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Hollyhock House

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  • Los Feliz
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  1. Photograph: Jakob N. Layman
    Photograph: Jakob N. LaymanFrank Lloyd Wright's Hollyhock House at Barnsdall Art Park
  2. Photograph: Michael Juliano
    Photograph: Michael JulianoFrank Lloyd Wright's Hollyhock House at Barnsdall Art Park
  3. Photograph: Jakob N. Layman
    Photograph: Jakob N. LaymanFrank Lloyd Wright's Hollyhock House at Barnsdall Art Park
  4. Photograph: Jakob N. Layman
    Photograph: Jakob N. LaymanFrank Lloyd Wright's Hollyhock House at Barnsdall Art Park
  5. Photograph: Michael Juliano
    Photograph: Michael JulianoFrank Lloyd Wright's Hollyhock House at Barnsdall Art Park
  6. Photograph: Michael Juliano
    Photograph: Michael JulianoFrank Lloyd Wright's Hollyhock House at Barnsdall Art Park
  7. Photograph: Michael Juliano
    Photograph: Michael JulianoFrank Lloyd Wright's Hollyhock House at Barnsdall Art Park
  8. Photograph: Jakob N. Layman
    Photograph: Jakob N. LaymanFrank Lloyd Wright's Hollyhock House at Barnsdall Art Park
  9. Photograph: Jakob N. Layman
    Photograph: Jakob N. LaymanFrank Lloyd Wright's Hollyhock House at Barnsdall Art Park
  10. Photograph: Jakob N. Layman
    Photograph: Jakob N. LaymanFrank Lloyd Wright's Hollyhock House at Barnsdall Art Park
  11. Photograph: Jakob N. Layman
    Photograph: Jakob N. LaymanFrank Lloyd Wright's Hollyhock House at Barnsdall Art Park
  12. Photograph: Jakob N. Layman
    Photograph: Jakob N. LaymanFrank Lloyd Wright's Hollyhock House at Barnsdall Art Park
  13. Photograph: Jakob N. Layman
    Photograph: Jakob N. LaymanFrank Lloyd Wright's Hollyhock House at Barnsdall Art Park
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Time Out says

This 1921, Mayan-inflected Frank Lloyd Wright house was originally built as a “progressive theatrical community” space by activist and oil heiress Aline Barnsdall—today it’s the centerpiece of Barnsdall Park and is open for interior and exterior tours on select days (Thu–Sat, 11am–4pm). Though the home’s privileged hilltop perch is admirable from the outside, it’s best experienced from within: The exquisite wood detailing, long concrete hallways and geometric furniture are well worth the $7 tour.

Rudolf Schindler, a protégé of Wright’s, was the overseeing architect on this project (unusual for Wright, who typically was on-site for all of his buildings) and by all reports it was a contentious building process, with the same delays and cost overruns familiar to anyone who’s attempted a renovation. After it was completed, frequent flooding of the living room in the (short but destructive) rainy season and seismic concerns prevented Barnsdall from living in the gorgeous but impractical concrete and stucco house for long—though she did spend the rest of her life in a smaller house on the property, which the family called Olive Hill. The house has closed a couple of times for extensive renovations, but that careful preservation has helped secure the home’s future—and, as of 2019, its designation as a UNESCO World Heritage Site.

Details

Address:
4800 Hollywood Blvd
Los Angeles
90027
Price:
Tours $7
Opening hours:
Tours Thu–Sat 11am–4pm
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Entanglements: Louise Bonnet and Adam Silverman at Hollyhock House

  • Architecture

When oil heiress Louise Aline Barnsdall tapped Frank Lloyd Wright to design what’s now one of the most important modernist homes in L.A., she envisioned it as the anchor for a vast arts complex. That 36-acre vision was never quite completed, but the striking Hollyhock House was—and used briefly as Barnsdall’s home before acting as the California Art Club’s headquarters and, for the past half-century, as a house museum. Now, a century since its completion, a bit of that original arts-focused ambition has returned to the Hollyhock House thanks to this first-ever artist intervention. Local couple Louise Bonnet and Adam Silverman were intimately familiar with the Mayan Revival house and eyed it for a collaborative exhibition—though they were unaware that the UNESCO World Heritage site had yet to host such a gallery show. That unintended boldness clearly worked in their favor, though, as new curator Abbey Chamberlain Brach accepted their proposal. The result: A handful of paintings, drawings and sculptures that have been situated across the publicly accessible areas of the house. Silverman’s ceramics, like conical pieces by the fireplace made with ash from nearby olive trees, and Bonnet’s paintings, which draw your eye down the house’s various hallways, respond to each other’s work as well as the original bones of Wright’s design.

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