one of the most renowned architects of the 20th century, she was a true pioneer of her profession. She was the first woman to be admitted to the École des Beaux-Arts in Paris, which was the most important architecture school of its era, as well as the first woman in California to earn an architecture license and eventually the first woman to win the American Institute of Architects’ highest honor. Then there’s her buildings. She’s best known for Hearst Castle, but over her long career she designed hundreds of impressive structures – the Berkeley City Club, Oakland’s YWCA, the Asilomar Conference Center, El Campanil at Mills College, and the list goes on and on.

As a woman, Morgan didn’t always get the recognition she deserved, but in more recent decades, she’s been the subject of numerous books, documentaries, and museum exhibits. However, a new book takes a different approach by imagining Julia’s early years, as a young woman growing up in Victorian era East Bay. In “Drawing Outside the Lines,” Susan J. Austin tells the story of the architect’s formative time at Oakland High School and UC Berkeley during the 1880s and 90s. The book is a work of historical fiction, but Austin spent years on research in order to make the story as realistic as possible. In this episode, Susan J. Austin discusses her favorite Julia Morgan buildings, why she thinks Julia Morgan’s story will be relevant for young readers, and some of the famous figures, such as Gertrude Stein and Frank Norris, who make cameo appearances in “Drawing Outside the Lines.”

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