Lidval is the architect of the building. Biography

Fedor Ivanovich Lidval(Johan Fredrik Lidvall, Swedish. Johan Fredrik Lidvall; May 20 (June 1) 1870 - March 14, 1945) - Russian and Swedish architect of Swedish citizenship and origin.

Biography and family

F.I. Lidval was born in St. Petersburg. His father Jun Petter Lidval (1827-1886) was born in the village of Bude, Liden parish in Hälsingland (according to other sources - in Medelpad), came to Russia in 1859 and over time became a well-known tailor in St. Petersburg, the head of the large sewing workshop "Ivan Petrovich Lidval and sons" and supplier to the imperial court. Mother - Ida Amalia Fleschau (1844-1915) was born in St. Petersburg in the family of Swede Eva Lakström, born in the Finnish town of Hausjärvi, and Balthasar Fleschau, a cabinetmaker who came to Russia from the Danish province of Slagelse, South Zealand. In addition to Fredrik, the family also had sons Eric Leonard (1868-1940), Wilhelm Balthasar (1874-1924), Edward Theodor (1876-1937), Paul Nicholas (1882-1963) and daughters Maria Ulrika (1877-1887) and Anna (1884-?).

In 1882, F. I. Lidval graduated from primary school at the Evangelical Swedish Church of St. Catherine, and then from the Second St. Petersburg Real School (in 1888). He studied at the Baron Stieglitz School of Technical Drawing for two years. During the holidays, Fedor Lidval, like his brothers, served twice in the Royal Life Guards Regiment in Stockholm.

In 1890-1896, Fyodor Lidval was a student in the architectural department of the Higher Art School of the Imperial Academy of Arts, where from 1894 to 1896 he studied in the studio of the architect L. N. Benois. He graduated from the Academy of Arts with the title of artist-architect.

The most fruitful period of Lidval's work is associated with St. Petersburg. Since 1899, he became a member of the St. Petersburg Society of Architects. In 1907, a special commission for awarding prizes for the best facades awarded Lidval a silver medal for the facade of the house of N. A. Meltser (corner of Bolshaya Konyushennaya Street and Volynsky Lane) and an honorary diploma for the facade of the apartment building of A. F. Zimmerman (corner of Kamennoostrovsky Prospekt and Vologodskaya streets). Since 1909, F. I. Lidval has been an academician of architecture, a member of the Imperial Academy of Arts. In St. Petersburg, more than 30 buildings and structures were built according to his designs.

In 1910-1917, F.I. Lidval taught at the architectural faculty of the Women's Polytechnic Institute, participated in the publication of an architectural and art magazine, was a member of many competition commissions and himself participated in numerous competitions for the design of various buildings. For example, in 1911 he participated in a competition for the design of the building of the Noble Assembly on Italianskaya Street, No. 27 (the Kosyakov brothers’ project won). In 1912, F. I. Lidval took part in the closed competition of the Board of the South-Western Railway for the project of the Kievsky station building, receiving second prize, as well as in a custom competition held by the Ministry of Railways and the Academy of Arts for the project of reconstruction of the Nikolaevsky station building (in V. A. Shchuko’s projects won both competitions). Two more competitive projects date back to 1915: the buildings of the Volzhsko-Kama Bank for Tiflis (Gudiashvili St.; the building was built by P. A. Zurabyan) and for Kiev (Khreshchatyk, no. 10; the building was built by P. S. Andreev), completed Lidval together with the architect G. A. Kosyakov. In the same year, Lidval, together with I. S. Kitner, completed a project for a people's house in the village of the Lysvensky plant in the Perm province (built by Kitner).

In 1918, devastated by the revolution, F.I. Lidval was forced to leave for Stockholm, where he had sent his family a year earlier. According to the recollections of his daughter Ingrid, in Sweden Lidval felt spiritually isolated and was sad about his lost creative opportunities. He died in 1945 as a result of a cerebral hemorrhage and was buried in Stockholm at the Djursholm cemetery.

