Welcome to
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
News
Photos
Chronology
Sources
Shop
Contact
Sonnet
Francophilia
Gardens
Search
Map
Colophon
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?
- Can I visit the Desert de Retz?
- Can I see a map of 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?
-
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.
- Admire four great photographs of the Desert de Retz taken in October 2008 by Gerard Peet.
- 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).
- Who owns the Desert de Retz? Who owned the Desert de Retz?
- 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 eleven color photographs of the Desert de Retz taken in August 2003 and July 2004 by Canadian Artist-Photographer Katy McCormick.
- 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 1er janvier 2010.
|
|
|
|