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 during a rainstorm or on a cold winter night."
Shapiro's design for an alfresco fireplace soon soared into architecture on helium, a Greco-Roman portico based on the precise mathematical principles of 16th century Italian architect Andrea Palladio. "I thought it might be hokey," the 63-year-old aesthete admits, "but then I accepted that what I was really doing was a folly." This is less an admission of lunacy than a precise architectural description. Characterized as a fantastical, largely purposeless structure that springs from a passionate, often obsessive imagination, a folly is a building that references history and myth with unabashed drama and whimsy, often standing in discord with its surroundings.
For The Record
Los Angeles Times Friday July 01, 2005 Home Edition Main News Part A Page 2 National Desk 0 inches; 29 words Type of Material: Correction
Royal Pavilion -- An article in Thursday's Home section on architectural follies included a photo caption that said the Royal Pavilion was in Brighton, Wales. Brighton is in England.
For The Record
Los Angeles Times Thursday July 07, 2005 Home Edition Home Part F Page 4 Features Desk 0 inches; 30 words Type of Material: Correction
Royal Pavilion -- An article in last week's Home section on architectural follies included a photo caption that said the Royal Pavilion was in Brighton, Wales. Brighton is in England.
"They can take any form, any style," writes Gwyn Headley, author of three books on the subject. "A folly is a state of mind, not an architectural style. Follies can even have a use or purpose, whether that was in the creator's mind or not."
Shapiro concurs. "Folly is defined as a nonsensical creation or activity," he says. "I not only qualify, I take that as a compliment."
History is on his side. In Europe, where they keep company with grottoes and other curious garden structures, follies have been traced back to the 16th century and had a heyday among the aristocrats in the late 1700s in Britain.
In that era, nobleman "Mad Jack" Fuller erected seven follies, including architecturally faithful renditions of an Egyptian pyramid and obelisks as well as a Greek rotunda. In 1761, John Murray, the 4th Earl of Dunmore, erected a 53-foot stone tower in Scotland carved to resemble a pineapple. Throughout much of the 20th century, Sir Clough Williams-Ellis turned Portmeirion in northern Wales into a village of rescued follies.
These are mere eye candy, however, compared to the Royal Pavilion built in the seaside town of Brighton by George IV, one of the most foppish of English monarchs. With five onion-shaped domes, the Indian-styled building with its over-the-top Chinoiserie interiors makes the Taj Mahal look timid and Grauman's Chinese theater look chintzy.
