Content area
Full Text
Architect Frank Lloyd Wright lived a long, productive life, designing some of this country's and Los Angeles' most unusual architecture before he died in 1959 at the age of 92.
This year marks Wright's 127th birthday, and the Los Angeles City Cultural Affairs Department is inviting the public to commemorate it Sunday at Barnsdall Art Park in Hollywood, the location of one of his most renowned structures-Hollyhock House.
Built for oil heiress Aline Barnsdall between 1919 and 1921 on a 36-acre site known as Olive Hill, Hollyhock House was Wright's first Los Angeles project. The original plans included two secondary residences, a theater, director's house, dormitory for actors, artists' studios, shops and a motion picture theater. Only the Hollyhock House and the two secondary residences were built.
Though historians have waxed on about the Japanese, Maya, Inca, Egyptian, Spanish Colonial and Southwestern Native American architecture of the house, Wright preferred to label it "California Romanza," a musical term that means "freedom to make one's own form."
In 1927, Barnsdall gave Hollyhock House and 11 surrounding acres to the city of Los Angeles for use as a public art park. Today, Hollyhock stands in Barnsdall Art Park with the Municipal Art Gallery and Gallery Theater, Barnsdall Arts Center and the Junior Arts Center, which provides an array of art classes for children year-round.
...