Frank Lloyd Wright - Hollyhock House and Olive Hill [Hardcover]

Kathryn Smith (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: November 15, 1992

This book documents, for the first time, one of the largest and most important commissions of Frank Lloyd Wright's career. Between 1914 and 1924 Wright designed an entire theater community for art patron Aline Barnsdall on her thirty-six-acre Hollywood site, called Olive Hill. Although Wright designed fourteen projects for the Barnsdall estate, only one, Hollyhock House, now a museum owned by the City of Los Angeles, has been widely published. Hollyhock and another house/studio were the only buildings on the site to be completed, but all the projects are extremely important because they bridge the period between the early, well known Oak Park era of the Prairie Houses and Wright's "modern" work after 1936. This chapter in his career--except for his involvement in another huge project, the Imperial Hotel in Tokyo--is virtually unknown.

Supported by unpublished drawings, photographs, correspondence, documents, and interviews from a variety of public and private sources, this volume is the product of ten years of research by architectural historian Kathryn Smith.

Editorial Reviews

From Library Journal

The maturation of any artist should be well documented, and when that artist is Frank Lloyd Wright, only a well-researched and visually impressive presentation will suffice--something Smith has succeeded in creating here. This is the story of the conception, design, construction, and eventual failure of Olive Hill, a planned theatrical community on 36 acres in Hollywood. Smith describes the battle of the powerful rich with the artistic poor and the unfulfilled dreams and loss that resulted. By itself, this is a tale worth telling, but Smith uses this Hollywood landscape as a backdrop for discussing a period of intense experimentation and struggle that forced Wright to develop a more modern view of architecture. This book is rich in line drawings, architectural photographs, and documents of the original projects of Olive Hill, of which only two were built, one the famous Hollyhock House. Very little has been written about Olive Hill, and this book is a treasure of information. Recommended for public and academic libraries. For more on Wright, see the review of his Collected Writings, Vol. 2 , p. 165.--Ed.
- Glenn Masuchika, Cha minade Univ. Lib., Honolulu
Copyright 1993 Reed Business Information, Inc.

About the Author

Kathryn Smith is a professor of architecture at Southern California Institute of Architecture (SCI ARC) in Santa Monica.

Product Details

• Hardcover: 224 pages
• Publisher: Rizzoli; First Edition edition (November 15, 1992)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0847815404
• ISBN-13: 978-0847815401
• Product Dimensions: 10.2 x 10 x 1 inches
• Shipping Weight: 2.9 pounds
• Average Customer Review: 5.0 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (2 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #1,566,894 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

More About the Author

Kathryn Smith is an architectural historian, historic preservation consultant, and Frank Lloyd Wright authority. She was one of the first scholars to have complete access to the unpublished drawings and letters of Wright at the Taliesin Archives in Arizona. She used this experience in her first major book, FRANK LLOYD WRIGHT, HOLLYHOCK HOUSE AND OLIVE HILL: PROJECTS AND BUILDINGS FOR ALINE BARNSDALL (1992), which received a fellowship from the Graham Foundation. Over a ten period, she was a visiting guest of Mrs. Frank Lloyd Wright and the Taliesin Fellowship at Wright's homes in Wisconsin and Arizona, with this knowledge, she wrote FRANK LLOYD WRIGHT'S TALIESIN AND TALIESIN WEST. She has also published widely with Rizzoli International, Harry N. Abrams Inc, and Abbeville Press. Her book, SCHINDLER HOUSE, has become a classic. She has been accorded several honors including the Wright Spirit Award for Professionals from the Frank Lloyd Wright Building Conservancy in 2001. In 2003, she was Scholar-in-Residence at Wright's Robie House in Chicago. She is currently at work on her next book, WRIGHT ON EXHIBIT, ARCHITECTURAL EXHIBITIONS, 1894-1959 under a fellowship from the National Endowment for the Humanities.

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

4 of 4 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Some surprises await the reader, June 1, 2002

By A Customer

This review is from: Frank Lloyd Wright - Hollyhock House and Olive Hill (Hardcover)

This book is an interesting juxtaposition of two things--Frank Lloyd Wright's complex dealings with a maverick, and some very rare, beautiful photos.

The first part of this is probably of interest to only Frank Lloyd Wright's fans. But those photographs are something else.

Most people know only the exterior of Hollyhock House--cold, forbidding, monolithic; but are unfamiliar with its breathtakingly beautiful interior--in this book, displayed with some photos in vivid color. In my opinion, the interior of this building is the most beautiful of all Frank Lloyd Wright houses; a masterpiece of interior design in the Prairie Style. As an added bonus, there are some extremely rare photos of Residence B--long-demolished, it was a Frank Lloyd Wright masterpiece, probably unique in its use of mitred wood and corbeled posts. (I've never seen a house like it in my entire life).

The photos make this book a must-read, must-have part of your collection, suitable for display on a coffee table.

4 of 7 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars The best book on Hollyhock House, April 12, 2002

By 

Kathryn Smith (Santa Monica, California United States) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Frank Lloyd Wright - Hollyhock House and Olive Hill (Hardcover)

As the author of this book, I know that I have brought together a collection of drawings, archival photos, plans and drawings made especially for this publication that document and analyze one of Wright's largest and most famous commissions during the period of the 1920s. His work with Aline Barnsdall was extrememly complicated and covered over a decade in his career. My book puts the Hollyhock House in context of the larger commission for Olive Hill. Drawings are reproduced from several sources, mainly the Wright Archives. Hundreds of letters and documents were consulted. A section of color photographs shows the house in detail with fully furnished interior views. This book is a must for the library of every reader interested in Wright. I hope you enjoy it and value it too.