A room with uninterrupted sea views? Admittedly underwater, this hotel at 30 meters below sea level near a lighthouse called La Fourmigue, off the Cap d’Antibes, is the remains of a 1000m² underwater miniature French town complete with houses and buildings up to a meter high, a church, town square, an amphitheatre and even a lawyer’s office.
(c) Michal Krzysztofowicz
This aquatic town was built between 1963 and 1965 by French filmmakers who planned to shoot parts of their movie, L’Enfant et la Sirène (The Child and the Mermaid) on a real underwater film set. The ambitious underwater filming approach was eventually abandoned in favor of an animation studio in Paris. Unfortunately, the film, a musical directed by Sylver Néjad Atzamba, never saw the light of day and the miniature underwater town was forgotten on the seabed and adandoned to the elements.
Such an ambitious project in its day, surely must have photographed. An obscure French diving online forum, a user, “hyppoc” identified himself as one of the men who participated in building the underwater film set and also had old photos !
The miniature water world has its own an épicerie (a small supermarket) and a below is what appears to be a hairdresser (coiffeur) for the fish!!
Below shows a photo of a diver installing the sunken city…
Above might be a photograph of the animated studio chosen in favor of the underwater set, and below, a newspaper clipping about the project. The byline says: “Will the underwater town of 1000m² at 30 feet deep become prey to vandals again like last year?” No information emerged about vandalism but might explain why it was built over a two year period.
Today the submerged city is no longer neglected as it was for many years after its abandonment. In 2007, the nearby seaside town of Vallauris Golfe-Juan was granted permission for a renovation project to restore some of the badly decaying structures and add a few new buildings.
Images thanks to Forum-MDP.com, Michal Krzysztofowicz, Plonge
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