Park attraction · Mad House · Rainbow MagicLand · Valmontone · 2011
Maison Houdini.
The Mad House dedicated to the legendary illusionist Harry Houdini — the rotating room that flips gravity, inside a scenographic façade sculpted in our workshops on a late 19th-century theatre theme.
Behind the scenes
Mad House:
flipped physics.
The Mad House is one of the most ingenious attractions in theme parks: the seats don't move — they seem to sway, but in reality it is the entire room rotating 360° on a fixed axis, while the visitor stays still.
The rotating room
The Mad House is an attraction type patented by the Dutch firm Vekoma: the audience seated on a fixed bench at the centre, the room rotating around the audience's own axis of rotation. The human brain interprets the rotation as oscillation of one's own body. The result: the illusion of being flipped upside down.
Houdini iconography
On the façade and inside the room we sculpt Harry Houdini's stage objects: the top hat, the handcuffs, the chains, the card deck fanned open, the rabbit in the hat. All in high relief on the theatre's side panels. The effect is that of a museum of illusion before entering the show room.
The late 19th-century theatre
The style of the façade is the Parisian vaudeville of fin de siècle: gilded twisted columns, round arches, grotesque masks on the keystone, scrolled cartouches with the illusionist's name in Art Nouveau characters. A Belle Époque scenography applied to the theme park — the era when Houdini took the stage at the Folies Bergère.
360°
the Mad House's complete rotation around the still audience
1874-1926
the years of Harry Houdini, illusionist of the early 20th century
25 May 2011
the opening date of Rainbow MagicLand in Valmontone
Workshop pieces
From raw polystyrene
to the installed façade.
Photos from our archive: the chronology of the Maison Houdini construction site — from the raw polystyrene piece to the polychrome glaze finish, up to the piece installed at the Valmontone park.
Second life
The crazy house
is still in operation.
The Maison Houdini is still today one of the park's attractions — the façade we sculpted is the first thing the visitor sees entering the Pop Pixie/Houdini area. After the transition from Rainbow Spa to Pillarstone Italy (KKR), the colours have been periodically retouched, but the original scenographic structure has stayed in place.
The Belle Époque applied to the park style entered our standard repertoire. The sculpting techniques of the vaudeville theatre return in other commissions of ours dedicated to late 19th-century decorative work — the classical-theatre scenography for a Giorgio Panariello show, the Art Déco skyscrapers of the RockPolitik Manhattan skyline, the monumental cups of the Art Café in the underground galleries of Villa Borghese.
Tech sheet
All production data
- Attraction
- Maison Houdini · Mad House (360° rotating room, Vekoma type) · Rainbow MagicLand · Valmontone (Rome)
- Opening
- 25 May 2011 · park opening day
- Client
- Alfa Park Srl for Rainbow Spa (Iginio Straffi) · today Pillarstone Italy / KKR (MagicLand)
- Subject
- Harry Houdini (1874-1926) · American illusionist and escapologist of the early 20th century
- Technical type
- Mad House (Vekoma) — 360° rotating room on fixed axis · central fixed bench · optical illusion of body sway
- Piece delivered
- Monumental scenographic entrance façade + internal rotating-room decoration · late 19th-century Parisian theatre iconography · gilded twisted columns, round arches, masks, cartouches, circus symbols
- Iconography
- Top hat, handcuffs, chains, card deck, rabbit in the hat · illusionist's name in Art Nouveau characters · Belle Époque vaudeville style
- Techniques
- High-density expanded polystyrene hand-carved · layered fibreglass stiffening · finish in polychrome acrylic glazes · gilded effect on columns and cartouches
- Our role
- Complete delivery of the façade and internal decorations · sculpting, stiffening, polychrome finish, transport to the park and installation
- Second life
- Attraction still in operation · original façade still in place · periodic chromatic retouch