Bolshoy Prospekt P.S., 44, Saint Petersburg, Russia, 197198
The income house of Tatyana Nikolaevna Putilova, or the "House with Owls," is a building on Bolshoy Prospekt of the Petrograd Side in Saint Petersburg, designed in the style of Northern Modernism. It was built in 1906–1907 by order of the merchant widow Tatyana Nikolaevna Putilova. It is one of the main works of architect Ippolit Alexandrovich Pretro (Hyppolit Nikolas Emil Pretreaus).
Pretro was born on December 31, 1871, in Saint Petersburg into the family of a railway employee, French citizen Jean Alexandre Pretro; his mother was Swedish, Josefa Charlotte Grenmark. He was baptized on May 24, 1872, in the Evangelical Lutheran Church of St. Catherine.
In 1912, he was awarded a silver medal at the city competition for the best facades.
The house is one of the most significant examples of Northern Modernism — a direction in Russian Art Nouveau architecture that developed mainly in Saint Petersburg in the early 20th century under the influence of Swedish and especially Finnish National Romantic architecture. It features a sharp silhouette, bay windows of various shapes and sizes, window openings and frames, decorative rough plaster combined with granite cladding, pointed portals, and characteristic "Northern" Modernist owl sculptures.
On the southwest corner there was a now-lost dome.
The house is a huge monolithic block with a courtyard well inside. It is characterized by an impressive silhouette, expressive facade plasticity, windows of various shapes and sizes, and textured plaster. The front facade facing Bolshoy Prospekt is clad with granite stone at the lower part. The plinth is often faced with Finnish granite, mostly roughly processed and in places smoothly hewn, decorated with sculpture. The wall surfaces of the upper floors are covered with textured plaster or facing brick. The decorative elements include ornaments inspired by northern folklore, images of northern flora and fauna. Majolica, colored ceramic tiles, are often used. The building forms are massive, free from petty decoration. Contrasting combinations of textures, color-tonal planes, forms, the variety of window openings, and their combinations with wall piers—all this turns the facades into a truly living northern poem.
In the middle of the facade is a pointed portal decorated with owl sculptures characteristic of Northern Modernism. The southwest corner of the house, visible in the photo, was crowned with a tiled spire, which was later lost.
The merchant widow Putilova, for whom the house was built, owned a haberdashery store on Sredny Prospekt of Vasilievsky Island. The plot was inherited by her in 1905 from the heirs of Captain 1st Rank Gering. Soon after construction, the house passed to the "Provodnik" partnership for the production of rubber tires; one of the partnership's stores was located in the house. Additionally, before the revolution, the house housed a branch of the Russian Trade and Industrial Bank, as well as Orfenova's shorthand courses. The last owner of the house was Commercial Counselor Balabanov, chairman of the board of the Northern Glass-Industrial Society. The architect Pretro was repressed and executed in the USSR on December 20, 1937.
From pre-war years until the 1990s, the house housed a well-known city commission store. Later, various offices and shops were located in the building, including several furniture salons.
In 2011–2012, wall repairs and restoration of the front facade were carried out; lost elements of the stone cladding decoration were recreated using historical materials. The stone was brought from quarries still in operation (slate from the "Pirttipohja" quarry in Karelia, rapakivi granite from a quarry near Jõelähtme in the Finnish province of South Karelia). The plaster of walls and architectural details was renewed, balconies and bay windows were repaired, with special attention to the openwork metal railings. Lost majolica inserts on the facade were restored, and the owl sculptures were refreshed. Finally, based on iconographic materials, restorer Pavel Ignatyev recreated the previously lost eagle sculpture on the corner bay window of the house.
During Soviet times, the surgeon I.I. Dzanelidze lived in this very house. He is known for his works on traumatology, heart surgery, plastic and emergency surgery. I.I. Dzanelidze was the founder and scientific director of the Emergency Care Institute.
Sources:
https://www.citywalls.ru/house5213.html
https://ru.wikipedia.org/wiki/Доходный_дом_Т._Н._Путиловой
https://xn--c1acndtdamdoc1ib.xn--p1ai/kuda-shodit/mesta/dom-t-n-putilovoy/
https://babs71.livejournal.com/538956.html
