Stourhead, Temple of Apollo, near Mere, Wiltshire
The meaning of a folly is that of a decorative structure that has no practical purpose. It is usually built for purely aesthetic reasons and is often designed to look like a ruined or unfinished building. Follies can take many different forms, from towers and temples to grottos and bridges. They are typically made from a range of materials, including stone, brick, and wood, and are often decorated with carvings, statues, and other ornamental details. —Anglotopia
When architects Louis Sullivan and Ludwig Mies van der Rohe made their architectural statements, “Form follows function” and “Less is more,” they clearly weren’t thinking about follies, which are less about form and function and more about beauty and wonder. For a folly, less is not more; more is more—more whimsy, more history, more ornamentation, more grandeur. In the UK, 1700 of these fantastical structures “built purely for aesthetic reasons” adorn the hillsides, lakes, and gardens of great estates. Architect Daniel Libeskind speaks to the heart of a folly: “Architecture is not based on concrete and steel, and the elements of the soil. It’s based on wonder.”
I love architecture. In Europe, I stood gawking at buildings and was frequently separated from my tour group. I couldn’t help it. At every turn, there was another architectural splendor. In Florence, as I stood at the foot of the Duomo, I might’ve died and gone to heaven right there. It was that magnificent. When I first read about follies in a historical novel years ago, I was smitten with these small structures with such big souls. I’d always had a special love for playhouses and “she sheds,” and follies are their grand dames. What they may lack in size, they more than make up for in extravagance and artistry.
We can trace the concept of pleasure pavilions in gardens back to ancient Greece, but it was the British landscape movement of the 18th century that gave birth to follies. The sight of a folly would make “the pulse quicken as a distant tower comes into view at the end of an avenue,” wrote the late architectural historian Gervase Jackson-Stops. In “Follies in the English Landscape” (Britain Express), we learn that the most common types of follies are “belvederes, grottos, obelisks, pagodas, pavilions, towers, pyramids, ruins, arches, fishing pavilions, bridges, hermitages, cascades, and statues.” Although the folly craze began to dwindle at the end of the 18th century, many contend that it never entirely died out, arguing that lawn ornaments, the ever-popular garden gnomes or pink flamingos, could be considered small-scale follies. In the past, while some follies were used as hunting towers and lookouts, today, they’re alive and well, serving as wedding venues, movie locations, and tourist sites.
It may seem insensitive and untimely to write of follies in a time of scarcity and uncertainty. When I consider the excesses of Versailles and its subsequent fate, I understand why any talk of follies—then and now—may seem woefully tone deaf. Who can think of turrets and towers when a pound of hamburger is $7, and the government remains shut down? A folly is a symbol of desire, not need. It trumpets its extravagance. Nestled throughout the estates of great manor houses, a folly is decadent frosting on an already sumptuous cake.
And yet, some follies were constructed as a response to hard times. During the Great Famine of 1845, the Irish government offered economic relief by employing people to build follies. In our own country, the WPA (Works Progress Administration) did much the same by putting people back to work during the Depression. The Rock Garden in Harmon Park (Kearney, Nebraska) was built through a WPA project, approved on September 4, 1936. The Rock Garden remains one of my favorite places in the world. It’s a magical labyrinth of stone paths and waterfalls, ponds laden with lily pads, and in the center, a lighthouse whose staircase winds around its exterior to open onto a balcony from which you can see the garden below. This lighthouse is a folly, a miniature replica of the real deal. And though you can’t enter it from below (the door off the path is always padlocked), as children, we happily climbed the stairs to look out over our kingdom below. The lighthouse’s whimsy fueled our imaginations, and its beauty stirred our hearts. Each time I return to the Rock Garden and climb the lighthouse, I feel the same assurance that the world will right itself and its beauty will sustain us. Perhaps this is the folly’s greatest gift: to throw us a dazzling lifeline as we struggle to keep our heads afloat, to offer us a bonbon as we struggle to put a chicken in our pot.
The world is a difficult place, and follies won’t cure what ails us. But the world is a better place with follies in it. It’s a better place when, if even for a moment, we can be transported by something so fanciful it takes our breath away.
