Singer House
The singer- house or House of Books (in Russian Дом компании « Зингер " Дом книги ) is an Art Nouveau building from 1904 in Saint Petersburg ( Russia). The seven house whose two lower floors house the largest bookshop in the city since the 1920s, is on the north side of the Nevsky Prospect ( number 28 /21) just to the left of the Kazan Bridge over the Griboyedov Canal.
The first house on this plot, an early neoclassical residential and commercial buildings, was built in the 1770s and learned over the course of the 19th century, several modifications. Beginning of the 20th century, the house was demolished to make its place in the order of the U.S. sewing machine manufacturer The Singer Company (whose production already in the Russian Empire came to high demand ) erect a building of permanent Representative Office in the former Russian capital. With the execution was commissioned the renowned St. Petersburg Art Nouveau architect Pawel Sjusor, according to the draft of 1902, the construction began and finally in 1904 was the completion of the company building.
Originally the company Singer intended for its headquarters at Griboyedov Canal the construction of an eight- story tower, modeled after the New York skyscraper architecture of that time, which would have been the beginning of the 20th century for the whole of Russia is an absolute novelty. As it was, however, banned in St. Petersburg at that time, to build houses, the amount of which exceeded the width of the road in their area, they gave a seven-story building in order, which nonetheless amid the predominantly neoclassical buildings of this part of the St. Petersburg downtown looked very original and continues to the present. Apart from a number of elements in Russia at that time very fashionable gewesenen Jugendstil Sjusor gave the house a distinct touch of traditional North American architecture. The latter comes among other things, some of the innovative for its time solutions in facade design expression - such as by steel structures, their use allowed, window frames over conventional buildings to enlarge and to give the facade so that a relatively " glassy " appearance. However, the architectural highlight of the building, the striking roof structure directly dar. on the facade corner This design consists of a decorative dome-like towers of steel and glass, which is on top of a completed sculpture composition with a turn glassy globe of 280 centimeters in diameter. The entire roof composition was illuminated from inside and has the shape of a crown when viewing on outward. The sculptures along the facade at the level of the fifth and sixth floor originally provided - as well as the roof composition - a kind of outdoor advertising of the sewing machine manufacturer is by their motives to technical progress, the textile industry and the maritime theme. As the author of these sculptures sculptor Amandus Adamson acted Estonian. No less originally designed to the interior of the building, both in many ways asked technical innovations with atriums, elevators and original parade stairs and also stand for a distinctive example of early Art Nouveau.
Until some time after the October Revolution, resided in the house next to the Singer Company Singer a private bank, several trading posts, and at times even the U.S. consulate. 1922 Singer had to evacuate the building now nationalized, since the house was used for decades among others, as the seat of several book publishers. In parallel, a bookstore was operated on the ground floor, which was moved there in December 1919. Later, this bookstore was known as the house of the book and became the largest of its kind in Leningrad popularity. In the 2000s, the entire building was completely overhauled both from outside and from within. To various companies settled (including VK.com ) in the place of the earlier book publishers; the bookstore was renewed, spatially extended assortment as well as standard and opened in November 2006 its doors again.