The Palace of Twelve-Pointed Stars

Baudelaire described the flaneur as a kind of kaleidoscope gifted with consciousness, “the multiplicity and the flickering grace of all the elements of life.” Indeed, that handheld contrivance of colors and reflections is a portentous marvel verging on genius, but still amiably modest, nonchalantly creating wondrous geometries. A flaneur and a kaleidoscope both delight in chance, flowing through fleeting, ephemeral symmetries without pausing to contemplate their perfection. Yet neither kaleidoscope nor flaneur would dream of begrudging the gift of their variegated visions, modest in their intuitive genius. If architecture has been described as frozen music, then the Palace of Italian Institutions in Tangier appears as a crystallized repertoire of kaleidoscopic, geometric refrains, an uncommon instance of authentic Orientalism, commissioned by Sultan Mūlāy ’Abd al-Ḥafīz (who sadly was never able to take up residence there.) Its fractal visual symphony is captured in this article through the lens of Massimo Listri – his camera yet another kaleidoscopic tunnel of symmetries – and Marco Riccòmini’s text.