Wife - Margarete Frederike Eilers (May 28, 1885 - April 12, 1962), daughter of Hermann Friedrich Eilers, who moved to Russia from East Friesland, the largest St. Petersburg gardener and flower merchant (Margaret's brother, Konstantin Germanovich Eilers, an architect, built two buildings in collaboration with Lidval , including participation in the construction of the Astoria Hotel). Children: Sven Johan (March 12, 1909 - July 30, 1975), Anders Erik (November 28, 1911 - ?), Ingrid (August 1, 1913 - February 26, 2000).

By the end of the 30s, both the number of customers and the contents of their wallets had decreased, and Paul returned to Sweden. His brother Edward had died several years ago, and his sons Alf and Oscar were now running the business of the company. Paul Lidval opened his own atelier on Regeringsgatan Street, and therefore there were at one time two Lidval tailoring firms in Stockholm. However, after some time, Alf and Oscar had to close their business, and only Paul was left.

One of his company's regular clients was the artist Karl Gerhard. Another famous client was the writer and journalist Jan Oluf Ohlson. When he once expressed doubt about some detail of the ordered suit, Lidval replied: “Prince Yusupov wanted it to be exactly like that.” This comment immediately stopped any further argumentation from the client.

Paul Lidvall's atelier ceased to exist almost exactly 100 years after Father Jun Petter settled in our city. The Lidvali brothers moved among people belonging to the highest strata of society, and they quickly managed to establish their activities in Sweden, although they never reached the same financial and social level there as in St. Petersburg. You don’t have to have a particularly rich imagination to imagine the problems that the Russian Swedes, who had less education and social connections, faced in their newfound homeland (30, p. 293).

2.2. A Swede with a “St. Petersburg” soul

Fyodor Lidval was born on May 1 (May 20, old style) 1870 and after his birth was listed in the book of the Swedish parish of St. Catherine (14, p. 17) (see appendix). Fyodor Lidval graduated from primary school at the Church of St. Catherine and entered the Second St. Petersburg Real School, where he studied for six years, from 1882 to 1888. In 1882, the father took his son to Sweden, a trip he remembered for the rest of his life. Fyodor Lidval could be seen extremely rarely at the Lidval and Sons trading house, since by that time he already knew for sure that he wanted to become an architect. But he was unable to enter the architectural department of the Academy of Arts, since his grades were not high enough. Therefore, for the next two years he studied at the Baron Stieglitz School of Technical Drawing. Having received serious training there, Lidval became a student at the Academy of Arts in 1890. The first two years, spent in the general classes of the “old” Academy, which all students had to undergo, regardless of their further specialty, were devoted to general education, drawing and copying classical engravings. Having then moved to a special class in the architectural department, Fyodor Lidval is engaged in technical sciences, “drawing architectural parts and ornaments of all styles,” and drawing up architectural projects under the guidance of the professors on duty. Drawing classes continue, and in the summer months he, like other students in the architecture department, undergoes internships on buildings. During the holidays, Fyodor Lidval, like his brothers, served twice in the Royal Life Guards Regiment in Stockholm, as they considered it obligatory (14, pp. 17-18).

Having received solid artistic and technical training, having carefully studied historical architectural styles, Fyodor Lidval continued his education since 1894 in the workshop of Leonty Nikolaevich Benois, who was the author of the projects for the buildings of the Singing Chapel, the Ott Clinic in St. Petersburg and the western building of the Russian Museum, which this day is named after him. From the workshop of L. Benois subsequently came such great and creatively different masters of architecture as G.A. Kosyakov, M.S. Lyalevich, A.I. Tamanyan, N.V. Vasiliev, M.M. Peretyatkovich, V.A. Shchuko, N.E. Lansere, I.A. Fomin, A.E. Belogrud and others. The coursework of Fyodor Lidval, completed in Benoit’s workshop, does not yet give an idea of ​​​​the uniqueness of the future architect. We can judge Lidval’s early works from photographs of projects for a country villa (1894), two public buildings (1895), placed in the album-book “F. Lidval”. All of them were executed in the spirit of the then impersonal pan-European Renaissance (14, p. 26).

Two years of classes in an individual workshop at the Academy's art school culminated in the development of a graduation program for the title of artist-architect. In 1896, Fyodor Lidval completed his education by developing a project for an exhibition hall. After graduating from the Academy, F. Lidval traveled to Europe and the USA. F. Lidval's creative activity in Russia lasted about twenty years. With some convention, two periods can be distinguished: from 1897 to 1907 and from 1907 to 1918. The most famous buildings are: Lidval House, Astoria Hotel, Azov-Don Bank, Zimmerman Apartment House, Nobel Mansion, 2nd Temporary Credit Society, Swedish Church, Nobel Brothers Association. F. Lidval built several dozen buildings in St. Petersburg, which left a noticeable mark on the architectural appearance, while demonstrating his characteristic artistic tact, combining the techniques of the classical school with new motifs and forms. At this time, his main theme was the apartment building, the main type of building in capitalist St. Petersburg. F. Lidval, like his colleagues, strove to create a memorable image, at the same time placing in the houses the largest possible number of apartments for different segments of the population (14, p. 24).

Competitions took a lot of place in his activities. In the development of projects, Lidval successfully collaborated with A.N. Benois, O.R. Muntz, R.I. Kitner, G.A. Kosyakov, S.V. Belyaev, with the latter in 1899 he completed a project for a five-story building with bay windows, a rationally structured apartment building with three courtyards. This quite mature work of young architects was awarded first prize. Subsequently, F. Lidval completed quite a few competitive projects (14, p. 74).

In 1912, F. Lidval took part in a custom competition held by the Ministry of Railways and the Academy of Arts for the design of the Nikolaevsky station building. In 1911, F.I. Lidval participated in the competition for the design of the building of the Noble Assembly, located on the corner of Malaya Sadovaya and Italianskaya streets, 27 (14, p. 82).

F. Lidval's activities were multifaceted. He taught at the Polytechnic Institute and participated in the publication of the magazine Malaya Posadskaya No. 5. In 1907, he was a member of the jury of the Mosque competition, then the passenger building of the Nikolaevka Railway, the theater in Tambov, the school of folk art and many other buildings. By 1915, there were two competitive projects for the Volga-Kama Bank building, one for Tiflis, the second for Kyiv, completed by Lidval together with the talented architect G.A. Kosyakov. In the same year, Lidval, together with Kitner, completed the project of the Lysvensky People's House in the Perm province (14, p. 43).

In 1910-1917, F.I. Lidval taught at the architectural faculty of the Women's Polytechnic Institute, led architectural design, and, like L.N. Benois, encouraged draft designs. There was a very strong composition of teachers here: V.A. Pokrovsky, V.A. Kosyakov, M.S. Lyalevich, V.V. Starostin, P.F. Aleshin, V.A. Shchuko, I.Ya. Bilibin, S. .V.Belyaev, M.M.Peretyatkovich and other major architects and artists of St. Petersburg. Together with Lidval, they did a lot for the education of women architects, many of whom became prominent Soviet architects. In 1914-1916, F.I. Lidval participated in the publication of an architectural and artistic weekly. He was a regular participant in the judging competition commissions and was involved in the development of programs for the design of various projects (14, p. 76).

Having built at least ten large residential buildings in a relatively short period of time, Lidval rose to the ranks of the most prominent St. Petersburg architects. His work receives official recognition from the public. In 1907, a special commission for awarding prizes for the best facades awarded Lidval a silver medal for the facades of house No. 19 on Konyushennaya Street, and the owner of house No. 61 on Kamennoostrovsky Prospekt, also built by Lidval, received an honorary diploma. In 1909, F.I. Lidval was awarded the honorary title of Academician of Architecture (14, p.76).

