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The Racine de Monville Home Page
The best source on the internet for information about
The Désert de Retz
An Extraordinary 18th Century Garden in Chambourcy, near Paris
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The Racine de Monville Home Page is the world's first and most comprehensive web site devoted to the Désert de Retz and its creator, François Racine de Monville (1734-1797).
- What is the Désert de Retz?
- Who was Monsieur de Monville?
- What does the Desert de Retz look like today?
- Who owns the Desert de Retz? Who owned the Desert de Retz?
- Can I visit the Desert de Retz?
- Can I see a map of the Desert de Retz?
- How can I help restore the Desert de Retz?
Leave a trace of your visit by sticking a pin in the GuestMap - it's fun and easy!
What's happening at the Desert de Retz?
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Read a thoughtful essay by Will Viney, "The Romantic Ruin", from the Winter 2009 issue of Precipitate. The first part discusses the interest in ruins from a historical perspective, and the second part focuses specifically on the Desert de Retz.
- Take a look at a pretty set of twenty-two color photographs of the Desert de Retz taken in August 2009.
- Go for a short guided tour of the Desert de Retz. Your tour guides? Pierre Morange, Mayor of Chambourcy, and Francois Racine de Monville himself!
- French Culture Minister Frédéric Mitterand officially inaugurates the reopening of the Desert de Retz.
- Hordes of visitors invade the Desert de Retz!
- View eighteen excellent color photographs of the Desert de Retz taken between January 2007 and November 2008 by a Paris-based teacher.
- Read The Broken Column and its Deeper Meaning, a Masonic interpretation of the broken column.
- U.S., South Korean ambassadors visit the Desert de Retz
- Read recent articles about European folly gardens with specific reference to the Desert de Retz in the Financial Times and the Russian journal Vedomosti
- A twenty-first century Desert de Retz? In England? Learn more about Alnwick Garden
- The Desert de Retz is above ground, but underground is the strange and mysterious Aqueduc de Retz.
On connaît le Désert de Retz. Mais il y a l'Aqueduc de Retz, insolite et souterrain.
- Watch a video of the Desert de Retz from the archives of the Institut National de l'Audiovisuel (INA).
- Monsieur de Monville's Column House selected as one of the world's Top 7 Weirdest Houses!
- Landscape artist Alexander Trevi has posted some photographs and observations about the Desert de Retz on his blog, Pruned.
- An English Monville? Learn more about John "Mad Jack" Fuller and his follies.
- View a watercolor of Monsieur de Monville's Column House by Mexican surrealist painter, Alfredo Castañeda.
- Read an exclusive, first-hand account of a visit to the Désert de Retz in 1952.
- Enoch Robinson, an American Monville?
- Did Monsieur de Monville's Column House portend the French Revolution?
- Take a look at a pretty set of twenty-two color photographs of the Desert de Retz taken in August 2009.
Dernière mise à jour le 10 mars 2010.
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