hollyhock house virtual tour

Take a Virtual Tour of Frank Lloyd Wright’s Hollyhock House

Frank Lloyd Wright designed the Hollyhock House, which was built between 1919 and 1921.

Photo © Joshua White

If you’ve been meaning to visit Frank Lloyd Wright’s recently restored Hollyhock House  in Los Angeles, now’s your chance—for a virtual tour, that is. The architect’s first L.A. project, located in Barnsdall Park in the East Hollywood neighborhood, became a UNESCO World Heritage Site in July 2019 ( along with seven other Wright-designed sites ). Since then, the landmark has launched a “Virtual Accessibility Experience," joining the growing roster of the many cultural institutions now offering online tours and programming as the coronavirus pandemic  has many people taking refuge at home.

The web tour provides virtual guests with 360-degree views of the facade, interiors, and even the roof terraces, offering interesting tidbits about the house’s history and design along the way. The City of Los Angeles Department of Cultural Affairs (DCA) collaborated with the Department on Disability and the Barnsdall Art Park Foundation last fall to create inclusive experiences for visitors with physical limitations and those anywhere in the world. DCA also established the digital Hollyhock House Archive , which contains original drawings and blueprints by the architect, accessible for free online.

Photos © Joshua White

Share This Story

Kara Mavros is a former associate editor at Architectural Record .

Post a comment to this article

Report abusive comment.

Restricted Content

You must have JavaScript enabled to enjoy a limited number of articles over the next 30 days.

Related Articles

Artist Intervention at Frank Lloyd Wright's Hollyhock House Reanimates Tensions of Historic Project’s Construction

Frank Lloyd Wright’s Hollyhock House Reopens to the Public

Frank lloyd wright's ennis house a tough sell, the latest news and information, #1 source for architectural design, news and products.

Copyright ©2024. All Rights Reserved BNP Media.

Design, CMS, Hosting & Web Development :: ePublishing

Virtually Explore Frank Lloyd Wright’s Hollyhock House

See inside L.A.'s first UNESCO World Heritage Site.

Perched on a spacious hilltop in East Hollywood, the Hollyhock House was built in 1917 for Aline Barnsdall, the heir to a U.S. oil producer and a patron of the arts. The house, which was Wright's first and most popular West Coast design, bridges " the Prairie style of the preceding decades and his textile block structures of the 1920s," according to the Frank Lloyd Wright Foundation . The home exhibits Wright's affinity for bridging indoors and out, with a series of terraces and pergolas joining the interior and garden spaces seamlessly. Representations of Barnsdall's favorite flower, hollyhock, appear on furniture and windows throughout the home. Barnsdall donated the property to Los Angeles during the 1920s, and it was designated a UNESCO World Heritage Site in 2019.

Created by the City of Los Angeles Department of Cultural affairs and Department on Disability, the immersive tour takes you inside the home and around its lush landscape. Signs on the 360 degree views provide information about the home's architecture, landscape, furnishings, and history. To move throughout the home, click on the white arrows, which signify which part of the home they lead to. You can also select "Views" on the top right corner to move to the section of the house you want to explore. Happy touring!

Follow House Beautiful on Instagram .

Where Is 'Rehab Addict' Star Nicole Curtis Now?

50 Cool Airbnbs Across the United States

Inside an Iconic 1960s Lodge in the Catskills

See Inside Olivia Culpo's Victorian Wedding Venue

How to Care for a Swiss Cheese Plant

See Joanna Gaines's Lakehouse Renovation Spots

Which Design Stars Filmed Their Own Home Renos?

The Top Garden Trends for 2024

What Are Red Velvet Mites?

Who Pays for the Renovations on Fixer to Fabulous?

You Could Live Inside a Costco—Here's How

🙌 Awesome, you're subscribed!

Thanks for subscribing! Look out for your first newsletter in your inbox soon!

Get us in your inbox

Sign up to our newsletter for the latest and greatest from your city and beyond

By entering your email address you agree to our Terms of Use and Privacy Policy and consent to receive emails from Time Out about news, events, offers and partner promotions.

Awesome, you're subscribed!

The best of Los Angeles for free.

Sign up for our email to enjoy Los Angeles without spending a thing (as well as some options when you’re feeling flush).

Déjà vu! We already have this email. Try another?

• Things to Do
• Food & Drink
• Coca-Cola Foodmarks
• Attractions
• Los Angeles

Take a virtual tour of Frank Lloyd Wright’s hilltop Hollyhock House

Whether sipping wine on its lawn in the summertime or just swinging by to take in the views of Hollywood, we can always find a reason to stop by Frank Lloyd Wright’s Hollyhock House —except for right now, when it, along with nearly every other landmark in L.A. , is temporarily closed.

But thanks to a virtual tour launched by the City of Los Angeles last summer, you can explore the interior and exterior (including spots inaccessible on the in-person tour) of this 1921 architectural landmark from the comfort of your couch.

Head on over to the virtual tour site , which was developed by local company AVA Inclusivity, Inc., and you’ll be greeted with the familiar western facade of Wright’s first L.A. commission. From there, you can click and tap your way through doors, zoom in on the incredible woodwork and glass detailing, poke around the kitchen and even head up onto the roof (it’s particularly fun on a smartphone, where you can take advantage of motion-enabled 360-degree views). Make sure to tap on the plus signs whenever you see them; you’ll be prompted with text and audio snippets about everything from the iconic Mayan and Aztec-inspired textile blocks to the Rudolph Schindler-designed doorknobs.

Photograph: Michael Juliano

The Hollyhock House was originally conceived of as a progressive theatrical community space by activist and oil heiress Aline Barnsdall. And though it never quite reached that level of complexity, it does serve as the centerpiece of the public-arts–focused Barnsdall Park . Decades of flooding and seismic concerns contributed to a rocky history for the concrete and stucco structure, but a massive renovation that wrapped up in 2015 reopened the house for tours. In 2019, it—along with seven other Wright landmarks—was designated a UNESCO World Heritage Site, and more of its rooms were opened up to tours.

