# Artificial Mountains

Stéphane Degoutin

► To cite this version:

Stéphane Degoutin. Artificial Mountains. Palgrave Macmillan. Mountains and Megastructures. Neo-Geologic Landscapes of Human Endeavour, pp.195 - 208, 2021, 978-981-15-7109-1. 10.1007/978-981-15-7110-7_11. hal-04535576

HAL Id: hal-04535576

https://hal.science/hal-04535576

Submitted on 6 Apr 2024

HAL is a multi-disciplinary open access
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entific research documents, whether they are pub-
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abroad, or from public or private research centers.

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publics ou privés.

<figure><img src="image_1.png" /></figure>

Distributed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License
Artificial Mountains

Stéphane Degoutin

► To cite this version:

Stéphane Degoutin. Artificial Mountains. Palgrave Macmillan. Mountains and Megastructures. Neo-Geologic Landscapes of Human Endeavour, pp.195 - 208, 2021, 978-981-15-7109-1. 10.1007/978-981-15-7110-7_11. hal-04535576

HAL Id: hal-04535576

https://hal.science/hal-04535576v1

Submitted on 6 Apr 2024

HAL is a multi-disciplinary open access
archive for the deposit and dissemination of sci-
entific research documents, whether they are pub-
lished or not. The documents may come from
teaching and research institutions in France or
abroad, or from public or private research centers.

L'archive ouverte pluridisciplinaire HAL, est
destinée au dépôt et à la diffusion de documents
scientifiques de niveau recherche, publiés ou non,
émanant des établissements d'enseignement et de
recherche français ou étrangers, des laboratoires
publics ou privés.

<figure><img src="image_1.png" /></figure>

Distributed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License
<figure><img src="image_2.png" /></figure>

11

Artificial Mountains

Stéphane Degoutin

The history of architecture overlooks realistic artificial mountains.¹ Over the years, I have collected occurrences of such artefacts across the world, some of which are presented on my website.² I do not collect buildings that evoke mountain-like shapes, but only constructions designed to frankly embody a realistic mountain.

The aim of this collage is to present key categories of my collection that relate to the metaphysical qualities of the mountains: the Chinese concept of vital force (qi) and its miniaturization; the French Revolution religion of the supreme being (*Être suprême*); and, the domestication of the power of mountains in European aristocratic gardens, theme parks and zoos.

S. Degoutin (✉)

Paris, France

e-mail: stephane@nogoland.com
<figure><img src="image_2.png" /></figure>

11

Artificial Mountains

Stéphane Degoutin

The history of architecture overlooks realistic artificial mountains.¹ Over the years, I have collected occurrences of such artefacts across the world, some of which are presented on my website.² I do not collect buildings that evoke mountain-like shapes, but only constructions designed to frankly embody a realistic mountain.

The aim of this collage is to present key categories of my collection that relate to the metaphysical qualities of the mountains: the Chinese concept of vital force (qi) and its miniaturization; the French Revolution religion of the supreme being (*Être suprême*); and, the domestication of the power of mountains in European aristocratic gardens, theme parks and zoos.

S. Degoutin (✉)

Paris, France

e-mail: stephane@nogoland.com
**Figure 1: Artificial Qì**

**Caption 1.1.** Mountains are the source of qì, the universal vital force that flows through all things, whether living or inanimate, as shown in this illustration: 'The cosmic energy, flowing from the Tibetan Plateau towards Korea' (Sophie Clément, Pierre Clément and Yong-Hak Shin, in *Architecture du paysage en Extrême-Orient*, Paris, École nationale supérieure des Beaux-Arts, 1987).

**Caption 1.2.** Qì also flows through the human body, which can be represented as a mountain, as it happens for example in this painting of the cinnabar Fields (the qì flow centres in the human body) (Unknown source).

**Caption 1.3.** Conversely, to give importance to an (unidentified) immortal, the painter Liang Kai (13th century) has represented him using the technique normally applied for painting landscapes.

**Caption 1.4.** The need for artificial geography also applies to the Emperor's residence, only on a larger scale. Jingshan (Prospect Hill), was built in 1240, north of the Forbidden City in Beijing, to protect it from the adverse yin. Entirely manmade, it is 45.7-metre tall and covers an area of 230,000 square metres. Dongcheng District, Beijing, with Jingshan Hill in the background (Photography by Sourav Das).

