Yesterday while cruising the canal next to the Parc de la Villette, in the north-east of the city, we passed by the Cité des Sciences et de l'Industrie, a centre promoting science and science culture, so I guess it's Paris' equivalent of Canberra's Questacon or Scitech in Perth (although on a much larger scale......). It caught the interest of mon amour so that's where we're heading today (and being the sacrificial femme that I am, I'm willingly giving up an afternoon of shopping in Paris........) ;-)
The place is built inside a converted abattoir sales hall and the building itself is now a work of contemporary art. We begin at the Leonardo da Vinci exhibition - a display of his drawings and plans together with some models of his amazing designs - he certainly had an incredible mind and was very talented in many arenas.
The rest of the afternoon we spend looking at a range of displays and exhibitions - Earthwatch, Sounds, Light games, Transport and man, Man and his genes, Futurotextiles, Energy, Design observer, and the Innovations Gallery, among others. The display that I find most intriguing (unsurprisingly) is part of the Sounds exhibition - four 10 month old babies babbling in their native language (one English, one French, one Arabic and one Cantonese), and an explanation of the emerging characteristics of each particular tongue even at this young age - clear variations in intonation, types of sounds, hard and soft onsets............ That's what language immersion from birth will do for you, and that's why it's so hard for me to learn French at my age!!!!
The only downside is the hordes of noisy school children on excursions to the museum, but that's to be expected in a place like this. It is, after all, mostly aimed at school-aged children, and therefore a little disappointingly lacking in adult-level information and interest.
Outside in the grounds is an enormous geodesic dome, which is one of my husband's favourite things but since this one is a cinema inside and when we're done with the exhibits it's raining outside, we don't bother standing in the rain to have a closer look but head straight for the Metro, the pâtisserie and chez nous :-)
No comments:
Post a Comment