In 1908 Lidvall married Margaret Frederica Eilers (30). She was born in 1885 in St. Petersburg (19, p.72). And she lived with her family on Kamennoostrovsky Prospekt. Her father Hermann Friedrich Eulers (born in 1837 in East Friesland, now Holland) was a gardener in the princely St. Petersburg Yusupov family, and then started his own business and became a flower supplier to His Majesty's court. He died in August 1917 in Petrograd (19, p.72).

To his children: Sven (born December 31, 1909), Anders (born November 28, 1911), and Ingrid (born August 1, 1913). Margaret gave Swedish names because, having married, she accepted Swedish citizenship (19, p. 72). In F.I. Lidval's house they spoke Swedish, only when he was alone with his wife did he speak Russian, considering our language romantic. Lidval was a member of the Russian Imperial Academy of Arts and received an invitation to become a court architect, but refused, as this would involve accepting Russian citizenship.

From 1904 to 1917, F.I. Lidval and his family lived in a house on Kamennoostrovsky Prospekt at house No. 1/3, but after the February Revolution, envoy Brändström advised him to send his family to Sweden in the hope that the situation would stabilize. Therefore, Lidval's wife and children spent the summer in the Stockholm skerries. In August 1917, Mrs. Lidval's father died and she went to Petrograd, where her husband was at that time. The children remained in Sweden, where she returned in September. This visit was her last stay in the city in which she was born and raised. Upon returning to Sweden, Mrs. Lidval and her children lived in a hotel at the Yurhol restaurant. The Lidval family spent the winter of 1917-1918 in Dyrholm. F.I. Lidval survived the October Revolution of 1917 in Petrograd, and was never subjected to violence because of his authority. He still celebrated Christmas, apparently in Stockholm with his family. One way or another, in January 1918 he was again in Petrograd. He remained there for almost another year. At the end of November he left for Stockholm, probably not thinking that he would never return. In his office, work continued on projects for several buildings: the Russian Bank for Foreign Trade, JSC Nobel Brothers and a maternity hospital in Petrograd, a banking house in Samara, a resort hotel in Kislovodsk. None of the projects was completed, but the workshop functioned as an integral structure until 1923 (it was located in his own house on the first floor - Kamennoostrovsky Ave. 1/3). In 1919, the Lidval family bought a 3-room apartment in Stockholm because they already realized that their stay in Sweden, called temporary, became permanent and lasted for the rest of their lives (30).

In 1919, the Swedish state established the “Russian Property Commission”, whose task was to protect the interests of Swedes in Russia, both individuals and enterprises. Among those who lost the most were the Lidval families - the architect and the tailors. The total amount of Lidval's claims against the Soviet state reached 1,792,520 crowns, which corresponds to 70-80 million current crowns. This included the prices of houses: on Zeleninaya Street, 20/15 (purchased in 1910), on Bezborodkinsky Prospekt, 14 (purchased in 1915), on Bolshoy Prospekt of Vasilievsky Island, 99-101 (purchased in 1916). Documents confirming the right of ownership were available in cell No. 700 of the Petrograd branch of the Azov-Don Bank. Margaret's wife made a demand of 375,000 crowns. But they didn’t get anything back (30).

In 1920, on February 25, the architect Johan Frederich Lidval and his family were registered in the parish of Hedvig Eleonora in the capital of Sweden (19, p. 74) (see appendix).

Lidval was one of the most respected architects in Russia and the founder of a new style in St. Petersburg architecture in the first decades of the twentieth century. But in Sweden he was almost unknown, and if he was known, then in the conditions of the bad conditions that prevailed in the 20s, they looked at him as a dangerous competitor. At first, Emmanuel Nobel tried to help Lidval, partly with cash, partly by offering an order for the design of the Nobel Foundation building in Stockholm. This order F.I. Lidval did not get it, but after several years spent in humiliating loitering on thresholds, he got a job in Stockholm in the architectural office of Estlin and Stark.

