A kind of mechanical zoo is turning the once-desolate dockside of the French city Nantes into a hot spot, writes Jane Coyle
Genius. This much overused word comes trippingly and easily off the tongue, but it is a once-in-a-blue-moon experience to encounter the genuine article.
This summer it has emerged, with massive impact and drama, from the combined imaginations of François Delarozière, a set designer and builder from Marseilles, and his creative partner, Pierre Orefice, a theatre producer and artistic director from Alsace. Together, they are forging a spectacular world of wonder and magic among the old workshops and warehouses of the Nantes shipyards in western France.
"I just take my references from nature," says Delarozière, making his art sound so simple. But what nature is inspiring in this vibrant university city is Les Machines de l'Île, a visionary project of seemingly limitless ambition and possibility, at the heart of one of the largest urban regeneration programmes in Europe.
Over the centuries, the port of Nantes has been the point of departure for many significant voyages. But few could equal the extraordinary voyage of discovery launched by 43-year-old Delarozière and 52-year-old Orefice on this once derelict industrial island, midstream of the mighty Loire river.
For some 15 years, both men have been actively involved in the renewal of street theatre and urban performance across Europe and beyond. They have explored the use of complex machinery and gigantic objects in a succession of ground-breaking productions, with companies such as Royal de Luxe, which has planted an enthusiasm for street performance deep in the hearts of the residents of Nantes.
"A city is built around the collective imagination of its people," says Orefice. "The magical world that we are creating through Les Machinesuses a language that Nantes residents fully understand and appreciate. It fits perfectly with the rich history of this industrial port city, which lies open to the sea and nourished by dreams of far-off places."
A graduate of the École des Beaux-Arts in Marseilles, Delarozière is responsible for designing the monumental mechanical structures that, over the next four years, will form an integral part of the cityscape. The first of them is now to be seen perambulating in stately fashion along the dockside, to the delight of thousands of wide-eyed visitors.
THE GREAT ELEPHANT is made of burnished tulip wood from Virginia and took its first steps at the end of June. At 12m high and weighing 52 tonnes, it can carry 35 passengers, who are rewarded not only with spectacular elevated views along the Loire, but with the opportunity to control some of the complex machinery that drives and controls its movements.
In 2009 it will be joined on site by the three-storey Marine World Carousel, and in 2011 by a 40m high Heron Tree, whose huge prototype branch, overhanging the reception area, hints at the lofty treats in store, when visitors will be able to take to the skies on the wings of two graceful birds.
The elephant's link to the wondrous world of Jules Verne, a revered son of Nantes, will be evident to most visitors. But, in fact, the writer of Around the World in 80 Dayswas far from Delarozière's mind when he started work.
"I didn't know about Jules Verne coming from here," he admits. "I simply wanted to create a unique machine that would be practical, big enough to be visible from across the city and capable of carrying passengers on terraces and decks. An elephant was the obvious solution. It turned out to be a happy coincidence.
"We are very pleased with the way the citizens of Nantes have so quickly declared their ownership of the machines. Last Sunday, we had 20,000 visitors in a place where nobody used to come." A glass-fronted gallery houses a series of workshops, where the strange creatures that will populate the carousel are slowly taking shape. With encouragement from the machinists, members of the public can climb on board and set them in motion. Mounted alongside are Delarozière's exquisitely detailed design drawings, all possessed with the beauty and precision of a latter-day da Vinci.
Under its long-serving socialist mayor, Jean-Marc Ayrault, Nantes has developed a social policy in which urban development and culture go hand in hand. Nantes Metropole, together with Samoa, a public-private corporation, stated from the outset that the Machinesproject should create a tourist attraction with a strong arts focus in a prominent public space. It should become part and parcel of the urban fabric, in a way that a closed amusement park could not achieve.
None of this is coming cheap. A 150-strong local labour force took two years to complete the first phase, at a total cost of just over €5 million. The funding is split between Nantes Metropole (45 per cent), the European Union (35 per cent) and the Pays de la Loire region (20 per cent). But the general view is that it is worth every cent.
THE PROJECT PRESENTS a number of similarities with the proposed redevelopment of the Titanicquarter in the former Belfast shipyards.
Marie-Noëlle Peronno, a municipal councillor for the commune of Monterblanc in the Morbihan department of Brittany, is a native of Nantes. She has recently returned from spending two weeks in Belfast, a city she knows well.
"When I first went to Belfast in July 1997, there was a sense of uneasy peace," she recalls. "Many areas were run down and sad looking, with metal grills on windows and barriers in the street.
"I have been back several times and seen huge changes. It has become a vibrant modern city, with fine pieces of public art along the river, lots of museums and galleries and striking new buildings going up everywhere."
She describes the evolution of Les Machines de l'Îleas a dream come true. "I was at boarding school in the Boulevard Jules Verne in Nantes. I used to dream of going on the kind of adventures he wrote about in his novels. Now, at the age of 56, I am seeing those childhood dreams being realised by Les Machines de l'Île.
"As Jules Verne is to Nantes, Titanicis an icon of Belfast. It would be wonderful if, after all the years of conflict, something equally inspiring could be achieved on the site of the famous shipyards, where that great vessel was built."