Kekushev's house on Ostozhenka. House of architect Kekushev in Mamontovka

In ancient times, here, on the banks of the Moscow River, there were meadows and meadows with huge stacks of hay. Yu.A. Fedosyuk in his book “Moscow in the Ring of the Gardens” writes about Ostozhenka: “Continuing Volkhonka, this street stretched parallel to the bank of the Moscow River to Luzhniki, and there along a ford it came out onto the Smolensk road. To the left of it stretched water meadows, where haystacks stood after mowing - Ostozhie. Hence the name of the street - Ostozhenka. In the middle of the 16th century, Ivan IV took this area into the oprichnina, since then the best plots on it were occupied by large nobles, whose names still live in the names of the lanes - Khilkov, Vsevolozhsky, Lopukhinsky, Eropkinsky and others.”

In the 19th century, the street continuously lost its former privileged position. But once Ostozhenka, along with Prechistenka, Arbat and Povarskaya, was part of the so-called “Saint-Germain suburb” of Moscow. Over time, Ostozhenka regained its former grandeur, and today it has the status of one of the most expensive streets in Moscow. This fact probably comes as no surprise to anyone. Magnificent apartment buildings, luxurious mansions and unique ensembles of noble estates - all this adorns the street. The most unique monument of Moscow Art Nouveau is the mansion of the architect L.N. Kekusheva - also located on Ostozhenka.

Like most buildings built in the Art Nouveau era, Kekushev’s house fit perfectly into the colorful and diverse architecture of Moscow in general and Ostozhenka Street in particular. At the turn of the 19th and 20th centuries, Art Nouveau completely changed the architectural appearance of many European cities (Vienna, Prague, Barcelona), although this style did not last very long. Architectural researcher William Broomfield, in his article “The Topography of Art Nouveau in Moscow: Aesthetics in an Urban Context,” highlights the features of Moscow Art Nouveau: “In Moscow, this style received its most vivid expression, and to a large extent it owed this to the geography of the city.

In creating a new urban environment, the unique geography of Moscow, with its relative availability of land and varied hilly terrain, allowed many architects at the turn of the 19th and 20th centuries to openly and expressively demonstrate their interpretation of the Art Nouveau style... The decisive influence of Art Nouveau on Moscow architecture occurred in the construction of residential buildings, such as mansions and apartment buildings, in which the emphasis was placed on the use of decorative techniques and rational use of internal space. It can be said that widespread housing construction was essentially the product of a new style.”

Most residents of modern Moscow love Art Nouveau and admire the monuments remaining from this era. And buildings such as the Kekushev mansion are generally objects of national pride. Lev Nikolaevich built this house in 1901–1902 for himself and his family. Officially, it belonged to the architect’s wife, Anna Ionovna, so in many reference books and guidebooks you can find another name – “Kekusheva’s mansion.” When fulfilling a specific order, Lev Nikolaevich always enjoyed unlimited creative freedom, which is why almost all of his mansions are bright, unusual and different from each other.

Already at the beginning of the 20th century, people spoke enthusiastically about the mansion on Ostozhenka: “The best buildings of the pan-European trend include the works of the engineer-artist Kekushev. With him, the scatteredness and obscurity of the composition are less noticeable than with anyone else, and one can trace the general idea of ​​the composition without much difficulty. Although he did not avoid the general fascination with the colossal single window, he skillfully handled this detail and even seems necessary, as if flowing organically from the very conditions of the composition.” Rich imagination and an incredible number of architectural discoveries helped Kekushev become first among equals.

His incredible talent was fully revealed in the mansion, which was built without any supervision from the customer, because he himself was the customer. The architect’s characteristic desire for plastic expressiveness manifested itself here more clearly than in his commissioned works. The mansion on Ostozhenka is reminiscent of a medieval European castle thanks to its asymmetrical composition, different heights of volumes, and a multi-tiered faceted pointed turret with an elevated tent. Lev Nikolaevich seemed to squeeze this slender turret between two main volumes, the facades of which face in different directions.