**Caption 1.5.** Strangely (for those of us who were not raised in traditional Chinese culture), the presence of qì does not depend on whether the mountain is 'natural' or built. This is why many Chinese residences possess artificial mountains in their gardens, as a way to keep qì flowing at home. In the Lion Grove Garden in Suzhou, the mountain is also a labyrinth in which one can wander, as well as an island on a miniature lake (Photography by Stéphane Degoutin). The mountains of the Chinese gardens are made of sets of stones patiently collected for their shapes, and then reworked to look a little more odd, so that with every step through the mountain the landscape changes. 'The artist thus manages to give their artificial mountains such imponderability that the stones seem to emerge from the void'.³
Figure 1: Artificial Qì

**Caption 1.1.** Mountains are the source of qì, the universal vital force that flows through all things, whether living or inanimate, as shown in this illustration: ‘The cosmic energy, flowing from the Tibetan Plateau towards Korea’ (Sophie Clément, Pierre Clément and Yong-Hak Shin, in *Architecture du paysage en Extrême-Orient*, Paris, École nationale supérieure des Beaux-Arts, 1987).

**Caption 1.2.** Qì also flows through the human body, which can be represented as a mountain, as it happens for example in this painting of the cinnabar Fields (the qì flow centres in the human body) (Unknown source).

**Caption 1.3.** Conversely, to give importance to an (unidentified) immortal, the painter Liang Kai (13th century) has represented him using the technique normally applied for painting landscapes.

**Caption 1.4.** The need for artificial geography also applies to the Emperor's residence, only on a larger scale. Jingshan (Prospect Hill), was built in 1240, north of the Forbidden City in Beijing, to protect it from the adverse yin. Entirely manmade, it is 45.7-metre tall and covers an area of 230,000 square metres. Dongcheng District, Beijing, with Jingshan Hill in the background (Photography by Sourav Das).

**Caption 1.5.** Strangely (for those of us who were not raised in traditional Chinese culture), the presence of qì does not depend on whether the mountain is ‘natural’ or built. This is why many Chinese residents possess artificial mountains in their gardens, as a way to keep qì flowing at home. In the Lion Grove Garden in Suzhou, the mountain is also a labyrinth in which one can wander, as well as an island on a miniature lake (Photography by Stéphane Degoutin). The mountains of the Chinese gardens are made of sets of stones patiently collected for their shapes, and then reworked to look a little more odd, so that with every step through the mountain the landscape changes. ‘The artist thus manages to give their artificial mountains such imponderability that the stones seem to emerge from the void’.³
<figure><img src="image_3.png" /><figcaption>1.1.</figcaption></figure>

<figure><img src="image_4.png" /><figcaption>1.2.</figcaption></figure>

<figure><img src="image_5.png" /><figcaption>1.3.</figcaption></figure>

<figure><img src="image_6.png" /><figcaption>1.4.</figcaption></figure>

<figure><img src="image_7.png" /><figcaption>1.5.</figcaption></figure>
<figure><img src="image_3.png" /><figcaption>1.1.</figcaption></figure>

<figure><img src="image_4.png" /><figcaption>1.2.</figcaption></figure>

<figure><img src="image_5.png" /><figcaption>1.3.</figcaption></figure>

<figure><img src="image_6.png" /><figcaption>1.4.</figcaption></figure>

<figure><img src="image_7.png" /><figcaption>1.5.</figcaption></figure>
**Figure 2: Miniature Qì**

**Caption 2.1.** If the Chinese tradition prefers realistic mountains to their symbolic representations, it is because they 'should not be understood as mere comparisons or metaphors, they physically embody the fundamental laws of the Universe'.⁴ These artificial mountains can be miniatures of small scale, as in the practice of keeping rockeries in basins, in which mountains are represented by carefully chosen stones, such as this composition in the Lion Grove Garden in Suzhou (Photography by Stéphane Degoutin).

**Caption 2.2.** Or this one, photographed by Rolf Stein in Tch'eng-tsou, Sseu-tchouan.

**Caption 2.3.** The same tradition is also found in Japan, where it is called *bonseki*. This painting by Katsushika Hokusai shows a woman making a bonseki mountain.

