Khersonskaya St., 13, Saint Petersburg, Russia, 191024
The massive yet compact volume of the residential building resembles a castle. Its walls seem designed to serve as a fortress, protecting the family peace of the residents from the hustle and bustle of the city. Schmidt returned to the image of the "house-fortress" more than once. His own three-story summer house in Pavlovsk was surrounded by a moat with a drawbridge. In the tenement house of König, which Schmidt built a decade later, this image becomes even more intense, acquiring gloomy features, as if the architect foresaw the upcoming revolution that put an end to the former "petty-bourgeois" ideas of family life. This mood is also traced in the earlier tenement house on Khersonskaya Street.
The first floor, with wide shop windows, is faced with tiles. An old photograph shows that the other plastered floors were much lighter than the first. Now the building is painted in a single color, which negatively affects its aesthetic qualities.
The corner location of the building is emphasized by a rounded bay window with a tall conical top. Around the shop windows on the first floor, in the upper parts of the walls and gables, there are flowers unseen in nature with square corollas. Metal elements are widely used in the facade decoration: railings of the first-floor windows and the entrance windows, flag holders. The stucco decoration adorning the upper and lower floors reveals symbolism of family and home. An owl under the corner bay window symbolizes wisdom as well as longevity; thistle, whose leaves entwine the building’s walls, represents marital fidelity. The dome of the bay window somewhat softens the tense severity, almost austerity, of the building. It resembles a nightcap (which can also be attributed to the symbols of the "family hearth") and a Gothic spire, giving the building a resemblance to a castle and hinting at the German owner. A mascaron under one of the bay windows seems to "peek" out of a keyhole, guarding the building from uninvited guests. Together with the spire, this is another comic symbol, since the mascaron-keyhole is located above one of the windows, serving as a keystone. There is a pun: keyhole — keystone. The word "castle" can also be added to this series.
Humor, even irony, in the building’s symbolism combines with the architect’s heightened interest in its functional part. The first floor, faced with durable tiles, has survived to this day almost in its original form. The architect gave the carefully thought-out building a calm, unobtrusive appearance. Its primary task was not to attract random passersby but to create a cozy and reliable home.
B. M. Kirikov considers this building a "harbinger" of northern Art Nouveau, drawing attention to the "asymmetrical combination of gables with rounded conical bay windows," images of owls, squirrels, and lizards, small windows in the gables, and so on.
The corner location of the building is emphasized by a rounded bay window with a tall conical top. Under the bay window, an owl spreads its wings among the thistle leaves. Around the shop windows on the first floor, in the upper parts of the walls and gables, there are flowers unseen in nature with square corollas. Metal elements are widely used in the facade decoration: railings of the first-floor windows and the entrance windows, flag holders.
One of the apartments in the building was occupied by the architect’s family. Schmidt was related to the Fabergé family; the building of the jewelry firm "K. Fabergé" at 24 Bolshaya Morskaya was built according to his design. Apparently, this explains why Herbert von Mikvitz, the firm’s trusted representative, rented one of the apartments in this building.
From 1903 to 1913, the first floor housed the famous Trading House "S. M. Lindner," which sold finishing and building materials of foreign production.
From 1996 to 2005, the building housed the famous rock club "Moloko."
Sources:
https://dic.academic.ru/dic.nsf/ruwiki/1486320
https://ru.wikipedia.org/wiki/Доходный_дом_К._К._Шмидта
https://www.citywalls.ru/house1116.html
