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The
Desert de Retz was the private garden of Francoise de Monville
(1734 - 1798), a gentleman of fashion in the Paris of Louis
XV and XVI. At the age of 40, Monville decided to build
a country retreat. In 1774 he purchased 100 acres near the
town of Chambourcy, west of Paris. In the space of 15 years,
he created a complete world in miniature with plants representing
the four corners of the world and 17 buildings. The property
passed intact through private ownership from 1843 until
1936, when it was left to deteriorate as part of a larger
parcel of forestland. Designated a historic monument in
1939, it was not until 1973, a year after the Chinese House
collapsed, that emergency repairs were begun on the other
follies. In 1983, the property was purchased by the architect
Olivier Choppin de Janvry and banker Jean Marc Heftler,
who formed the Societe Civile du Desert de Retz to guide
its restoration.
Although
the gardens and monuments of the Desert de Retz and other
similar landscape gardens were discredited in later eras
as excessive, the creation of follies and folly-like structures
has never ceased. The modern artists and architects included
here create in styles very different from that of Monsieur
de Monville, but their works do reveal an influence of the
idea of the folly that links them to the Desert. |
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George - Louis Le Rouge
Le Desert de Retz, Paris
Cahier 13, Plate 4
collection:
Centre Canadien d' Architecture |
Siah Armajani
Lighthouse and Bridge, 1996
Staten
Island, NY
Max Protech Gallery |