F. Lidval's first independent building was 2 residential buildings in the English style on Gusta Gatan Street 3-5, which he built in 1922. Other well-known projects he completed in Stockholm include the building of the Shell oil company on Birger Jarlsgatan Street and a house on the corner of Tursgatan and St. Eriks Gatan streets. In cases where F.I. Lidval was not the author of the project, he was often entrusted with the design of facades and other parts of the building. An example of this is the Shell house with its cast iron railings, like a Chinese cinema. F.I. Lidval also designed several houses in the constructivist style, but he liked the simplified architectural style of the 30s much less than the neoclassicism of the 20s. In “functionalism,” as the Swedish version of constructivism was called, he no longer found application for his formal mastery (30).

During his work in Stockholm, F. Lidval designed 23 houses, including 16 of his own, but despite this, his career in Sweden cannot be called successful in comparison with what he did in pre-revolutionary Russia. His daughter Ingrid writes with pain about the difficulties her father experienced in Sweden, and not only professionally. After almost twenty years of success and the high praise he had earned as an architect of Russia, he was now forced to be content with the work of an employee. Sometimes he received four independent buildings, but not to the extent that he could provide himself only with private orders. From the memoirs of F.I. Lidval’s daughter: “Dad was not at all sentimental and did not live with memories of past successes, but his feelings nevertheless sometimes came out. He coped with a role that was personally humiliating for him, primarily because his professional honor and love for his work never gave him any respite or rest. How his Russian colleagues remembered him, I don’t know. But here in Sweden, Dad was intellectually bored and felt spiritually alone. Since St. Petersburg times, architects and artists meet and talk about architecture and art. Dad was never able to understand that Swedish architects do not feel the need for informal intellectual communication.” “My father,” writes Ingrid Lidval, “was never connected with Swedish architects to the same extent as he was connected with his colleagues in St. Petersburg... It was a great joy for him to collaborate with architects and artists in St. Petersburg... In those days he was a happy man" (19).

Recognized and widely known in Russia and forgotten in Sweden, F.I. Lidval died as a result of a cerebral hemorrhage at his home in Stockholm on March 14, 1945. Margaret Frederike died on April 12, 1962. They are buried in the same grave in Jureholm Cemetery (a suburb of northern Stockholm) (19, p.78).

Fyodor Ivanovich Lidval has earned high authority not only as an architect-artist, a keen connoisseur of architectural form, and a man of great taste, but also as a builder who personally leads the implementation of his projects in kind, is demanding about the quality of construction and finishing work, and goes into all the details of construction. Many students of Lidval A.A. Ol, R.I. Kitner and others) became prominent Soviet architects and always remembered their teacher and elder friend.

Chapter 3 Masterpiece of Northern Art Nouveau

3.1. Architectural portrait of a house.

The house on Kamennoostrovsky Prospekt is one of the early works of F. Lidval. This is an outstanding example of a comprehensive urban planning and artistic solution for a large site. The building consists of several multi-storey buildings, united by a semi-open courtyard (cour dhonneur - translated from French - courtyard of honor), which makes the apartments more illuminated (15, p. 188). According to E.A. Borisova and G.Yu. Sternin, this new method of composition with a large front courtyard open to the street, replacing the “well courtyards” typical of St. Petersburg apartment buildings of the 19th century, was used here for the first time (4, p. 246 ).

In the construction of the building facing Malaya Posadskaya Street, the architect tried to overcome the usual flatness and symmetry. The middle gable of the curvilinear outline and the wide windows below them are shifted from the central axis. The lower floor is separated not by a horizontal thrust, but by a wavy line. The bay windows do not repeat each other: the left one is round, the right one is triangular. Lateral trapezoidal pliers with bow tops are suitable for finishing the corner of I.E. Riting’s house on Kronversky Avenue (1899, V.V. Shaub). The wall is covered with textured spray plaster. This technique would then become a favorite in Lidval’s work.

