LEONARDO DA VINCI
- By Debbie Emery
We all know of Leonardo da Vinci as an artist but many people forget that he was an important inventor in his time. The Leonardo Da Vinci: Inventor. Artist. Dreamer. exhibit at the California Science Center in LA’s Exposition Park celebrates this lesser known side of his genius by spotlighting his 30 most notable inventions including the Flying Bicycle, Great Organ, Mechanical Bat, and Great Kite. Da Vinci’s drawings and designs are brought to life as full-scale models, such as the Mechanical Eagle that has a 33-foot wingspan. Aspiring inventors can learn to be engineers by building da Vinci’s self-supporting bridge or driving his paddle boat.
Known as one of the greatest painters in the history of Western modern art, da Vinci was born in Florence, Italy, in 1452 and is best known for his influential works the Mona Lisa and The Last Supper. In the same way that he studied anatomy to learn how to paint the human body, da Vinci also studied engineering to design machines and devices, especially those that involved flight.
The exhibition is complemented by IMAX presentations of the movie Cities of the Future 3D, which shows inventions that engineers are currently working on that might become part of our everyday lives in the future.
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