2,000 APPLAUD TOP ARCHITECT'S WORK IN CITY.

Byline: Terri Hardy Daily News Staff Writer

Andy Adler was driving a cab through the streets of Los Angeles when he discovered the genius of architect Frank Lloyd Wright.

On Sunday the now-retired cabbie was among 2,000 people who celebrated the anniversary of Wright's 129th birthday at the site of the architect's first Los Angeles project, the Hollyhock House in Barnsdall Park in Hollywood.

``I think he was America's greatest architect,'' said Adler, a Hollywood resident.

Atop the peaceful hillside park with panoramic views of the city, children made Japanese screens in honor of Wright's love of Asian art. Adults attended lectures and toured the park's galleries.

Although he is now recalled as America's best known architect, Wright's designs were too controversial and farsighted to gain mass approval during his lifetime, said Patti Olguin, vice president of Friends of Hollyhock House.

``What's popular today with deconstructionist architects was being done by Wright in the '20s,'' Olguin said. ``He's influenced almost every major architect.''

In the mid 1980s the American Institute of Architects declared the Hollyhock House one of the most significant structures of the 20th century, she said.

Los Angeles County boasts a number of Wright-designed homes, including the Ennis-Brown House in Los Feliz and the Freeman House in Los Angeles.

``Los Angeles has all kinds of interesting architecture, the problem is you have to drive through miles and miles of hideous buildings to find them,'' Adler said.

Built between 1919 and 1923, the Hollyhock House represents Wright's transition from his Prairie Style homes to a style that would be identified with Southern California. He termed it ``California Romanza,'' using the musical term meaning ``freedom to make one's own form.''

The house was commissioned in 1915 by oil heiress Aline Barnsdall, who envisioned an artists' enclave on the 36-acre parcel in Hollywood called Olive Hill.

Barnsdall herself was a nonconformist who loved experimental theater, held radical political beliefs, and raised eyebrows by raising a daughter born out of wedlock.

Wright's design sought to mesh the home with the outdoors. Many rooms open to a courtyard or open space. A stream once meandered through the grounds and into a font in front of the living room's fireplace - the home's showplace.

Barnsdall and Wright clashed often during construction, and the heiress fired her architect, who was often absent because of another major commission, the Imperial Hotel in Tokyo, Japan. Wright's apprentice, Rudolf Shindler, and his son, Lloyd Wright, finished the project.

Barnsdall was unhappy with the completed house. The roof leaked, and the walls were damp. The heiress rarely used her bedroom, in which Wright had designed a futon-style bed to be unrolled at night in front of floor-to-ceiling windows overlooking the grounds.

In 1927, Barnsdall gave the house and 11 surrounding acres to the city as a public art park in memory of her father, Theodore Barnsdall.

Through the 1950s, the home was used by art groups and fell into disrepair. Most of Wright's custom-designed furniture was ruined or removed.

Beginning in the 1960s, the city added on to the complex, building the Los Angeles Municipal Art Gallery and Junior Arts Center in the park complex.

The house continues to deteriorate, Olguin said. While some rehabilitation has been undertaken with money from fund-raisers and the city, the house still has major structural problems and unrepaired damage from the Northridge earthquake.

But visitors Sunday saw beyond the peeling paint and cracked walls.

``The man had courage, he followed his vision,'' said Kent Wilson of Hollywood.

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Photo: Jim Sturges of Oceanside explores the Hollyhock Hous e, designed more than 70 years ago by architect Frank Lloyd Wright.

David Sprague/Daily News