In other virtual Barnsdall Park news, the Barnsdall Art Park Foundation and the Junior Arts Center will be offering free family art workshops every Sunday (10am–noon) via Zoom though the end of May.

Been there, done that? Think again, my friend.

Discover Time Out original video

• Press office
• Investor relations
• Work for Time Out
• Editorial guidelines
• Privacy notice
• Do not sell my information
• Cookie policy
• Accessibility statement
• Terms of use
• Copyright agent
• Modern slavery statement
• Manage cookies
• Advertising
• Time Out Market

Time Out products

• Time Out Worldwide

Time Out magazine

Want to see more of Frank Lloyd Wright’s Hollyhock House? Now you can

• Copy Link URL Copied!

Visitors may finally set foot in the sunken living room, the dining room and the conservatory of Frank Lloyd Wright’s famed Hollyhock House in Barnsdall Park, even though they still have to cover their shoes with paper booties and keep their hands to themselves. More rooms upstairs and down are expected to open to visitors by Oct. 1, curator Jeffrey Herr said Friday.

Travel & Experiences

Frank Lloyd Wright’s Hollyhock House becomes L.A.’s first UNESCO World Heritage Site

The Hollyhock House designed by Frank Lloyd Wright, a building that was almost demolished in the 1940s, earned Los Angeles its first UNESCO World Heritage Site designation Sunday.

July 7, 2019

That means you can walk through the dining room to the kitchen door to admire its mahogany counters and cabinets. Previously, visitors could only get a glimpse from the foyer. You also now have access to the conservatory/breakfast room, which features a wall of windows, and the sunken living, where visitors can stand near the massive couch Wright designed to curve around the fireplace whose hearth is decorated with one of his most famous works of art.

It’s all because the city’s new “Virtual Accessibility Experience,” an online virtual tour of the house with a hollyhock motif and a Maya-temple style that Wright built for avant-garde oil heiress Aline Barnsdall, starting in 1919. Barnsdall fired Wright in 1921, shortly before the house was completed, in part because of huge cost overruns. Even so, the house on July 7 became Los Angeles’ first UNESCO World Heritage Site , part of an homage to eight Wright designs, including Fallingwater in Mill Run, Pa., and the Guggenheim Museum in New York City.

Barnsdall never lived in the house atop a hill in Hollywood. Instead, she donated it and the surrounding land to the city in 1927. It became Barnsdall Art Park, which also has a nearby art gallery and community art center.

Entertainment & Arts

Frank Lloyd Wright at 150: Why his Los Angeles houses deserve a closer look

June 8, 2017

Prior to 2005, visitors had fairly open access to the building. But after a major restoration in 2015, the city’s Department of Cultural Affairs clamped down and limited visitors to areas where they could see but not step into the living or dining rooms. The idea was to limit access to areas where people of all abilities could tour the house.

“It was just a matter of being fair,” Herr said. “We were very cautious about where access was allowed to the general public until we were able to offer at least a commensurate experience to people with physical challenges.”

The online “Virtual Accessibility Experience” is live now, but the project won’t be completed until WiFi is installed at Hollyhock House, Herr said, so visitors who can’t physically manage the steps can use their smartphones or tablets provided by the city to “tour” the rooms they can’t reach.

Herr emphasized, however, that the “Experience” is more than an accessibility tool. The online tour provides a high-resolution look at every room in the house, allowing viewers to zoom in to closely examine details of Wright’s architecture and design.

“It has some very useful, very practical applications, and not just for people with physical challenges,” Herr said. “For instance, you can enter the dining room now, but you can’t walk over and examine the art-glass windows. But with the virtual tour you can zoom in and examine them as if you’re just a few inches away.”

By Oct. 1, the city expects to open up the gallery area on the main floor and the upstairs master bath, child’s bedroom and bathroom for self-guided tours between 11 a.m. and 4 p.m. Thursdays through Sundays. The site also offers one-hour guided tours at 11 a.m. and 12:30 p.m. on Tuesdays and Wednesdays. Advance tickets are required ($7), and tours are limited to 10 people.

If you’re impatient to see more, note that the guided tours could include the upstairs rooms and gallery area in the next few weeks, Herr said. Check the website for information about what areas the tour will include.

Info : Hollyhock House, 4800 Hollywood Blvd., Los Angeles; barnsdall.org/hollyhock-house

To find out more about Wright’s work in L.A., watch KCET’s Artbound episode “That Far Corner: Frank Lloyd Wright in Los Angeles” by former L.A. Times architecture critic Christopher Hawthorne.

More to Read

Behind the privacy hedges and block walls stand L.A.’s notable and notorious homes

July 17, 2024

L.A. City Council declares Marilyn Monroe house a cultural landmark, saving it from destruction

June 26, 2024

Former Ace Hotel in downtown L.A. reopens as ‘Airbnb on steroids’

June 21, 2024

Sign up for The Wild

We’ll help you find the best places to hike, bike and run, as well as the perfect silent spots for meditation and yoga.

You may occasionally receive promotional content from the Los Angeles Times.

Jeanette Marantos is a Features reporter focused primarily on plants, gardening and Southern California’s changing landscapes for the Los Angeles Times. She also writes the monthly L.A. Times Plants newsletter, which includes a calendar of upcoming plant-related events. Email calendar submissions or plant-related story ideas to [email protected] for consideration.

More From the Los Angeles Times

How to have the best Sunday in L.A., according to Miranda Cosgrove

July 19, 2024

I spent 4 hours and 20 minutes in the state fair’s new weed lounge. Here’s how it went

July 18, 2024

You can now ride a train through a lovely oak grove at Descanso Gardens

10 truly magnificent hikes in California’s state parks

You’re in the Wright Place!

California , Film Site , Mayan Revival , Tours , UNESCO

Hollyhock house (1921).

Hollyhock House added to World Heritage List

On July 7, 2019, UNESCO announced the addition of the Barnsdall Hollyhock House along with seven other Frank Lloyd Wright designed buildings to the United Nations’ list of the world’s most significant cultural and natural sites.

