The Petersburg Town Hall, established in the 1710s by Peter I as an organ for managing the merchant class and trade life, was originally located on Trinity Square.
In 1740, the Petersburg merchants appealed to Empress Anna Ioannovna with a request to allow the construction of a stone town hall on a plot previously owned by Secretary Khrushchev. In 1752, even before the completion of the town hall's construction, the merchants requested the adjacent plot to build a stone guild house and a stone block with 12 shops, and in the early 1760s, the neighboring territory intended for a house of correction and an orphan school.
On May 14, 1752, the Main Police decided to allocate a place on Nevsky Prospect near the wooden Gostiny Dvor "to the Petersburg merchants for the construction of a guild house." The name of the architect of the guild house, the predecessor of the Duma building, is not mentioned in specialized literature. However, the "Reports of the Petersburg City Duma" from 1903 state that on this site "architect Yakov Gezel erected, besides the stone guild public house and the previously built stone town hall, a stone block with 12 shops... and the Silver Row with 14 shops." It can be understood that this Gezel built the guild house as well as the first Silver Rows. The guild house was built in 1752–1754. It hosted meetings of the "city elders" elected by the merchants.
The wooden shops of merchants trading silver products, the "Silver Rows," burned down in 1783. From 1784 to 1787, architect Giacomo Quarenghi erected the stone building of the "Silver Rows," which still survives today, featuring an open arcade on the lower floor.
In 1785, Catherine II introduced the Charter to the Towns in the Russian Empire, prescribing that city councils must provide residents with necessary subsistence aid, protect the city from quarrels and disputes with other settlements, and "prohibit everything contrary to good order and public peace." From 1786, the Petersburg City Duma was housed alongside the public merchant administration in the Public Guild House building.
In 1799, Paul I issued a decree transferring the guild house to city administration to establish a "Rathaus," as the city self-government body was then called in German. Soon after, a new order followed: the guild house was too small for the Rathaus and needed to be expanded, but no new building was to be erected. Paul I ordered the construction of a signal tower on the roof of the building, on the side facing Nevsky Prospect — with a view "befitting the splendor of the capital." By imperial order, architect Yakov Ferrari developed a project for a five-tier structure in the form of a Tuscan campanile.
Construction began in autumn 1799 and was completed in 1804. The construction was supervised by the Italian architect and decorative artist Giacomo Ferrari. Known in Russia as Yakov Yakovlevich, he had worked in Parma in his youth and was invited to Russia in the 1790s through the patronage of Giacomo Quarenghi. Together with his patron, he worked on the Alexander Palace in Tsarskoye Selo, and since Quarenghi built the new Silver Rows building, he entrusted the project and construction of the Rathaus tower to his compatriot. At the corner of Nevsky Prospect, after dismantling part of the building, a five-tier tower was erected, as prescribed by the emperor, "appropriate for this building." Construction was completed during the reign of Alexander I. The new City Duma building externally echoed the Silver Rows. Thus, the tower, located between the Duma building (now on Dumskaya Street) and the Silver Trading Rows (on Nevsky Prospect), became the center of a symmetrical composition.
In 1846, Nicholas I initiated a large-scale reform of city governance. Corresponding to the new tasks, the building needed to be rebuilt. The City Duma building originally externally resembled the Silver Rows but, after multiple reconstructions, completely lost its original appearance. The three-story building constructed between 1847 and 1852, designed by architect Efimov, was styled in Italian Neo-Renaissance with characteristic Venetian windows. This style is marked by restraint and calm architectural decoration, which was considered at the time to best suit the social function of administrative buildings. The reconstruction project was executed in 1847 by architect Efimov. His task was to create several large halls for general meetings of deputies within the building. At the same time, he had to modernize the building's facade, which by then seemed outdated. At that time, he was also working on two other administrative projects — the Ministry of State Property building and the minister's house, both on Isaakievskaya Square. All three buildings were designed in the Italian Renaissance style, and for the building on Dumskaya Street, this motif retrospectively justified Ferrari's Tuscan tower. Efimov increased the building's height, changed the shapes of the window openings, and added a fourth floor above the central part. The tower's facades were not altered. Thus, the symmetry of the composition, centered on the tower, was broken. The decoration of two large two-story halls and the grand staircase with granite columns was also done by Efimov in Renaissance forms. After Efimov's death, the work was completed in 1852 by architect Bonstedt.
On May 12, 1867, a concert was held in the City Duma building in honor of delegates arriving for the opening of the All-Slavic Ethnographic Expedition. The orchestra conducted by Balakirev performed Glinka's "Kamarinskaya," scenes from Stanisław Moniuszko's opera "Halka," Rimsky-Korsakov's "Silver Fantasy," and other works by Slavic composers.
