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GC156.JPG

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Exterior Chapel of the Chimes Columbarium Oakland, California Architect Julia Morgan is one of the acknowledged masters of the Spanish Revival genre, though she was equally comfortable working in other Revival styles, frequently within the same structure. At Oakland’s Chapel of the Chimes Columbarium, designed by her between the during the years 1926-30, she audaciously combines a bold but suavely-detailed Romanesque facade with round-arched windows screened by Gothic cast-stone tracery. Like many architects of the era, Morgan made frequent use of cast stone, a product developed in the late 19th century to circumvent the difficulty and expense of carving natural stone; it consisted mainly of sand and cement that was poured into negative molds and allowed to set. The cast stone industry reached its heyday during the Twenties, when columns, balustrades, and countless other ornaments--such as the centerpiece of Morgan’s fountain--proliferated on building facades. Its popularity declined with the rise of the Modernist movement, which preferred ultra-smooth surfaces. By mid-century, the cast stone craft had nearly died out.