For many years now the company La Machine has been creating shows featuring fascinating giant machines which delight huge audiences of young and old alike in the cities of France and around the world. Gradually, these performing machines have become permanent installations in cities around France, an integral and integrated feature of urban development.

Through four emblematic projects in Nantes, La Roche-sur-Yon, Toulouse and Calais, François Delarozière demonstrates how the elegant dynamics of this mechanical bestiary relates to space and to human performers. He speaks of the machines’ creation and charts the daily lives of the company, its members, artists, technicians and artisans and how they undertake such visionary projects of mechanical urban architecture working in tandem with local authorities.

After the book La Machine spectacle, here is Machines de ville, highlighting the machines which have slipped into people’s daily lives, churning out dreams, sparking discussion, stirring emotions and reflecting us back to our own humanity by their mere presence in the city.

Interviewer(s): Philippe Dossal
Preface by: David Mangin