(This page may contain affiliate links. See our disclosure about affiliate links here .)

Photo Credit: “Hollyhock House west facade” photo by Paul Cozzi, 2021 

Please use the link below for more information about tour options, rates & to book online.

• Official Website - Tours
• Online Virtual Tour
• Visit all FLWsites on a Google Map

4808 Hollywood Blvd, Los Angeles, California

Movies Filmed on Site

Cannibal Women in the Avocado Jungle of Death (1989) Bill Maher, Shannon Tweed, Adrienne Barbeau

Places to Stay in Los Angeles

• Best Western Plus LA Mid-Town Hotel – 
• InterContinental Los Angeles Downtown – located on Wilshire Blvd

Resources, Links & Products

Browse these resources for more information about this FLW Building, it’s history and information about the region.

• Frank Lloyd Wright's Hollyhock House: The Illustrated Story of an Architectural Masterpiece
• Frank Lloyd Wright - Hollyhock House and Olive Hill
• Bulova Men's Frank Lloyd Wright Hollyhock House Stainless Steel 3-Hand Quartz Watch
• Burpee Hollyhock Seeds, Country Romance Mix

Share This FLW Site Article

Related articles.

Wright’s San Francisco Office (1951)

Wright’s San Francisco office with his associate Aaron Green opened in 1951. Wright used the office for his northern California projects including the Marin County

John Pew House

Just across the street from the northeast corner of the Blackhawk Country Club and tucked neatly into the woods on a narrow strip of land

Two iconic Frank Lloyd Wright-designed Usonian homes for sale

NEWS RELEASE FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE September 18, 2023 Two iconic Frank Lloyd Wright-designed Usonian homes for sale GALESBURG, Michigan – Never in the history of

Gale Summer Cottage (1897)

The Gale Summer Cottage last sold for $815,000 on July 24, 2023. View the property listing and additional photos here. Frank Lloyd Wright designed four

Spring House (1952)

Robert Winn House (1948)

Don Erickson Estate

Indian Lakes Resort

For your home.

Yvonne Carpenter-Ross

Flw enthusiast & webmaster.

Architecture and home design have always fascinated me. As a young girl I enjoyed drawing floor plans, rearranging my parent’s furniture and playing with Lincoln Logs and Legos.  My passion has always been the architecture of Frank Lloyd Wright. Since I have been old enough to drive a car, I have visited Frank Lloyd Wright homes in the Chicagoland area and attended the Wright Plus house walks. Now, as co-owners of Northern Sky Designs , my husband & I are able to combine our website design skills and FLW travels to bring you this website! Enjoy!

Follow me on Instagram

Hollyhock House Virtual Tour

Created in 2019, the Hollyhock House Virtual Accessibility Experience allows you to explore Frank Lloyd Wright’s Hollyhock House from anywhere. With striking 360° photography, easy navigation, room descriptions, and collection highlights, this virtual tour provides an immersive and inclusive experience for visitors of all abilities.

Hollyhock House  Digital Guide Book

The guide to explore Hollyhock House, a site of international significance, is now available in English, French, Mandarin Chinese, and Spanish.

Click for PDF guides:

ENGLISH GUIDE BOOK

FRENCH GUIDE BOOK

MANDARIN GUIDE BOOK

SPANISH GUIDE BOOK

Special thanks to the Xue family (Nixon, Diana, Irene, Eason, Adele and Oliver) for their generous support of the Chinese guide book, made possible through the Barnsdall Art Park Foundation.

Wright’s Residence A: Restoration Highlights from Phase I 

100 years after Frank Lloyd Wright finished construction on Aline Barnsdall’s Residence A guest house, the City of Los Angeles has concluded phase I restoration of this landmark structure. The short videos here highlight key aspects of the phase I work, including the restoration of original windows and walls and the addition of essential structural steel to support the cantilever north balcony and reinforce the living room’s hollow-clay-tile walls. The first video provides an overview from the project team, discussing the home’s significance, what’s been done in phase I, and what work is still to come.

A Garden “Native to the Region of California”

According to Frank Lloyd Wright, “Hollyhock House was to be native to the region of California as the house in the Middle West had been native to Middle West.” With generous support from the Los Angeles Parks Foundation , a native plant garden surrounding Hollyhock House’s west lawn was established in July 2022. It features hyper natives cultivated by the Foundation from plants thriving in nearby Griffith Park. Like Hollyhock House itself, this garden is responsive to its California context, and it celebrates the beauty and sustainability of native plants.

Hollyhock House’s native garden is designed by GreenTree Landscaping, Inc. GreenTree maintains the Hollyhock House gardens in collaboration with the City of Los Angeles Recreation and Parks Department, which cares for all of Barnsdall Park.

FORT: LA presents “Stephen Fry Reads Hollyhock Haiku”

Friends of Residential Treasures: Los Angeles (FORT: LA) featured Hollyhock House as the subject of its summer 2021 Open House project. FORT readers delivered many inspired Hollyhock Haiku, and if the poems weren’t enough, here Stephen Fry reads us the three top picks! You can find all the Hollyhock Haiku at  fortla.org .

Playlists: Inspired by Architecture, Tunes from the 20s & More

INSPIRED BY ARCHITECTURE : Hear contemporary musicians find inspiration in the (built) world around them. From acoustic to jazz, rock to pop, enjoy these tunes inspired by architecture and the builders behind some modern masterpieces (including Frank Lloyd Wright, of course). And you can’t miss that this playlist is bookended by two takes on one tune that all Wright fans should know!

Inspired by Architecture playlist on YouTube

TUNES FROM THE TWENTIES : Enjoy this compilation of songs from wide-ranging performers of the 1920s. With Hollyhock House completed in 1921, these songs would have been right at home streaming from the music room’s Victrola and would have been known to Aline Barnsdall and her contemporaries. From Annette Hanshaw to Scott Joplin, Josephine Baker to Ruth Etting, this playlist captures the times with a special focus on the era’s remarkable female vocalists.

Tunes from the Twenties playlist on YouTube  

FIT FOR AN ART CLUB FÊTE : Between 1927 and 1942, the California Art Club called Hollyhock House home. Based on archival research, this playlist features songs that were performed at Hollyhock House during those years or are associated with performances there. 

Fit for an Art Club Fête playlist on YouTube

Hollyhock House Events & Programs

Events & Programs July – September 2024

December 2023–Fall 2024 Ravi GuneWardena: Ikebana For Hollyhock House

Hollyhock House presents  Ravi GuneWardena: Ikebana for Hollyhock House . The installation features striking new ikebana by GuneWardena, which reanimate the interiors of the Frank Lloyd Wright-described “garden house” through the Japanese art of flower arranging. The expressive arrangements introduce bold forms and textures with dried plant material, bringing nature indoors and further showcasing the influence of Japanese art and design on the site—built simultaneously with Wright’s Imperial Hotel in Tokyo.

“The placement of an ikebana arrangement can inform and define the work itself.  The light and space of Hollyhock House appear to have been designed with this art form in mind,” says GuneWardena.

The compositions reference the placement, mass, and scale of floral arrangements that Aline Barnsdall had in the house during the 1920s. GuneWardena also utilizes innovative materials that Sogetsu School founder Sofu Teshigahara embraced in his practice, dating back to the late 1920s. While ikebana is a centuries-old artform, the Sogetsu School, of which GuneWardena is a part, was established in 1927, challenging traditions of ikebana and celebrating freedom of individual expression. GuneWardena’s works active Wright’s gesamtkunstwerk interiors for Hollyhock House, adding new reference points in dialogue with the site’s holistic approach to art and architecture.

The exhibition is organized by Abbey Chamberlain Brach, Director & Curator at Hollyhock House.

June 20–September 28, 2024 Summer Seating: LAUN & BZIPPY at Hollyhock House

This summer, Hollyhock House welcomes visitors to take a seat and enjoy the south terrace as Aline Barnsdall and her daughter Betty did a century ago. The special installation features furnishings by LAUN and BZIPPY—innovative, women-led design practices here in Los Angeles.

While Frank Lloyd Wright designed furniture for Hollyhock House’s living and dining rooms, Barnsdall favored her own furnishings in other spaces, including the terraces and patios—rooms for outdoor living. Photographs from the 1920s show Aline, Betty, and friends using wrought iron and wicker furniture on the garden lawns. Betty and her playmates amused themselves on canopied swings and perched on poolside steps. Building on this legacy, LAUN and BZIPPY furnishings activate the south terrace, allowing visitors to engage with Wright’s garden house as Barnsdall had and as she wished the public would too in gifting her property to the City in 1927. Sinuous lines and striking geometries of the contemporary benches, chairs, and planter boxes create new points of reference with the architecture and indoor/outdoor living synonymous with Southern California.

The installation is curated by Leigh Wishner and debuted as part of Los Angeles Design Weekend.

Advance self-guided tour tickets are recommended.

The Whirling Arrow

News and updates from the Frank Lloyd Wright Foundation

Frank Lloyd Wright + Arizona

Frank Lloyd Wright’s connection to Arizona, the location of his personal winter home Taliesin West, runs deep, with his architectural influence seen all over the Valley. Here, PhD student David R. Richardson gives a brief overview of several of Wright’s most notable projects in the Grand Canyon state.

June 9, 2024 International Archives Day

The Frank Lloyd Wright Foundation Collection includes fine and decorative art, the personal belongings of the Wright’s, the creative output of the Fellowship, archival material, the William Wesley Peters Library, and the historic buildings at Taliesin and Taliesin West. Highlighted below are items currently on view, stored in the vaults, in the Archives, and from the WWP Library.

Site search

• Los Angeles
• San Francisco
• Archive.curbed.com
• For Sale
 in LA
• For Rent in LA
• Curbed Comparisons
• Neighborhoods
• Real Estate Market Reports
• Rental Market Reports
• Homelessness
• Development
 News
• Transportation
• Architecture


Filed under:

• Frank Lloyd Wright Week
• Curbed Inside

A full tour of Frank Lloyd Wright’s Hollyhock House

Completely restored in 2015, the home has been named a UNESCO World Heritage site

The Hollyhock House was the first house Frank Lloyd Wright designed in Los Angeles, part of a performing arts complex commissioned in the early 1920s by oil heiress Aline Barnsdall for an incredible 36-acre hilltop site on the Hollywood and Los Feliz border.

The house contains the "germination of what I think you can easily say became California Modernism," says Hollyhock curator Jeffrey Herr.

But Wright was often away during construction, working on the Imperial Hotel in Japan, and building was mostly overseen by project manager Rudolph Schindler. When costs got out of control, Barnsdall fired Wright and eventually hired Schindler, and she never moved into the house, which had been designed around the icon of her favorite flower, the Hollyhock.

In 1927, she donated the property, with the surrounding 12 acres, to the city of Los Angeles, and over the decades since it was deformed over and over by bad renovations and general entropy. (Lloyd Wright oversaw two renovations, on in 1946 and one in the unfortunate design year of 1974.)

Following years of closure, the Hollyhock is now reopen with a beautiful, painstaking restoration that has brought many of its public spaces back to their 1921 magnificence. In 2019, the home was named as a UNESCO World Heritage site , along with seven other Wright buildings.

Herr supervised the restoration, along with Hsiao-Ling Ting of the city’s Bureau of Engineering, and Kevin Jew of the nonprofit Project Restore, which wrote the grant for the project.

The exterior was perhaps the easy part; they found a buried piece of stucco from the house’s heyday and were able to reproduce the texture and color so that Hollyhock is now more "harmonious" with the surrounding landscape.

The entryway, a Modernist version of a formal foyer, looks pristinely 1920s now, but just a few years ago had concrete floors, recessed lighting, and sliding glass doors.