**Caption 2.4.** The stones of the garden of the Ryoan-ji temple in Kyoto (dating from the end of the fifteenth century) can easily be seen as mountains (Photography by Jean-Pierre Dalbéra/Flickr).

**Caption 2.5.** An even more literal occurrence is this miniature replica of Mount Fuji, in the Suizenji Jojuen garden, in Kumamoto (Photography by 663highland/Wikipedia).
**Figure 2: Miniature Qì**

**Caption 2.1.** If the Chinese tradition prefers realistic mountains to their symbolic representations, it is because they 'should not be understood as mere comparisons or metaphors, they physically embody the fundamental laws of the Universe'.⁴ These artificial mountains can be miniatures of small scale, as in the practice of keeping rockeries in basins, in which mountains are represented by carefully chosen stones, such as this composition in the Lion Grove Garden in Suzhou (Photography by Stéphane Degoutin).

**Caption 2.2.** Or this one, photographed by Rolf Stein in Tch'eng-tsou, Sseu-tchouan.

**Caption 2.3.** The same tradition is also found in Japan, where it is called *bonseki*. This painting by Katsushika Hokusai shows a woman making a bonseki mountain.

**Caption 2.4.** The stones of the garden of the Ryoan-ji temple in Kyoto (dating from the end of the fifteenth century) can easily be seen as mountains (Photography by Jean-Pierre Dalbéra/Flickr).

**Caption 2.5.** An even more literal occurrence is this miniature replica of Mount Fuji, in the Suizenji Jojuen garden, in Kumamoto (Photography by 663highland/Wikipedia).
<figure><img src="image_8.png" /><figcaption>2.1.</figcaption></figure>

<figure><img src="image_9.png" /><figcaption>2.2.</figcaption></figure>

<figure><img src="image_10.png" /><figcaption>2.3.</figcaption></figure>

<figure><img src="image_11.png" /><figcaption>2.4.</figcaption></figure>

<figure><img src="image_12.png" /><figcaption>2.5.</figcaption></figure>
<figure><img src="image_8.png" /><figcaption>2.1.</figcaption></figure>

<figure><img src="image_9.png" /><figcaption>2.2.</figcaption></figure>

<figure><img src="image_10.png" /><figcaption>2.3.</figcaption></figure>

<figure><img src="image_11.png" /><figcaption>2.4.</figcaption></figure>

<figure><img src="image_12.png" /><figcaption>2.5.</figcaption></figure>
**Figure 3: Domestication**

**Caption 3.1.** During the eighteenth century, fascinated by the exoticism of Chinese gardens, Europeans imported artificial mountains from China. In a 1721 illustration by Fischer von Erlach (Book 3, Ta. XV : China) a fantasized, exaggerated version of the Chinese gardens gives us a sense of this obsessive 'transfer' of mountains.

**Caption 3.2.** English and French landscape architects reproduced the outward appearance of Chinese mountains (asymmetry, irregularity, a taste for the outlandish, etc.) but detached them from their philosophical system of origin. In the parks of aristocratic buildings, they share grounds with fake ruins, pagodas, Turkish tents, etc. In his 1794 drawing J. B. Hilair shows 'Le labyrinthe du Jardin du Roy' ('The King's Garden's Labyrinth') built on an artificial hill (an old medieval depotoir) in the Jardin des plantes in Paris and surmounted by one of the oldest metal structures in the world, the 'gloriette de Buffon'. At the end of the eighteenth century, the summit of this artificial hill became a site for anonymous meetings of 'intellectual libertinism' (Source of the image: Gallica).

**Caption 3.3.** Carted from one vision of the world to another, in which exoticism prevailed over *qì*, the fashion of artificial mountains reached public pleasure parks and leisure parks in the nineteenth century, such as the Parc des Buttes-Chaumont in Paris, built by Jean-Charles Alphand on the site of a former quarry, which he turned into a landscape of artificial hills and mountains. The parc des Buttes-Chaumont in 1890-1900 (Unidentified photographer. Source: Bibliothèque nationale de France, département Estampes et photographie, PETFOL-VE-1356).

**Caption 3.4.** The mountain built as a decor for the Swiss village of the 1900 Exposition Universelle in Paris is another example of the same fashion (Unidentified photographer, Paris Exposition unidentified exterior view, Paris, France, 1900).