In 1913–1914, Alexander Könel, an architect of Petersburg Art Nouveau and son of Vasily Könel, the author of the Chinizelli Circus building, added the fourth and fifth floors to the Duma. It is said that Petersburgers disapproved of the changes, and outraged articles appeared in the press. According to legend, Könel was deeply upset for a long time. When he died, rumors spread that the architect walked around the Duma tower sighing, "What don't you like here?"
During the Soviet era, a major renovation was required. The decision to repair was made by the Executive Committee of the Leningrad Soviet in 1974, aiming to restore the building by 1980. But the repair dragged on. As a result, the building stood for a long time unheated and unguarded. Vandals broke cast iron railings, smashed mirrors, tore off doors, sawed through the metal beam on which the bell hung. After the railway ticket offices moved out, two bronze chandeliers disappeared, as did the inventories of the Duma's interior furnishings.
In 1986, the fifth floor of the building was dismantled. In 1993, the metal structure atop the tower was replaced. In 1995, the main entrance porch was dismantled.
Since 1998, Sberbank has been conducting large-scale repairs of the building. The foundation was reinforced, and floor-by-floor repairs of the premises began. On May 27, 2005, the City Duma building was reopened after restoration. By that day, the repair of the main entrance porch facing Nevsky Prospect, comprehensive restoration of the tower and facades, and repair of the famous "Friedrich Winter" clock were completed.
It is assumed that the tower built by Ferrari originally had a clock, but what kind is unknown. They lasted about 80 years. In 1870, correspondence took place between St. Petersburg Governor Trepov and the city government about them. Trepov proposed organizing night illumination of the tower clock. Until then, there was nothing like this in Petersburg. Deputies sent an inquiry to the telegraph office about the cost of a galvanic apparatus, but the issue was only resolved in the mid-1880s.
In 1882, after inspecting the clock mechanism, specialists concluded that it had long been broken "due to complete wear." The city administration decided to allocate 3,570 rubles for a new mechanism with two metal and two frosted glass dials, illuminated at night. In June 1883, an agreement was signed with clockmaker Winter to install these clocks. Payment was only to be made after all work was completed. If Winter's clocks lagged more than two minutes per month, he would be fined. He was obliged to wind the mechanism for 50 rubles per year. The clock struck four times an hour.
For the first time in many years, the clock fell silent in the summer of 1986 when a drunken "visitor" entered the Duma tower and unscrewed a nut from the clock mechanism. Newspapers of the time called this the "clinical death of the main clock of the main Leningrad avenue." The part was soon returned. But two years later, several gears and the counting wheel were stolen from the mechanism, and the "voice of Nevsky" fell silent again.
The clock was repaired several times. In 1967, restorers from the "Lenremchas" department replaced many parts in three months and cleaned three bells from deposits. They were also repaired in 1989. In 1994, the "Antique Clocks" workshop and restorers from Liteyny 59 carried out another repair, after which the clock's deviation was no more than 30 seconds per week.
Winter's mechanism finally became unusable in 2007. After that, the clock was converted to electric drive, and the mechanism was conserved until restoration work began. At 6:00 p.m. on November 12, 2014 (the 173rd "birthday" of Sberbank, which financed the restoration), the mechanism was restarted with chimes every quarter hour.
The Duma tower was originally built as a functional structure — a signal tower in case of fire. Ten firefighters were constantly on duty inside the tower. In 1835, architect Beretti constructed a structure for raising signal balls. For this, an additional wooden tier and an openwork metal structure were built. The balls signaled the location and strength of a fire; if necessary, townspeople were warned of floods. This device proved unsuccessful and was replaced in the 1840s by a new one made at Berd's factory.
In 1839, the Duma tower became one of the links in the world's longest (1,200 km) optical telegraph line Petersburg–Warsaw. The telegraph connected the Winter Palace with Tsarskoye Selo, Kronstadt, Gatchina, as well as Vilnius and Warsaw. There were 149 stations on the line. Messages for transmission were received here from the "house" on the Winter Palace roof and transmitted using mirrors to the roof of the Technological Institute. From a similar tower of the Winter Palace, signals were sent using a special T-shaped frame rotating around its axes. Telegraph operators at the next tower repeated the same signals for further observers. In good weather, a message reached from Petersburg to Warsaw through 149 intermediate stations in 15 minutes. For night signal transmission, the frame had lanterns at the ends. In 1854, this communication was deemed inconvenient and replaced by the electric telegraph.
