Eccentric, weird or useless buildings built solely for ornamentation
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Folly
en.wikipedia.orgPosted Sep 30, 2019, 2:25 PM UTC
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en.wikipedia.orgHa, so strange. I was at the tower in the picture just the other week. There's a nuclear bunker beneath it too. I took some great pictures from the top!
Strangely, also in Birmingham, UK, which the photo is near, is Perrott's Folly, supposedly the inspiration for one of the two towers in Lord of the Rings.
Edit: Reformatted from mobile, added a link :)
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Such Folly
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Don't know if it really relates, but we had this piece of "art" in my neighbourhood for years. Literally just an empty tetrahedron. They took it down in 2011 I think.
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No Eiffel Tower?
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It has a purpose: It's an outstanding observation platform. It also wasn't built in order to artificially create labor, but for the World's Fair. Interestingly enough, like most buildings created for these events, it was planned to be a temporary structure, to be torn down after just 20 years, but the initially hostile Parisians had grown to love this building.
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I think future humans will create a giant space turtle and have a colony of humans on his back as he floats through our k3 Galactic empire. Why would future humans do this? Because we can.
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I live in Coral Gables, in Miami-Dade. This part of Miami is full of follies like these. There are miniature towers, city entrance gates, and other municipal ornamentations.
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I live just below one of these. Never realised until now it was the tallest folly in the world!
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CN Tower?
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The pyramids.
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No, they aren't meant to mimic an actually functional structure.
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The pyramids were built for ornamentation.
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They were built as tombs, see a mausoleum in a cemetery as a modern(ish) example
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Yes, but they were lavish ornamentation. A pyramid was a building with no practical use.
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I see you didn't click on the link, but just read the title.
> In architecture, a folly is a building constructed primarily for decoration, but suggesting through its appearance some other purpose, or of such extravagant appearance that it transcends the range of garden ornaments usually associated with the class of buildings to which it belongs.
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Exactly. See?
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That's fascinating. I found this blog with some examples of Irish famine follies. The Wonderful Barn from 1740 looks like a precursor to Gaudi's Barcelona.
Nothing in the Middle East was cited, so I'll share that when I was in Oman, the road leading into a city from the desert would pass under an ornamental city gate. I believe they are a throwback to when the whole city was inside protective walls, and you had to pass through the gate to get in. Nizwa Gate