Out of Place: The Vibrant Magic of Architectural Follies

Architecture is often understood through the language of function. Buildings are expected to serve a purpose, to provide shelter, facilitate movement or respond to practical needs. Yet scattered across landscapes and city edges are structures that seem to resist such expectations. Originally published in Issue 8, The Stephen Jones Issue: ‘Whimsy’ (A/W 2006), this collection of essays, featuring contributions from Stephen Jones, Helen Evenden and Lord Whimsy, explores the peculiar world of architectural follies and structures that exist beyond the limits of practicality. If you want to learn more, read Out of Place: The Vibrant Magic of Architectural Follies. 

Whimsical Landscape

In Out of Place: The Vibrant Magic of Architectural Follies, the follies appear whimsical, excessive and entirely out of place, existing not because they are necessary, but because someone imagined them into being. From ornamental pagodas and fantasy castles to giant elephants and stone pineapples, these architectural follies challenge conventional ideas of value and utility. They reveal a different relationship between people and the built environment, one rooted in curiosity, wonder and creative freedom. More than eccentric landmarks, they are monuments to imagination itself, and that is a theme that runs throughout this issue.

Follies

Stephen Jones: One of my passions is architecture, which was probably seeded by many trips to Clough Williams-Ellis’ Portmeirion as a child. I was not interested in ‘The Prisoner’ that was filmed there in 1966, (although I thought the little golf buggys with striped awnings used in the TV series were a delight), but the whimsical surrealism of an Italianate village plonked on the rugged North Wales coast. Within this, my favourite building is the Turkish pavilion, a marvellous conceit in corrugated iron.

When planning a millinery collection, architectural follies figure strongly, whether it’s Ludwig’s Bavarian fairy-tale Neuschwanstein, Edward James’ Xilitia in Mexico, Tony Duquette’s oriental fantasy Sortilegium in Malibu or Marie-Antoinette’s Le Hameau at Versailles. For what else is a charming hat but a folly on your head?

Follies architecture

Helen Evenden: My favourite building is not a museum, a house or a castle; it is a petrol station. In fact, I am the expert on British petrol station design (simply because not many other people seem interested in this fascinating subject!). Don’t worry, this article is not about petrol stations; it is about unusual buildings, architectural flights of fancy and structures that surprise and amuse you.

Architectural Designs

I love useless buildings. Buildings that serve no function other than to entertain or amuse. The thing I most love about them is the vision of the people who invested time and often considerable amounts of money to build such architectural flights of fancy. Appropriately, it is difficult to get even the converted folly hunter to agree on a precise definition for their preferred type of building. One of the many websites created for folly enthusiasts concludes that, in the end, “a folly is essentially a misunderstood building”. Chambers dictionary defines a folly as “a great useless structure, or one left unfinished, having been begun without a reckoning of the cost.” I guess, for that definition, the biggest example in London at the moment must be the Millennium Dome.

Millennium Dome

To commemorate the start of the 21st century, we built Richard Rogers’ magnificent structure at the Greenwich Peninsula. Yet the Millennium Dome, filled with a confusing range of information, failed to achieve the success of its predecessors, the 1851 Crystal Palace in Hyde Park and the 1951 Festival of Britain’s Dome of Discovery. It now sits, a rejected, redundant folly, waiting for a new lease of life.

Petrol Station

I digress; let’s get back to my favourite building, the Chinese Garage at Park Langley in Dagenham. I am in good company, as it is voted the most unusual service station in England and is the only petrol station noted by Nikolaus Pevsner in his volumes recording the important Buildings of England. It has also been designated a Grade Two listed building. The petrol station is a local landmark in the Borough of Bromley, not far from Kelsey Park. Housed in a bizarre structure that is a mixture of oriental styling with mock-Tudor windows and woodwork, with modern petrol pumps. It resides in a landscaped garden with lanterns and a pond. The man responsible for this Utopian vision was Edmund B. Clarke, a landowner who actually didn’t drive but who was inspired by the exoticism of the Far East. He designed and built the garage in 1928. Remember, at that time, motor cars were still the privilege of the wealthy, so it was initially used by Clarke and his friends to fuel their mostly chauffeur-driven cars. Despite its name, the fantastic building is not Chinese; it is in the style of a Japanese pagoda.

-Image David Howard

Elegant Structure

A better-known pagoda is found at Kew Gardens, where Sir William Chambers (better known for his intelligent, grand neo-classical design of Somerset House) created an elegant ten-storey high pagoda in the park. As architect to George III and architectural tutor to the Prince of Wales, Chambers designed several garden buildings at Kew, which failed to impress Horace Walpole, a neighbour and critic. Walpole missed the point of the whimsical structures, fake Roman ruins built of London stock brick, classical temples, an aviary and a bridge erected in a single night to surprise the Princess Dowager. The surviving octagonal Pagoda was erected in less than six months in the winter of 1761-2. It is a relatively simple structure, but was adorned with dragons, bells that chimed in the wind and a roof clad in ornate decorated tiles until George IV recklessly sold them.

