The building appeared on the corner of Sadovaya Street and Voznesensky Prospect in 1904-1906, becoming A.L. Lishnevsky’s first project in St. Petersburg. For this work, the architect was awarded a prize in 1907 at the city facade competition.
https://reveal.world/story/dom-gorodskih-uchrezhdenij-gorodskoj-dom.
Here you can see orcs, goblins, ghouls, and monstrous owls as tall as a human being; the facade and interiors of the building are richly decorated with Lishnevsky’s fantasy of fairy-tale monsters.
Almost all the sculptures have safely survived the difficult 20th century. Although there are losses here too: for example, the coats of arms of St. Petersburg with double-headed eagles holding the imperial scepter were deliberately destroyed during the Soviet era. At least they wisely decided not to replace them with Soviet symbols.
Unfortunately, the sculptures “Freedom” and “Labor” were lost during the Soviet period. They stood in two niches of the corner tower of the building, which are now empty.
In 2009, three owl figures located on the gables of the facades were restored. The sculptures were recreated based on photographs, modeled, formed, manufactured, and installed (along with architectural thistle elements) by the architectural-art workshop PANTEON. The owls were directly restored by Pavel Ignatyev and Denis Prasolov. The huge owls (actually eagle-owls — with “ear tufts”) made of artificial stone now once again look menacingly at passersby from the very ridges of the complex broken roof of the building. Interestingly, the dimensions of each owl correspond to the anthropological data of a fairly tall man: 180 cm — height, over 80 kg — weight.
When cultural historians write about the House of City Institutions, they usually explain the presence of owls by their symbolism: the owl is Athena’s companion and a symbol of wisdom. Supposedly, let the civil servants in the building be wise as well.
Lishnevsky’s descendants recall that he called his buildings his children (even though he had six actual children). And in 1917, when his relatives talked about emigrating, he remarked: “I can’t take my buildings with me!” And he stayed. And left us all his dear trolls, goblins, ghouls, and giant owls.
You can read more about this building here: https://reveal.world/story/sovy-lishnevskogo-dom-gorodskih-uchrezhdenij
Sources:
https://kudago.com/spb/list/peterburgskie-doma-s-sovami/
https://www.citywalls.ru/house1406.html
https://luna-info.ru/discourse/dgu/
