Le Bioscope

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This article is about the park in Alsace; "Bioscope" is also a South African English term for movie theater. For the fairground attraction see Bioscope show.

Le Bioscope is a theme park located at Ungersheim, in the Upper Rhine (the Haut-Rhin département) of France. The 12½-hectare^[1](31-acre) park — described in a European Commission 2004 press release^[2] as a place where visitors learn about health, life and the environment "whilst having fun" — is laid out in concentric circles, a design by Frédéric Jung meant to evoke the shockwaves caused by the impact of the Ensisheim meteorite, which struck nearby in 1492^[3].

The Alsace region first proposed the park in 1994^[2]. Bright White, a York-based firm, was responsible for "development, engineering and project management of the design phase"^[4], with the idea of meeting the park's goal to educate people "to take responsibility for their own actions with respect to equilibrium with the environment."

[edit] Operation

Bioscope was built and is operated as a public-private partnership, with government financing the purchase of the land and part of the construction, and a private company being granted a 30-year concession to build and operate the park^[2]. In exchange, the concession holder pays a fee based on turnover.

In July 2001^[5], the Alsace region and the General Council of the Haut-Rhin announced their decision to grant the concession to Grévin & Cie, the company that operates facilities such as Musée Grévin, Parc Astérix, and the Dolfinarium in Harderwijk^[6].