After hearing so much about and seeing so many sketches of this incredible place with all the machines and the giant Minotaur, I took Wednesday afternoon to look for it myself. I took a train to Montaudran, on the outskirts of Toulouse. It took a little while, as there seemed to be only one train an hour so I spent a lot of time waiting in the main SNCF station in Toulouse, Matabiau. I went into a photo booth and made some silly photos, you can get them themed on the World Cup where you copy the poses of various French players. Back in France 98, I got a similar thing which I still have, though I’m 28 years older now and so I am even sillier. Eventually the train came. Montaudran isn’t far, and the Halle de La Machine is a very short walk from the station. Short, but in blazing heat. The deceptively cool morning had turned into a furnace by mid-afternoon. I only had a couple of hours by now before I’d have to go back and get registered for the Symposium, pick up my packet and my pass, see all the people. That should be enough? Soon after arriving, I definitely wished I had longer. It’s one of the most unusual places I have ever visited, a collection of highly inventive and often massive machines housed in and around a large building on an old airport runway. ‘La Machine’ is the creation of François Delarozière, and it’s hard to explain them, so you should check out their website. Perhaps the most famous of the giant machines in their collection is Astérion the Minotaur, which I sketched above. It is gigantic, and kept outside. It has platforms on its back so people can ride on it, because it is not just a giant statue, it does actually move about, walking (with the aid of wheels) about the grounds, breathing smoke and bellowing. When I arrived,I was told Astérion was still sleeping, so I waited until it was being woken up before going to sketch it. There were, naturally, some other sketchers around, and I wouldn’t be surprised if at least half the Symposium sketchers visited at some point. It’s an urban sketcher’s delight. I had to pick what I sketched sparingly, as I only had a couple of hours, and I didn’t join the tour which was going around demonstrating how a lot of the machines work (which sounded really fun), but while I sketched the enormous unusual machine below, the performers of La Machine transported us into a different world.

This immense structure, made of steel, balloons, glass, and lots of botanical features, is called Le Module Aéroporté, created between 2010 and 2013 and built by Patrick Grevoz, and looks like some sort of flying greenhouse. It’s hard not to think of the sort of creations in Miyazaki movies, like Howl’s Moving Castle, and Castle In The Sky. ‘Steampunk’ would not do it justice. Ethereal live music started playing, and clouds were pumped into the space, propellors rotated slowly while performers on bungee ropes sailed up and down, giving the effect that this whole machine was flying slowly through the sky. It was a pleasure to be sketching at this moment, though I wanted to draw fast, as this thing was just so, so big. I felt quite emotional, it was such a piece of theatre, and I wanted to spend the time really taking it all in, but I also wanted to draw it, and I also knew I did not really have the time. It made me want to start drawing and inventing my own flying machines, which I always used to love doing as a kid, the more impractical the better. This is a place for the imagination alright.

There are so many machines and inventions, not just the giant ones. Several were musical instrument based, with guitars and drums mixed in with strange steel contraptions and bicycle wheels. I watched a demonstration of a guitar machine called ‘La Pete Townshend’, where the performer would play some tunes on the electric guitar, and then a huge rotating metal arm would swing around performing the famous Townshend windmill power-strum. Another machine used wheels and parts of s ewing machine to create a device that painted pictures. Another had eight guitars bolted to a giant wheel, I have no idea how that was supposed to work. There was a massive banquet table with iron machines on it to open and pour bottles of wine and sort out your plates and cutlery. I wish I could have watched it all. There were two giant spiders, one inside and one out, so I found a chair and sat to draw the inside one, looking right at me with massive creepy-doll saucer eyes. I thought about the neighbour kid in Toy Story. Spiders do scare me so this would have been terrifying to see in action. I drew it quickly and coloured it in later. I heard an announcement that the Minotaur was waking up.

It was sweaty enough inside where it was cool, outside was scorching by this point. I started to draw the Minotaur when one of the little French kids waned me that it would be waking up any moment and I had to be careful or it would probably walk on me, thanks for the warning kid. I followed the crowd out of the way, and stood in some shade across the runway. The assembled kids and their families were treated to a show of mechanical fountains and what might have been snow machines dotted around, scaring the life out of the parents, and me too. I drew the Minotaur from the side, before being chased from my shady spot by a nearby fountain nozzle that probably wouldn’t have hit me, but I took no chances. I resumed my spot next to Astérion the Minotaur and watched it wake up. It was a spectacular sight. A woman in the cockpit area controlled its movements, and the eyes opened, steam came from its nostrils, its mouth opened to murmur and bellow, its arms made shapes and the wooden panels that made up its hide moved in and out as it breathed. It was incredible. I was not there long enough to watch it move about, but I experienced enough of it to be super impressed. I picked up a few bits in the gift shop, and went to catch my train back into Toulouse. If you are ever down that way, I recommend visiting the Halle de La Machine, and maybe going in the morning to give yourself more time there.