6. The Ideal Palace...
This film is inspirational, full stop!
The Ideal Palace is based on a true story about a French postman, Joseph Ferdinand Cheval,
who built his ‘ideal palace’ from rocks found on his daily postal route, in early 19th century.
He was inspired by a dream and the dream became reality when he tripped over a large piece of unusual shaped sandstone which became his starting point. He dedicated to building his ‘palace’ to his daughter and spent over 33 years perfecting it.
What inspired me:
~ Joseph Ferdinand Cheval had no formal training in architecture or masonry.
~ The palace was about 26 metres across and 10 metres high.
~ He spent 10 hours walking on his 30km postal route and spent another 10 hours afterwards on his palace, usually overnight and building by the light of his oil lamp.
~ Built it all by hand using rocks, stone, lime and mortar.
~ His architecture was inspired by animals and postcards that he received on his postal routes; he was able to memorise them and incorporate them into his palace.
~ Outlived his wives, son and daughter and used his art to cope with grief.
~ Joseph built his own mausoleum; it took him eight years and he passed peacefully at age 88, a year after he finished it.
Joseph also had wonderful quotes which he embedded all over his palace but the most important one, I think:
"1879-1912 10,000 days, 93,000 hours, 33 years of struggle. Let those who think they can do better try."
