Frank Lloyd Wright Garden Symposium: His Southern California Work and Legacy

The Garden Conservancy organizes public programs that bring leading thinkers and practitioners within the world of gardening to audiences throughout cities in the US. Since 2018, we have brought scholars, authors, and experts in the fields of design, history, research, and preservation, to numerous locations so that their work can be shared with the public. Education is a key component of our mission, and through these events, we aim to inspire and engage those who have a passion for gardens and want to know further about the benefits that they bring to our lives.

The Frank Lloyd Wright Garden Symposium will examine how Frank Lloyd Wright and other early twentieth-century architects responded to the Southern California landscape and climate and how they invite us to think about contemporary issues in gardening.

THE SYMPOSIUM

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. 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.