**Caption 3.5.** The trend for artificial mountains might have reached its absolute peak if had been built this project by Charles Samson who, in 1900, proposed to improve the newly built (and not much liked at the time) Eiffel Tower by hiding it under a giant mountain complete with roads, bridges, trees, villages and a waterfall whose water ends up in the Seine river.
**Figure 3: Domestication**

**Caption 3.1.** During the eighteenth century, fascinated by the exoticism of Chinese gardens, Europeans imported artificial mountains from China. In a 1721 illustration by Fischer von Erlach (Book 3, Ta. XV : China) a fantasized, exaggerated version of the Chinese gardens gives us a sense of this obsessive 'transfer' of mountains.

**Caption 3.2.** English and French landscape architects reproduced the outward appearance of Chinese mountains (asymmetry, irregularity, a taste for the outlandish, etc.) but detached them from their philosophical system of origin. In the parks of aristocratic buildings, they share grounds with fake ruins, pagodas, Turkish tents, etc. In his 1794 drawing J. B. Hilair shows 'Le labyrinthe du Jardin du Roy' ('The King's Garden's Labyrinth') built on an artificial hill (an old medieval depotoir) in the Jardin des plantes in Paris and surmounted by one of the oldest metal structures in the world, the 'gloriette de Buffon'. At the end of the eighteenth century, the summit of this artificial hill became a site for anonymous meetings of 'intellectual libertinism' (Source of the image: Gallica).

**Caption 3.3.** Carted from one vision of the world to another, in which exoticism prevailed over *qì*, the fashion of artificial mountains reached public pleasure parks and leisure parks in the nineteenth century, such as the Parc des Buttes-Chaumont in Paris, built by Jean-Charles Alphand on the site of a former quarry, which he turned into a landscape of artificial hills and mountains. The parc des Buttes-Chaumont in 1890-1900 (Unidentified photographer. Source: Bibliothèque nationale de France, département Estampes et photographie, PETFOL-VE-1356).

**Caption 3.4.** The mountain built as a decor for the Swiss village of the 1900 Exposition Universelle in Paris is another example of the same fashion (Unidentified photographer, Paris Exposition unidentified exterior view, Paris, France, 1900).

**Caption 3.5.** The trend for artificial mountains might have reached its absolute peak if had been built this project by Charles Samson who, in 1900, proposed to improve the newly built (and not much liked at the time) Eiffel Tower by hiding it under a giant mountain complete with roads, bridges, trees, villages and a waterfall whose water ends up in the Seine river.
<figure><img src="image_13.png" /><figcaption>3.1.</figcaption></figure>

<figure><img src="image_14.png" /><figcaption>3.2.</figcaption></figure>

<figure><img src="image_15.png" /><figcaption>3.3.</figcaption></figure>

<figure><img src="image_16.png" /><figcaption>3.4.</figcaption></figure>

<figure><img src="image_17.png" /><figcaption>3.5.</figcaption></figure>
<figure><img src="image_13.png" /><figcaption>3.1.</figcaption></figure>

<figure><img src="image_14.png" /><figcaption>3.2.</figcaption></figure>

<figure><img src="image_15.png" /><figcaption>3.3.</figcaption></figure>

<figure><img src="image_16.png" /><figcaption>3.4.</figcaption></figure>

<figure><img src="image_17.png" /><figcaption>3.5.</figcaption></figure>
**Figure 4: être Suprême**

**Caption 4.1.** The mountain is the symbol of the most extreme of the French revolutionaries (among whom were Danton, Marat and Robespierre). Historians are still unsure why they decided to call themselves ‘montagnards’ (mountain dwellers). Is it only because they were seated on the highest benches in the Parliament, while the members of the ‘Plaine’ occupied the lowest benches? In propaganda images produced at the time, many allegorical mountains embody revolutionary power, as in the 1793 engraving by Pierre Lélu (Source: Gallica).

**Caption 4.2.** In another 1792–1794 engraving by Pierre-Michel Alix, *Le Triomphe de la République*, is clearly stated:

> The cruel despots whose rage we brave, have caused the storm themselves, on their heads. These furious monsters, born by the crime, are finally precipitated from the mountain; and the lightning-fast features they throw at their prey, are for us, today, the most beautiful bonfire.

