Description of the attraction
At the corner of Nevsky Prospekt and the Griboyedov Canal there is a building that is immediately recognizable by everyone who has seen it at least once. This is the home of the Singer company, better known as the House of Books.
This is a six-storey building with an attic, built in the Art Nouveau style by the architect Pavel Suzor in 1902-1904 by order of the "Singer Joint Stock Company in Russia". The total area of the building is about seven thousand square meters. In terms of technical performance, purpose and style, it was innovative for that time.
Initially, the management of the Singer company intended to erect a skyscraper (a multi-storey building with numerous offices), similar to the one that was being built by the company in New York at that time. However, according to architectural regulations, it was then forbidden in the center of St. Petersburg to build houses higher than 23.5 meters to the eaves of the building, that is, higher than the Winter Palace. Pavel Suzor cleverly avoided this instruction: six floors with an attic are crowned by an elegant tower, decorated with a glass globe, almost 3 meters in diameter. This tower, directed upwards and dominating over the rest of the roofs, creates the impression of a height, but, most importantly, does not overshadow the domes of the nearby Church of the Savior on Spilled Blood and the Kazan Cathedral.
For the first time in Russia, during the construction of this building, metal frames were used, which made it possible to make huge display windows, and inner courtyards-atriums covered with a glass roof. The downpipes were built into the building and were not visible from the outside, which was also a novelty. The building was equipped with the most advanced building technologies of the time, from elevators to automatic snow removal from the roof.
The flowing, "organic" lines of the building's decoration were complemented by vegetal, wrought bronze, ornaments of the interiors. The sculptures by A. L. Aubert and A. G. Adamson installed on the facade symbolized progress and the clothing industry as the main profile of the Singer company. The building is one of the most striking examples of Art Nouveau.
After the revolution, the building housed publishing houses and a book trade, and from 1938 to this day, one of the most famous bookstores in Russia, the House of Books, is located here.
