Albert Robida’s Vision for Paris

Illustration from Albert Robida’s science fiction novel Le Vingtième Siècle, or The Twentieth Century, from 1883. Robida shows a view of Paris at night, with a sky full of various flying machines.

The above illustration was drawn by Albert Robida for his 1883 novel Le Vingtième Siècle, or The Twentieth Century. The novel describes a future vision for Paris in the 1950’s, focusing on technological advancements and how they would affect the daily lives of Parisians. Here he shows a vision for the night sky above Paris, which is dotted with various types of flying machines. In the foreground is a personal flying machine with a well-to-do couple at the controls. It’s unclear how this craft actually flies, but the two passengers don’t seem to mind. In the background there’s an armada of larger dirigibles littering the sky with a human presence.

This is a future Paris that has embraced the skies. There are various flying machines meandering among sporadic, spire-like towers that push up into this aerial world. Robida decides to show the scene at night, and he creates a network of headlamps projecting their beams of light into the darkness. It’s a busy scene, and it illustrates the optimism towards air travel at the time. The public believed the future would move skyward, and scenes like this would be commonplace.

Check out other cartoons dealing with verticality here.