LVMH are taking over France’s oldest theme park and giving it a steampunk facelift — no, really. Come September, Paris’ Jardin D’Acclimatation will undergo a major transformation courtesy of the luxury conglomerate and its recent partnership with Compagnie des Alpes, a company that develops theme parks and ski resorts.
“The idea is to re-level everything without losing the traditional elements of the park,” the park’s president Marc-Antoine Jamet told Le Parisien. The renovations will revamp the park’s original 1880s structures, and add 17 new steampunk rides inspired by the French novelist Jules Verne. The €60 million project is set to be completed May 2018, right in time for summer.
The Jardin D’Acclimatation was created in 1880 by Napléon III and his wife Empress Eugénie, originally a zoo. The imperial couple, impressed by their recent stay in London’s Hyde Park, commissioned a jardin of their own filled with plants and animals from around the world. It wasn’t until the 1930s that the jardin was turned into a children’s leisure park, after the unfortunate demise of the zoo’s animals during a siege. Ideally, LVMH’s park will have better luck.