« Gatehouse Gazette
Brass Snow Goggles – For Sub-Zero Exploration »

The Machines de L’île (Nantes)

If you are the lucky ones who have friends/family/holidays in Brittany. You have to go to Nantes.
First of all, the city saw the birth of one of our beloved genius, Jules Vernes. But I will not talk literature now, but mechanics.
When you go downtown, near the river Loire, there is a very particular island in which dwell many stange creatures, half steel, half wood. The Machines de L’île is an artistic project situated in the former warehouses of the Nantes shipyard.
Part Vernes, part Vinci and definitely part Dr Moreau, you cannot miss the gallery of the Machines, the Heron Tree and the Great Elephant (dare you ride it?).
It is worth the travel for any steampunk lover!
Picture : Nautilus Nantes

This entry was posted on Thursday, July 24th, 2008 at 11:29 am by Mistermorg and is filed under Projects.

  • Nothing brings a more sincere smile to my face than this project. Such a display of genius, vision, and relentless ambition!

    It gets me every time!
  • Animus Aqualis
    I knew about some Vinci like machines there but things so extraordinary as this allmighty mechanical elephant, good grace.
  • Fred
    Jesus! That's amazing! It's got Burning Man written all over it! I'd love to see that thing lumbering across the playa...chasing the Contessa!!!
  • Arklan
    Holy elephants! that's incredible!
  • The elephant (and a couple of other creations) paraded through London a couple of years ago as The Sultan's Elephant.

    Check the web site...
  • darrell
    (Note: the link's in my name, sorry.)
  • Zapan
    Machines de l'Ile is just a small installation for tourist made by the real genius behind it : The Royal de Luxe theatre compagny.

    http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Royal_de_Luxe
    (more pictures in the french article)

    They do on a regular basis events thats stay in the memories of their watchers forever.

    Their greatest achievement for me, was the 3 episodes Gulliver tale, involving a wooden mechanic giant, and later his daugther.

    You can find some videos of their amazing creations here and there.

    http://video.google.com/videosearch?sourceid=na...
  • quantumcat
    What happens with it after August?

    We have kin in Alderney but no guarantee we could get away in the next six weeks or so.

    We should like to visit these wonderful beasts at another time,if that were possible.
  • Malcolm
    Darn it! The pictures are all too small! I want one for my desktop wallpaper. This one in particular.
  • Sean O'Byrne
    Been there. It is, in fact, as cool as you think its going to be.
  • Glad you like it !
    You can see the Great Elephant in motion here :
    http://fr.youtube.com/watch?v=katN8RY1n7M&f...
  • D. Wm. Palmer esq.
    I was lucky enough to be there last week.
    The whole place exudes enthusiasm and madness. I was tempted to drop everything and apply for a job on the spot.
    On a point of order, I believe the London elephant was brother to the one at Nantes which is too heavy to leave the island. That's right folks, there are two of those beasts in the world. God is indeed in his heaven.
  • Your timing of this post couldn't be better! We're off to France in a week and we're staying only around 40 minutes from Nantes so we'll definitely be going to see this. My kids took one look at the picture of the elephant and were in awe :)
  • Len Rice
    I collect Elephants so sad I don't have room for this one.

    Would love to see it it is amazing to see.
  • To Moopf
    If you go to Nantes you have to go to the verne Museum
    http://www.nantes.fr/julesverne/acc_1.htm

    For a future post
  • BenThere
    Totally 'shopped. I can tell by the pixels.
  • Sarah
    Fred, Too bad la Contessa was lost to arson last year.
    http://laughingsquid.com/la-contessa-has-been-d...

    Because that would be super cool.

    Ah well, we will have to make our own cool this year.
  • impish
    Definitely a great experience to ride the great elephant and see the whole Isle. I also recommend visiting the Verne museum.
  • heavy public transport, thanks for sharing
  • I was lucky enough to see the elephant and child in London when the Sultan came to town - pleased to see a similar creation is in existence!
blog comments powered by Disqus