(Source: Gallica)

**Caption 4.3.** Anyway, they took the metaphor seriously enough to build a colossal artificial mountain to celebrate the first Festival of the *Être suprême* (Supreme Being), the patriotic deity of a ‘natural’—yet created by them—religion. The feast took place on ‘Decadi 20 prairial de l’an II’ (revolutionary calendar date 8 June 1794), in the Jardin des Tuileries in Paris (Source: Gallica).

**Caption 4.4.** Several other projects of artificial mountains were imagined during this short period. The architect Alexandre Théodore Brongniart (who, later, would conceive the building of the Paris Stock Exchange!) planned to erect a mountain in Bordeaux Cathedral, on the occasion of the Festival of Freedom and Reason in 1793. This would mark the transformation of the cathedral, as many other churches in France at the time, into a temple for the cult of the *Être suprême*:

> This project, intended for the worship of nature, reverses the topography of the sacred building [in order to show that it has lost its Christian status]: the apse is transformed into an entrance and the nave welcomes the mountain.⁵
**Figure 4: être Suprême**

**Caption 4.1.** The mountain is the symbol of the most extreme of the French revolutionaries (among whom were Danton, Marat and Robespierre). Historians are still unsure why they decided to call themselves ‘montagnards’ (mountain dwellers). Is it only because they were seated on the highest benches in the Parliament, while the members of the ‘Plaine’ occupied the lowest benches? In propaganda images produced at the time, many allegorical mountains embody revolutionary power, as in the 1793 engraving by Pierre Lélu (Source: Gallica).

**Caption 4.2.** In another 1792–1794 engraving by Pierre-Michel Alix, *Le Triomphe de la République*, is clearly stated:

> The cruel despots whose rage we brave, have caused the storm themselves, on their heads. These furious monsters, born by the crime, are finally precipitated from the mountain; and the lightning-fast features they throw at their prey, are for us, today, the most beautiful bonfire. (Source: Gallica)

**Caption 4.3.** Anyway, they took the metaphor seriously enough to build a colossal artificial mountain to celebrate the first Festival of the *Être suprême* (Supreme Being), the patriotic deity of a ‘natural’—yet created by them—religion. The feast took place on ‘Decadi 20 prairial de l’an II’ (revolutionary calendar date 8 June 1794), in the Jardin des Tuileries in Paris (Source: Gallica).

**Caption 4.4.** Several other projects of artificial mountains were imagined during this short period. The architect Alexandre Théodore Brongniart (who, later, would conceive the building of the Paris Stock Exchange!) planned to erect a mountain in Bordeaux Cathedral, on the occasion of the Festival of Freedom and Reason in 1793. This would mark the transformation of the cathedral, as many other churches in France at the time, into a temple for the cult of the *Être suprême*:

> This project, intended for the worship of nature, reverses the topography of the sacred building [in order to show that it has lost its Christian status]: the apse is transformed into an entrance and the nave welcomes the mountain.⁵
<figure><img src="image_18.png" /></figure>

<figure><img src="image_19.png" /></figure>

4.2.

<figure><img src="image_20.png" /></figure>

4.3.

<figure><img src="image_21.png" /></figure>

4.4.
<figure><img src="image_18.png" /><figcaption>4.1.</figcaption></figure>

<figure><img src="image_19.png" /><figcaption>4.2.</figcaption></figure>

<figure><img src="image_20.png" /><figcaption>4.3.</figcaption></figure>

<figure><img src="image_21.png" /><figcaption>4.4.</figcaption></figure>
**Figure 5: Attraction**

**Caption 5.1.** Modern amusement parks have their origins in nineteenth-century Paris.⁶ After the French revolution, many aristocratic parks were transformed into a new form of leisure garden, inheriting from both traveling carnivals and aristocratic forms of leisure. Some of them include artificial rockeries. They also welcomed an invention: the roller coaster, namely *montagnes russes* (Russian mountains) in French. This illustration shows the ‘Promenades aériennes’ (aerial walks), built in the Jardin Beaujon in 1817 (Unidentified artist, ‘Promenades aériennes’. Jardin Baujon (sic) honoré de la présence de sa Majesté, le 2 août 1817’, lithography, 1817, coll. Brown University).

