Parc de la Villette
Modern follies are few and far between, so Parc de la Villette containing 35 of them is definitely a rare sight. The park itself covers 35 acres of Paris in the 19th arondissement and has practical uses by containing the City of Science and Industry (Europe's biggest science museum), multiple concert venues and theatres of varying sizes, a historical music museum and the Conservatoire de Paris (a celebrated music and dance college).
The park was the creation of designer Bernard Tschumi, who was tasked with regenerating the looked down upon site of Paris' abattoirs. Following the theme of industrial deconstruction, 35 follies were constructed throughout the park in a grid, serving as its skeleton and giving the area structure. It could be argued that they are not completely follies as they were initially intended to help visitors find their way around the park and more recently, several have been converted and renovated into buildings with purpose, like information centres and restaurants. In my mind though, a folly is a work of architecture that does not serve a conventional purpose, but is constructed for decoration. The decoration however, if often its underlying purpose, be that guiding people by acting as a landmark, or making people think with its theme and message.
I really enjoy the extravagance of this feat of architecture. The sheer quantity of the follies makes the park significant and the theme and thought process behind their design really holds true to many olden day follies, which is to send a message.
In order to guide visitors around the park by acting as landmarks, the follies are distinct in size and shape. Their forms are all unique and this gives the viewers their sense of place and direction. The Parc de la Villette' modern follies have a key difference to most other modern and historical follies which is that they are not primarily designed to resemble buildings. The style and time period of many follies are imitations or fakes, or are designed to look like older architectural styles but are usually buildings, even if there is no end goal.
