About Me

My photo
Oregon, United States
loves: you win if you guessed "pets" and "museums". Also books, art history, travel, British punk, Korean kimchi, bindis, martinis, and other things TBD. I will always make it very clear if a post is sponsored in any way. Drop me a line at thepetmuseum AT gmail.com !

Monday, October 19, 2009

the coolest building in riga

Or at least so far.
I'm talking about The Black Cats' House, built in 1909 in Riga, Latvia. Legend is that about 100 years ago the owner of the building was excluded from the local guild. He didn't find this fair, and to express his displeasure he topped off his lovely Jugendstil (the German variant of Art Nouveau) building with a couple of black cats, rumps pointed unmistakeably at the guild building opposite.

I'm not saying that's classy, but I am saying that's entertaining and I wish people would express their disappointment that creatively nowadays. In any case it seems to have worked. The owner was eventually admitted to the guild, and the cats were turned round to a more decorous orientation, as seen today. Want to see? Some great photos here, that came from this travel page.

1 comment:

parlance said...

That was a such a great statement by the builder. I wonder how much trouble it was to turn the cat around.