**Caption 5.2.** Artificial, realistic mountains became a recurring figure of most amusement parks. This postcard shows one of the many mountains that could be found in Coney Island: Pike’s Peak Railway, a roller coaster built on a 42-metre high structure, in operation between 1906 and 1911 (Unidentified source, via Major Pepperidge ‘Gorillas don’t blog’).

**Caption 5.3.** The Tivoli theme park in Copenhagen (named after the famous Tivoli of Paris, which was itself named after the Italian city where Emperor Hadrian built his famous villa) also contains an artificial mountain built in 1914, around a roller coaster (Unidentified photographer).

**Caption 5.4.** Walt Disney visited Copenhagen’s Tivoli (as well as Coney Island’s attractions) before he conceived his famous theme park in Anaheim. The mountain at Disneyland is a small-scale reproduction of the Swiss Matterhorn. A roller coaster goes in and out of it, while visitors pass through it in a cable car, the Skyway. Disney’s theme parks include many artificial mountains: Matterhorn, Big Thunder Mountain, Splash Mountain, Grizzly Peak, Space Mountain, Expedition Everest, Mount Mayday, Mount Gushmore, Cadillac Mountain Range, Mount Prometheus, Forbidden Mountain.
**Figure 5: Attraction**

**Caption 5.1.** Modern amusement parks have their origins in nineteenth-century Paris.⁶ After the French revolution, many aristocratic parks were transformed into a new form of leisure garden, inheriting from both traveling carnivals and aristocratic forms of leisure. Some of them include artificial rockeries. They also welcomed an invention: the roller coaster, namely *montagnes russes* (Russian mountains) in French. This illustration shows the ‘Promenades aériennes’ (aerial walks), built in the Jardin Beaujon in 1817 (Unidentified artist, ‘Promenades aériennes’. Jardin Baujon (sic) honoré de la présence de sa Majesté, le 2 août 1817’, lithography, 1817, coll. Brown University).

**Caption 5.2.** Artificial, realistic mountains became a recurring figure of most amusement parks. This postcard shows one of the many mountains that could be found in Coney Island: Pike’s Peak Railway, a roller coaster built on a 42-metre high structure, in operation between 1906 and 1911 (Unidentified source, via Major Pepperidge ‘Gorillas don’t blog’).

**Caption 5.3.** The Tivoli theme park in Copenhagen (named after the famous Tivoli of Paris, which was itself named after the Italian city where Emperor Hadrian built his famous villa) also contains an artificial mountain built in 1914, around a roller coaster (Unidentified photographer).

**Caption 5.4.** Walt Disney visited Copenhagen’s Tivoli (as well as Coney Island’s attractions) before he conceived his famous theme park in Anaheim. The mountain at Disneyland is a small-scale reproduction of the Swiss Matterhorn. A roller coaster goes in and out of it, while visitors pass through it in a cable car, the Skyway. Disney’s theme parks include many artificial mountains: Matterhorn, Big Thunder Mountain, Splash Mountain, Grizzly Peak, Space Mountain, Expedition Everest, Mount Mayday, Mount Gushmore, Cadillac Mountain Range, Mount Prometheus, Forbidden Mountain.
<figure><img src="image_22.png" /><figcaption>5.1.</figcaption></figure>

<figure><img src="image_23.png" /><figcaption>5.2.</figcaption></figure>

<figure><img src="image_24.png" /><figcaption>5.3.</figcaption></figure>

<figure><img src="image_25.png" /><figcaption>5.4.</figcaption></figure>

<figure><img src="image_26.png" /></figure>
<figure><img src="image_22.png" /><figcaption>5.1.</figcaption></figure>

<figure><img src="image_23.png" /><figcaption>5.2.</figcaption></figure>

<figure><img src="image_24.png" /><figcaption>5.3.</figcaption></figure>

<figure><img src="image_25.png" /><figcaption>5.4.</figcaption></figure>

<figure><img src="image_26.png" /></figure>
**Figure 6: Grey Goo**

**Caption 6.1.** In 1860 Barillet-Deschamps built a Chinese-like fake rock made of concrete and stone, to host the deer of the Jardin d'Acclimation in Paris (Photography by Stéphane Degoutin).

