Frank Lloyd Wright Garden Symposium: His Southern California Work and Legacy
The Frank Lloyd Wright Garden Symposium will illuminate how Wright's genius extended beyond his architectural work and into the garden. Hosted by the Garden Conservancy, in partnership with the Frank Lloyd Wright Foundation and the Frank Lloyd Wright Building Conservancy, the conference on April 13th, will present a range of distinguished speakers, from landscape architects, historians, curators, and
stewards of Frank Lloyd Wright-designed houses as they explore how Wright and other architects of his period responded to the local landscape and climate and how they invite us to think about contemporary issues of the 21st century. Site visits on April 14 offer an opportunity to see Wright's work and that of his contemporary Rudolph Schindler.
Date:
Location:
Los Angeles , United States
Wilshire Ebell Theatre, 4401 West 8th Street
Perhaps no architect has been more written about than Frank Lloyd Wright, but his designs for gardens remain less studied and understood, despite how important landscape and nature were to his thinking. Los Angeles is home to one of Wright’s crowning achievements, Hollyhock House (1916-21), a residence originally designed as “half house and half garden.”
Wright embraced landscapes and plants of many types and climates, including native plants, an interest shared with his friend and landscape architect, Jens Jensen. Wright’s appreciation of landscape was also enriched by his love of Japanese culture. Having designed Hollyhock House while in Japan, Wright relocated to Los Angeles in 1923 and began working with his son, Lloyd Wright, a gifted landscape designer who had worked for the Olmsted Brothers in California. Wright spent only a few years in Southern California, yet he created remarkable work in the Hollyhock, Ennis, Storer, and Freeman houses.
Completed over one hundred years ago, Wright’s houses in Southern California are being revitalized as the region changes beyond what he could have anticipated, impacted by drought, pollution, and climate change. The Frank Lloyd Wright Garden Symposium will examine how he and other architects of the period responded to the local landscape and climate and how they invite us to think about contemporary issues of the 21st century.
The symposium will feature landscape architects, historians, curators, and stewards of Frank Lloyd Wright-designed houses. Please find the list of speakers below:
Laura J. Martin, Historian and Ecologist
Abbey Chamberlain Brach, Curator of Frank Lloyd Wright’s Hollyhock House
Kenneth Breisch, Emeritus Professor of Architecture
Jenny Jones, Landscape Architect and Terremoto Firm Principal
Janet Parks, Architectural Historian
Safina Uberoi, Filmmaker
Joseph Marek, Landscape Architect
The event will be of interest to all gardeners, designers, architects, and students who are passionate about history and design and what they can teach us about gardening today. To register for this event, please visit www.gardenconservancy.org. The price of admission includes continental breakfast and a boxed lunch.