Today it has been almost entirely reconstructed with historically accurate plaster, intricate ceiling moldings—originally stripped back in the ’40s—painstakingly created and aligned by a woodworker named Erik Mortensen, and accordion-folding glass doors that open to completely erase the division between house and courtyard, with actual 1920s door handles and latches.

Hollyhock’s centerpiece, though, is a showstopping hearth backed in an abstract, Hollyhock-themed bas relief, with a detailed skylight above and a pool below (it’s not filled, sadly; water isn’t very kind to the house).

Herr calls the fireplace "one of the best things [Wright] ever did." The elaborate accompanying couches, which Herr calls "better suited for viewing Wright’s work than for conversation," is a 1990s reproduction of original furniture.

The dining room still has its original furniture, incredibly, including a set of chairs with spines like Hollyhocks.

The clerestory windows that ring the room were removed during restoration, at which point Herr realized that a change in the roof height had cut off their bottom four inches years ago. So they put the roof back where it was; now the windows have the views they were intended to have, plus there’s a lot more light in the dining room.

The library and kitchen have only been returned to 1940s Lloyd Wright form (though the library’s donated books are all pre-1925). Meanwhile, most of the private rooms are still in the ’70s, but they won’t be open to the public anyway, because of ADA requirements. Herr hopes to makeover the house’s forecourt next, which has become a pretty unattractive parking lot.

Hours for self guided tours of the house are 11 a.m. to 4 p.m., Thursday through Sunday. A 20-minute docent-led exterior tour is offered at 11:15 a.m., 12 p.m. and 12:45 p.m., Thursday through Sunday. A 40-minute docent-led exterior and interior tour is offered Tuesday and Wednesday at 11 a.m. and 12:30 pm. Admission for all tours is $7 for adults.

Barnsdall Art Park

The beginner’s guide to los angeles.

• Should you move to LA?
• How to pick a neighborhood
• Locals’ guides to their LA neighborhoods
• Quiz: Which neighborhood should you live in?
• Which LA neighborhood do you really live in?
• Why I moved from New York to LA
• 16 comparisons to show exactly how enormous Los Angeles is
• Is it better to buy or rent?
• What you can buy, what you can rent
• The Los Angeles renters’ guide
• A guide to rent control
• 10 renters’ rights your landlord doesn’t want you to know
• 13 glamorous apartments from Hollywood’s Golden Age
• The best rental apps for LA apartment hunting
• Feast your eyes on Curbed’s best LA home tours
• The Los Angeles homebuying guide
• What it’s like to buy a house in Los Angeles
• Buying vacant lots in LA: 6 things to know
• Will your building hold up in a major earthquake?
• 9 tips for riding Metro like a pro
• Why we can’t rely on Metro’s countdown clocks
• Metro’s declining ridership, explained
• The most anticipated transit projects opening in time for the 2028 LA Olympics
• Metro’s Regional Connector, explained
• A quick guide to LAX
• Four LA bike rides: Explore the city on two wheels
• 8 secrets you learn being an Uber driver in Los Angeles
• LA’s most beautiful bike path: The Strand through Santa Monica
• LA’s worst commute: The hellish drive from East Hollywood to Santa Monica
• Old photos show the evolution of transportation in LA
• 26 must-do things in LA this summer
• The 11 best hotel pools, mapped
• The best things to do with kids that aren’t Disneyland
• Dodger Stadium: The ultimate guide to LA’s ballpark
• The Hollywood Sign: The 7 best hikes and viewing options
• 12 of the city’s most glorious movie theaters
• A guide to surviving—and enjoying—The Grove
• Los Angeles heatwave hangouts: 24 free and air conditioned places to beat the heat
• LA’s coolest ride: Angels Flight is a trip back in time
• An illustrated guide to Los Angeles architecture
• The ultimate guide to Los Angeles movie and television filming locations
• The 20 most iconic buildings in the city, mapped
• The Case Study houses that made Los Angeles a modernist mecca
• An introduction to Googie, SoCal's signature architectural style
• The 10 best Art Deco buildings
• A complete guide to Grand Central Market 
• 18 places where black architects left their mark
• Mapped: The historic, stately homes of West Adams Boulevard
• Take a video tour through Pasadena’s iconic Gamble House
• Inside the iconic John Lautner Residence
• The sordid and possibly murderous secrets of the Sowden House
• Take a tour through LA’s Art Deco City Hall
• Hikes in Los Angeles: 9 trails with spectacular endings
• 7 hikes off the Gold Line
• 10 questions with LA’s hiking guru Casey Schreiner of Modern Hiker
• 29 secret gardens and green spaces hidden around LA
• Los Angeles picnic spots: 20 of the best places to lay out a blanket
• The city’s enchanting jacaranda trees are key to its future
• Who Will Save LA’s Trees?
• The myth and truth behind the Los Angeles ‘Devil Winds’
• Is the city losing its marine layer?
• The 18 cleanest beaches
• 101 things to love about Los Angeles
• A video primer on the unique, shimmery light of Los Angeles
• Building a Downtown for everyone
• Seize the Hollywood Sign
• LA history 101
• The thrill of Sugar Hill
• How ’80s pop culture typecast the Valley
• 14 must-follow Instagram accounts for LA lovers
• 7 Ways to Help L.A.’s Homeless Residents
• 19 small towns around LA you should absolutely visit
• Ghost towns of the desert
• The best places to stay on a road trip from Los Angeles
• 23 things to do in the California desert
• The best hotels in Palm Springs
• California’s best midcentury motels, mapped
• The West Coast's 15 must-see midcentury modern buildings
• 6 awesome campsites within about an hour of Los Angeles
• Where to find fall colors near Los Angeles

Share this story

Nearby Communities

• West Hollywood, CA
• Studio City, CA
• Echo Park-Silver Lake, CA
• Beverly Hills, CA
• North Hollywood-Toluca Lake, CA
• Los Angeles, CA
• Across California
• Westwood-Century City, CA
• Sherman Oaks, CA
• Eagle Rock, CA

State Edition

National edition.

