Semiotics of machine in palace and park complexes

The author analyzes the machine through the prism of the influence that the science of the 17th century had on the development of culture, landscape art. The scientific revolution of the 16th-17th centuries, the technological progress of the New Time not only changed the technical and technological essence of the techniques of various arts and crafts, but also laid the foundations for a new symbolic system. In this system, the machine acquires the features of allegory, metaphor and emblem of the mechanistic cosmos. The universe is understood as a machine; society is also «mechanized». Palace and Park ensembles in the conditions of formation of new scientific ideas about the world turn not only into a model of the world, but also reflect the concept of substantial space and time in the formal structure of gardens and parks. The rationality of this structure implies a reflection of movement, energy and power, which the machine can visualize. Among the rich instrumentation of the XVII century, stood out for optical devices and hydraulic machines. The optics of the observation device served the rationalization of Park spaces, their correct geometry. Hydraulics caused the mobility of the primary element (water), its movement in the spaces of landscape architecture. Such means, as the machine of Marly, supplying water to the Versailles fountains, symbolized the demiurgical nature and power of the enlightened absolutist monarch. The author concludes that machines in the context of hydraulic systems of large European parks were not only (and not so much) a utilitarian functioning auxiliary mechanism, but a semiotic figure containing the highest axiological meaning.