The architect starts from historical motifs, stylizing them in modernist motifs. Kekushev deliberately made the proportions of his house heavier, repeated similar forms in contrasting scales, emphasized the richness of the profiles, the depth of the niches and window openings, and enriched the walls of the building with a variety of elegant stucco moldings with floral patterns. Lev Nikolaevich skillfully used the plasticity of the material. The mansion is distinguished by the combination of white and red colors in the design of the facades, the contrast of massive stone details from the granite rustication of the base to the sculpturally designed verticals that determine the upward direction of the corner tower, which sets the tone for the entire composition.

The “Kekushevsky” style was already recognizable by contemporaries: large, expressive plastic window frames, a complex rhythm of window openings of various shapes, color and texture contrast of a brick wall with smooth plastered surfaces - and these are just some stylistic features. The pediment on the street facade was crowned with a three-meter-tall handsome lion - a kind of emblem of the owner, his signature. Unfortunately, during the years of Soviet power the lion disappeared. The interior design of the house was no less stylish and sophisticated. Large rooms were grouped around a superb grand staircase with a delicate pattern of enclosing bars.

In the interior, Kekushev used romantic contrasts: for example, the combination of a deep large hall on the second floor with one semicircular window and an adjacent living room with a three-window bay window in the turret. The flowing space of the premises on the second floor allowed experts to establish a stylistic connection between Kekushev and the Franco-Belgian Art Nouveau school of Victor Horta. However, Lev Nikolaevich never hid that he was a fan of the Belgian Art Nouveau master. However, Kekushev’s talent is so bright and exceptional that it is, of course, impossible to talk about any direct borrowing.

Lev Nikolaevich did not live long in the mansion on Ostozhenka. In 1906, for some inexplicable reason, he left his family and moved to a rented apartment. Kekushev is an architect with a difficult fate. There are still many blank spots in his biography. It is not known exactly where he was born. According to one version, in Vilnius, according to another - in Saratov. His father was a court adviser to the military engineering service. Kekushev graduated from the Institute of Civil Engineers in St. Petersburg. In 1890, he moved to Moscow, which was the center of artistic quest and attracted young architects who were eager to express themselves in favorable conditions with complete freedom of expression.

Working under the supervision of architect S.S. Eibushitsa, Kekushev meets the rich merchants Kuznetsov, Khludov, Nosov, Naydenov - future customers. Kekushev began his creative career with the stylistic preferences of late eclecticism. But already in 1896, the architect designed and built the first building in the Art Nouveau style - an apartment building in Varsonofevsky Lane. Fateful for Kekushev was his acquaintance with the famous entrepreneur Savva Ivanovich Mamontov, who created the Northern House-Building Society, which was engaged in the construction of rich turnkey mansions in Moscow.

In 1898, Kekushev became the chief architect of the society and developed a project for the Metropol Hotel. However, the arrest of Savva Ivanovich prevented the ideas from being brought to life. In 1899, Lev Nikolaevich built a mansion on Glazovsky Lane, which can be called the quintessence of Kekushevsky Art Nouveau, his architectural manifesto. Kekushev built this house for himself, but millionaire Otto Adolfovich List was so delighted with the mansion that he offered a price for it that the architect could not refuse. To say that Kekushev was the most famous and fashionable architect of the early 1900s is an understatement. Orders poured in like from a cornucopia.

In three years, he built the Iversky shopping arcade on Nikolskaya, the mansion of V.D. Nosov on Elektrozavodskaya, the railway station building in Tsaritsyno and the mansion of I.A. Mindovsky on Povarskaya. During these same years, he was engaged in the reconstruction and interior decoration of the famous Prague restaurant on Arbat Square. The crowning achievement of Kekushev’s creative development can be called the apartment building of I.P. Isakov on Prechistenka. After this project, the architect began to have a crisis. What its reasons were still remains a mystery to researchers. Enormous changes affected not only the work of the most talented architect, but also his personal life.

One of the best modern experts today, M.V. Nashchokina in the article “The Life and Fate of the Architect Lev Kekushev” writes about the last years of the master’s life: “The mid-1900s broke something in the architect’s so successfully developing career - this is evidenced by his noticeable departure from active creative activity around 1907. One gets the impression that he stopped accepting any orders, only from time to time, posting photographs of his old works in magazines. After 1912, the master’s fate acquired a mysterious and, possibly, tragic connotation. His last known projects date back to 1912.

