18 points
7 km
1.5 hours
Historical Background
A historic building and an architectural monument of federal significance, it was built in 1902–1904 for the Singer Company. When it first appeared, this delightful six-story palace with mansards did not much please the people of St. Petersburg. The company's building went up in the same period as the Eliseev merchants' store, and the Wawelberg House appeared a little later. With their style and their architecture, so unusual for central St. Petersburg, these buildings stand out from the row of more classical facades. The Singer building was conceived as a kind of exhibition pavilion where people could watch sewing machines at work. Strolling along Nevsky in those days, you could see seamstresses sitting in the huge ground-floor windows, sewing away on the machines. No better advertising was needed. Other buildings stood on this spot at different times. For example, a wooden opera house designed by the architect Bartolomeo Rastrelli was once built here. In the mid-18th century it burned down. Later other buildings stood here, with varying fortunes and owners. In 1900 the Singer Company bought the plot to build its main office in central St. Petersburg for trade with the countries of the East: Turkey, Persia, China, and Japan. The design was commissioned from the well-known architect Pavel Suzor. In the summer of 1901 the architect presented three different designs to choose from. Approval took about another year. Singer's representatives originally wanted an eight-story building, but St. Petersburg had a height limit of 11 sazhens (23.47 meters, or 77 feet). This height was no accident: it was set by the height of the Winter Palace, so Pavel Suzor had to win approval for a six-story building. The facades were faced with polished fine-grained red and gray granite and adorned with wrought bronze decoration. Two female sculptures of Valkyries were placed on the corner of the facade. At the base of the dome stands a sculpture by Aubert: a sea eagle with outstretched wings.