Community Info
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| User: | pontalbonhouse (11120189) Pontalbon House
Head of House: Marjorie Manifold |
(no userpics) |
| Website: | Phoenix Rising | |
| Location: | new orleans, LA | |
| About: | The Pontalbòn House was founded unceremoniously by Madam Amèlie D'Arvante in 1751 as part of her succession of Headmaster Laurent. Because she had moved the school to New Orleans proper and renamed it L'Université des Arts Magiques to disguise its true purpose, she brusquely decreed that "An art school must have an art department." And L'Université's second House, the Art House, was formed. (Even at the time, everyone admitted that the name was rather dull, and the other students mocked those in the Art House undeservedly for being a boring department in a magical arts university. The Art House crafted its revenge against some of those students, however, after the fire that destroyed the school in 1794. Asked to design the school's rebuild, the Art House, by then the Art and Architecture House, created the world's ugliest, most confusing building to house the Writing Department. Magical writing students have complained about the clashing colors and hidden exits ever since — at least those who have found the exits have. The Writing Department houses more than its fair share of ghosts and legend says that this is due to the building's design — though even today the Art and Architecture Students claim that the other houses have no sense of perspective, and thus cannot see the doors.) The Pontalbòn House may well have had the greatest effect on the non-wizarding world of any of the school's Houses. When Madam D'Arvante founded the House in 1751, she didn't realize that the school would shortly experience a rather trying period, first with the Spanish control of Louisiane Territory and then with the fires that ravaged the French Quarter in 1788 and 1794. Twice New Orleans rebuilt her historical district, and twice surprisingly talented, surprisingly young architects and artists appeared seemingly from nowhere to lead the rebuilding effort. The architecture and design of the French Quarter today, with its heavy Spanish influence, wrought iron balconies and gracious exteriors, is almost entirely the work of L'Université's Art and Architecture House, from the Cabildo and the Presbytère to the Napoleon House. Occasionally, rumors crop up that the staircases in some of the Quarter's buildings move, but wizarding authorities claim to have the issue under control. It wasn't until the 1850s that the Art and Architecture House finally acquired, in quick succession, both a true name and a mascot. The name was graciously donated by the Baroness de Pontalba, after she worked closely with several gifted architecture students on the construction of the famed Pontalba buildings in Jackson Square. (Some time later, the students spent several years blushing when they found that their namesake had such a crush on Andrew Jackson that she built him a particularly macho statue in that same Square.) The mascot of the Pontalbòn House is, of course, the Streeler. After the school imported one as a pet several years earlier, the art students, fascinated with its ever-changing, vivid colors, began to experiment with its venomous slime. Years of painstaking research passed — not to mention innumerable visits to the medical wing — and the Pontalbòn House created the famous Streeler StainsTM, paints that change color in a variety of circumstances, such as the Seasonal Line, the Mood Line and the Annoy Your Neighbors Line. Perhaps the high point — or the low point, if you ask anyone officially — of the Pontalbòn House's history is the attendance of John James Audubon. Audubon, according to Muggles, painted birds and allegedly, allegedly, mind you, naked portraits of respectable ladies of the French Quarter. Wizards, however, know better than to draw him so two-dimensionally. Audubon developed eternity paints. While before wizards had to have their paintings specially treated after completion to allow their subjects to move at will, Audubon's eternity paints illuminated the process; the allowance for movement was contained in the paints themselves. While the faculty like to laud the wizarding version of his famous book of birds, students tend to prefer the wizarding version of the naked ladies. The Pontalbòn House spent much of the last century expanding its global reach, as its brilliant eternity paintings and visionary architecture have been in increasing demand. The Streeler StainsTM, of course, are always popular, though from time to time the students of other Houses awake to find their buildings painted the traditional Pontalbòn turquoise. For more information on Phoenix Rising, please contact info@thephoenixrises.org, or see ![[info]](http://p-stat.livejournal.com/img/community.gif){kind=small} fromashandflame. To chat with attendees of all Houses, please join phoenixchat. | |
| Maintainers: | 4: phoenix_amy, phoenix_hallie, phoenix_kirstee, phoenix_mods | |
| Members: | 42: _odella_, alaplante, alberto203, blue_paris, britt_1975, bunney, chloe9, deltas_con_lj, dragonsinger954, drmanifold, ellaselenelupin, embly917, enelya_oronar, esme55, fyrestar1, gray_overcast, irisgirl12000, jcho, jedipirate, justtakisha, kt_did2000, lezlishae, luminousmarble, m_annalore, mad_maudlin, mental_thatone, moombassa, phoenix_amy, phoenix_hallie, phoenix_kirstee, phoenix_mods, ressdell, rlanto, sheryll, shrimpcaster, silver_reverie, slytherin_echo, spcbrilliant, spoonjosh, stupid_drawings, theambertrap, twinkiehouseelf | |
| Watched by: | 32: _odella_, alantie_el, alaplante, alberto203, blue_paris, chloe9, deltas_con_lj, drmanifold, ellaselenelupin, esme55, fyrestar1, gray_overcast, hummingfox, jcho, jedipirate, kt_did2000, lezlishae, luminousmarble, mental_thatone, moombassa, phoenix_kirstee, ressdell, rlanto, sevensickles, sheryll, shrimpcaster, silver_reverie, slytherin_echo, spcbrilliant, spoonjosh, stupid_drawings, twinkiehouseelf | |
| Account type: | Basic Account | |
