robert garcet's tower of the apocalypseimage from: fantastic architecture: personal and eccentric visions, 1980 harry abrams
text from the book:
born in 1912, robert garcet is a stonecutter by profession. around 1930, he settled in fort ebenemael, belgium, building a house there, then a workshop. in the early fifties, he began the tour de l'apocalypse. garcet sees the church as the cause of today's chaos. he pleads for the reinterpretation of the bible and the study of the past in order to obtain knowledge for the future. garcet is considered an eccentic and has met with much hostility, garcet has lived there most of the time.
oh man, i bought this book when it came out, total source of inspiration for years, will have to dig it out!
ReplyDeleteit is a great book, i hate to say i was always sceptical of it because the jacket was so ugly, but once i looked inside, i realized what a great book it was.
ReplyDeleteall of those bottle houses are fascinating.
you must have a mighty nice library (with curved book shelves?)
The aristocracy is not a born gift, it is necessary to conquer it.
ReplyDeletehere is one pertinant example.
Robert Garcet reminds me "Ferdinand Cheval" but with a sense of tragedy more developed,in a wagnerian sense. When I think to "Le Palais idéal du facteur Cheval", I have in the head a little music of Debussy.
yeah, the dust jacket is hideous! at one point i was thinning the books because of a move and i threw it in the sell pile, and then i remembered how great it was... it strongly enforces teh don't judge a book rule... although i have to say i still have a hard time buying books with super ugly covers...:-)
ReplyDeletethank you, the "factuer cheval" was quite an odd fellow, i didn't know about him.
ReplyDeletethere are many odd birds in the book, fascinating to dedicate your life to the construction of a building.
one fellow's structure kept burning down and he rebuilt it 3 or 4 times.
steve, we have a customer that is a typographer, and re-covers his books with his own jackets, which is a great idea for beautifying ugly books.
Sorry to interrupt, but my comment is on the whole: what a very lovely blog. It really reminds me of some of the great art journal efforts of, e.g., the 1930s, such as Minotaure, that are somehow eclectic and consistent at the same time. I'll be checking back in... THANKS.
ReplyDeletethank you kindly,
ReplyDeleteit is nice to pretend it is from the 1930s.....
here is a link to a little film on Robert Garcet made for the French television in 1979. (Very interesting but in French !!!)
ReplyDeleteThis fellow is also fantastic as his tower !
http://www.ina.fr/archivespourtous/?vue=notice&from=epoques
&code=OGPDEC060020&num_notice=1&total_notices=1
great drawings, and maps as well.
ReplyDeletei like the "TENET" map, very bizzare, and the 666 business.
listening to lustmord's 666 performance lately, which is quite bizaree and beautiful at the same time and fits in quite well with garcet's images.
thanks for the great link.
ever been there? there must be some odd stuff like that where you are.
Ages later, 13 years to be exact, and researching somewhat deeper into Robert Garcet's life and work for an article, I stumble upon the above image and the comments. However, I do not find which book you are all talking about.
ReplyDeletePlease enlighten me =°-))
Thank you from the future, on the verge of 2021.
Trui Hanoulle