It seemed that there could only be one explanation for this - the architect fell ill, perhaps mentally ill, which is not customary to report in the press for ethical reasons. It is possible that individual career failures associated with Kekushev’s removal from the design of the Metropol were supplemented by personal ones. Judging by some information, in 1906-07 he had a break with his beloved wife. Attempts to improve family relationships remained unsuccessful. The end turned out to be quite banal - unable to cope with this internal catastrophe, the architect resorted to the traditional Russian method of forgetting, which ruined so many domestic talents.”

The death of the architect is yet another mystery in his already mysterious biography. Researchers have yet to unravel all the secrets of the life of the best Moscow architect of the Art Nouveau era. We do not know exactly the year of death or the place of burial. According to the testimony of his youngest daughter, Lev Nikolaevich died in a hospital in 1917 and was buried in one of the Moscow cemeteries. But let's return to the history of the house on Ostozhenka. In 1909, the mansion with the lion on the pediment was sold. On the photograph of this building, preserved in the Kekushev archive, there is an inscription made by the architect’s hand - “Smithsky House”. In some sources the mansion is called exactly that.

At approximately the same time as the construction of his own house, Lev Nikolaevich built an apartment building on his site (Ostozhenka Street, house No. 19). The design motifs of its facades, built on deeply original, skillfully drawn plastic window openings, echo the decorations of the mansion. The asymmetrical, sharply enlarged right side of the building makes it different from typical apartment buildings with a monotonous façade composition and a central entrance. Kekushev highlighted the window openings with stucco inserts, which truly fascinate the beholder, as if hypnotizing them with their intricate design.

According to Bulgakov scholars, Kekushev’s mansion is one of the contenders for the prototype of “Margarita’s house.” Let's take a look at the pages of M.A.'s novel. Bulgakova: “Margarita Nikolaevna and her husband occupied the entire top of a beautiful mansion in a garden in one of the alleys near Arbat. Anyone can verify this if they wish to go to this garden.” And further: “He (Ponyrev) passes by the oil shop, turns where a rickety old gas lamp hangs, and creeps up to the grating, behind which he sees a lush, but not yet dressed garden, and in it - painted by the moon on the side where a lantern with a three-leaf window protrudes, and a dark one on the other is a Gothic mansion.”

Even after reading only these small excerpts, we can conclude that Kekushev’s mansion is not entirely suitable for the role of “Margarita’s house.” The mansion on Ostozhenka has neither a garden nor a fence. In the novel, the house is located in a quiet Arbat alley, and not on a noisy street. There are buildings in Moscow that more accurately correspond to Bulgakov's description. However, Bulgakov scholars continue to include Kekushev’s mansion in the list of contenders for the “title” of “Margarita’s house.” We must agree that there are indirect reasons for this. However, they are based more on urban legends than facts.

Some researchers of Bulgakov's work associate the artist Sergei Sergeevich Topleninov, whose wife Maria Kekusheva could be, with the Kekushev family. Bulgakov scholar Boris Myagkov even writes in his book “Bulgakov on the Patriarchs” that this is the daughter of Lev Nikolaevich. However, the architect did not have a daughter with that name, but perhaps she was a sister or another relative. Topleninov was considered one of the best theater artists in Moscow. The lovers lived in the basement where Topleninov had a workshop. Sergei Sergeevich is called among the prototypes of the Master. At the very least, the Master’s basement was probably copied from the basement of the Topleninov mansion on Mansurovsky Lane, where the artist lived.

Lev Nikolaevich Kekushev is deservedly at the forefront of world modernist architects. He is one of the pioneers of this trend, and certainly stands at the origins of Moscow modernism. Kekushev’s work significantly influenced the course of the history of architecture in our country. His works have become a real decoration of Moscow. Kekushev’s own mansion on Ostozhenka is not only an architectural monument, but also a unique symbol of his incredible talent and successful career. Not many architects at the turn of the 19th and 20th centuries could boast of a magnificent mansion built according to an author’s design. Ostozhenka can easily be called the “Kekushevsky” corner of Moscow.

