Press-Release:
St. Petersburg … Florida welcomes its first presidential folly library. Situated on the grounds of the prestigious Confifi International Golf Club, visitors will have the opportunity to view the library from multiple vantage points (holes 2, 4, 5, 7, 8, 11, 14, 17 and 18). Standing as the greatest example of imperial symbolism architecture of its time, the library’s singular function is the “visual embodiment of America’s ideals.” And, to “inspire respect instead of bewilderment or repugnance”. The library is dedicated to the incredible, proud, and bigly men and women of the Russian Federation, the United States of America. Access to views of the library is included in the annual club membership, or daily guest pass. Please note a complete and utter debasement loyalty test is required for admittance. Membership may be denied on the basis of race, religion, and gender identity.
Folly as Symbolic Form:
The folly is an object typology which belongs to the disciplines of both architecture and landscape architecture. Follies are formed through the appropriation and re-composition of architectural elements which are then situated within a constructed and manicured landscape. The folly’s spatial definition is not one which includes interior conditions – it has no interior. Rather, its capacity to delimit space is derived from the relationship it creates between a viewer and itself (the object to be viewed). As such, the folly is an architectural object of exteriors. Its content resides solely within its ability to convey symbolic information along its surfaces and across distances. The message is the medium. The library, a repository of media through which content is stored and communicated, is itself a medium of communication. When rendered as a folly, a library is reduced to surface and context. When considered as a presidential library, which by mandate is a collection of events, policies, actions, and artifacts generated during one’s tenure as the leader of a nation, the folly and its inability to move beyond mere surface resonates with the our 45th president.