In plan, the central building is also asymmetrical, but the main link of its main facade has a symmetrical three-axis structure. The vertical axes of the body are emphasized by three bay windows and gables. The middle gable, with a complex curved contour, rises above the side bay windows. The triangular glass bay window in the center is sandwiched between blades of greater height, traced by vertical rods. Metal beams and other parts of its structure are artistically processed. The base of the house along the entire perimeter is made of smoothly processed red granite slabs. The cladding of the lower floor and architectural details are made of talko-chlorite (talc-chlorite slate) or, as it is also called, “pot stone”, first used in St. Petersburg by Lidval (14, p. 31).

The building is separated from Kamennoostrovsky Prospekt by a beautiful forged lattice installed on pillars of red Finnish granite, and renewed in the summer of 1995. The lattice contains two gates with granite pylons - lanterns. The house was designed as a single organism, where the form corresponds to the content. New trends appear not only in the layout of the building, but also in the decorative techniques characteristic of the architect. In the design of the facades of the buildings, the architect widely used decorative motifs of Art Nouveau; The design above the central portal attracts attention. In the center of the relief decoration is a cartouche with the date of completion of the main part of the complex “1902”. To the right of the date is a pine branch with pine cones. Nearby is a forest bird, similar to a magpie, trying to peck the hare sitting next to it. Behind him is another hare running out of the thicket. To the left of the date is the head of a lynx with its mouth open. Nearby, on a branch, sits an owl with open wings. A high-relief eagle owl with outstretched wings, for which the top of the middle gable was specially widened, is located under the very roof (23, p. 25). On the second floor there are balconies on both sides of the building. Large forged spiders “sit” on the gratings. To the right and left of them, as if supporting a web, metal sunflowers “bloom”. The fences created by the imagination of the architect are remarkable in two respects: the filigree blacksmith work makes them a work of art, and the plot he chose carries a multi-valued image: the spider is a symbol of needlework, craft, weaving and, even more broadly, fate. the bars with spiders of the Lidval house serve as a kind of illustration to the words of the French art critic Ch. Blanc, who noted that “... architecture in its highest understanding is not a structure that is decorated, but a decoration that is built.” A curious fact is that the remaining balconies of the building (and there are about ten in total) have a completely different style. Some of them are made in the floral version of rhythmic modernism, others in the neoclassical style (2, p. 187).

The construction of the house by I.B. Lidval became an event in the architectural life of St. Petersburg. And naturally, in the buildings of other architects of that time one can find echoes of the architectural techniques first used in the house on Kamennoostrovsky Prospekt. Thus, the composition of the Lidval balcony with spiders can be seen in the bars of the house of P.T. Badayev (Vosstaniya St., 19), designed by architects V.I. and G.A. Kosyakov. Only instead of sunflowers, the spider is surrounded by mighty stems of flowering thistles (2, p. 188).

Above the front door of the left building are images of fantastic large-headed fish, reminiscent of dolphins, with bulging eyes and open mouths. On the protruding part of the outbuilding there is a nimble lizard carved, and above that is the head of a lynx. Fly agarics and morels grow under a fern leaf. Nearby are tulips and wild berries. All this is organically fused into the multi-textured wall surfaces. These animals and birds are a tribute to the passion for northern architecture that was fashionable at that time. What about fantastic fish and lion masks? Such a mixture of northern and southern, night and day, real and fictional birds and animals in the design of a building is one of the features of modernity (23, p. 23).

The corner part of the southern building is especially expressive in its plasticity. Volumes and planes are gently fused into each other. The corner itself seems to be cut in, and a faceted prism is built into the recess, which is supported by a powerful beam and thick columns made of blocks of torn stone. Wreaths and garlands were added to the Art Nouveau elements.

The image of the Lidval house is polyphonic. There are numerous and varied bay windows and balconies, straight and polygonal window openings, some of them with endings in the form of arches with platbands of different patterns. The cladding of the façade of the building, resting on a red granite plinth, uses potted stone of a light greenish-gray color, supplied by a Finnish company from the Nunnanlahti (Finnish Karelia) or Kaplivo-Murananvara deposit.
Approaching the house, you immediately notice the forged railings of the first floor balcony. They are made in the form of the Latin letter “L” - the first in the owners’ surname – Lidvall.

