In France, a steampunk park of Jules Verne’s dreams (BBC)

[eppur_se_muova]

In France Arts & Architecture
By Hana Schank

When you think of the French region of Brittany, many images may spring to mind: windswept beaches, medieval towns, plates of soft pink langoustines. A giant walking mechanical elephant, however, is probably not one of them. But this is exactly what visitors encounter at the Île de Nantes, a 337-hectare island in the centre of the city of Nantes, on Brittany’s western edge.

Related article: The perfect trip – Brittany and Normandy

While Nantes is a pleasant city, with white and grey stone buildings flanking the mouth of the Loire River, it doesn't have the spectacular architecture, major historical significance or three-star restaurants of some of its French counterparts. So the city decided to create its own unique attraction: Les Machines de L'Île.

In 2007, Nantes opened the combined art installation and amusement park on the site of a former shipyard. Les Machines offers both carnival-style rides for which anyone can purchase a ticket, and smaller machines demonstrated by visitors selected from the crowd. The result is a kind of steampunk amusement park, and a breathtaking juxtaposition of old, new – and weird.

Les Machines is inspired by Jules Verne, who was born and raised in Nantes, and the installations feel like 19th-century science fiction come to life. Verne’s 1870 novel Twenty Thousand Leagues Under the Sea, for example, inspired the three-storey, 25m-tall Carrousel des Mondes Marin (Marine Worlds Carousel). Visitors can choose to ride on three levels of mechanical sea creatures: squid and crab on the lowest level, suspended fish on the second and boats and jellyfish at the top.



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more: http://www.bbc.com/travel/feature/20140925-in-france-a-steampunk-park-of-jules-vernes-dreams
http://www.lesmachines-nantes.fr/en/

[edgineered]

1. Now that's a theme park!

One could easily sit back and zone out all day.

I want to go there!

[Feral Child]

2. And we get "Ark City".

Sometimes it's embarrassing being American.

[BlueJazz]

3. We DO have the Scientific, Beautiful Creation Museum. I could spent hours there.

[Feral Child]

11. Indeed.

Nice chatting, Blue.

[orleans]

4. what the hell is "steampunk" anyway? n/t

[eppur_se_muova]

5. A term and concept invented by SF writers ...

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Steampunk

Now an artistic, as well as literary, style.

Difference Engine is a seminal novel of the school.

[Feral Child]

8. Loved that book.

Last edited Fri Oct 17, 2014, 05:34 PM - Edit history (1)

Loved Gibson. His plotting was a bit self-derivative, but his use of metaphor and imagery were superb and his societal concepts were most original.

[Feral Child]

9. Herer's some examples of Steampunk fashion

from Deviant Art.

search = "steampunk": http://www.deviantart.com/browse/all/?qh=§ion=&global=1&q=steampunk&offset=0

I read your profile, I think DA would really suit you.

[MattBaggins]

6. I was a fan of "steampunk" long before it got a name

I used to play dwarfs or gnomes in DnD and loved that whole engineering/technology combined with magic vibe.

[Feral Child]

7. I first ran across it in Gibson's "Difference Engine".

Delightful!

No Cosplaying when I was an appropriate age, dammit. Not even Goths. I was kicked out of drama class in HS once for not wearing socks.

No DnD, even.


I consider myself to have had a deprived young adulthood.

[MattBaggins]

12. A childhood without DnD. Inconceivable

[Feral Child]

13. It's a sad...

[hunter]

14. I think my grandfather was "steampunk" too.

He was an aerospace engineer but the electronics he built for himself would have fit right into a steam punk convention, looking nothing like the modernistic chrome-age styles of the 'fifties and 'sixties.

He much preferred the look of lacquered brass, gold, black leather, visible vacuum tubes, and clockwork mechanisms. As one of the rarer engineers of the time with a knack with titanium his artistic eccentricities were accepted. He could never resist decorating his drawings, schematics, or prototypes in his own unique style. His work was instantly recognizable.

I think you've got something there -- it's the "magic." There's a magic in science and technology that rationalists don't like to recognize. At the cutting edges of science and technology everyone is poking around in the dark and somehow extracting the secrets of the universe. It's a very intuitive process at first and not entirely rational.

[Xyzse]

10. That's amazing.