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

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

Project authors

Dacha Gauswald, whose address is: Kamenny Island, Bolshoy avenue, 14 - a rare and original example of wooden architecture in Russia, the first building in the Art Nouveau style, not only in St. Petersburg, but also in the country. Many believe that the building looks like a gingerbread house. And this is not accidental. Young architects Vasily Shene and Vladimir Chagin built it for EK Gausswald - the wife of a well-known baker in St. Petersburg.

VI Chagin received an academic education. The Gauswald dacha is not the first work of a well-known architect. Prior to the construction, he already participated in major projects. It is noteworthy that after the revolution of 1917 Chagin did not leave the country, but began to restore and reconstruct many monuments of history and architecture of St. Petersburg. Buildings in the style of Art Nouveau Vladimir Ivanovich began to build in St. Petersburg one of the first. Most of the master's works were created in collaboration with VI Sheny.

A little information about Vassily Ivanovich has been preserved. He had his own mansion with a small park on Krestovsky Island. In 1916 he was confiscated for debts. Even the date of death is not exactly known: sources are usually limited to the phrase "after 1935". Nevertheless, the works of Schöne survived: four cottages located on the Stone Island, among them and his own, which was never completed, the Kelh's mansion, which can be seen on Tchaikovsky Street, 28, the house of N. Tchaikovsky on Nevsky, 67 , As well as several lucrative houses that are 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 made accents on the expressiveness of geometric shapes - a cylinder, a cube and a cone, combining these elements.

Stone Island

Already at the time of the construction of the mansion, Kamenny Island was considered to be the privileged area of the city where wealthy and famous people lived: merchant Eliseev, outstanding scientists, industrialist Putilov. The history of the Stone Island is shrouded in legends and secrets.

In ancient times, lost sailors saw a huge rock that towered above the water. Mooring to the shore, they explored the land and decided to give the island the name Kamenny. Much later, when Nicholas II came to power, the island became very popular with the elite - literally in a few years it was built up by manors.

Dacha Gauswald (St. Petersburg): History

The building, built in 1898, is named after its first owners - the Hauswald couple. After the revolution of 1917 the island was renamed. He received the name common in those years - the Island of Workers. This once picturesque territory was emptied, and luxury homes were chosen by street children. Every year in Petersburg they became more and more.

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

Years later, the sanatorium-dispensary of the plant was placed in the mansion. The Workers' Island has turned into a place of rest for major officials. Here again there was a holiday village. In the nineties of the last century, the Gauswald dacha was sold to the company Impulse, which today is its owner.

Description

Dacha Gauswald on Kamenny Island (St. Petersburg) is a unique architectural monument. On the first floor of the building there were living rooms, above - guest rooms and the host's office. For the sample, the authors of the project, according to some experts, took a classic English cottage that had a separate entrance for the servants, while others believe that the architecture of the building clearly shows the Bavarian style. We think that for the owners of the house it was not so important: impressive and stylish outside, inside the cottage was very cozy. Here everything was thought out to the last detail.

The architecture of the mansion

The Gauswald dacha on Kamenny Island is built in the Art Nouveau style. Gray brick towers, stone slabs, yellow plastered walls coexist with carved elements of pediments made of wood. They give the design elegance and complexity. At the same time, the asymmetry characteristic for this style, the broken roof line, etc., are exactly observed.

The two-storeyed central part of the building is made of wood, it is adjoined by a one-story building with a semicircular portal. The basement part, covered with rubble slab, is typical for almost all cottages on Kamenny Island. The building has almost no sharp corners, it is asymmetric, it is flattened and for this reason it opens on all sides. The facades are decorated with pointed turrets. To appreciate the intent of the authors of the project, it is necessary to go around the building.

The Gauswald dacha features a beautiful silhouette. From the north there is a tower with half-curtained windows. Two terraces, each of which has four columns, are on the south side. The plan of the house was divided into functional zones: the north-east was assigned to the owners' life, and the south-west was intended for office premises,

Interesting Facts

Dacha Gauswald is a true cinematic celebrity. These walls have become scenery for many films. Here the scenes of the famous series about Sherlock Holmes directed by I. Maslennikov were shot . Petersburgers often call this building the house of Irene Adler. That's the story for the name of the beloved woman's great detective. Here, such popular films as "Bat" and "Don Cézanne de Bazan" by Jan Fried were filmed.

Such outstanding actors as Yuri and Vitaly Solominy, Vasily Livanov, Mikhail Boyarsky, Nikolai Karachentsov, Igor Dmitriev, Anna Samokhina, Larisa Udovichenko, Yury Bogatyrev and many others were shot in the mansion.

Further destiny of the monument

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

Having familiarized themselves with the experts' conclusion, the city authorities decided to demolish all the wooden structures. However, this was not done. A few years later, following the results of a new inspection of the accident rate of the building, it was decided to dismantle all the wooden structures of the structure and subsequently build a building here, designed by Raphael Dayanov. Unfortunately, even today the structure is in a deplorable state and continues to deteriorate.

Dacha Gauswald: how to get there?

Today, tourists can not enter the building. But you can still see what the famous structure looks like outside. To get here, the citizens of St. Petersburg and guests of the Northern capital need to get to the metro station "Petrogradskaya". Here you need to transfer to buses No. 46 or 1, trolleybus number 34. This transport will take you to the stop "Kamenny Ostrov". Then you need to go along the street First Berezovaya to the Grand Alley and turn right to the house number 14. A walking tour will take no more than ten minutes.

You can reach the metro station "Chernaya Rechka". Leaving the metro, walk along the embankment. Then go across the bridge to the Stone Island and along the Bolshaya Nevka embankment follow the Great Alley. Then turn left, to house number 14.