The ultimate folly in the United Kingdom must be The Pineapple. This building, crowned by a stone pineapple 53 feet high, looks more like something out of Alice in Wonderland than the countryside in Dunmore, Scotland, where the fruit dwarfs the surrounding trees. The Pineapple, built for John Murray, the fourth Earl of Dunmore, in 1761, has also been attributed to William Chambers, although it is unlikely that he was responsible, as he was working in London on The Pagoda at the time. The reason that the 29-year-old newlywed commissioned such an astonishing building remains a mystery, but two centuries ago, pineapples were expensive, rare and luxurious. You can actually stay in this folly par excellence, as it is owned by the Landmark Trust.

My three-year-old daughter’s favourite folly is a fairytale castle. Near her grandparents’ house in a forest on the edge of Cardiff sits the gothic Castell Coch. It is one of the follies built by the super-rich and handsome John Crichton-Stuart, the 3rd Marquess of Bute (whose father built the Cardiff docks). Bute’s favourite architect, William Burgess, realised his fantasies in buildings and furniture which, to use the German word, would be described as Gesamtkunstwerks (meaning total works of art). Their largest collaboration is Cardiff Castle, but their best folly is Castell Coch. Here, Burgess spent a fortune ‘restoring’ the existing but ruined 13th-century castle to create a mock-medieval fantasy, although there can be little doubt that the original building bore little resemblance to the fanciful folly they created, with its conical roofs on three towers and extravagant interior and exterior decoration.

Also in Wales is an entire folly village – the miniature fantasy town inspired by medieval Tuscan hill towns but created by Sir Clough Williams-Ellis at Portmeirion and immortalised in Patrick McGoohan’s enigmatic 60s television series ‘The Prisoner’.

Portmeirion is a rare 20th-century example, for the art of the ‘folly’ in this country peaked in the 18th C and has faced a slow downhill slope ever since. Sadly, the determination to build follies is a declining one. Perhaps reflecting the move from fantasy to functionalism, from decorative to utilitarian, from romanticism to rudimentary.

No, I hear you cry. We have gone beyond that dull era, and we are now able to celebrate – with a little irony – the joy of decoration and even, dare I say it, pretty environments, where a nostalgic mixture of old and new creates contemporary places with a twist. Designer Lionel Copley has eclectic taste and owns several historic properties where his whimsical wishes have been realised and where you can indulge your own romantic fantasies. At Swan House in Hastings and his other holiday homes, you will find spaces that surprise and delight, toilets fully clad in shell mosaics, mother of pearl shells and frescoes, agate slices for windows and even a grotto in lookout towers to hide away in. And if it all gets too much and you need a sneaky drink, look for the honesty bars hidden in bookcases.

I think the next time you’re thinking of heading to the Tate or some other gallery for your cultural fix, perhaps instead you should go and see my garage or any of the other follies in this article or in the definitive book on the subject, Hedley and Meulenkamp’s “Follies, Grottoes and Garden Buildings”. If you don’t want to hit the road, then I suggest you head to the Guildhall Library in the City of London, where they have the most amazing collection of designs, particularly those recorded in my best book, ‘London As It Might Have Been’. My favourites are the unrealised schemes, like Willey Wiley’s idea to straighten the Thames or Goldicutt’s proposal for a Colosseum in Trafalgar Square. And it is a crying shame that London’s Eiffel Tower in Wembley only got to 155 ft of the intended 1,150 foot before it was demolished.

Lucy, the last elephantine colossus

Or, what Thor, Woodrow Wilson and Lou Rawls have in common.

Lord Whimsy: The area around Atlantic City has always been a refuge for rascals and oddballs who have more exuberance than taste. Those who live near the coastal salt marshes and barrier islands of Southern New Jersey are quite familiar with the sight of brightly painted Victorian bay houses, crowded boardwalks, sing-song carousels, giant papier-maché miniature golf dinosaurs, and Ferris wheels twirling by the sea’s metallic edge. It then seems only fitting that any architectural curiosity found here would have a touch of the vaudevillian about it: a populist mix of the overstated and the genteel. Perhaps the very epitome of this peculiar local aesthetic is a giant beast named Lucy the Elephant.

Lucy is a tin-skinned, 65-ft-tall structure built in 1881. Although she is now a National Historic Landmark under federal protection, Lucy has been a tavern, a rental summer home, a speakeasy and a hotel over the past century. Built by local boatwrights, Lucy has withstood the decades of countless winter storms and hurricanes, many of which have repeatedly destroyed the houses and buildings that surrounded her. Lucy’s houda observation deck has been blown off and replaced several times; in fact, Lucy’s houda was struck by lightning for the first time in her 125-year history this May, just before a wedding ceremony was to take place inside her. The bride and groom (apparently worshippers of Thor) decided to take it as a good omen.

-Image Tony Fischer

It is estimated that Lucy is visible to the naked eye from as far as eight miles out to sea. In fact, there are accounts of drunken sailors aboard tramp ships, en route to New York from the West Indies, sounding the alarm bells upon seeing a giant elephant looming in the mist, much to the annoyance of their fellow crewmen. Lucy’s original patent mentions other animal forms possibly being used, so we can only imagine how such a menagerie of giant creatures could have disrupted tipsy maritime commerce.

