Posted in Folly-esque, tagged public art, river, Topiary, turf on September 19, 2007 | Leave a Comment »
A giant tattoo-ed athlete, measuring 46-feet long and 10-feet high, is swimming through the grassy-verge next to the Thames at Tower Bridge this week. Somewhat surprisingly, the massive sculpture is the work of David Beckham and Kate Moss’s tattooist Louis Molloy.
Molloy, who was responsible for the ‘guardian angel’ tattoo on Beckham’s back, is starring in [...]
Posted in Folly-esque, Uncategorized, tagged mosaic, public art, statue on September 14, 2007 | Leave a Comment »
Giant Fish entwine on a Kentish roundabout
Motorists in Erith recently have been startled to find a set of giant mosaic fish entwined on a roundabout in Bronze Age Way. (So startled in fact that one motorist is reported to have run into it). They were even passed by the peleton of the Tour de France on their way when [...]
Posted in Build Your Own, Folly-esque, Retro folly, tagged box, labyrinth, maze, Topiary on September 4, 2007 | Leave a Comment »
After LA antiques dealer Richard Shapiro created a Palladian folly in his Holmby Hills garden in Los Angeles, (see previous blog post “Palladio in Hollywood”), he decided to enhance its setting with a maze.
Thumbing through a magazine, shortly after completing the Palladian pavilion, he came across a photograph of the Chateau Marqueyssac in the Dordogne region [...]
Posted in Modern Folly, Retro folly, tagged Greek, palladian, pavilion, Temple on September 4, 2007 | 1 Comment »
Eccentricity and excess mark a centuries-old tradition.
Richard Shapiro’s folly began, as many great things do, with the smallest of ambitions. Though the modern art collector and antiques dealer already had seven fireplaces in his 1920s Holmby Hills villa, he wanted an outdoor hearth. A place, he recalls, where, “I could sit in front of a roaring fire [...]
Posted in Retro folly, tagged grotto, mosaic, naiads, shells on September 2, 2007 | Leave a Comment »
Cherkley Court in Surrey has a new shell grotto by Belinda Eade
Cherkley Court, near Leatherhead in Surrey, was the home of newspaper magnate Lord Beaverbrook, from 1910-1964. Beaverbrook was a cabinet minister in Churchill’s wartime government and Winston Churchill was a regular visitor to Cherkley. The house, rebuilt after a fire in the 1890s in high Victorian style, sits high [...]
Posted in Build Your Own, Retro folly, tagged doric, Egyptian, Greek, shed, Temple on September 2, 2007 | Leave a Comment »
Fancy a folly but lack the funds to commission or the expertise to build one?
An American firm, Folly by Design, has come up with the answer. They will sell you a set of plans to build a shed with a mock Roman, Egyptian or Greek front door. Plans start from $49.95 for a 6′ [...]
Posted in Folly-esque, tagged Park, Topiary on September 2, 2007 | Leave a Comment »
The Tour de France comes to London
OK so this isn’t a folly but it a very endearing garden structure and I couldn’t resist including it.
In early July 2007 the Tour de France started in London. The first day was the Prologue, which took in a tour round the Royal Parks in London before the tour [...]
Posted in Modern Folly, Retro folly, tagged sea, Tower on September 2, 2007 | Leave a Comment »
Folly Fanciers, I present the Nonument.
Strictly speaking, if your definition of a folly is a building with no particular function then this one does not qualify. On the other hand if it merely has to show folly in the designer or builder, then it does that in spades.
Commissioned by the City of The Hague as [...]
Posted in Modern Folly, tagged pavilion on September 2, 2007 | Leave a Comment »
The Serpentine Gallery Pavilion 2007
Off to Hyde Park to see the latest Serpentine Pavilion, this year designed by Olafur Eliasson and Kjetil Thorsen.
From a distance it looks rather like a giant’s wooden spinning top has come to rest in Hyde Park. Close up the pavilion is constructed from dark wooden triangular panels, like scales, bolted onto [...]
