Atop a hill, in the middle of the booming Los Angeles city streets sits an oasis of insurmountable beauty. The air is quiet and calm, and the sound of the breeze dominates over the faint hum of car engines and honking horns. In this refuge, the natural elements that surround Los Angeles are amplified as the skyline, and hilltops collide with architecture to form a sanctuary. Frank Lloyd Wright’s architectural wonder, Hollyhock House, has an indescribable brilliance. The house is able to entrance its inhabitants away from the everyday to a transcendental state of harmony.
Although some of these antiquities are still in tack, Los Angeles is on the verge of loosing a culture that has already been forgotten by many. In a city so infatuated with the new, the old, classic elements of L.A. are often neglected or destroyed. The struggle to maintain these relics in a city where the latest trends dominate the mentality of most is becoming an ever growing battle. Hollyhock House has been a unique piece of the L.A. landscape since 1919 when it was first built, yet it did not receive National Historic Landmark status until May of this year. Although curator Jeffrey Herr has been struggling to bring Hollyhock back to its original beauty, the years lost due to neglect can never be replaced. Much of the surrounding land has been sold, including an olive grove that has now become a Kaiser building obstructing much of Wright’s intended layout.
After exploring L.A.’s overlooked culture it became clear that Los Angeles will loose this unique backdrop unless these traditions are rediscovered and recognized by the community. Now that Hollyhock House has been acknowledged by the city, it will be able to finish reconstruction and will eventually be a cultural landmark of Los Angeles.