X-Nico

3 unusual facts about Singer House


Amandus Adamson

His four allegorical bronzes for the Elisseeff department store in St. Petersburg (for architect Gavriil Baranovsky), and the French-style caryatids and finial figures for the Singer House (for architect Pavel Suzor) are major components of the "Russian Art Nouveau" visible along Nevsky Prospekt.

Singer House

The management of the Singer Company initially intended to construct a skyscraper, similar to the Singer Building, the company headquarters being built at that time in New York, but the Saint Petersburg building code did not allow structures taller than the Winter Palace, residence of the emperor.

The architect found an elegant solution to the limit of 23.5 meters: the six-storey Art Nouveau building is crowned with a glass tower, which in turn is topped by a glass globe sculpture created by the Estonian artist Amandus Adamson.



see also