The Aline Barnsdall House
(Hollyhock House)
According to Cate Bramble...
Houses cut into steep hillsides or pressed into the tops of hills receive universal acclaim as bad Feng Shui, yet Wright regularly created buildings like that. If you are hooked on the absurdity of the "first impressions" theory of ersatz Feng Shui, you don't get warm fuzzies approaching Hollyhock House - and a traditionalist will shudder at its disquieting "crack-from-the-sky" walkway. The kindest things I've read about this Wright wonder called it "massive," "constricted," and "weighty," as well as "guarded" (because the place has so few windows it looks more like a tomb than a house).
Hollyhock House © Mary Ann Sullivan, Digital Imaging Project
In the eyes of a traditional Feng Shui practitioner, the entire Hollyhock House project looks like a case of bad Feng Shui from the outset. Besides its placement atop Olive Hill and its commanding view of a hospital, the structure itself is flat, oppressive, and (according to some) looks like a giant hand smacked it into the top of the hill. We are discussing this from the vaguest San He aspects, yet the house already indicates problems with money and personal distress (corroborated by the history of the house). From the most general San Yuan perspective the construction project was ill-timed and poorly oriented, which (to the traditional Feng Shui mind) caused the interminable delays, disagreements, fistfights, litigation, and other woes that eventually doomed the project.
Although Aline Barnsdall was ahead of her time in thinking that contemporary use of land and natural resources should redress (if not justify) the way we've exploited them in the past, she lost faith in her designer. Wright, in a letter to Ms. Barnsdall at the bitter end of the project, pleaded with her to absolve Hollyhock House "at least from rancor and false witness." From a Feng Shui standpoint, these problems were built into the house.
Certainly the interior added to the distress. The same people who worry about pointy leaves on house plants conveniently forget the massive scale of the metal sha in Hollyhock House. All that metal sha in a Cycle 3 house! How can that be casually dismissed?
It could have been far worse, had the project proceeded as planned. Remember, the moat around Hollyhock House was designed to flow underneath the house, which makes any traditional Feng Shui practitioner shudder in horror. I wonder how the New Age practitioners handle that kind of design aspect, or the sixty-foot "crack-from-the-sky" walkway, or the U-shaped structure itself (how do you analyze that kind of floor plan with a McBagua?). And what of its many levels, the reflecting pool, the concave edges?
The story isn't that much different for the Ennis-Brown House, the Freeman House, or the Storer House. The Millard House sits in a low ravine, and there's no excusing that placement. All these homes are imposing, mausoleum-like edifices with a litany of San He and San Yuan woes. They have fared far better as cool backdrops to big-screen action than comfy homes - after all, the Ennis-Brown House and its dim, Mayan-tomb ambiance enhanced the moody atmosphere of the film, Blade Runner.
