hollyhock house via designboom
Commissioned by louise Aline Barnsdall, the heiress of the oil magnate, Frank Lloyd Wright designed Hollyhock House (Hollyhock House) as part of a pioneering theatre and cultural complex called Mount of Olives. In the entire complex, only the villas and two apartments were completed. Holly Hawke House is located on the Hollywood East Side of Los Angeles and was completed between 1919 and 1921.
hollyhock house © archeyes
FRANK LLOYD WRIGHT. PHOTO: YOUSUF KARSH.
At the beginning of the story, Wright and Barnsdale chose a 36-acre plot of land known as the Mount of Olives to build her theater park. She plans to build an actor's quarters, a theater, a director's house, an artist's studio, a shop and a cinema here, where she will move in with her youngest daughter, Elizabeth. However, the two had multiple financial disagreements during construction, which, combined with differences in personality, led her to fire Wright in 1921.
hollyhock house © Flickr user Kent Kanouse
hollyhock house © Joshua White, courtesy of Anne McCaddon
hollyhock house © Flickr users Sandra Cohen-Rose and Colin Rose
In order to realize Barnsdale's vision of "half house, half garden", the villa is arranged around a central courtyard. One end leads to a circular pool with a fountain wrapped in semicircle seats in the middle.
hollyhock house © Elizabeth Daniels
Wright designed this sprawling villa with the enviable weather of Los Angeles in mind, with the entire residence surrounded by courtyards and each indoor space with a mirror image corresponding to the connected outdoor sketches. The upper level of the villa is connected by a corridor and staircase leading to the roof terrace, which offers breathtaking views of the Los Angeles Valley Basin and the Hollywood Hills.
hollyhock house © Joshua White
The interior space gradually transitions from a narrow hallway to a spacious open room, and if completed as planned, this huge villa will consist of seventeen rooms and seven bathrooms.
hollyhock house © Journalist
Wright drew inspiration from the project from pre-Columbian Mexican architecture to make the villa's exterior look like an ancient temple. As can be seen from the sloping gables and colonnades of the villas, they are similar in shape to the Mayan Palenque temple built in southern Mexico in the seventh century AD. From the 250-pound concrete-poured doors to the decorative locks to the full-face art windows, the villa boasts an array of exotic elements, but it's also decorated with many of Barnsdale's favorite hollyhocks.
hollyhock house © Christina House
Because Wright was designing the Imperial Hotel of Japan at the same time, after receiving approval from Barnsdale, he incorporated many Japanese elements into the design of The Holly Hawk Villa, including a set of authentic 18th-century antique Japanese screens. Since the original screen was stolen during the "Dark Age" when the house fell into disrepair, what is seen in this article is a replica. In addition to the Japanese screen in the living room, there is a Buddhist sculpture at the end of a long corridor, lined with art glass on both sides.
hollyhock house © Alexander Vertikoff
hollyhock house © Emma Geiszler
The abstract marshmallow motif is impressively carved onto the huge fireplace cast in concrete. The fireplace also has a grand symbolic meaning, the fireplace itself represents the fire element, while the concrete is the earth element, the skylight above represents the air, and the pool below is the water element.
The villa itself is made of hollow clay bricks and the surface is covered with stucco, a common building material in Southern California. While this technique was applied to the construction of Los Angeles City Hall and many other buildings of his contemporaries, he explored organic construction techniques experimentally and further in the Hally Hawk Villa, given Wright's past practices.
As Wright's first villa in Southern California, Holly Hawke House shows that Wright changed the prairie style he had previously explored in the American Midwest, which he continued to refine in the Robie House in Chicago, built in 1910.
The Mayan Revival was one of the modern architectural styles developed in the 1920s and 1930s, and The Holly Hawk Villa was one of the earliest completed buildings of this style. Wright also used the stacked shapes of the Mesoamerican pyramids to inspire his Imperial Hotel in Tokyo, where he is considered a key leader in the Mayan Revival movement.
Because Wright was also designing the Imperial Hotel in Japan, he delegated much of the decision to his son Lloyd Wright and the Austrian-American architect Rudolf Schindler.
Towards the end of construction, Barnsdale fired Wright from the project and the subsequent construction of the villa was completed by Schindler, who later urged Richard Neutra to come to Los Angeles to join the construction of the villa. In later eras, Wright, Schindler, and Neutra were all involved in driving the development of California's modernist style architecture.
Over the years, due to earthquakes and design errors, The Holly Hawke Villa fell into disrepair. At the beginning of the 21st century, the government carried out a major renovation of the villa through a "restoration plan" and reopened it to the public in 2015.
Barnsdale, who never lived in Holly Hawk Villa, donated the house and 11 acres of land around it to the Los Angeles government in 1927 in honor of her father. At this point, The Holly Hawk House became the Barnsdale Art Park, with an art gallery and community art center nearby.
On July 7, 2019, eight Wright works, including The Holly Hawk Villa, the first World Heritage Site in Los Angeles, were inscribed on unesco, including Wright's Millen, Pennsylvania, and the Guggenheim Museum in New York.
Flowing Water Villa © Robert P. Ruschak
Flowing Water Villa © Jessica
References：
1."Hollyhock House / Frank Lloyd Wright" in ArchEyes, December 22, 2019, https://archeyes.com/hollyhock-house-frank-lloyd-wright/
This article is written by Yaqiong du
The content is for learning and communication purposes only and is not commercially available
If there is any defect, please correct it
If you need to reprint, please contact the background
The pictures are all from the network, invaded and deleted