Hearst Castle’s Julia Morgan is first woman to win AIA’s gold medal

The American Institute of Architects has broken the gender barrier for its highest award, the gold medal. The 2014 medal is going to famed California architect Julia Morgan nearly 57 years after her death in 1957 and more than 100 years after the first gold medal was conferred.

Morgan, whose most famous building is Hearst Castle at San Simeon on Californias central coast, was a pivotal figure in the history of American architecture and American women, according to an article the AIA published on its website announcing the award -- the eighth gold medal awarded posthumously.

Morgan practiced nearly 50 years before her retirement in 1951, designing more than 700 homes, churches, hotels, civic and commercial buildings and museums.

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But the AIA's online article noted that her reputation eroded as the more austere modernist movement became dominant and the more lavish Beaux-Arts tradition informing Morgans work fell out of vogue.

The award, open to residents of other nations as well as Americans, honors a significant body of work of lasting influence on the theory and practice of architecture. Its voted on annually by the board of directors of the AIA, a professional organization headquartered in Washington, but with chapters across the nation. The AIA will celebrate Morgans life and work in late June at its annual convention in Chicago. The 2013 award went to L.A. architect Thom Mayne.

Among other winners, 1993 medalist Thomas Jefferson, who died in 1826, waited the longest to be recognized for enduring designs such as his home, Monticello, the Virginia Capitol and original structures at the University of Virginia.

The AIA article noted that Morgans candidacy was championed by several celebrated architects who had backed her with letters of recommendation.

Frank Gehry, the AIAs 1999 gold medalist, disputed the notion that Morgans achievement was irrelevant to later architectural advances: Looking at her work, one can find her playing with symmetry asymmetrically, slipping forms vertically and horizontally, orienting her buildings for climate and daylight, and expressing structure in new ways, pointing the way to Modernism on the horizon.

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Hearst Castle's Julia Morgan is first woman to win AIA's gold medal