The Folly Flâneuse celebrated her birthday this week, and what better way to mark the occasion than with an enormous cake? Although sadly, this one is not edible. As many of the buildings featured in these pages are gone, it was a real birthday treat to see this new folly, recently constructed to ornament the Waddesdon landscape.

The cake is the work of Joana Vasconcelos, a Portuguese-born sculptor, and was commissioned by Jacob, 4th Baron Rothschild for the Waddesdon Manor estate in Buckinghamshire. The pair had collaborated in 2012 when Vasconcelos showed her Pavillon de Thé at Waddesdon – a massive wrought iron teapot.

A few years later Vasconcelos created a work featuring a drink more commonly associated with the Rothschild family – two candlestick sculptures made from bottles of the famous Chateau Lafite.

This latest Vasconcelos commission is on an entirely different scale, and has been five years in the making. The Wedding Cake celebrates love and marriage, and also continues the Rothschild tradition of offering hospitality in exuberant spaces. 12 metres high, it is built around a steel frame, and clad with 25,000 Portuguese ceramic tiles which echo the colours of the famous Sèvres porcelain in the collection at Waddesdon Manor.

The finishing touch, or perhaps the icing on the cake, is when two people climb the final steps to emerge on the top tier, and the cleverly-composed scale of the building is revealed as they become the happy couple who top many a traditional wedding cake.

The Wedding Cake has been described as ‘first and foremost a temple to love’, but when asked if it was a folly Vasconcelos said “yes”, and writing in the Times Adam Davy called it ‘the latest architectural absurdity in the great British tradition of the garden folly’. Top marks for describing the structure go to the editor at the Financial Times who came up with the headline ‘The Gateau at the Chateau’.

You can see this conjugal confection for yourselves as the Wedding Cake is open to the public on Thursdays and selected Sundays https://waddesdon.org.uk/whats-on/wedding-cake-tours/

Visitors to Jupiter Artland, the sculpture park close to Edinburgh, may have seen the vibrant Vasconcelos swimming pool there, or indeed have taken the plunge as there are public sessions over the summer https://www.jupiterartland.org/gateway-bathing-sessions/

Thanks for reading. To share any thoughts please scroll down to the comments box at the bottom of the page (note that only your name will appear and your email address remains private).

As summer turned to autumn The Folly Flâneuse was reminded of a jolly jaunt to Jupiter Artland, a sculpture garden just outside Edinburgh, on a glorious day a year ago. A highlight was Pablo Bronstein’s Rose Walk, a pair of pavilions terminating a 25 metre long rose garden, their white-painted tracery magnificent against a clear blue sky. 

The Rose Walk was commissioned by Jupiter Artland in 2017. The pavilions, described as ‘imposing and elaborate follies’, lead the visitor into a small rose garden, which is enclosed by the trelliswork fences which link the two kiosks. Light streams in through the seemingly fragile, but actually incredibly solid, structure, and the standard roses are clearly very content.

Leaving the Chinese pavilion and heading towards the Gothic is like walking down the aisle of a church, and the Folly Flâneuse was soon humming the Bridal Chorus. The airy structure also reminded her of Sir James Hall’s Willow Cathedral. Hall’s theory, first published in 1797, was that early gothic architecture sought unconsciously to emulate the natural shapes of nature – the straights and curves of trunks, boughs and twigs becoming the columns, arches and tracery of the gothic. Bronstein’s site-specific Rose Walk likewise unites architecture and nature.

The gardens and parkland of Jupiter Artland surround the private home of founders Robert and Nicky Wilson, and are also home to sculptures and pavilions by artists including Antony Gormley, Anya Gallacio and Ian Hamilton Finlay, as well as a wonderful sweeping landform by the late Charles Jencks.

Pablo Bronstein, an Argentinian artist now based in London, works in a number of genres, but almost always with architecture as an influence. In 2014 he created a ‘monument to architecture’ for the Folkestone Triennial. His Beach Hut in the Style of Nicholas Hawksmoor pays homage to the great baroque architect, whose style was echoed in the design of the now lost monumental lighthouses which once stood on the south coast.

The convivial visit to Jupiter Artland was organised by The Folly Fellowship, which exists to protect, preserve, and promote follies, grottoes, and garden buildings  http://follies.org.uk

Right now, we all need something to look forward to, so put Jupiter Artland in your diary for 2021 https://www.jupiterartland.org

The 2020 Folkestone Triennial has been postponed until 2021, so something else to dream of  https://www.creativefolkestone.org.uk/folkestone-triennial/folkestone-triennial-2020-the-plot/