As many as four buildings were built here according to the design of Lev Nikolaevich and all of them are distinguished by the highest craftsmanship. The address Ostozhenka, 21 is familiar to every fan of Art Nouveau. This is a real small medieval castle in the very center of Moscow. Its narrow windows even look a little like loopholes. Unfortunately, someone’s, to put it mildly, inept hands got to the right corner of the house and added an additional volume to it, which spoiled the compositional unity of the building. At the very end of 2017, Moscow restorers returned the lion to the roof of Kekushev’s house, which gave the building majesty and nobility.

Denis Drozdov

On Oktyabrskaya Street in the Mamontovka microdistrict of the city of Pushkino there is an ancient house that stands out against the backdrop of dacha buildings. The appearance of this mansion makes a contradictory impression. On the one hand, this is a chopped and even somewhat rough-looking tower, and, on the other hand, the house is decorated with elegant smooth lines and shapes, in which the sophisticated Art Nouveau style is recognizable. The huge window of the part of the mansion that resembles a tower convinces that this is really the building of an architectural trend that was fashionable at the beginning of the last century.

Late XIX - early XX century, new railway lines were actively built, thanks to which a real “dacha boom” emerged in the immediate vicinity of Moscow. Quite a few dachas and mansions in the Art Nouveau style were built along new transport routes. However, the house in Mamontovka is not just one of the ordinary old dachas that miraculously survived, but the work of the famous Moscow architect Lev Nikolaevich Kekushev. This architect became the author of about a hundred projects and buildings, many of which are today considered key monuments of early modernism in Russia.

Lev Kekushev is a mysterious figure in the history of architecture. Even formal information about his biography is shrouded in fog. It is known, for example, that the future architect was born in Vilna in 1862, but Kekushev himself indicated a different year and place of birth in his documents. The circumstances of the architect's death remain even more mysterious. The architect, whose Moscow merchant mansions were admired by the capital in the early 1900s, suddenly and without a trace disappeared after 1912, so modern researchers still do not have indisputable data about the place, reason and time of the architect’s death. According to one version, Kekushev ended his days in a psychiatric hospital.

Perhaps the most famous work of Lev Kekushev in Moscow is the mansion of his wife Anna on Ostozhenka. This house, apparently due to its unusual appearance, reminiscent of a small medieval castle, has gained a reputation as the prototype of the house of the main character of Mikhail Bulgakov’s novel “The Master and Margarita”. Mindovsky's mansion, List's house, Isakov's apartment building, Korobkov's town house - these and other works by Kekushev forever glorified the architect and are today real decorations of the capital. Elegant mansions were built, as a rule, for the rich, not of aristocratic origin, but for industrialists, manufacturers and wealthy merchants who had become millionaires, in whose hands in the second half XIX centuries turned out to be huge capital.

Kekushev's buildings near Moscow, however, could not always boast the same scope and beauty as his metropolitan works. The dacha in Mamontovka, however, occupies a special place in the architect’s work, since the material for it was wood, while in Moscow the architect more often built from brick, stone and other materials. The most famous Moscow wood work by Kekushev is the Nosov House, located near the Elektrozavodskaya metro station. Of course, it is difficult to compare this wooden mansion with A.I.’s modest dacha near Moscow. Ermakov - assistant to Ivanteevsky manufacturer V.A. Lyzhina. The Old Believer merchant Vasily Dmitrievich Nosov had an incomparably larger budget for building a house than Ermakov. However, distant similarities between these two different buildings are not difficult to notice.

It is no coincidence that the dacha of Ermakov and Kekushev was located near the Mamontovka railway station. In the 1890s, the architect met the entrepreneur and philanthropist Savva Ivanovich Mamontov, who invited Lev Nikolaevich to design buildings for the Northern Railway. The Vologda-Arkhangelsk Railway was a large-scale undertaking, and Mamontov was looking for an architect who would undertake to create a unified look for various railway structures: stations, water towers, depots, guard huts and other outbuildings. This is how the station in Mytishchi, the station in Sergiev Posad, unfortunately not preserved, and part of the wing of the Yaroslavsky station building in Moscow by Lev Kekushev appeared on this line.

