Desert de Retz

The désert de Retz is an Anglo-Chinois or French landscape garden - created on the edge of the forêt de Marly in the commune of Chambourcy. It was built at the end of the 18th century by the aristocrat François Racine de Monville on his 40-hectare (99-acre) estate. It is notable for the construction of 17 (or 20) buildings, of which only 10 still survive, referring to classical antiquity or in an exotic style, including a summer house (the "colonne brisée", or ruined column), in the form of the base of a shattered column from an imaginary gigantic temple, an ice house in the form of an Egyptian pyramid, an obelisk, a temple dedicated to Pan, and a (now-lost) Chinese pavilion.