How a building with bats and owls appeared in St. Petersburg, and what is it famous for

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

The house of city institutions on Sadovaya Street in St. Petersburg is simply a masterpiece. It is even difficult to attribute it to any one style. There are elements of Gothic, Art Nouveau, and medieval architecture. This amazing building is decorated with bats, griffins and other characters from the world of darkness, but the giant owls are especially striking, for which the building was nicknamed “The House with Owls”. However, despite the "otherworldly" motives, the house does not look gloomy at all, but elegant and even solid. It remains only to marvel at the talent, imagination and taste of the architect.

This famous house was built in 1904-1906 on the site of two old buildings. One of them (house 55 on Sadovaya Street) already belonged to the city, and the second (house 57 at the corner of Sadovaya), the owners who inherited it from Colonel Shabishev, sold the City Council on their own initiative. As a result, the city authorities decided to build a large building on the territory uniting the two sites, which could accommodate several institutions at once.

The house was built by the architect Alexander Lishnevsky. An interesting detail: before the construction of the building, a competition for the best project was announced, and, according to the results published by the authoritative magazine "Zodchiy", the project of another talented architect, Alexander Dmitriev, won. However, the city authorities nevertheless decided to implement Lishnevsky's idea. This was due to the fact that the house designed by Dmitriev exceeded the height of 11 fathoms allowed for the construction of buildings in St. Petersburg. But if the height were reduced, other parameters would have to be reduced, and the building conceived by Dmitriev would lose its scale. However, the choice of Lishnevsky's project turned out to be very successful, and immediately after the construction the house was noted by many experts as one of the best architectural ideas of the early 20th century implemented in St. Petersburg.

The style of the building is a symbiosis of Gothic, Art Nouveau, Eclecticism and German Renaissance. The molded decorative elements were made by the workshops of N. I. Egorova and I. V. Zhilkin. Griffins, chimeras, owls and other interesting animals and mystical creatures amaze with their sophistication and originality of stylization.

The turrets, the Corinthian portico with columns and a triangular pediment, gables, bay windows and windows in the style of which can be guessed of Art Nouveau are incredibly interesting.

As of 1913, the House of City Institutions housed the Department of Statistics of the City Council, the City Commission on Charity, the Commission on Public Education, a printing house and many other organizations. The Museum of Old Petersburg soon appeared here, initiated by the Society of Architects and Artists. More than two dozen shops were located on the first floor. There were also residential apartments in which officials moved in.

After the revolution, this pompous building also housed institutions. Here, for example, there was a unified labor school, an evening school and even a district party committee and the executive committee of the district council of people's deputies.

Since the 1990s, the building was restored several times, however, in 2006-2007 it was recognized by experts as emergency, after which another major restoration took place in it for two years.

By the way, during the restoration of the magnificent clock on the corner tower, it turned out that most of both the external and internal elements (including the clockwork) were practically destroyed. Therefore, the watch had to be removed, and it was restored separately, making some parts from scratch. The old mechanism was replaced with an electronic one. To determine what the original look of the watch was (over the decades, its appearance has changed beyond recognition), experts studied archival documents and photos.

And in 2009, the figures of three owls were restored, which can be seen on the tongs of the facades of the building. They were again restored from an old photograph, and the size of the surviving photograph was quite small - 10 by 15 cm. As the restorers note, the work was incredibly difficult and meticulous.

But the sculptures "Labor" and "Freedom", which were originally located in the niches of the building, are forever lost.

Now the building houses the district department of social protection, sites of justices of the peace, a multifunctional center of public services and other state institutions, as well as the editorial office and office of one of the political parties.

There are so many architectural masterpieces in the city on the Neva that you cannot count. We suggest taking note of more 12 buildings in St. Petersburg that are worth seeing although they are not in the guidebooks.