Maria Nashchokina, a researcher of the heritage of the famous Moscow architect, noted that all these railway buildings were made of wood and deliberately combined the modernist features of Moscow merchant mansions and the traditional forms of solid houses in Arkhangelsk and Vologda, where the transport highway under construction led. “Open walls cut from logs, high hip roofs, wide window openings and a few decorative details - carved brackets, simple platbands... these elements were inherent in the vast majority of the erected structures.” All stations on the Vologda-Arkhangelsk road, according to the recollections of travelers, were painted yellow. We will find many signs of railway buildings in the appearance of Ermakov’s dacha in Mamontovka, including the yellow color used to paint the façade with a huge window and a tower-shaped finial.

In the 1990s - 2000s, an impressive number of significant wooden monuments were destroyed by fires in Pushkino and its environs: the dacha of Vladimir Mayakovsky on Akulova Gora, the building of the Summer Theater in Pushkino, the Church of the Grebnevskaya Icon of the Mother of God in the village of Klyazma, the fabulous dacha of Alexandrenko and others. I would like to believe that the Ermakov House by Lev Kekushev will avoid the same fate and will remain for many years a rare monument to a talented architect near Moscow.

Art Nouveau for Russia is much more than a movement in painting or architecture: it is part of an environment (or, to use disrespectful modern language, say “parties”) that has left its unique mark on Russian culture. Environments where great names and different art movements intertwined and new ones were born before our eyes. And where the most interesting people lived.
Perhaps the most interesting and striking name in Moscow Art Nouveau architecture is Lev Kekushev. His name and works are well known, but we know almost nothing about him other than standard information: he was born, he studied, he married, he died... stop! We do not know where and when this wonderful man died, we do not know where he is buried, we know nothing about the last years of his life. But this is not hoary antiquity, this is less than a hundred years ago. Another paradox: Kekushev's largest and most outstanding project (and perhaps the most significant project of this time in Moscow) is attributed to another, and Kekushev's contribution is reduced to "one of ...".
I don’t know why this man was so tragically unlucky both in life and in posthumous memory. I just want to walk with you through a small piece of Moscow, where he lived, worked and was happy. The starting point will be the “Margarita’s house” well known to Muscovites on Ostozhenka, 21. The small beautiful mansion perfectly matches the spirit and description of Bulgakov’s novel, and during his life it was built for his family by the successful architect Lev Nikolaevich Kekushev, he moved here in 1903 with his beloved young wife and three small children. Here something broke in his family and his destiny. There is indirect evidence that Anna Kekusheva, like Bulgakov’s Margarita, fell in love with another. But the Master turned out to be abandoned in life...
But let's not talk about the sad things for now. Look how beautiful and unusual this castle house is, how proud and cheerful the lion is that once sat on the roof (it’s necessary to put a lion on the roof) - the trademark and alter ego of the creator of this miracle, who bore the name Leo.

It must be great to wake up in a house that you yourself created, look out the window - and see the work of your hands, leave the house - and walk along the houses you created. Such luck befell Lev Kekushev: two houses next to his personal mansion (Ostozhenka, 17 and 19) were designed by him, and the third (24) was reconstructed and decorated.

And what decor... And of course it couldn’t be done without lions.

Around the same time as the houses on Ostozhenka (1901-1902), a beautiful house appeared nearby (21 Gogolevsky Boulevard). There are no lions here, but an owl seems about to land on your shoulder.

Nearby (Gogolevsky Boulevard, 4) there is another mansion, which was decorated by Kekushev. Now it is being renovated, so it is difficult to see it, but (using the meta-material comparing the left and right parts) you can get an idea of ​​how houses change during the restoration process.

From Gogolevsky Boulevard we head to Prechistenka. House 21 was built at the beginning of the 19th century, Kekushev decorated it, and from the available sources I was not able to understand whether he was only involved in interior decoration or also the exterior of the house. But this “hello” from Lev Nikolaevich made me lean towards the second version.

And right opposite (Prechistenka, 28) there is such an unusual and... magnificent house that you can only wonder how all this splendor fits on the facade. It would seem to be oversaturated with decor, but at the same time it is so harmonious that all its luxury does not seem excessive. Lions are, of course, represented.

This house was built last of those included in our short walk; it was completed in 1906. Remember this date, we will come back to it later. And we will head to the mansion, which was the first to be built (in this area) and is considered “the first Moscow work made in the Art Nouveau style.” It was built in Glazovsky Lane (house 8) in 1898-1899 and was built by newlywed Kekushev (married in 1897) for himself and his growing family. According to legend, when the mansion was built, manufacturer Otto List offered such a sum for it that Kekushev could not resist (there is a true version according to which the mansion was built for sale from the very beginning). But when you see it, you believe that, like Margarita’s house, it was built for life with the woman you love.