• Top National News
• See All Communities

Arts & Entertainment

Frank lloyd wright's hollyhock house to star in virtual tour, because frank lloyd wright's hollyhock house is inaccessible to the people with disabilities, the city approved $133,000 for a virtual tour., california news wire services , news partner.

LOS ANGELES, CA — The City Council approved $133,000 in funding Wednesday to produce an online virtual reality tour of the Hollyhock House at Barnsdall Art Park due to the limited access the building offers for disabled people.

The Frank Lloyd Wright-designed home in East Hollywood was built before the Americans with Disabilities Act of 1990 and has limited access, but because it is a National Historic Landmark, it cannot be altered to increase accessibility.

"This vote by the City Council will allow everyone, everywhere, the opportunity to visit the Hollyhock House," said Councilman Mitch O'Farrell, who represents the area. "The video project will make the amazing historic landmark accessible to more people than ever before, shattering the notion of limited access due to challenges because of its unusual design or obstacles inside the structure."

Find out what's happening in Hollywood with free, real-time updates from Patch.

The building was constructed between 1919 and 1921 for oil heiress Louise Aline Barnsdall, who donated it to the city in 1927. The house was reopened to the public in 2015 after a three-year restoration.

We are grateful to the City Council for approving this new project funding for Hollyhock House so we can serve people with mobility or physical issues," said Danielle Brazell, Department of Cultural Affairs general manager. "We will now be able to make all of Hollyhock House virtually accessible to both on- and off-site audiences interested in this treasure, increasing creative engagement and economic development."

The project should be completed later this year, O'Farrell's office said.

City News Service; photo: Kyle Magnuson via flickr.com

More from Hollywood

Movies and shows to watch: 'twisters,' and 'those about to die'.

East Hollywood House Fire Threatened Other Structures: LAFD

IATSE Members Approve New Contracts

The best free cultural &

educational media on the web

• Online Courses
• Certificates
• Degrees & Mini-Degrees
• Audio Books

12 Famous Frank Lloyd Wright Houses Offer Virtual Tours: Hollyhock House, Taliesin West, Fallingwater & More

in Architecture | April 13th, 2020 Leave a Comment

One might, it seems, be almost any­where in the U.S. and only a few hours dri­ve from a Frank Lloyd Wright house. The “Wis­con­sin-born Wright’s port­fo­lio,” writes Jess Hof­fert at Mid­west Liv­ing , con­sists “of about 500 struc­tures, a good por­tion of which still stand in the Mid­west.” Wright hous­es span the West Coast and nes­tle in the sub­urbs of Wash­ing­ton, DC . As mil­lions of vis­i­tors see up close every year at the Met­ro­pol­i­tan Muse­um of Art’s Frank Lloyd Wright Room , Wright’s style per­me­at­ed every part of his designs, inside and out.

But there’s no talk of trav­el these days. The Wright-designed homes and muse­um exhi­bi­tions that were open to the pub­lic have closed their doors to vis­i­tors “just when they were gear­ing up for the spring tour­ing sea­son to begin,” announced the Frank Lloyd Wright Build­ing Con­ser­van­cy. To make sure the pub­lic still has access to twelve of those famous works, the Conservancy—along with the Frank Lloyd Wright Foun­da­tion and the Uni­ty Tem­ple Restora­tion Foun­da­tion— have launched #WrightVir­tu­alVis­its, which offers vir­tu­al tours of 12 icon­ic hous­es .

The deliv­ery method is “a touch con­fus­ing,” Matt Hick­man com­ments at The Architect’s News­pa­per . Tours kick off at 12:00 Cen­tral every Thurs­day “for six weeks (and maybe more). Each week, the con­ser­va­tors of a spe­cif­ic Wright site will share a short yet inti­mate video tour on its web­site and asso­ci­at­ed media pages of anoth­er Wright site…. Each week, two fresh Wright prop­er­ties will par­take in this vir­tu­al tour swap.” This does require a close read­ing of the instruc­tions, and requires one to keep a date, as it were, for a Wright tour.

Giv­en the hous­es on dis­play, you might not find this too trou­ble­some.

Build­ings that have been fea­tured already or are up to bat in the com­ing weeks include the Uni­ty Tem­ple in Oak Park, Illi­nois; the  Hol­ly­hock House , recent­ly named as the first UNESCO World Her­itage Site in Los Ange­les; Chicago’s Prairie School stun­ner, the Emil Bach House;  Tal­iesin West , home of the  (pos­si­bly) defunct School of Archi­tec­ture at Tal­iesin, in Scotts­dale, Ari­zona; the stun­ning yet often-over­looked Gray­cliff estate out­side of Buf­fa­lo, New York; Sama­ra, a pris­tine Uson­ian design in West Lafayette, Indi­ana; the Gor­don House, the only Wright build­ing in Ore­gon, and, of course,  Falling­wa­ter .

That last house must sure­ly be Wright’s most famous, an exem­plar of his “Uson­ian” style. But no mat­ter what par­tic­u­lar idiom he chose, the Mid­west­ern aes­thet­ic val­ues that shaped his ear­ly Prairie Style car­ried through into all of his lat­er work. In her short guide to ten of the most well-known Prairie Hous­es , Wright expert Car­la Lind describes his visu­al phi­los­o­phy as rep­re­sen­ta­tive of “ideals in which mid­west­ern­ers believed.”

The seeds of the Prairie Style were root­ed in an appre­ci­a­tion for nature and a ded­i­ca­tion to the free­dom and indi­vid­u­al­i­ty inher­ent in democ­ra­cy. To that Wright added his own expe­ri­ences and influ­ences: his mother’s teach­ing via the Froebel gifts , that nat­ur­al law could be under­stood through geo­met­ric abstrac­tions; his father’s pas­sion for music, which intro­duced him to com­po­si­tion and har­mo­ny; the lit­er­a­ture of the day that informed him about the Aes­thet­ic and Arts and Crafts move­ments and tran­scen­den­tal writ­ers such as Whit­man, Emer­son, and Thore­au… the Japan­ese art and archi­tec­ture at the World’s Columbian Expo­si­tion….

