Albert Robida's vision of the 20th Century

puddingwrestler · January 09, 2013, 05:06:18 PM

One of the influences on my urge to built Steampunk and VSF things for a whole month has been teh work of Albert Robida, a Frenchman who, in the 1880s and 90s produced some lovely illustrations of what he thought the next century would look like.
Robida's 20th century is filled with fish-shaped aircraft, rotating platform houses and rather large pipes. Also projector TVs diplaying scantily clad (by 19th century standards!) females performing exotic dances.
He's also responsible (I believe) for the wonderfully named 'L'torpedile infectious'! whihc I've probably spelled wrong. To get the right effect, read it out in your best outrageous french accent.
Here's a link to his WIkipedia page.
And here are a number of his images:

(I am making a house based on this idea)

I must say, his airships put me in mind of the fascinating Winans' Cigar Ships. Who would've thought such things were actually built?

Weaver · January 09, 2013, 07:06:04 PM

Nice one - I've got a lot of Robida illustrations in a book on Sci-Fi art. They range from the entertainingly bonkers to the scarily prescient, don't they?

puddingwrestler · January 09, 2013, 09:53:21 PM

No prizes for guessing which ones I favour...

PR19_Kit · January 09, 2013, 11:08:11 PM

You must have loved the IPMS UK National Champion model then?

puddingwrestler · January 10, 2013, 02:16:10 AM

Not something we colonials got to see I am afraid. I don't really follow the modelling contests.

PR19_Kit · January 10, 2013, 03:05:03 AM

I think there was at least one piccie of it in our reports of the Nationals, but in essence it was a steampunk monowheel monocycle with the engine and seat INSIDE the wheel and modelled in a BIG scale, maybe 1/12? It was shown on a street corner base with a delightfully modelled girlie rider alongside.

I'll try and find a piccie of it to post here.

PR19_Kit · January 10, 2013, 03:17:27 AM

OK, I give up.

Where the DEVIL are the piccies from the 2012 Telford Show? I've worn the search functioun out and can't find them anywhere.

Weaver · January 10, 2013, 04:09:32 AM

Apologies to Aircav for linking this from his photobucket account:

PR19_Kit · January 10, 2013, 09:05:13 AM

That's the one, thanks very much Weaver.

Superb modelling, superb thought processes and amazing nerve in even thinking of entering it in the Nats!

pyro-manic · January 10, 2013, 09:48:23 AM

Wow, some wonderful stuff there. I must look for more of this!

I hadn't seen that Monobike before either - love it! I expect it must have hugely annoyed a lot of the traditionalists. Which is a good thing.

I do wonder though, about the placement of the pilot/rider - I think she'd burn her hand...

ChernayaAkula · January 10, 2013, 10:40:14 AM

There's a fantastic in-progress thread for the monobike over on fichtenfoo.net. LINK Entertaining and enlightening!

ericr · January 10, 2013, 12:58:51 PM

it is indeed fascinating. I read a whole article on Robida in the three-monthly journal of the College of 'Pataphysics : they are big fans!
Maybe that kind of What-If modelling could pretend for a Chair in the College ...

puddingwrestler · January 10, 2013, 02:33:57 PM

Quote from: PR19_Kit on January 10, 2013, 09:05:13 AM
That's the one, thanks very much Weaver.

Superb modelling, superb thought processes and amazing nerve in even thinking of entering it in the Nats!

You mean the Nats are THAT opposed to imagination? Gadzooks sir! Steampunk is entering the mainstream now!
(says he who has NEVER entered a straight build in anything. Ever.)

Doc Yo · January 10, 2013, 02:49:02 PM

I like Robida's work quite a lot myself. While his aeronefs were pretty whimsical, his ships weren't all that
far from French Naval architecture of the time

Wrestler, dear colleague, since you like the Winans ships, you might like to know there's a card model
of one of their last, the yacht Ross Winans availble here :

http://www.waldenfont.com/papermodels/default.asp

NARSES2 · January 11, 2013, 12:32:10 AM

Quote from: pyro-manic on January 10, 2013, 09:48:23 AM

I hadn't seen that Monobike before either - love it! I expect it must have hugely annoyed a lot of the traditionalists. Which is a good thing. I do wonder though, about the placement of the pilot/rider - I think she'd burn her hand...

Strangely I didn't hear any gripes, not to say there wern't any, most people simply recognised it as a wonderfull pice of modelling. I think the UK "scene" is becoming far more open to ideas and in all honesty we the Brotherhood of Wiffery are in some small measure responsible for that