Architecture of St. Veronicas and The White Visitation

[Ghetta Life]

>From: Mark Wright AIA <mwaia at yahoo.com>
>
>Howdy Rob
>
>The fastidious totalitarian unity of the Palladian great houses of England, 
>especially the two you give as examples, have nothing to do with P's 
>description of The White Visitation. Neither is "an orgy of 
>self-expression". [...] On page 73 P does call TWV a "Palladian house down 
>in (a) resentful and twilit hollow" [...] The wild pile he describes at the 
>chapter's close could in part be mid or late Georgian but would never have 
>been accepted as "Palladian" by Lord Burlington or William Kent (the 
>architects of Holkam Hall) and the "terra-cotta facings on every floor" and 
>"looming minarets" specifically imply Victorian era building technology and 
>an overlay of one of the exotic 19th cent. oriental fashions. But maybe P 
>just wasn't up on such matters. His use of the word "Palladian" is 
>imprecise at best unless The White Visitation goes through a cinematic 
>metamorphosis at the end of the chapter. Which perhaps it might, come to 
>think of it.

>>'The White Visitation' is a red brick Palladian house beside a ruined 
>>"ancient Abbey" and seacliffs (72-3). Over the centuries, with various 
>>renovations and decorative additions, it has become "a classic 'folly'" 
>>(82-3). It's somewhere along the coast of Kent or East Sussex, near the 
>>fictitious village of "Ick Regis" (cf. Bognor Regis and Lyme Regis).

The description of TWV, with all these alterations over time doesn't 
contradict that it *started out* as a Palladian style house.  But additions 
to such a house (with its inherent simplicity, symmetry and centeredness) in 
conflicting styles would result in a tasteless chaos, or possibly an 
ecclectic collage of conflicting but asymmetrically balanced parts (which 
was a very purposeful Victorian goal).  But it would not result in a 
"classic folly."  A folly is typically a "fake" building, something symbolic 
or decorative, usually set into an 18th Century "naturalistic" English 
landscape garden.  It would not be built for a function.  Often it would be 
a miniature version of a castle ruins or a pyramid meant to be viewed from a 
distance, faking somethig much bigger seen from a great distance.

Palladian Villas:
http://www.coldelsol.it/percorsi/palladio.html

Follies:
http://www.britainexpress.com/History/follies.htm

folly
  • noun (pl. follies) 1 foolishness. 2 a foolish act or idea. 3 an 
ornamental building with no practical purpose, especially a tower or 
mock-Gothic ruin.

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