Frank Lloyd Wright’s Hollyhock House now a UNESCO World Heritage site

The Frank Lloyd Wright-designed Hollyhock House has been added to the list of UNESCO World Heritage sites, the organization announced Sunday.

The former residence, now in operation as a museum, has been described as a precursor to the style now called California modernism. It is Los Angeles’s first UNESCO site.

“It is overwhelming to realize the world officially recognizes the outstanding universal value of this home,” says Hollyhock House curator Jeffrey Herr.

UNESCO is one of the world’s most popular cultural heritage programs, and it has honored such famous sites as the Statue of Liberty, the Great Wall of China, and the city of Venice, Italy.

The Hollyhock House received the designation along with seven other edifices across the country designed by Wright that together represent his 50-year career. They were collectively added to the prestigious roster as “The 20th-Century Architecture of Frank Lloyd Wright.”

“Our hope is that the inscription of these eight major works also brings awareness to the importance of preserving all of his buildings,” says Barbara Gordon, executive director of the Frank Lloyd Wright Building Conservancy. “All communities where a Wright building stands should appreciate what they have and share in the responsibility to protect their local—and world—heritage.”

Built from 1919 to 1921, the Hollyhock House sits atop a hill on the border of Hollywood and Los Feliz and was the first home that Wright designed in Los Angeles. It was commissioned by oil heiress Aline Barnsdall, who initially asked Wright to design a theater. The project expanded into a larger performing arts complex and a house for Barnsdall.

The house’s style is challenging to define, combining elements of Mayan Revival, Modern, and a handful of others, but the Frank Lloyd Wright Foundation says that the structure was “transitional” for the architect—a bridge between the Prairie style and his famed textile block structures.

Wright was fired in 1921 for cost overages on the project, and the property, which includes a smaller building designed by modernist Richard Neutra, was deeded to the city of LA in 1927.

The Hollyhock House has undergone a few renovations over the years, with the most recent being completed in 2014. When it reopened to the public in early 2015, it was kept open for a full 24 hours and it was estimated that as many as a thousand people at a time lined up to tour it.

Photo by Joshua White