It seems to me that the houses that Kekushev built say a lot about him. About his cheerfulness, vital and creative courage, passion for his work, unbridled imagination, combined with the precise calculations of a city planner. This is how he was in his happiest and most productive years.
Almost nothing is known about Kekushev’s life after 1906, when he moved out of his house on Ostozhenka, apparently as a result of a family breakup. Most likely, he tried more than once to restore family life. There are fewer and fewer successful projects, and after 1912 there are none at all. Nothing is known about his further fate. One can only assume that the cause of complete oblivion was either mental illness or the “traditional Russian way of forgetting,” or perhaps both together. Even the date of death in different sources “floats” from 1914 to 1919. The burial place is also unknown...
And the houses stand and continue to amaze us with their joyful unusualness, taking us out of the bustle of Moscow everyday life. So this girl came to Ostozhenka with her boyfriend and yellow flowers - in memory of Margarita. Most likely, she does not know that the real plots that played out in this house are perhaps no less dramatic than the fiction of the great novel. Only we don’t know them and are unlikely to ever find out.

And I, leaving the mansion in Glazovsky, mentally say:
- Thank you, Lev Nikolaevich! Low bow...

This idea had already been picked up by Yakov Rekk, who headed the Moscow Trade and Construction Joint Stock Company in 1898.
And so an old estate was bought on Povarskaya and in 1903, according to the design of Lev Nikolaevich, they began to build two mansions, between Skaryatinsky and Skatertny lanes. M.V. Nashchokina suggests that Kekushev began making designs for these mansions for Mamontov.
In 1904, the mansions were already built and ready for occupancy.

This is how this place was from 1904 to 1915, when, according to some sources, the architect Motylev rebuilt the facades of the first mansion closest to us in the neoclassical style and completely killed, so to speak, the entire Ponizovsky house.
And before that it was a corner of pure Franco-Belgian modernism in Moscow. In my opinion, an unrealistically beautiful quarter...

Lev Kekushev was considered by his contemporaries to be the most brilliant artist of the European movement, surpassing even Franz Schechtel. I agree with them. Shekhtel is a brilliant architect, decorator, and graphic artist. He built theatrical sets, grandiose ones of course, from his mansions. And Kekushev thought in terms of volumes, techniques, and categories of modernity. Although in history he was much less fortunate. Of all his works, crumbs remain.

A brilliant polymath, a connoisseur of world art, an excellent draftsman and a master of historical and architectural stylizations, Kekushev was the king of outrageousness. For the manufacturer Grachev, he built a villa in Khovrin - a variation on the theme of the casino in Monte Carlo, built by the Frenchman Charles Garnier. He gave his own house in Glazovsky Lane the features of the Brussels Hotel Tassel - the brainchild of Victor Horta, the founder of Belgian Art Nouveau.

But let's return to the mansion, whose appearance has hardly changed since 1904.


The complex volumetric composition of the house, characterized by the solidity of intersecting volumes, occupies the corner of the site and thus forms the facade of both Povarskaya Street and Skaryatinsky Lane. Kekushev always created complex volumes for mansions. He did not build boxes, which he then simply finished in the Art Nouveau style.



This is the basic principle from inside to outside, when the interior spaces and their layout forced a more dynamic construction of the facades and volumes of the external architectural composition of the house.
Building plans lost the simplicity of geometric constructions and became complex, multi-figured, reflecting the internal dynamics of volumes.
Modernism contrasts the simplicity and harmonious transparency of the forms of classical architecture with complex figurativeness.
Here, of course, it should also be noted that Art Nouveau used the most advanced materials and technologies in construction. The invention of reinforced concrete, the plastic properties of which helped create such light and fluid lines characteristic of the Art Nouveau style. It created the image of a flexible and durable, elastic and elastic, pliable and rigid material, which made it possible to cover vast spaces, withstand enormous loads, create large forms, flexible joints, light airy structures, without fluttering decorations and supports. Reinforced concrete significantly lightened the structure and at the same time began to visibly show its work.



