LADP PERFORMS: CITY OF DANCE | HOLLYHOCK HOUSE
Hollyhock House
at Barnsdall Art Park
4800 Hollywood Blvd.
Los Angeles, CA 90027
Saturday, June 6 | 4:00 PM*
Saturday, June 20 | 11:00 AM
Free and Open to all. RSVP for event details and updates.
At Hollyhock House and Barnsdall Art Park, City of Dance meets a century‑old vision for art in public life. Designed by Frank Lloyd Wright for arts patron Aline Barnsdall, this UNESCO World Heritage Site was conceived as a radical experiment in community, creativity, and shared space.
Today, City of Dance brings movement back to Olive Hill, honoring the site’s history while inviting Angelenos to experience dance woven into its architecture.
Information on arrival and parking at Barnsdall Art Park.
*The June 6th performance will be followed by a conversation about architecture, landscape, and civic balance, moderated by Frances Anderton in conversation with artist Kim Abeles.
The Vision on the Hill
Barnsdall Art Park sits atop Olive Hill, purchased in 1919 by Aline Barnsdall, an oil heiress, radical arts patron, and early champion of experimental theater. She envisioned the site as a 36‑acre arts campus for performance, education, and community.
Her ambition: art should be public, accessible, and part of everyday life.
Frank Lloyd Wright’s First L.A. Commission
Barnsdall hired Frank Lloyd Wright to design the complex. Between 1919–1921, he created Hollyhock House, named for Barnsdall’s favorite flower and adorned with stylized hollyhock motifs throughout the architecture.
The house blends prairie style and Mayan revival influences with early California modernism, and became a harbinger of modern architecture in Los Angeles.
A UNESCO World Heritage Site
In 2019, Hollyhock House became Los Angeles’s first UNESCO World Heritage Site, recognized as part of The 20th‑Century Architecture of Frank Lloyd Wright, the first modern architecture designation in the U.S. This places Olive Hill in the company of Fallingwater, Taliesin, and the Guggenheim.
From Private Vision to Public Park
In 1927, Barnsdall donated the house and surrounding land to the City of Los Angeles, ensuring it would remain a public cultural resource. Today, Barnsdall Art Park includes:
- Hollyhock House
- Los Angeles Municipal Art Gallery (LAMAG) — one of the city’s largest publicly funded contemporary art spaces
- Barnsdall Junior Arts Center Gallery — a community‑focused exhibition space
- Community arts programs and classes
- Open lawns with panoramic views of the city
Together, these spaces continue Barnsdall’s original vision of Olive Hill as a public arts campus, where creativity, architecture, and community life converge.
Hollyhock House embodies the idea that art belongs in public life, a principle at the heart of City of Dance.
Frances Anderton covers Los Angeles design and architecture in print and broadcast media. She is the author of Common Ground: Multifamily Housing in Los Angeles. Anderton previously hosted DnA: Design and Architecture, aired on KCRW public radio station, and produced the current affairs shows Which Way, LA? and To The Point. She currently writes a regular DnA newsletter for KCRW. She co-created The Angeleno Porch: Six Social Spaces Shaping L.A.’s Affordable Housing, for the US Pavilion at the 2025 Venice Architecture Biennale, and she was a 2025 Santa Monica Artist Fellow. She teaches at USC School of Architecture.
Kim Abeles has created projects with science museums, health departments, air quality agencies, and community organizations. A Guggenheim Fellow, her work is in collections at MOCA, CAAM, LACMA, and BAMFA. Her documents are archived at the Center for Art + Environment. Recent collaborations include Pugai Padam Collective in Chennai, India; Kim Abeles: Community Smog at Gregory Allicar Museum of Art with neighborhoods and atmospheric scientists; and, Valises createdwith Camp 13, a group of female prison inmates who fight wildfires. Among her public artworks are Citizen Seeds along Park to Playa Trail and Walk a Mile in My Shoes based on the shoes of Civil Rights activists.
Presented by L.A. Dance Project and Paris Dance Project.
