14 masterpiece buildings in Moscow that are worth seeing, although they are not in guidebooks

2024 Author: Richard Flannagan | [email protected]. Last modified: 2023-12-15 23:55

Moscow is just a storehouse of extraordinary buildings, because “so much is mixed up here”. Alas, tourists who come to Moscow are used to visiting the same attractions. But in Moscow you can find unusually interesting houses, on which great architects worked! And not all of them are widely known. We offer you to get acquainted with some of these masterpieces and simply with unusual buildings that you should definitely see.

Flat house on Taganka

In fact, this house, located at the very beginning of Taganskaya Street, is not flat. It was possible to achieve such a visual effect thanks to an unusual architectural project (the building has a beveled corner), moreover, the house seems flat only if you look at it from a certain angle.

Before the revolution, the building was used as a tenement house. It was built for the merchant Zuev; the architect V. M. Piotrovich, son of the famous architect Mecheslav Piotrovich. In Soviet times, ordinary Muscovites were settled here, as well as in many former tenement houses. The building underwent restoration several years ago.

Tea house on Myasnitskaya

The building of the famous tea merchant Sergei Perlov, who founded the Perlov and Sons company before the revolution, is richly decorated with decorative elements and is stylized as a Chinese pagoda. The house was supposed to impress an important guest from China, but it so happened that the foreigner never had a chance to visit it. But now it is one of the most striking architectural masterpieces. The work was carried out by the outstanding architect Karl Gippius - a master of modernism and eclecticism.

By the way, in this building you can still buy gourmet tea and even tea sets.

House-tower on Yakimanka

The mansion was built by order of the merchant Nikolai Igumnov. The author of the project is the Yaroslavl architect Nikolay Pozdeev. The lavishly decorated house looks like ancient Russian chambers and is incredibly beautiful, but in pre-revolutionary Moscow it was considered vulgar.

According to an old urban legend, in this house Igumnov, in the heat of jealousy, sent his mistress to the next world and walled up her body in one of the walls.

Kekushev's house on Ostozhenka

This Gothic mansion was originally built by the great architect Lev Kekushev for himself. The asymmetrical house is somewhat similar to a medieval castle. It is believed that in this project the Art Nouveau master realized all his ideas and showed all his talent.

According to one version, this mansion became the prototype of the house of Bulgakovskaya Margarita. And the story of the copper lion towering on the roof of the building is also interesting: at the beginning of the last century, it disappeared, and it was recreated in our time - according to the only surviving photograph.

House-sail on Khodynskoe field

The Sail House, which was also called the Snail House and the Ear House, has become the main architectural accent during the modern development of Khodynka. The project is based on two arcs with different radii. The house is divided into several sections, with 24 floors in the highest part. The first floors are occupied by organizations, and the rest are apartments.

The red patch in the building is not a decoration at all. Initially, it was planned to make an empty space here, through which a picturesque view of the Aviation Museum would open, but this decision was considered by investors to be irrational.

"Hidden" house on Tverskaya

The Savvinskoye courtyard on Tverskaya probably has not been seen by many. The thing is that the house is not located on the first line, but "hidden" - moreover, in the literal sense of the word. Initially, the building stood on Tverskaya on the first line, but in the Soviet years, as part of the General Plan for the reconstruction of Moscow, it was decided to erect a Stalin era in its place. Fortunately, they did not demolish the house: it was simply carefully moved fifty meters deep into the street.

The masterpiece of architecture was erected under the leadership of the famous town planner Ivan Kuznetsov in the style of pseudo-Russian architecture, but here you can also see signs of Art Nouveau and Baroque. The facade is decorated with glaze, mosaics and stucco moldings.

Wooden house in Maly Vlasyevsky

This small house with a mezzanine and original plaster decor is one of the “last of the Mohicans”, as there are fewer and fewer old wooden buildings in the capital.

The building was built at the beginning of the 19th century, after the war with Napoleon. It was designed in the Moscow Empire style. Possible authors of the project could be William Geste and Luigi Rusca, since it was they who built up Moscow with houses of this style after the fire in Moscow. By the way, in such houses as this, in those days the representatives of the middle class lived.

Openwork house on Leningradka

The building was built in the Soviet years, and, moreover, this is one of the very first block houses erected in Moscow. The authors of the house with intricate "openwork" facades are architects A. Burov and B. Blokhin.

By the way, this residential building has “lace” not only walls: the window openings are covered with wrought-iron fences.

House-fairy tale in Soymonovsky passage

Pertsova's apartment building (the famous merchant designed the building for his wife) is located at the corner of Soymonovsky Proezd and Prechistenskaya Embankment. It looks like a tower and that is why it is called "House-Fairy Tale". It was built according to a sketch by the artist Sergei Malyutin on the basis of a building already standing here, to which an upper floor was added and extensions were made.

The building combines Art Nouveau and Russian architecture. The authors of the fabulous epic majolica are Stroganov students. Slavic pagan characters are depicted on the walls - for example, the god Yarilo, the Prophetic Bird, the deities Perun and Veles in the form of the Bull and the Bear.

Hive house in Krivoarbatsky lane

The cylindrical building (in fact, it is even two cylinders "embedded" into each other) with windows resembling honeycombs, the architect Konstantin Melnikov, popular in Soviet times, built for himself. Here he lived and worked.

Despite the outward laconicism, many architects consider this building a masterpiece. And the Hive House looks very unusual even in our times - as if Melnikov flew into the future in a time machine and spied this idea there.

Morozov's mansion on Vozdvizhenka

The house was built by the architect Viktor Mazyrin for the merchant Arseny Morozov, whom his contemporaries called the burner of life and who was the cousin of the legendary Savva Morozov.

Arseny loved everything original, so Mazyrin was quite pleased with him, having built this Moorish-Spanish house with signs of both Art Nouveau and eclecticism. It is known that the mother of the reckless millionaire, the "iron lady" Varvara Morozova, seeing what kind of house her son had built, exclaimed: "Before, I alone knew that you were a fool, but now the whole city will know about it."

House-egg on Mashkova street

This spherical brick house with curly legs is a residential one. And it was built at the beginning of the XXI century according to the project of architects Sergei Tkachenko, Oleg Dubrovsky and with the participation of gallery owner Marat Gelman. Initially, they wanted to implement the project in Israel, building a maternity hospital in this form. However, foreign colleagues still abandoned this idea, and as a result, the house was built in Moscow - on a smaller scale than planned.

A ball-shaped house (or even an egg) is attached to an ordinary eight-story building.

House with animals on Chistye Prudy

The façade of the building is decorated with fabulous animals, birds and plants - that's why it was nicknamed "The House with Animals". The author of the terracotta bas-relief sketches is the artist Sergei Vashkov, a student of Vasnetsov and an admirer of Vrubel's work. The house was designed by architect L. Kravetsky and civil engineer P. Mikini.

Initially, the building was built as a tenement house at the Trinity Church in Gryazi (the work was carried out with the money of the church), where one part of the apartments was planned to be given to parishioners in need of housing, and the other - to be rented out. However, a few years after the construction, there was a revolution and the building was nationalized.

Ryabushinsky's house on Malaya Nikitskaya

This famous mansion of the merchant Ryabushinsky was designed by the great architect Fyodor Shekhtel. The building is also called the "House of Maxim Gorky". Why? Read the details in the material about Fantastic house of the merchant Ryabushinsky.