By order of the wealthy furniture manufacturer Matti Pietinen, in 1907–1908 the architectural bureau "Bertel Jung and Bomanson" built a building opposite the Vyborg railway station that embodied the Finnish national romantic movement. The well-known architect Armas Lindgren, one of the founders of Finnish national romanticism, was invited to design the facades of the building, which had significant urban-forming importance. This house became his only work in Vyborg.

The building acquired its original appearance thanks to the impressive two-story corner tower combined with a picturesque arrangement of balconies and bay windows, a well-chosen shape and rhythm of window openings, as well as a contrasting combination of material textures with the coloring of cladding elements.

The Pietinen House became the main dominant in the railway station area and made a great impression on the city’s guests with its size and monumentality. The facade decorations, inspired by the author by the theme of the Karelian-Finnish epic "Kalevala," amazed with the originality of the idea and the craftsmanship of execution. Large windows of the first-floor rooms, intended for commercial purposes, were divided by pilasters topped with granite mascarons showing a variety of expressions, from a smirk to a snarl. The central arch of the main entrance, clad in granite, was decorated with three bas-reliefs in the form of lion heads.

The Pietinen House gained fame not only because of its facade decor: it became one of the first buildings in Vyborg equipped with elevators and hot water supply. Citizens called it the "palace." For a long time, the two-story tower with large windows displayed the letters KOP — a sign visible from afar of the branch of the National Joint-Stock Bank (Kansallis-Osake-Pankki) located in the building. Among other institutions housed in the building in the 1930s was the Soviet consulate.

The facade of the "Pietinen Palace," harmonizing with the greenery of the Triangular Square, fit well into the development of the Station Square, surrounded by houses with richly decorated facades.

However, during the Soviet-Finnish wars (1939–1944), most of these buildings were destroyed; the Pietinen House also suffered significant damage, losing its interiors, the tall corner tower, the original roof, and part of the bay windows.

During the post-war renovation carried out in the 1950s, at a time strongly influenced by the famous decree "On the elimination of excesses in design and construction," the building’s elegant exterior appearance was lost, as was the expressiveness of its silhouette, distorted by changes to the roof shape and the replacement of the corner tower with a triangular pediment. The 2018 renovation of the building did not include restoration of the lost elements.

The Pietinen House became a source of inspiration for the well-known capital architect A. L. Lishnevsky, who built the A. L. Sagalov tenement house in St. Petersburg in 1913 (Ligovsky Prospect, house No. 91), where researchers note similarities in techniques: in particular, the silhouette and decorative elements (bas-reliefs in the form of lion heads, mascarons, etc.). Notably, the St. Petersburg "house with lion heads" has also lost its corner tower to date, although many facade decorations have been well preserved.

Sources:

https://ru.wikipedia.org/wiki/Дом_Пиетинена