Casino at Marino

Casino at Marino

A folly building is described as an ornamental building without any functional use despite its appearance. One of the most well known folly buildings, is The Casino at Marino, located in Marino, Dublin Ireland. The building was designed by a Scottish architect named Sir William Chambers. The building began construction in the late 1750s and was completed around 1775.

This is one of the most well known 18th century Neo-Classical buildings in Europe. The Neo-classical movement followed the Rococo and Baroque movement, and came as a way of reintroducing new found Greek and Roman architectural styles into modern day works throughout the world.  The “Casino” means , small house, and is not an establishment designed for gambling. The buildings appearance makes it appear as if it is a small single roomed building, when in fact the interior is quite large containing 16 very decorated and ornamental rooms, such as, kitchens, servants quarters, a library, and several reception rooms and bedrooms. The building is very deceptive on the outside, besides appearing as a single roomed building, the building has a number of different design techniques to make sure the building remains secretive.  A person is incapable of looking into the building through any window from the exterior. The windows were designed to deflect all light and will therefore remain black to the human eye. A very obvious characteristics of the facade is the massive columns which are actually there to serve as gutters, while the decorative urns on the buildings roof, actually serve as chimney pots. 

When looking at the building in drawing, the large load bearing walls that support the entire structure, form a space that resembles a Greek Cross. Then, looking at the building in both elevation and section, the building starts to reciprocate the ideas of a greek temple, with a very orthogonal organization of elements, such as, the columns, the windows, the urns, etc. The building also sits on a kind of podium to give itself a feeling of importance as one would approach the building as seen in many Greek temples. Much like the Greek temples, Casino at Marino has statues of Gods on the facade, Interestingly enough, the Gods on the building are Roman Gods. Besides being decorative, the roman urns (as mentioned before) are used to hide chimneys so that the elegance and clarity of the elevation carries through to the public eye. The building is often described as an expensive garden ornament, because it served very little purpose, therefore when the owner died the building was neglected and often subjected to theft dry rot. It wasn't until the 1930s that the National Monuments Act allowed the Office of Public Works to take care of the building. The building was then restored and for the most part is open to the public (during tours). The building is architectural trickery to the human eye, and is a great example of scale manipulation. 

 Archive: Buildings of Ireland: National Inventory of Architectural Heritage

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