Hollyhock House
Frank Lloyd Wright's first Los Angeles house, a World Heritage site on a hill in Barnsdall Art Park.
The oil heiress Aline Barnsdall commissioned Wright in 1919 to build a house on Olive Hill, part of a planned arts colony that was never completed. Finished in 1921, the house turns inward around a central courtyard, its massive walls battered like a Mayan temple. The hollyhock, Barnsdall's favourite flower, is abstracted into a geometric motif that runs through the art-stone friezes, the art glass, the dining chairs and the living-room fireplace surround.
Barnsdall gave the house and surrounding land to the City of Los Angeles in 1927, and it now anchors Barnsdall Art Park. A long restoration campaign returned Wright's colour scheme and reinstated furniture designed for the rooms. In 2019 the house became the first World Heritage site in Los Angeles, listed within the serial inscription of Wright's twentieth-century architecture. Visitors tour the living room, dining room, bedrooms and roof terraces, with views across the city.
Highlights
- First UNESCO World Heritage site in Los Angeles
- Abstracted hollyhock motif in stone, glass and furniture
- Living-room hearth set between fire, water and skylight
- Roof terraces looking out over Hollywood and the basin
![Afrique occidentale française : Cathédrale à St Louis / [photogr. Eugène] Gallois ; [photogr. reprod. par Radiguet et Massiot pour la conférence donnée par] Gallois](https://thumb.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/0/0a/Afrique_occidentale_fran%C3%A7aise_-_Cath%C3%A9drale_%C3%A0_St_Louis_-_%28photogr._Eug%C3%A8ne%29_Gallois_%3B_%28photogr._reprod._par_Radiguet_et_Massiot_pour_la_conf%C3%A9rence_donn%C3%A9e_par%29_Gallois_-_btv1b532798828.jpg/500px-thumbnail.jpg)
![[Golestan, Le Salon et Fete de l'equinode, Teheran, Iran (le Pavillion du Trone)]](https://thumb.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/3/33/-Golestan%2C_Le_Salon_et_Fete_de_l%27equinode%2C_Teheran%2C_Iran_%28le_Pavillion_du_Trone%29-_MET_DP202918.jpg/500px--Golestan%2C_Le_Salon_et_Fete_de_l%27equinode%2C_Teheran%2C_Iran_%28le_Pavillion_du_Trone%29-_MET_DP202918.jpg)
![Théâtre de la guerre dans l'Inde sur la coste de Coromandel / par M.B.C.T. [Monsieur Bourcet Capitaine ?] ; gravé par Croisey](https://thumb.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/9/99/Fort_de_Calicuta_-_btv1b59706294.jpg/500px-Fort_de_Calicuta_-_btv1b59706294.jpg)
