Michelangelo on the top floor.

Referring to my latest post - In front of the shops, workshops, galleries… on Avenue Daumesnil, there is a rather surprising building, in an art deco style, but built as late as 1991. It holds a police station on the bottom floors and normal living quarters on the upper floors. The surprising thing is to find the top floor decorated by 12 giant reproductions of a Michelangelo statue, the Dying Slave.

Michelangelo (1475-1564) made two slave sculptures, the Dying one and the Rebellious one, around 1513. They were supposed to be part of the tomb that Pope Julius II ordered for himself. However, the tomb never became what it was supposed to be (a long story). Finally, the tomb was erected in 1545 in the San Pietro Vincoli church in Rome, but the only real Michelangelo part of the tomb is the famous Moses, also from 1513. Michelangelo offered the Slaves in 1546 to his friend Roberto Strozzi (Medici family), who later offered them to the French King François I. They changed owners several times (one of them was Richelieu), but became part of the Louvre Museum collection already in 1794, very soon after the Revolution. 

The architect of the building on Avenue Daumesnil is Manuel Núñez Yanowsky (with Miriam Teitelbaum). Still active, he has achieved some remarkable buildings, including these ones (“stolen” from the net) to be found in the Paris region. Here you can also see his project for the recently built Orthodox Cathedral in Paris, the real architectural winner, but finally not chosen (a long story).