Among Kekushev’s works, this mansion occupies a special place due to the variety of elements of its external and internal decorative decoration.

The center of the composition from Povarskaya Street on the façade is a three-part window on the second floor


united by an arched niche, above the archivolt of which there is a panel depicting figures of naked putti engaged in various activities in the field of art, covered with a large arched canopy.



Before the revolution, this canopy was still topped with a sculpture


the goddess Aurora scattering flowers is a symbol of joy and prosperity. At her feet little putti were playing around, one of which, as usual, was blowing soap bubbles, symbolizing the transience of life. But in the century that has passed since the building was built, Aurora has disappeared.

And the play of these different volumes and decor seemed to flow from top to bottom like such a powerful stream of water...



These large drops from below support the panels. A flowing treatment of a kind of “desudeporte” of an archivolt above the window... And then this wave breaks on a decorative balcony


fancifully and richly decorated with already ripe poppy heads and acanthus leaves



wonderful window frames, which were never repeated by Kekushev.
It must be said that there is no such common Kekushev detail on the binding as a flowing drop. Because there is a powerful flow of ornament and lines, and on the windows they would be superfluous.
It should also be noted that the window joinery was made by Kekushev from very high-quality larch material and they have not rotted for more than 100 years.



the balcony is supported or flowed down from it by 4 more flowing brackets and flows to the rhythm of the windows with rounded corners and the frames of the window portals flowing down..



the window sills end in a fringe of the same wavy vertical trim as the archivolt above the upper window. And all this makes this composition unusually stylish and attractive to smooth out. And if you stop and start looking at the house, it’s impossible to take your eyes off... Because one detail flows into another, but at the same time it all looks very whole and not fragmented.

Here I will make a slight digression and quote clever statements about the curved lines of modernity - The famous line of modernity, which received its name in architecture after the Belgian architect who popularized it - the “Orta line” - was a consequence of overcoming Euclid’s geometry in mathematics in the 19th century.
Euclidean space, the construction of which was based on straight lines, was in fact an idealization, the result of abstraction from real space.
Real space is defined by a curve, not a straight line.



In the 19th century Gaussian geometry appears, capable of describing curvature, which opposed itself to Euclidean as a more complex system. Therefore, the dominant line of modernity is a curved, “serpentine” line - lively, energetic, winding, dancing. In Art Nouveau iconography it was associated with a sea wave, the flight of drapery in a dance or the lashing blow of a whip; in ornaments it was associated with climbing vegetation or the web of a fence.



On the right is the harmonious semicircular volume of the winter garden. With almost continuous glazing for maximum use of sunlight.



Moreover, the glass is located at an angle.
They were all poisoned. Also a unique invention of modernity.
Now every year the number of etched glasses here is decreasing.


The spaces between the windows are decorated with peculiar semi-columns-pilasters along which amazingly graceful ornament flows. Like a wreath of chestnut leaves on the capital, then the trunk of a thin dandelion and the most elegant “spout” of the base. But it will not completely drain, because the corners of the wreaths and the ornament from below seem to cling to the sides of the semi-column and stop this rapid movement.
All this is supported by window sill rosettes, the same as those under the central balcony.

Above it all rises an English-style chimney


Kekushev made a lion mask on it. Your "signature". It was lost over time.
And when the mansion was restored, they placed there the same newt flower as on the other side.


On the side above the windows there is an ornament of three white flat stripes with bee or wasp nests.



it’s like notes and it seems the cheerful music is encrypted in this ornament


And a decorative, as it were, keystone, with a surprisingly elegant viscous ornament.
He is so blissful and calm that you involuntarily stop your gaze on him.

It was very surprising and symbolic that the architect placed my favorite Lorelei in different corners of the building.


Lorelei on the corner of Skaryatinsky and Povarskaya meets the dawn. She has her eyes open. The light falls on it in the first half of the day.

And Lorelei from the back facade with her eyes down - the sun is setting - night is coming

Amazing and back facade of the house





The rear facade is already more austere - this is a more private part of the building.
A massive front door is like the entrance to a castle, powerful protection from adversity and misfortune.

Unfortunately, I do not have photographs of the stables and services with the amazing horse above the gate. The staircase, which overlooks the courtyard, had a stained glass window that was amazingly preserved
Thanks to SALON magazine

The main staircase has a sculptural Kekushevka lion railing decor.