**Caption 6.2.** Later, in 1907, the controversial Carl Hagenbeck built artificial mountains in his Hamburg-Stellingen Tierpark (Zoo), defining the modern zoo as an environment which blurs the boundaries between animal and human, as well as between local and exotic. The animals live in an environment that evokes their natural habitat, reclaimed in a landscape treatment of artificial rocks embellished with picturesque exotic architecture (pagodas, bridges, arches, temples, etc.) (1908 postcard, unidentified photographer and publisher).

**Caption 6.3.** The fashion spread quickly: a Great Rock is built in the Budapest Zoo as soon as 1912 (Unidentified photographer).

**Caption 6.4.** Charles Letrosne's Vincennes zoo in Paris continues this tradition of artificial rockeries, but in this case, 'no human architecture is present' (André Hermant⁷): no pagodas, no Japanese bridges... The entire natural environment is symbolized by a unique material. The artificial concrete rock is supposed to symbolize, on its own, all the living environments of animals, and melds in a single movement coasts, forests, steppes or mountains. Unidentified photographer and date (Postcard by Draeger frères).

**Caption 6.5.** This free artificial material multiplies infinitely, giving rocks a quality of abstraction. While the Chinese tradition spiritualizes the material, the thin concrete skin of the Vincennes zoo achieves the utopia of a total synthesis of the natural world in a single chemical aggregate. It is a place that obliterates matter. An inert, reconstituted, homogeneous and integrated environment unifying mountains, water, animals, plants and humans into a single cosmic space. A uniform grey powder, the result of a chemical process, spreads with indifference, invades the entire space, like a continuous monument, an endless house, pushing the logic of concrete to its limits. Letrosne's Vincennes zoo merges two opposing ways of being in the world: the hyper presence of the qì of the mountain and the absolute dissenination of materiality through the infinite deployment of the grey goo (Interior structure of the Vincennes zoo's Great Rock, built in 1934) (Photography by Stéphane Degoutin).
**Figure 6: Grey Goo**

**Caption 6.1.** In 1860 Barillet-Deschamps built a Chinese-like fake rock made of concrete and stone, to host the deer of the Jardin d'Acclimation in Paris (Photography by Stéphane Degoutin).

**Caption 6.2.** Later, in 1907, the controversial Carl Hagenbeck built artificial mountains in his Hamburg-Stellingen Tierpark (Zoo), defining the modern zoo as an environment which blurs the boundaries between animal and human, as well as between local and exotic. The animals live in an environment that evokes their natural habitat, reclaimed in a landscape treatment of artificial rocks embellished with picturesque exotic architecture (pagodas, bridges, arches, temples, etc.) (1908 postcard, unidentified photographer and publisher).

**Caption 6.3.** The fashion spread quickly: a Great Rock is built in the Budapest Zoo as soon as 1912 (Unidentified photographer).

**Caption 6.4.** Charles Letrosne's Vincennes zoo in Paris continues this tradition of artificial rockeries, but in this case, 'no human architecture is present' (André Hermant⁷): no pagodas, no Japanese bridges... The entire natural environment is symbolized by a unique material. The artificial concrete rock is supposed to symbolize, on its own, all the living environments of animals, and melds in a single movement coasts, forests, steppes or mountains. Unidentified photographer and date (Postcard by Draeger frères).

**Caption 6.5.** This free artificial material multiplies infinitely, giving rocks a quality of abstraction. While the Chinese tradition spiritualizes the material, the thin concrete skin of the Vincennes zoo achieves the utopia of a total synthesis of the natural world in a single chemical aggregate. It is a place that obliterates matter. An inert, reconstituted, homogeneous and integrated environment unifying mountains, water, animals, plants and humans into a single cosmic space. A uniform grey powder, the result of a chemical process, spreads with indifference, invades the entire space, like a continuous monument, an endless house, pushing the logic of concrete to its limits. Letrosne's Vincennes zoo merges two opposing ways of being in the world: the hyper presence of the qì of the mountain and the absolute dissenination of materiality through the infinite deployment of the grey goo (Interior structure of the Vincennes zoo's Great Rock, built in 1934) (Photography by Stéphane Degoutin).
<figure><img src="image_27.png" /><figcaption>6.1.</figcaption></figure>