The price of admission—free for as long as it lasts—makes this oppor­tu­ni­ty to see, from a safe social dis­tance, how Wright bal­anced these influ­ences well worth the vir­tu­al trip.

Relat­ed Con­tent:

Take a 360° Vir­tu­al Tours of Frank Lloyd Wright’s Archi­tec­tur­al Mas­ter­pieces, Tal­iesin & Tal­iesin West

Frank Lloyd Wright Reflects on Cre­ativ­i­ty, Nature and Reli­gion in Rare 1957 Audio

Vis­it the Homes That Great Archi­tects Designed for Them­selves: Frank Lloyd Wright, Le Cor­busier, Wal­ter Gropius & Frank Gehry

Josh Jones  is a writer and musi­cian based in Durham, NC. Fol­low him at  @jdmagness

by Josh Jones | Permalink | Comments (0) |

Related posts:

Comments (0).

Be the first to comment.

Add a comment

Leave a reply.

Name (required)

Email (required)

XHTML: You can use these tags: <a href="" title=""> <abbr title=""> <acronym title=""> <b> <blockquote cite=""> <cite> <code> <del datetime=""> <em> <i> <q cite=""> <s> <strike> <strong>

Click here to cancel reply.

• 1,700 Free Online Courses
• 200 Online Certificate Programs
• 100+ Online Degree & Mini-Degree Programs
• 1,150 Free Movies
• 1,000 Free Audio Books
• 150+ Best Podcasts
• 800 Free eBooks
• 200 Free Textbooks
• 300 Free Language Lessons
• 150 Free Business Courses
• Free K-12 Education
• Get Our Daily Email

Free Courses

• Art & Art History
• Classics/Ancient World
• Computer Science
• Data Science
• Engineering
• Environment
• Political Science
• Writing & Journalism
• All 1500 Free Courses
• 1000+ MOOCs & Certificate Courses

Receive our Daily Email

Free updates, get our daily email.

Get the best cultural and educational resources on the web curated for you in a daily email. We never spam. Unsubscribe at any time.

FOLLOW ON SOCIAL MEDIA

Free Movies

• 1150 Free Movies Online
• Free Film Noir
• Silent Films
• Documentaries
• Martial Arts/Kung Fu
• Free Hitchcock Films
• Free Charlie Chaplin
• Free John Wayne Movies
• Free Tarkovsky Films
• Free Dziga Vertov
• Free Oscar Winners
• Free Language Lessons
• All Languages

Free eBooks

• 700 Free eBooks
• Free Philosophy eBooks
• The Harvard Classics
• Philip K. Dick Stories
• Neil Gaiman Stories
• David Foster Wallace Stories & Essays
• Hemingway Stories
• Great Gatsby & Other Fitzgerald Novels
• HP Lovecraft
• Edgar Allan Poe
• Free Alice Munro Stories
• Jennifer Egan Stories
• George Saunders Stories
• Hunter S. Thompson Essays
• Joan Didion Essays
• Gabriel Garcia Marquez Stories
• David Sedaris Stories
• Stephen King
• Golden Age Comics
• Free Books by UC Press
• Life Changing Books

Free Audio Books

• 700 Free Audio Books
• Free Audio Books: Fiction
• Free Audio Books: Poetry
• Free Audio Books: Non-Fiction

Free Textbooks

• Free Physics Textbooks
• Free Computer Science Textbooks
• Free Math Textbooks

K-12 Resources

• Free Video Lessons
• Web Resources by Subject
• Quality YouTube Channels
• Teacher Resources
• All Free Kids Resources

Free Art & Images

• All Art Images & Books
• The Rijksmuseum
• Smithsonian
• The Guggenheim
• The National Gallery
• The Whitney
• LA County Museum
• Stanford University
• British Library
• Google Art Project
• French Revolution
• Getty Images
• Guggenheim Art Books
• Met Art Books
• Getty Art Books
• New York Public Library Maps
• Museum of New Zealand
• Smarthistory
• Coloring Books
• All Bach Organ Works
• All of Bach
• 80,000 Classical Music Scores
• Free Classical Music
• Live Classical Music
• 9,000 Grateful Dead Concerts
• Alan Lomax Blues & Folk Archive

Writing Tips

• William Zinsser
• Kurt Vonnegut
• Toni Morrison
• Margaret Atwood
• David Ogilvy
• Billy Wilder
• All posts by date

Personal Finance

• Open Personal Finance
• Amazon Kindle
• Architecture
• Artificial Intelligence
• Comics/Cartoons
• Current Affairs
• English Language
• Entrepreneurship
• Food & Drink
• Graduation Speech
• How to Learn for Free
• Internet Archive
• Language Lessons
• Most Popular
• Neuroscience
• Photography
• Pretty Much Pop
• Productivity
• UC Berkeley
• Uncategorized
• Video - Arts & Culture
• Video - Politics/Society
• Video - Science
• Video Games

Great Lectures

• Michel Foucault
• Sun Ra at UC Berkeley
• Richard Feynman
• Joseph Campbell
• Jorge Luis Borges
• Leonard Bernstein
• Richard Dawkins
• Buckminster Fuller
• Walter Kaufmann on Existentialism
• Jacques Lacan
• Roland Barthes
• Nobel Lectures by Writers
• Bertrand Russell
• Oxford Philosophy Lectures

Sign up for Newsletter

Open Culture scours the web for the best educational media. We find the free courses and audio books you need, the language lessons & educational videos you want, and plenty of enlightenment in between.