Journey To The Center Of Lucy

One enters and exits Lucy through the two spiral stairwells in her hind legs, which lead to a large interior room full of photographs and small historical items, like old admission tickets and printed ephemera. The interior of Lucy’s belly does indeed have the appearance of an old schooner’s wooden hull, and when peering through Lucy’s porthole ‘eves’, one can see the concession stand below, with the white beach and sea melding in the bright haze beyond. One also notices that the glass skylight in the ceiling is also the deck of the houda on Lucy’s back, accessible through the varnished stairwells on Lucy’s sides. It’s a bit unnerving to walk on the glass, but fun to see others tread the glass when viewing from the belly below. When up in the houda, one is surprised at how high one actually is, and notices the splintered wood from the recent lightning strike under the houda’s carapace. Upon leaving via the stairwell, the visitor is afforded a final treat: a glass portal reveals the ductwork and wiring space between the inner floor and outer skin, along with a dozen giant plastic peanuts. It’s nice to know that Lucy is as well-fed as she is well-loved. Upon leaving the rear leg, I noticed that since my last visit, someone had painted Lucy’s toes in a French manicure style with white tips. “How utterly Atlantic City,” I thought to myself.

Man Gives Birth To Ersatz Pachyderm, Sells Same

Some might imagine such a structure to be the lifelong work of a lone eccentric who sacrificed years and fortune to bring this grand vision into being. The truth is that Lucy the Elephant began as that most American of undertakings: a sales gimmick. Lucy was the brainchild of a Philadelphia real estate speculator-cum-impresario named James V. Lafferty. Lafferty hoped that such an oddity might draw seasonal visitors who might, in time, become permanent residents of what, at the time, were low-lying barrier islands populated by little more than rustling dunes of eel grass and a few fishermen’s shacks.

After Lucy, Lafferty designed two other such elephants: the Elephantine Colossus in Coney Island and the Light of Asia in Cape May. However, they were both financial failures and quickly became neglected. Both the Elephantine Colossus and the Light of Asia burned down to the sand more than a century ago; only Lucy – the oldest of the three remains.

Lucy has had many distinguished visitors over the years. President Woodrow Wilson once paid a visit, as have many stars of stage and screen. Henry Ford and John Jacob Astor are found in the visitors’ ledgers, as is the Rajah of Bhong and his wives. 

Lafferty eventually overextended himself financially and was forced to sell Lucy. Lucy then became the property of a local family until 1970, when she was donated to the City of Margate. At that time, a committee was formed to save Lucy, who had fallen into severe decay and disrepair. She was slated for demolition, as a developer was purchasing the land under Lucy’s massive feet.

Achilles? Jason? Amateurs

What then followed had not been seen since the heady days of Troy: the Margate Civic Association proposed that Lucy be moved two blocks to the south, onto a municipal plot owned by the city. An architectural firm was brought in to assess the logistics of moving Lucy without causing her to crumble, which, in her state, was a true possibility. Contractors were hired to brace Lucy and conduct the precarious operation, and in July 1970, the 65-foot-tall elephant was gently lifted off its foundations and slowly made her only procession down the main thoroughfare of Margate, creaking and groaning the entire way. Spectators watched with anxious anticipation during the seven excruciating hours it took to move her over the two-block distance and set her down safely. The only casualty reported was Lucy’s tombstone-sized tongue, which had fallen out during the move (visitors today can still see the original tongue resting in one of her windows). By all accounts, everyone present was amazed and relieved that Lucy could withstand such an ordeal, including the mayor. Countless debauches broke out on the island that evening – resulting in much hilarity and not a few children.

The daunting prospect of reconstructing Lucy quickly sobered everyone up; indeed, it proved to be a far more expensive and laborious task than the move, taking until the mid-1980s, when Lucy was finally restored to her original glory. At one point, Lou Rawls even donated the proceeds from one of his shows at Resorts Casino to help restore Lucy.

Thank Lou if you see him.

More than a celebration of unusual buildings, this collection of essays becomes a reflection on the value of imagination itself. Through pagodas, fantasy castles, giant elephants and forgotten architectural curiosities, the text reveals how creativity has long found expression beyond the limits of practicality and convention. These follies remind us that not everything needs to justify its existence through function alone. In a world increasingly shaped by efficiency, standardisation and measurable outcomes, they stand as playful acts of individuality, preserving a sense of wonder within the built environment. The structures featured here may appear eccentric or out of place, yet their enduring appeal suggests something deeper: that people continue to be drawn to spaces that surprise, delight and challenge expectations. Creativity, in this context, is not merely decorative but a way of imagining alternative possibilities and resisting the pull of uniformity.

To learn more about Stephen Jones, you can visit stephenjonesmillinery.com

To learn more about Helen Evenden, you can visit www.architecture.yale.edu

If you enjoyed reading ‘Out of Place: The Vibrant Magic of Architectural Follies‘, why not explore ‘Andrew Weatherall And The Vibrant Beauty Of Being Unique‘

.Cent Magazine, London. Luxury Mindset