In Hauterives, France, in 1879, a postman named Ferdinand Cheval decided he would build a castle. It began with a dream he had, a dream he remembered when he stumbled on a stone. “I had built a palace, a castle or caves,” he said, “I cannot express it well.” But he eventually did express it well … by building it! For the next 33 years Cheval collected rocks during his mail rounds and amassed them into an amazing architectural concoction, his Palais idéal. The contemporary artist Jean-Michel Othoniel can relate to Cheval’s dream. “I always had to justify myself to my teachers,” he explained in 2011. “My work was too beautiful. There was no cynicism in it.” Othoniel has created a site-specific installation at Cheval’s palace, in celebration of the 110 years since its completion. After studying Cheval’s original drawings, the artist created his own structures. —Elena Clavarino