Great Recordings

• T.S. Eliot Reads Waste Land
• Sylvia Plath - Ariel
• Joyce Reads Ulysses
• Joyce - Finnegans Wake
• Patti Smith Reads Virginia Woolf
• Albert Einstein
• Charles Bukowski
• Bill Murray
• Fitzgerald Reads Shakespeare
• William Faulkner
• Flannery O'Connor
• Tolkien - The Hobbit
• Allen Ginsberg - Howl
• Dylan Thomas
• Anne Sexton
• John Cheever
• David Foster Wallace

Book Lists By

• Neil deGrasse Tyson
• Ernest Hemingway
• F. Scott Fitzgerald
• Allen Ginsberg
• Patti Smith
• Henry Miller
• Christopher Hitchens
• Joseph Brodsky
• Donald Barthelme
• David Bowie
• Samuel Beckett
• Art Garfunkel
• Marilyn Monroe
• Picks by Female Creatives
• Zadie Smith & Gary Shteyngart
• Lynda Barry

Favorite Movies

• Kurosawa's 100
• David Lynch
• Werner Herzog
• Woody Allen
• Wes Anderson
• Luis Buñuel
• Roger Ebert
• Susan Sontag
• Scorsese Foreign Films
• Philosophy Films
• February 2024
• January 2024
• December 2023
• November 2023
• October 2023
• September 2023
• August 2023
• February 2023
• January 2023
• December 2022
• November 2022
• October 2022
• September 2022
• August 2022
• February 2022
• January 2022
• December 2021
• November 2021
• October 2021
• September 2021
• August 2021
• February 2021
• January 2021
• December 2020
• November 2020
• October 2020
• September 2020
• August 2020
• February 2020
• January 2020
• December 2019
• November 2019
• October 2019
• September 2019
• August 2019
• February 2019
• January 2019
• December 2018
• November 2018
• October 2018
• September 2018
• August 2018
• February 2018
• January 2018
• December 2017
• November 2017
• October 2017
• September 2017
• August 2017
• February 2017
• January 2017
• December 2016
• November 2016
• October 2016
• September 2016
• August 2016
• February 2016
• January 2016
• December 2015
• November 2015
• October 2015
• September 2015
• August 2015
• February 2015
• January 2015
• December 2014
• November 2014
• October 2014
• September 2014
• August 2014
• February 2014
• January 2014
• December 2013
• November 2013
• October 2013
• September 2013
• August 2013
• February 2013
• January 2013
• December 2012
• November 2012
• October 2012
• September 2012
• August 2012
• February 2012
• January 2012
• December 2011
• November 2011
• October 2011
• September 2011
• August 2011
• February 2011
• January 2011
• December 2010
• November 2010
• October 2010
• September 2010
• August 2010
• February 2010
• January 2010
• December 2009
• November 2009
• October 2009
• September 2009
• August 2009
• February 2009
• January 2009
• December 2008
• November 2008
• October 2008
• September 2008
• August 2008
• February 2008
• January 2008
• December 2007
• November 2007
• October 2007
• September 2007
• August 2007
• February 2007
• January 2007
• December 2006
• November 2006
• October 2006
• September 2006

©2006-2024 Open Culture, LLC. All rights reserved.

• Advertise with Us
• Copyright Policy
• Privacy Policy
• Terms of Use

Iconic Hollyhock House Is Getting a Virtual Reality Tour

Published august 20, 2018 • updated on august 20, 2018 at 1:20 pm.

An online virtual reality tour of the Hollyhock House at Barnsdall Art Park is set to debut this fall, the Los Angeles Department of Cultural Affairs announced Monday.

The City Council approved $133,000 in funding last year to produce the online virtual reality tour due of the Frank Lloyd Wright-designed home in East Hollywood, which was built before the Americans with Disabilities Act of 1990.

Because it is a National Historic Landmark, it cannot be altered to increase accessibility.

"Everyone should be able to experience L.A.'s cultural landmarks," Mayor Eric Garcetti said. "Hollyhock House is a remarkable piece of architecture, and a virtual reality will allow people with disabilities and the elderly to explore a location with deep history in our city."

The building was constructed between 1919 and 1921 for oil heiress Louise Aline Barnsdall, who donated it to the city in 1927. The house was reopened to the public in 2015 after a three-year restoration.

A Los Angeles-based firm, AVA Inclusivity, was chosen to produce the VR tour, which will be available both onsite and remotely through a web browser.

This article tagged under:

• Los Angeles

Neighborhoods

• Santa Monica
• Culver City
• West Hollywood
• Orange County
• East Hollywood
• View All→

Urbanize Network

Virtual reality tour would increase access to the hollyhock house, the landmark building in barnsdall park was designed by frank lloyd wright..

In an effort to improve access for disabled persons, the City of Los Angeles is looking to create a virtual reality tour for the historic Hollyhock House .

Completed in 1921 as the home of Aline Barnsdall, the Hollyhock House is noted as the first Los Angeles building designed by the famed architect Frank Lloyd Wright.  It now stands as the centerpiece of Barnsdall Art Park, a hilly 36-acre expanse in the heart of East Hollywood.

As the house predates adoption of the American with Disabilities Act by nearly seven decades, many parts of the Mayan Revival building are inaccessible to those with disabilities.  The property's National Historic Landmark status further complicates the issue, as it is illegal to physically retrofit the house for ADA compliance.  Thus, the City has turned to a more creative solution.

The virtual reality tour would be made accessible on-site and remotely through a web browser.  According to the Los Angeles Department of Cultural Affairs, this would increase accessibility to the Hollyhock House by 210 percent, potentially leading to an increase in on-site visitors and ticket sales.  The Department hopes that this increased visibility would improve the property's chances of receiving UNESCO World Heritage Site designation, which is currently under consideration.

The project would be funded by $133,000 from the City's 2016-17 Innovation Fund, and could lead to the creation of similar virtual reality tours for other Los Angeles facilities.  The issue has been referred to the City Council's Innovation, Grants, Technology, Commerce and Trade Committee, and requires approval from both the full Council and the Mayor's office.

• Virtual Reality Accessibility Project (City of Los Angeles)
• Barnsdall Art Park
• Hollyhock House
• Frank Lloyd Wright

• LA (Weekly)