The profitable house of Lidvall

The address: 1 – 3, Kamennoostrovsky Prospect

Photo:

Gallery

The Location on the map of the city:

The History of the house:

On 28 September, 1898 the land between Malaya Posadskaya Street and Kronverkski Prospect was bought by Ida Baltazarovna Lidvall, the mother of the architect Fyodor Lidvall.

On 14 April, 1899 St. Petersburg Board gave permission to build the house, and on 24 April, 1899 F. Lidvall began to construct the house from the side of Malaya Posadskaya Street. Till 1915 the owner of the house Ida Baltazarovna Lidvall lived in a nine-room apartment №18. Her sons Edward Lidval and Fyodor Lidval lived in apartments №21 and №23. At that time in the house also lived: a merchant, an architect, a collegiate adviser, a family of British citizens, a family of Prince Radzivill, a General-aide-de-camp Kuropatkin’s family. The apartments in the house cost from 75 up to 9000 roubles a month.

The Architectural portrait of the house:

It is a classical sample of the "northern" modernist style. It was considered, that in "northern" modernist style only local materials could be used. The building is decorated with images of flora and fauna of the northern region: a pine branch with fir cones, a forest bird, a hare, a lynx, an owl, an eagle owl. On the lattices balcony there are huge forged spiders in sunflowers. On its perimeter the house has a socle made from the slobs of red Finnish granite. The half-open court yard of the building - kurdoner - unites several different-storied buildings. This house contains rich and beautiful apartments. Lidvall’s house is a full contrast to dark court yards-wells with narrow and dirty apartments, which F. M. Dostoevsky described.

The Internal furniture of the house:

The floors are mosaic, parquet, with ornament; the walls and ceilings are wooden – with oak and birch decors; the stoves are Dutch and Russian, there are marble fireplaces; French faience washstands; a mosaic picture on the marble front ladder. Entrances of apartments were served by door-keepers and yard keepers kept order in the yard.

People who lived in the house at the beginning of XXth century:

B.A.Kaminka – a chairman of the board of the Azovsko-Donskoi Commercial Bank

A.R.Gavemvn - an architect, the author of the private residence of K.A.Gorchakov

A.I.Gorbov - a professor, a chemist, a pupil of A. M. Butlerov

K.S.Petrov-Vodkin - a painter

M. Juriev - a national actor of the USSR, the actor of Aleksandrinski Theatre

E.K.Grube – a chairman of the board of the Siberian Trading Bank

The after- revolutionary life of the house and its lodgers:

After the events of 1917 there were changes in the house. Many apartments became communal. Some people could stay in their apartments, but a lot of people were moved. Lodgers couldn’t return their things and furniture.

Also there were firms and children's homes. In the house the Petrograd sea counterespionage department organized in 1916 was in apartment №38 till 1917. In 1920th in of Lidvall’s house there was a Tatar labour school number 11 of national minorities and two children's homes №216 and №188.

The after-revolutionary history of the house is also connected with the names of many well-known people. Many of them lived in the house:

A.I.Terenin - a physicist, a chemist, an academician, a professor of the University.

M. Freidkov - a soloist of Mariinsky Theatre.

V.M. Bogdanov-Berezovski - a composer and a musicologist.

A. M. Abezgauz - a pediatrist, a doctor of medicine.

The house today:

As we see, the building is good state. And as before this house is an elite apartment house. Rich people live here and there are offices of well-known juridical and insurance firms. Today's tenants of the house try to keep the monument of architecture. Feodor Lidvall’s daughter Ingrid came to Petersburg in 1979. Students of the Academy of Arts made enthusiastic reception for her. She examined the constructions of her father. She also visited the house on 1–3, Kamennoostrovsky Prospect.