<figure><img src="image_28.png" /><figcaption>6.2.</figcaption></figure>

<figure><img src="image_29.png" /><figcaption>6.3.</figcaption></figure>

<figure><img src="image_30.png" /><figcaption>6.4.</figcaption></figure>

<figure><img src="image_31.png" /><figcaption>6.5.</figcaption></figure>
<figure><img src="image_27.png" /><figcaption>6.1.</figcaption></figure>

<figure><img src="image_28.png" /><figcaption>6.2.</figcaption></figure>

<figure><img src="image_29.png" /><figcaption>6.3.</figcaption></figure>

<figure><img src="image_30.png" /><figcaption>6.4.</figcaption></figure>

<figure><img src="image_31.png" /><figcaption>6.5.</figcaption></figure>
## Notes

1. Even Ulrich Conrads does not mention any of them in his *Fantastic Architecture* (1960), although he deals at length with artificial caves, giant spheres and other inhabitable elephants. Rem Koolhaas does not cite any mountain in his *Delirious New York's* description of Coney Island (1978). One has to wait until 1983 to see a few artificial Disney mountains appear as images (but without a description) in Charles Moore's *The City Observed?: Los Angeles*. Yet, even in the postmodern guidebook to the contemporary American environment *Built in the USA?: American buildings from airports to zoos* (1985), by Ada Louise Huxtable, Steven Izenour, David Gebhard and Charles Moore, artificial mountains are again absent. Some artificial mountains finally surface in the 2010s, notably in Stan Allen and Marc McQuade's *Landform Building* (2011).

2. Stéphane Degoutin, 'Éléments pour une histoire en images de la fausse montagne', http://www.nogoland.com/wordpress/2009/09/fausses-montagnes.

3. Michele Pirazzoli-t'Serstevens, 'Jardins', in 'Chine (L'Empire du milieu)', *Encyclopaedia Universalis*.

4. Stéphanie Boufflet, *Conversation avec la montagne* (Paris: École d'Architecture Paris la Seine, 2001), pp. 12–21.

5. Bettina Laville et Jacques Leenhardt, *Villette Amazone. Manifeste pour l'environnement au XXIème siècle* (Arles: Actes sud, 1996).

6. Gilles-Antoine Langlois, *Folies, tivolis et attractions. Les premiers parcs de loisirs parisiens* (Paris: Délégation à l'Action Artistique de la Ville de Paris, 1991).

7. 'Le nouveau zoo de Vincennes', in *L'architecture d'aujourd'hui*, n° 8, 1934.
## Notes

1. Even Ulrich Conrads does not mention any of them in his *Fantastic Architecture* (1960), although he deals at length with artificial caves, giant spheres and other inhabitable elephants. Rem Koolhaas does not cite any mountain in his *Delirious New York's* description of Coney Island (1978). One has to wait until 1983 to see a few artificial Disney mountains appear as images (but without a description) in Charles Moore's *The City Observed?: Los Angeles*. Yet, even in the postmodern guidebook to the contemporary American environment *Built in the USA?: American buildings from airports to zoos* (1985), by Ada Louise Huxtable, Steven Izenour, David Gebhard and Charles Moore, artificial mountains are again absent. Some artificial mountains finally surface in the 2010s, notably in Stan Allen and Marc McQuade's *Landform Building* (2011).

2. Stéphane Degoutin, 'Éléments pour une histoire en images de la fausse montagne', http://www.nogoland.com/wordpress/2009/09/fausses-montagnes.

3. Michele Pirazzoli-t'Serstevens, 'Jardins', in 'Chine (L'Empire du milieu)', *Encyclopaedia Universalis*.

4. Stéphanie Boufflet, *Conversation avec la montagne* (Paris: École d'Architecture Paris la Seine, 2001), pp. 12–21.

5. Bettina Laville et Jacques Leenhardt, *Villette Amazone. Manifeste pour l'environnement au XXIème siècle* (Arles: Actes sud, 1996).

6. Gilles-Antoine Langlois, *Folies, tivolis et attractions. Les premiers parcs de loisirs parisiens* (Paris: Délégation à l'Action Artistique de la Ville de Paris, 1991).

7. 'Le nouveau zoo de Vincennes', in *L'architecture d'aujourd'hui*, n° 8, 1934.