Lyon: the paradise of automatons
Those who have visited Vieux-Lyon know this museum, whose window inevitably calls out with its regularly renewed decorations. Inaugurated in 1991, its history dates back to 1946, when the Ema family opened their workshop of electro-mechanical automatons: articulated dolls intended to animate storefronts. Unfortunately, over the years the tradition is lost, orders are scarce. So to save their business, the Emas decide to open this place to the public while the team continues to create. A collection of 250 characters are to be discovered, brought together according to themes linked to the history of the city, popular tales or literary works.
To each child his puppet!
The Musée des automates du Vieux Lyon has everything to make children dream! In addition to its showcases and animated sketches, during all school holidays, a guided tour is reserved for them on Wednesday mornings, during which they are revealed the manufacturing secrets as well as the history of each setting. Better still: a puppet-making workshop is then organized, at the end of which everyone can leave with their own. What leave them a nice memory for a long time! (on reservation, and if sanitary conditions allow).
museeautomates.com
Louviers: a house with broken dishes
“Broken dishes, it’s spanking,” sang Pierre Perret. Robert Vasseur, he was rather the type to rejoice! All his life, this milk delivery boy born in 1908 and died in 2002 had the hobby of destroying it, and covering its walls with debris. To help him, he even asked a garbage collector friend to bring him anything he could collect on his tours. This is how, for fifty years, he lined all the rooms of his home with these incredible mosaics, right up to his garden, his garage, and even the doghouse!
The “House of broken dishes” can be visited from mid-April to mid-September (by appointment).
Annecy: ring the bells!
It was during an open day organized in 1984 that the directors of the Paccard Foundry (created in Haute-Savoie in 1796) noted the public’s interest in bell tower art. Its directors, Pierre and Françoise Paccard, then decided to create a Bell museum. First located in Annecy-le-Vieux then transferred to Sevrier, by the lake, this unique space (renamed the Paccard museum in 2004) exhibits a set of tools, instruments and documents retracing the history of instrument and, of course, that of this family foundry handed down from father to son for seven generations. Not long ago, a concert hall was even created for concerts… carillons!
Rixheim: wallpapers have their history
In the heart of the Alsatian village of Rixheim is a former commandery of the Order of the Teutonic Knights, a German religious and military congregation founded in the 12th century. Bought in 1797 by a wallpaper factory (Zuber & Cie), the building has been extended over the centuries. It now houses the Rixheim Town Hall, but also the factory (still in operation) in the left wing, and a wallpaper museum in the right wing. Open for almost forty years, this one preserves the historical collections of the neighboring factory as well as sets donated by the museum of printing on fabrics of Mulhouse, to which are added numerous purchases and bequests.
The waffle, backstage side
In Houplines, near Lille, the craftsman Jean-François Brigant has created a “Petit Musée de la Gaufre” in his back room, around old Flemish fires. Here we learn all about the oldest cookie in the world… before ending the visit with a tasting!
Read also :
⋙ The Palais des Beaux-Arts in Lille: compulsory break
⋙ Stroll in Lyon
⋙ 5 good reasons to go for a weekend to Lake Annecy
Article published in the issue Femme Actuelle Jeux Régions n ° 23 February-March 2021