Grand Éléphant de Nantes

This towering mechanical elephant of steel and tulipwood strides through the old shipyards of Nantes carrying dozens of passengers in its howdah. Standing about twelve metres tall, it flaps its ears, curls its trunk, and sprays water on delighted onlookers as it moves along the esplanade. Conceived by a company of engineer-artists, it draws on the fantastical machines imagined by a nineteenth-century novelist born in the city. Watching it lumber past, hissing steam and creaking wood, is a defining spectacle of contemporary Nantes.