I’ve already uploaded a video of the Grand Éléphant, or Mechanical Elephant, to surprise and delight my myriad of two blog readers.
The Grand Éléphant is the most famous creation at Les Machines de l’Île, an artistic project developed on the former Nantes shipyards and inspired by the city’s industrial history, together with the imaginative worlds associated with Jules Verne. Inaugurated in 2007, the elephant is 12 metres high, 21 metres long and weighs 48.4 tonnes, so it’s not the most subtle of set-ups. Built from steel and wood, it moves through the old docklands at a stately one to three kilometres per hour, which is not especially rapid but is still quicker than some municipal regeneration schemes. There’s a staff member that walks with it to ensure that no pedestrians get flattened and there’s also a driver inside steering the arrangement.
Up to 50 passengers can climb aboard for a journey lasting around 30 minutes, with balconies and an upper terrace providing views across the former shipyards. Its legs, ears, eyes and trunk move through a combination of hydraulic, pneumatic and gas-powered cylinders, while the trunk can spray water over people standing nearby although I didn’t get too close to that. This is described as part of the entertainment, although it does perhaps introduce a useful element of jeopardy and uncertainty for anyone with expensive camera equipment. On this occasion though there was considerable restraint and no moment of collective panic. From the ground, the whole machine looks remarkably convincing to some degree, although obviously some imagination is required.
What makes the elephant particularly effective is that it is not confined inside a conventional attraction but walks through the public landscape of the Île de Nantes, turning the former industrial site into a piece of moving theatre. I hadn’t realised how close I would be able to get to it and there were plenty of people watching. It’s a bit expensive to actually take a ride on the elephant and exciting as that might have been, I thought it was just as satisfying watching for free nearby.
The only slight disappointment was that nobody was soaked by the elephant while I was watching, as this would have provided some additional material for the blog. The water spraying was really quite restrained, perhaps because of previous complaints or because the operators had correctly assessed the mood of the crowd. I had been hoping for at least one unsuspecting tourist to receive the full experience, entirely for documentary purposes, but the elephant behaved with impeccable moderation. It was still a spectacular and wonderfully eccentric creation, even if it declined to provide the minor public incident I had been waiting for.