One thousand words' equivalent, or, another maginificent Lisbon building

Cheers.

Ministry of Strange Buildings

You are of course familiar with the Ministry of Silly Walks. But I am sure you have never heard of the Ministry of Strange Buildings.

The reason why you have not heard of it is because it is one of the seven Invisible Ministries in my new country, carefully hidden from the public eye (and Brussels), of which the others are:

2) Ministry for the Prevention of Rampant, Ill-advised and Potentially Harmful Economic Development (MPRIPHED),
3) Ministry of Good Food and Wet Lunch (MGFWL),
4) Ministry of Confusing, Misleading and Downright Wrong Signs (MCMDWS),
5) Ministry of the Good Life (it has been rumored to be on the verge of merging with MGFWL these past 27 years but has had a life too good to get around to do that),
6) Ministry for the Preservation of Delicious Pasteis (MPDP, and boy are they delicious),
7) Ministry for Undoing Everything That Everyone Else is Busily Doing (MUETEBD);

and

8) ? one more ministry which has not as yet defined its name or writ, having spent the last 27 years trying to work them out.

Now, the principal job of the Ministry of Strange Buildings is to strangeify Lisbon's wonderful (and whacky) architecture. Permits are issued by a committee which is likely to ask of the architect challenging questions like: do you not think there is too much symmetry and balance in the facade? And: is it not possible to tilt that tower somewhat off the vertical to shake up a bit this same old same old? Or, indeed: where is your tower?! (If you have no tower, then, well, where shall you lock up your princesses and what will the noble knights attempt to capture?)

At the top of this post is a ohoto of a building which has recently (1902) passed the Ministry's inspection. It is commendable, in my opinion, on account of the architect's honesty who, instead of designing a twelve story building in which every story had exactly the same kind of windows, designed a four story building in which each story had a different kind of windows. (He was, in other words, delivering value for money).

Below is a building whose inspection and permitting has not as yet been completed, but whose permit is expected to be granted in the near future on the same grounds: the architect is honest and the building is strange enough.

How to make friends and influence people

A new series on TV5 covers famous hôtels (now that they have done with the chataux). This week's was the so called hôtel Potoquì in Paris, now the seat of the Chambre du Commerce et Industrie de Paris (at 1, Avenue Friedland, 75008 Paris). (Google map it to see the size of its garden).

It was bought by the colorful count Mieczysław Potoquì, son of Szczęsny (of Targowica fame) whose main adventure (and cause of long internal exile in Siberia and eventually out of Russia and to France) was that he was repeatedly rude two successive tsars, his masters (not being home when they called, forgetting to remove the hat when they entered, etc.) He left the house to his son, Mikołaj, whose main claim to fame was his wife, one Emanuela Emanuella Donna Pignatelli de Cerchiara, of Naples, a socialite, salon keeper, friend of Proust and Maupassant. The two have completely gutted and refurbished the house in a style now considered remarkable.

The house can now be visited and was by someone who left us some of these wonderful photos above. Alas, these photos do not include either the tapestries or the beautiful (and somewhat racy) frescoes for which the indomitable Emanuele posed ("not seductive," said someone about her, "but seduction itself"), but which were featured in the tv5 program and which occasioned all this search by yours truly. (Shall I henceforth tape everything I watch on TV?)

All I was able to find of the seductive Emanuelle was this garden statue at the hotel, for which she also posed:



A pretty girl, and not too shy.

Apparently, the monsieur le comte was a little tired by all this running about the house in the buff. "Darling, he would say to her reportedly, please pose naked for whatever and whomever you wish, who am I to place unreasonable limits on your wonderfully creative personality, but do me the favor and do not seduce the artists: they are hired help, you know. Have some respect for the feudal tradition."

It's thanks to fine liberal people like the comte that Paris is one of the few places in the world where it is a social positive to claim Polish ancestry. All it takes is, apparently, is a little money and a little sex appeal.