From the 1850s to the 1920s, the tower was used as a fire watchtower.
In the Duma's general assembly hall (Alexander Hall) in 1862, public lectures of the "Free University" were held with participation from Sechenov, Mendeleev, Beketov, Kostomarov. Concerts of the Russian Musical Society, created on Rubinstein's initiative, and the free music school founded by Balakirev and Lomakin took place here; works by composers Balakirev, Mussorgsky, Rimsky-Korsakov were performed for the first time. Literary evenings featured Dostoevsky, Blok, Yesenin.
On the night of October 26, 1917, the "Committee for the Salvation of the Motherland and the Revolution" was formed in the Alexander Hall. It included members of the Duma and was headed by the Socialist Revolutionary Shreider. In December 1917, the II All-Russian Congress of Soviets of Peasant Deputies was held in the Duma building, where Lenin spoke about the significance of the socialist revolution and the essence of Soviet power.
By decree of the Council of People's Commissars on November 16, 1917, the city duma was dissolved. The Bolsheviks won the elections for the new duma. The city administration was transformed into the Commissariat of Urban Economy of the Petrograd Labor Commune, headed by Kalinin until 1919. On September 21, 1918, the Commissariat decided to resettle workers from the outskirts into bourgeois apartments. The Central Commission for the Requisition of Premises, operating in the Duma building, relocated over 300,000 working-class families to apartments in the city's central districts, turning them into communal apartments.
After the October Revolution, the city administration remained for some time on Dumskaya Street but gradually moved to Smolny. Later, the building housed the Experimental Theater (1920s), the Academy of Consumer Cooperation (1930s), a public catering technical school, and the Central Railway Ticket Offices.
Over the years following the city administration's relocation, much of the building's historic interiors were lost, with the exception of the relatively well-preserved Nikolaevsky and Mirror Halls, where the Children's Philharmonic was once located for some time.
Currently, the City Duma building with its tower is a complex of buildings at the corner of Dumskaya Street and Nevsky Prospect in Saint Petersburg, a federal architectural monument. It consists of the City Duma building facing Dumskaya Street and the City Duma tower located at the corner. The entire complex is often referred to as the City Duma building. The tower, part of the complex, is one of the dominant features of Nevsky Prospect and is sometimes considered separately from the Duma building. Sometimes the Duma building and tower are viewed as an ensemble with the adjacent Silver Rows building, which faces Nevsky Prospect. The tower's height is about 47.5 meters.
The City Duma tower, placed at the widening of Nevsky Prospect near Gostiny Dvor, is visible from significant distances and occupies an important place in the historically formed ensemble of the city's central thoroughfare. The verticality of the City Duma tower, the portico of the Perinnaya Line, and the monumental building of Gostiny Dvor create an architectural accent defining the appearance of Nevsky Prospect in its central part.
The tower has been preserved in its original form. Similar towers were characteristic features of European town halls. The peculiarity of Giacomo Ferrari's multi-tiered tower was that it rose not above the building itself but on the side, at the corner of the block. Thanks to its placement on the red line, the tower became the most active vertical accent in the perspective of the middle part of the prospect. The structure has an unusual pentagonal shape. Each tier is treated with pilasters at the corners. The motif of upward movement is emphasized by the increased height of the upper tier, on which the clock is installed. The open granite staircase with diverging flights is original. The additional wooden tier and openwork metal structure for raising signal balls, built in the 1830s–1840s, somewhat distorted the original monumental appearance of the structure but added a distinctive touch to the historical panorama of the prospect.
Currently, the building houses the Rimsky-Korsakov Music School, the Petersburg Institute, and since 1998 — the Northwestern and Saint Petersburg branches of Sberbank of Russia (with an address on Dumskaya Street), as well as the directorate of the State Museum-Preserve "St. Isaac's Cathedral" in the Duma tower. In July 2016, part of Sberbank's premises, including the restored Alexander Hall, were transferred to the management of the State Museum-Preserve "St. Isaac's Cathedral" to organize a cultural and concert complex, which will host the former choir of the Smolny Cathedral after the cathedral's transfer to the Russian Orthodox Church.
Since December 2007, the City Duma tower has been decorated with illumination for the New Year. In 2008, musical accompaniment was added to the illumination.
In 2021, an observation deck opened in the City Duma tower, allowing visitors to see Nevsky Prospect and adjacent streets from a height of 47.5 meters.
Sources:
https://ru.wikipedia.org/wiki/Здание_городской_думы_(Санкт-Петербург)
http://www.hellopiter.ru/Municipal_duma_building.html
https://www.citywalls.ru/house1800.html
