Saturday, 1/10/09

Main Staircase:

We met Emilie at the metro station Monceau to see the museum which used to be the hôtel particulier (private home) of Nissim de Camando.  The station was right outside the parc Monceau and it was great to see so many people out and about even though there was still snow on the ground.  Emilie arrived shortly with a surprise guest- Francesca, a JSF 2006 alum.   She came with us on our tour of the museum, and it was great to hear about her experiences in JSF and studying in Paris after MIT. 

Entrance to the museum:

We entered the museum on the rez-de-chaussée, the ground floor, but Emilie explained to us that this particular building had two rez-de-chaussées, because one is level with the street on one entrance, and the other is level with a different street.  The museum was originally a house built in the early 1900's by a Jewish family, but the house was turned into a museum because the last descendents were killed during World War II.  Moïse de Camondo, who built the house, had it designed to display his large collection of decorative arts.  I imagine it was a difficult task for the architect to design this entire house around Moïse de Camondo's art collection!  It is quite a luxurious home with beautiful tapestries and even an elevator with a bench inside.  Emilie told us about Moïse de Camondo's daily life in this very luxurious hôtel.  I was especially impressed with the bathrooms- bigger than any I've ever seen.  It was really interesting to see this hôtel particulier, but personally I don't think I could live in a house with such ornate decorations and furniture.

One of the many ornate rooms:

For lunch we wandered around the neighborhood for a while looking for a café.  Emilie, who lives in the neighborhood, explained to us that not much was open because it was a Saturday,and most of the activity in the neighborhood is commercial.  It was one of the first places we visited with hardly any tourists! 

M.D.

The kitchen: