The Folly

Broadway Tower, Worcestershire, England.

Wiki:

In architecture, a folly is a building constructed primarily for decoration, but either suggesting by its appearance some other purpose, or merely so extravagant that it transcends the normal range of garden ornaments or other class of building to which it belongs. In the original use of the word, these buildings had no other use, but from the 19th to 20th centuries the term was also applied to highly decorative buildings which had secondary practical functions such as housing, sheltering or business use.

18th century English gardens and French landscape gardening often featured Roman temples, which symbolized classical virtues or ideals. Other 18th century garden follies represented Chinese temples, Egyptian pyramids, ruined abbeys, or Tatar tents, to represent different continents or historical eras. Sometimes they represented rustic villages, mills and cottages, to symbolize rural virtues. Many follies, particularly during famine, such as the Irish potato famine, were built as a form of poor relief, to provide employment for peasants and unemployed artisans.

The Dunmore Pineapple, Scotland.

Castle Oliver Folly, Ireland.

Public Art/Folly in Coal Harbour, British Colombia, Canada.

The Temple of Philosophy in Ermenonville, Versailles, France.

Lucy the Elephant, Margate City, New Jersey, USA.

Wainhouse Tower, Halifax, England from Wainhouse Terrace.

Swallow's Nest near Yalta, Crimea, Ukraine, 1912.

Rushton Triangular Lodge, Northamptonshire, England, built in the late 16th century to symbolise the Holy Trinity.

Wimpole's Folly, Cambridgeshire, England, built in the 1700s to resemble Gothic-era ruins.

The Beacon One of the remaining follies at Staunton Country Park originally commissioned by George Thomas Staunton and designed by Lewis Vulliamy.

On a personal note, from the age of 11 onwards I grew up within easy walking distance of Gunnersbury Park, Ealing, West London. The park was once the estate of the Rothschild banking family who decorated their grounds with one or two attractive follies:


18th c temple, Gunnersbury Park.


The Boat House on the Potomac lake, Gunnersbury Park.

Nash, I think you posted a pic of a kind of job-creation folly on the old ATU Folly thread, didn't you?