Dacha Gauswald, St. Petersburg: description, history and interesting facts

2024 Author: Henry Conors | [email protected]. Last modified: 2024-02-12 02:47

This unusual mansion is well known to residents of St. Petersburg and guests of the Northern capital. The Gauswald dacha on Kamenny Island is different from all the surrounding buildings. This house, reminiscent of a caramel toy, is surprisingly bright and even mischievous. Here director I. Maslennikov filmed a popular film about the adventures of the legendary Sherlock Holmes and his assistant and faithful friend Dr. Watson.

Project authors

Dacha Gauswald, whose address is Kamenny Island, Bolshaya Alley, 14, is a rare and original example of wooden architecture in Russia, the first Art Nouveau building not only in St. Petersburg, but also in the country. Many believe that the building resembles a gingerbread house. And it is no coincidence. Young architects Vasily Shene and Vladimir Chagin built it for E. K. Gausvald, the wife of a well-known bakery master in St. Petersburg.

B. I. Chagin received an academic education. Dacha Gauswald is not the first work of the famous architect. Prior to construction, he was already involved in major projects. It is noteworthy that after the 1917 revolution, Chagin did not leavecountry, and began to engage in the restoration and reconstruction of many monuments of history and architecture of St. Petersburg. Buildings in the Art Nouveau style Vladimir Ivanovich began to build one of the first in St. Petersburg. Most of the master's works were created in collaboration with V. I. Shenet.

A little information has been preserved about Vasily Ivanovich. He had his own mansion with a small park on Krestovsky Island. In 1916 it was confiscated for debts. Even the date of death is not exactly known: sources, as a rule, are limited to the phrase "after 1935". Nevertheless, Schöne's works have been preserved: four dachas located on Kamenny Island, among them his own, which was never completed, the Kelkh mansion, which can be seen on Tchaikovsky Street, 28, N. V. Tchaikovsky's house on Nevsky, 67, as well as several tenement houses located in the historical center of St. Petersburg.

For young architects, the Gauswald dacha became a real test, which they passed with honor: they approached the matter creatively, rejecting all stereotypes. They emphasized the expressiveness of geometric shapes - a cylinder, a cube and a cone, combining these elements.

Stone Island

Even during the construction of the mansion, Kamenny Ostrov was considered a privileged area of the city, where we althy and famous people lived: the merchant Eliseev, prominent scientists, industrialist Putilov. The history of Stone Island is shrouded in legends and mysteries.

In ancient times, lost sailors saw a huge rock that towered above the water. Landing on the shore, theyexplored the land and decided to give the island the name Stone. Much later, when Nicholas II came to power, the island became very popular with the elite - in just a few years it was built up with estates.

Dacha Gauswald (St. Petersburg): history

The building, built in 1898, is named after its first owners, the Gauswalds. After the 1917 revolution, the island was renamed. It received the name common in those years - the island of workers. This once picturesque area has become empty, and homeless children have chosen luxurious houses. Every year there were more and more of them in St. Petersburg.

It was then (1918) that the new authorities of the city decided to open a children's colony No. 3 named after Lunacharsky in the building. Street children lived here until 1923. The little inhabitants took away everything they could take off. Magnificent colored stained-glass windows with delicate lead inserts were taken apart and made sinkers for fishing rods, and beautiful colored glass was used in games or exchanged for something even more "valuable".

Years later, the plant's sanatorium was placed in the mansion. The Island of Workers has become a place of rest for high-ranking officials. Here again there was a holiday village. In the nineties of the last century, the Gauswald dacha was sold to the Impuls company, which still owns it today.

Description

The Gauswald dacha on Kamenny Island (Petersburg) is a unique architectural monument. On the first floor of the building there were living rooms, above - rooms for guests and the owner's office. According to some experts, the authors of the project took as a model a classic English cottage, which had a separate entrance for servants, while others believe that the Bavarian style is clearly visible in the architecture of the building. We think that this was not so important for the owners of the house: imposing and stylish from the outside, the cottage was very cozy from the inside. Here everything was thought out to the smallest detail.

Mansion architecture

The Gauswald dacha on Kamenny Island was built in Art Nouveau style. The gray brick of the tower, stone slabs, yellow plastered walls are adjacent to the carved elements of the pediments made of wood. They give the design elegance and complexity. At the same time, the asymmetry characteristic of this style, the broken roof line, etc., are precisely observed.

The two-storied central part of the building is made of wood, adjacent to it is a one-story building with a semicircular portal. The basement, lined with rubble slabs, is typical for almost all cottages on Kamenny Island. The building has almost no sharp corners, it is asymmetrical, smoothed and for this reason opens up from all sides. The facades are decorated with pointed turrets. To appreciate the idea of the authors of the project, you need to walk around the building.

The Gauswald cottage has a beautiful silhouette. From the north there is a tower with semicircular windows. Two terraces, each withfour columns are on the south side. The plan of the house was divided into functional zones: the northeast was reserved for the life of the owners, and the southwest was intended for office space,

Interesting facts

Dacha Gauswald is a true cinematic celebrity. These walls have become scenery for many films. Scenes from the famous series about Sherlock Holmes directed by I. Maslennikov were filmed here. Petersburgers often call this building the house of Irene Adler. That was the name of the beloved woman of the great detective according to the plot. Such popular films as "Die Fledermaus" and "Don Cezanne de Bazan" by Jan Frida were also filmed here.

Eminent actors such as Yuri and Vitaly Solomin, Vasily Livanov, Mikhail Boyarsky, Nikolai Karachentsov, Igor Dmitriev, Anna Samokhina, Larisa Udovichenko, Yuri Bogatyrev and many others were filmed in the mansion.

Further fate of the monument

For this unique structure, hard times came after the collapse of the USSR, during the years of perestroika. The Gauswald dacha was sold to the private company Impulse, which had not used or maintained it for twenty years. As a result, the house fell into disrepair. Studies have shown that more than 80% of all wooden buildings are destroyed by mold and fungus.

After reviewing the expert opinion, the city authorities decided to demolish all wooden structures. However, this was not done. A few years later, based on the results of a new check of the accident rate of the building, the final decision was made to dismantle all the wooden structures of the structure and subsequently buildhere is a building designed by Rafael Dayanov. Unfortunately, even today the building is in a deplorable state and continues to collapse.

Dacha Gauswald: how to get there?

Today, tourists will no longer be able to get inside the building. But you can still see what the famous building looks like from the outside. To get here, residents of St. Petersburg and guests of the Northern capital need to get to the Petrogradskaya metro station. Here you will need to transfer to buses No. 46 or 1, trolleybus No. 34. This transport will take you to the Kamenny Ostrov stop. Then you need to go along Pervaya Berezovaya Street to Bolshaya Alley and turn right to house number 14. A walk will take no more than ten minutes.

You can get to the Chernaya Rechka metro station. After exiting the subway, walk towards the embankment. Then cross the bridge to Kamenny Ostrov and follow the Bolshaya Nevka embankment to Bolshaya Alley. Then turn left to house number 14.