L'Ecole des Beaux Arts and Julia Morgan

Julia Morgan was the first female Architect. She had to jump through a lot of hoops to get there. But she was worth her salt. She came from a privileged family which was in her favor from the start but that did not pave the road ahead of her in the least. She attended University of California Berkely and then applied to the prestigious Ecole de beaux arts for Architectural studies in Paris, France. None of the Universities in the United States that taught Architecture were accepting women as of this time, so this was her only road to architecture. She was the first female student to study Architecture at L'Ecole des beaux arts but not the first to have applied. Another female student was turned down just because she was female. She was allowed to attend the ateliers or workshops and she could go to the studios, but this was challenging because the men felt threatened by her presence in class. She was able to successfully pass her exams two times in a row, but they deliberately flunked her the first time and lowered her even higher scores the next time. She had to complete graduation by the age of thirty or she would not be allowed to continue, and her efforts would have been for nought. She did eventually graduate and returned to California with her amazing credentials and began her campaign to take Berkely by storm. She offended many esteemed colleagues and Senior architects in her wake. One of her major achievements is Hearst Castle. She had quite the prolific career.

The Ecole des beaux arts was frankly surprised that Julia did not want to stay in Paris to be counted among the Parisian architects. I can think of a few reasons why she did not.

While the population was, split between men and women, as it was in France at the time. It was less clear to see, however, that this made the universal rights held by the French Republic and the hopes for equality and justice look like a sham.

A renowned historian, Keith Thomas, from "New Ways in History” in the times literary supplement October 2006 argues the point that there is a difference between some written histories of the past and more modern research from the present and the future being able to catch up with those firsthand account histories to verify them and legitimize them. Historians can become very careful and choosy with their resources to in order prove or disprove a fact.

What has not been done is created a gendered view integrating women into the history of Ecole des Beaux Arts. The last thing we need to do is create a mere history of women at the Ecole. What we need is to revisit those old sites with an eye toward including the powerless voices that were left out because of race, gender, and class. I feel strongly that this is true as I have spent many hours looking up African American Architects, especially those who were women and who were not allowed to speak up for themselves or to be spoken of or spoken for. Why are there so few resources available?

It really buoyed my spirits to find Georgia Louise Harris Brown, as a viable resource. Her story had been told. She had been counted and remembered. She had really made a name for herself and had even worked with Mies Van De Rohe in Chicago. That fact speaks to my soul. Even I have a voice that needs to speak and be heard regardless of my gender or my age or my disabilities or disadvantages even despite my many advantages in life.

Historians are just now providing a broadened perspective of the awareness of the presence or absence of women. The gender blindness of so much historical literature, without ever recognizing it as such, vis a vis France between the wars, has always just been a single sexed narrative. It was not a conspiracy against women, women just were not present. Their exclusion went unmentioned, and it was not analyzed either. With the Ecole des Beaux-Arts, however, women were present, and they were overlooked in history. They were either ignored or relegated as a footnote or paragraph, but certainly not part of the main discourse.

Other than footnotes and perfunctory remarks on Julia Morgan, nothing has been published about the women of the Ecole des beaux arts. Not a word, though attempts have been made. Many starts and stops.

.

Why has this subject received so little attention?

The number one reason is the distain both female and male Architectural Historians feel about the subject matter. The subject does not exist in a vacuum, and we lack the interest that it would require to do what we consider to be less than engaging work. Not worth the trouble. The number two reason is that there are so few records available for research purposes. The presence of women has often been erased, their tracks disguised, or their papers destroyed.

In what ways do you think the men and women architects of the Ecole des beaux Arts differed vis a vis attitudes towards self-promotion and preservation of documentations for posterity?

The women did not preserve their files or save their letters, they did not view self-promotion as appropriate behavior for women. Women were taught to be more self-effacing. The men were writing memoirs and making plans to divide and conquer the world while the women were fighting to compete in a man’s world. Before admitted no record of gender was recorded because traditionally students were only male, after they were finally admitted they would place Mlle. before the family name of the student. Often records were incomplete and haphazard, leaving off the Mlle. or simple with just a first name such as Jeanne which could indicate a man or a woman student. This is compounded with the problem of the French grammar and language. Because gender differences were not deemed very important, they were gender neutral.

What do you think happened to the records of women at the Ecole des beaux Arts after marriage?

She may be admitted to the Ecole as a Parisian citizen, then lose her identity and become recognized as a foreign citizen. She may be admitted as Mlle. Blanc and lose track of her identity through Ecole des beaux arts as Mme. Bleu. There were women who applied to the Ecole des beaux arts prior to Julia Morgan and had not been accepted into the architecture program. Further there had been some admitted to painting and sculpture prior to her arrival. But overall, the Ecole des beaux arts was not seen as a suitable environment for women to train to become architects. The men at the Ecole des beaux arts wanted Julia Morgan to understand, most of all,

that she could not expect to compete in the Grand Prix (Grand architectural competition) and win. And after all, if you can’t win the prize, why try at all?