The ‘original’ garden folly (if there can be such a thing), as an emblem of opulence, ‘preserved’ historic cultural icons for selective whimsical enjoyment. Their transference from native context onto alien landscape altered the meaning of these edifices, stripping them of history proper and transforming them into pure icons- and eventually, from a contemporary vantage, into icons of icons.
While destructive from an anthropological- record keeping standpoint (do we remember the original, or do we remember the memory of the original?) there is also value in the development of intentional icons. They are homages to our fascination with the past and the distant, to our futile attempts to resurrect and to hold an entire culture and era in our backyards, and, yes to revisionism for the sake of convenience and value alignment.
Timing, of course, is everything in the effective transference of icons onto landscapes of enjoyment. Too soon, the object has no nostalgic weight- Too long, and the object is too mysterious and misunderstood. For contemporary purposes, we may appropriate the ‘vintage’ or ‘retro’ practice here to understand and maximize impact and value- Say 30 to 60 years.
So, In an effort to ensure the perpetuity of this practice, to ensure that icons will continue to be established, changed, re-(or mis-) appropriated for the above reasons, I introduce the following icons for garden folly schema:
