Hollyhock House: Example of form over function

The Frank Lloyd Wright-designed Hollyhock House sounds so alliterative that I couldn’t help but visit. The house is part of Barnsdall Park, a grassy hilltop in LA’s Los Feliz neighborhood that is also home to a gallery and arts center.


Built for oil heiress Aline Barnsdall in 1919-21, the house can best be described as innovative, yet stiff. The building’s grey concrete exterior isn’t the most cheery of facades, but maybe I'm just too attached to the idea of color.

Despite my ambivalence about the house’s attractiveness, I’d still go on the tour if I had to do it all over again. Tours leave at 1:30p, 2:30p, and 3:30p. Buy your tix in the gallery across the grassy courtyard. If the guide shows up a few minutes late (as in my case), don’t sweat it. They’ll eventually come.

Learning about the place’s history was enough to make me feel I got my $7 worth. Nevertheless, part of what prompted me to even take the tour was to find out about the strange design bordering the whole exterior of the house. Was it Mayan or Japanese-inspired? What could it mean?

For those of you thinking there’s some cool, intelligent explanation behind the design, think again! To my incredible disappointment, the guide informed us the mysterious design was simply Wright’s representation of a hollyhock. For those of you who have no idea what a hollyhock is, it’s a flowering plant that, in my opinion, looks nothing like Wright’s design. If you think otherwise, please let me know. I’d be interested to hear your thoughts on this hollyhock issue.

Parts of the house are definitely impressive, like the Japanese paintings in the living room, the unusually placed windows, and the amazing views. The fact that most rooms have their own courtyard - from a small lookout off Barnsdall's bedroom to an expansive central courtyard off the dining room - is also pretty remarkable. Actually living here, however, seems like a different, more frustrating story.

The guide pointed out that the area next to the living room frequently floods because of how the house was designed. Meanwhile, an upstairs hallway wall has suffered extensive damage due to water seepage through a randomly placed window. To top it all off, one half of the house is frosty, while the other half feels oppressively hot and stuffy.

Meanwhile, Wright was really into ‘compression and expansion’. That is, the house is designed to make you feel claustrophobic (or ‘cozy’ as the guide put it) in certain parts so you really appreciate the expansive (non-claustraphobic) areas throughout the rest of the house. For example, the outside walkway leading up to the house narrows significantly as you approach the concrete front doors. Once inside the house in the foyer, the ceiling continues to be very low, which makes you really appreciate the expansiveness of the living room just beyond.

Obviously, Wright was more into form than function. According to the guide, Barnsdall ended up severing her ties with Wright because she was so disappointed in the house. I can’t say I blame her. But since we don’t actually have to live in the place, we can admire Wright’s innovative ideas without suffering the flawed results.