This stained glass window was covered up and opened at one's own risk by the previous New Zealand Ambassador.

In general, of course, we need to thank him not only for the restoration and preservation of this miracle of modernity, but also for popularizing it. Because M. Nashchokina’s book about this mansion was published with his direct participation.

hall..

glass of the winter garden from the inside..

Here is the horse over the stable or garage...

I can’t stop, I want to look and look at it.
Well, isn’t this newt charming, holding a garland of flowers with its paws and mouth - a symbol of well-being.

In general, modern artists and architects came up with the idea of ​​​​transforming the surrounding world through beauty.
This mansion of the great Moscow Art Nouveau architect Lev Nikolaevich Kekushev fully meets this idea. Every stroke, every detail is so beautiful that the world around seems more beautiful and better, and people cannot be evil, selfish and bloodthirsty.
Rudeness and money-grubbing have no place next to such perfection of beauty.

Beauty will save the world.

And yes, I know that the horizon is blocked, the quality of the photo is not so good. But we show what we have.
By the way, I’ve been collecting photos for three years to put them together for this post.
This is the embassy - it was forbidden to take photographs.

UPS/ Here is a rather large photo of the horse they gave me



Thanks a lot to the author of the photo :)

Reminiscent of a medieval castle with an asymmetrical composition and a high “knightly” turret. To create a complex composition, the architect used volumes of different sizes, decorating them with intricate stucco with a plant motif, carefully designed by the master. The combination of pink and white colors in the decoration of the house, the hipped turret rounding the corner of the house, and elegant window sashes give the building a special romanticism. The high pediment of the main street facade was decorated with a three-meter sculpture of a lion, made by the Austrian architect Otto Wagner. Unfortunately, the figure of the lion has not survived.

On the first two floors of the house there was a hall, an adjacent living room with a bay window in the turret, and the owner’s office. The bedrooms were located in attics. The internal layout of the house is typical of Art Nouveau - all rooms are grouped around the front light staircase, which is adjacent to the porch with the main entrance. The building has largely preserved the original layout of the rooms and finishing elements.

For this mansion, L. Kekushev used his own design, commissioned by Savva Mamontov and the Northern House-Building Society, who planned to build a house for sale in the area of ​​Tverskoy Boulevard and Bolshaya Nikitskaya Street. However, Mamontov’s bankruptcy prevented the plans, and Kekushev decided to use the project to build his own house on Ostozhenka. There was just an empty plot there, where construction of a house began in 1900 according to the design of the architect V. Kuznetsov, but for some reason it was stopped. L. Kekushev partially used this plan for his own housing, which was built by 1903.

The building is often among the contenders for the house in which he settled his Margarita. This hypothesis is based on the description of the heroine’s home: a “Gothic mansion” in “a garden in one of the alleys near Arbat” and a bedroom “opening with a lantern into the tower of the mansion.”

In the 1960s, the house housed the residence of the military attaches of the United Arab Republic, and later the Defense Department of the Embassy of the Arab Republic of Egypt.

The mansion has the status of a cultural heritage site of federal significance.

This house is known as the address of the architect Lev Kekushev, but in 1901 the neighboring house also belonged to the architect. The buildings were considered a single property - the apartment building of the architect himself. The building was built two years after the architect’s own mansion and was registered in the name of the architect’s wife, Anna Ionovna. Currently, the house is residential, and some of the premises are leased from commercial structures.

During the existence of the mansion, a significant part of the historical decor of the facades was lost and the space-planning solutions of the interiors were changed. In 2017–2018 As part of the scientific restoration project, the lost elements of architectural, stucco, plaster and metal decor (stucco completion of the entrance vestibule, ornamental rods, etc.) were recreated. The color scheme of the facades has been recreated. The interiors were restored to their original layout, restoration was carried out with elements of recreating historical elements of decoration and decor of the premises. On December 7, 2017, after a century-long break, the copper statue of a lion was again installed on the roof of the mansion.

In 2018, the Kekusheva mansion became a laureate of the Moscow Government competition "Moscow Restoration" in the categories "best organization of repair and restoration work", "best restoration project and adaptation" and "high quality of repair and restoration work."