The building was awarded at the first city competition for “best facades” (1907). As an example of a residential building in the Art Nouveau style, this house was included in educational courses on the history of architecture (10, p. 186).

3.2. The structure and life of an old St. Petersburg house

Taking turns, the generations made noise,
Houses rose like your crops...
V. Bryusov (11, p.74)

House I.B. Lidval belongs to the type of apartment buildings, which were designed exclusively for residents with large funds, requiring apartments with all amenities. Here the apartments were all equally landscaped, differing only in size and the location of the windows - to the west, to the east, to the south - and by floor. The architect’s task is to combine the traditions of the city - “a strict, harmonious look” - with the requirements of a new, business life, which they completely succeeded in doing.
During the research, I learned with interest about the life of an apartment building at the turn of the 19th and 20th centuries.

Let us first focus on the workers at home - the janitors. The eldest of them selected assistants from their relatives or fellow countrymen - junior janitors, healthy, elderly peasants whom the village threw into the city to earn money. Most of them were illiterate or semi-literate people; great strength, hard work, cleanliness and honesty were required of them. They lived as janitors, usually without families, in a kind of artel. The older ones received 40 rubles, the younger ones 18-20 rubles. The elders were the bosses - they did not work, but gave orders and supervised the work of others. Janitors from morning to evening cleaned the streets, courtyards, stairs, and carried firewood to apartments. It was especially hard for these workers in the winter when there was snowfall: they had to scrape all the panels, sprinkle them with sand, rake the snow into piles and take them on horseback to the snow melter. In addition to their salary, they received tips for services to residents: they beat out carpets, tied up and carried things out when residents left for their dachas, and carried baskets of laundry into the attic. They knew who the birthday boy was when, and walked around the residents living on the staircase assigned to each. For such congratulations, they were not only given a tip, but also treated to vodka and a snack. Many of them tried to dress in a city style, have chrome boots, a jacket, a vest, and a scarf (11, p. 16).

The apartment entrances were serviced by doormen. They were recruited from those janitors who were more polite, had grown old and could no longer do hard work. Good appearance and courtesy were also required. They cleaned the main staircase, polished the mosaic landings to make them shine with vegetable oil, cleaned the copper door handles; in general, the work was not hard, but hectic - at night, when a belated tenant called, it was necessary to unlock the door, especially on holidays, when there were guests. The owner gave them all uniforms - a livery, a cap with gold braid. The doormen enjoyed the well-deserved trust of the apartment owners; often, when leaving for their dachas, they left the keys to the apartments and instructed them to water the flowers. As a rule, in addition to the salary from the owner, they also received from the landlords.

The janitors on duty at the gates also kept order, with a badge and a whistle, in winter in a sheepskin coat, felt boots and a warm hat. They watched who entered the yard, asked strangers where they were going, did not allow organ grinders and peddlers in, and made sure that things were not taken out without residents. At night the gates were locked, in the gateway there was a wooden bench on which they sat or lay until they were disturbed by a call from a belated tenant, who thrust a coin into their hand (11, p.61).

Since stables were built in the courtyard, it can be noted that there were also coachmen who lived in separate rooms. At that time, not everyone had cars, and we don’t know whether the Lidvals had them.

Chapter 4 People who glorified the house of I.B. Lidval

4.1. At the beginning of the twentieth century

The house of I.B. Lidval is not only an architectural monument, but also a house in which famous personalities lived and worked for a century. At the beginning of the twentieth century, entrepreneurs, actors, scientists, singers, artists and architects rented apartments here.

With the help of the directory “All Petersburg”, encyclopedias (3, p. 21) and materials from the Central State Archive of St. Petersburg, I managed to find some of them.

