François Delarozière

He has collaborated with French and international companies in productions ranging from traditional theatre to experimental street art.

In 1987 he met Jean-Luc Courcoult, the artistic director of the French street theatre company Royal de Luxe and over a period of years, from 1991 to 2008, Delarozière, Courcoult and their engineers designed and created a host of huge performing creatures, which toured various European cities.

La Princesse, the giant mechanical spider that visited Liverpool in September of that year, is the first in a series of six planned creatures that will debut around the world.

[1] All his pieces start with hand-drawn blueprints, described as "think Jules Verne via Leonardo and Heath Robinson", and his trademark materials are unpainted wood and metal, with the workings exposed.

[3]Delarozière has been described as an "engineering genius",[4][5][6] and Radio France said of him He creates machines, machines which are both beautiful and crazy, giant animals, strange contraptions which play music, boats which sail across the land, birds from where you can have a drink in a daydream, a world which is both real and dreamlike and which invades cities for beautiful, moving and crazy celebrations.