B.A. Kaminka lived in this house from 1903 to 1917 (12, p.93). He was a representative of the Russian financial oligarchy, a major figure in the Cadet Party, managing director, and chairman of the board of the Azov-Don Commercial Bank. This building is located on Bolshaya Morskaya Street, in building 3/5, which was erected according to the design of F. Lidval. B.A. Kaminka played a prominent role in public life and was involved in charitable activities. In 1920 he left for Paris (12, p.94). B.A. Kaminka lived in this house with his wife Anastasia, sons Alexander, Mikhail, Georgy, Ippolit, daughters Daria and Vitalia.

His eldest son Alexander Borisovich Kaminka, born in 1887, a St. Petersburg banker, graduated from St. Petersburg University, worked as an actor, then opened an acting school. After 1917 he emigrated from the country. Lived in Paris, was engaged in banking. He was a film producer; in 1920 he founded and headed the Albatross studio, which initially produced films by Russian emigrant directors. In 1920-1959 he organized the shooting of a number of films, including Y. Protazanov, I. Mozzhukhin, V. Turzhansky, A. Volkov.

The second son of B.A. Kaminka, Georgy, born in 1893, studied at the Tenishev School, then entered the economics department of the Polytechnic Institute. In the fall of 1912, he took leave from the institute and entered the Vladimir Uhlan Regiment as a volunteer. A year later he returned to the institute, graduated with the title of Candidate of Economic Sciences (1917). He was sent to Norway and Sweden on Red Cross affairs. Until 1919 he lived in Scandinavia, then moved to Paris (12, p.94).

In 1904, the architect A.R. Haveman1 lived in the Lidval house; by this time he was already the author of the K.A. Gorchakov mansion on B. Monetnaya Street (house No. 19, next to Kamennoostrovsky) (1, p. 82).

In 1905-1907 The architect Andrei Petrovich Vaytens2 lived in this house. In 1904 he graduated from the Academy of Arts. He taught at the Leningrad Art and Technical Institute. In 1908-1910 he built his own dacha in Lakhta (Lesnaya St., no. 21). In 1910-1914, he finished the lobby and living room of the Yusupov Palace. In 1914, he built production facilities of the Gas Society for street lighting. Apartment building of F.F. Niedernmeyer on Kamennoostrovsky Avenue No. 39. In Soviet times, he built residential buildings and track structures of the October Railway, government dachas and other buildings on the Black Sea coast of the Caucasus (1, p. 66).

In 1907-1979, Silvia Solomonovna Kofman, a theater artist, lived in apartment No. 33.3 She was born in Odessa on May 31, 1907 in the family of a doctor. After graduating from school and theater college, in 1925 she entered the Odessa Polytechnic of Fine Arts. After finishing her first year in 1926, Sylvia Kofman entered the Higher Art Institute in Leningrad in the department of theatrical decoration of the faculty of painting and graduated 4 years later. At first she took part in the decoration of the May and October holidays and worked in publishing houses. Later she worked in theaters around the country designing performances. In 1934-1936 she was already the chief artist of the West Siberian Regional Theater for Young Spectators. Throughout all the years of her creative activity, she participated in exhibitions and wrote dramatizations.

From 1908 to 1914, Professor A.I. Gorbov, a chemist and student of A.M. Butlerov, rented an apartment in building 1/3. Together with V.F. Mitkevich, in 1907-1910 at the Polytechnic Institute, for the first time in Russia, he designed an installation for producing nitric acid from air by the arc method. Gorbov is one of the organizers of the Institute of Applied Chemistry (23, p. 24).

From the directory “All Petersburg” I managed to find out that in 1909 the famous painter K.S. Petrov-Vodkin lived on Kamennoostrovsky 1/3. It should be noted that this address was not indicated in the book dedicated to the artist “Petrov-Vodkin in St. Petersburg - Petrograd - Leningrad” (24). He studied from 1897 to 1905. at the Moscow School of Painting with the wonderful master and teacher V.A. Serov, in 1901 in the studio of A. Azhbe in Munich, in 1905-1908 in private academies in Paris. Petrov-Vodkin also acted as a writer. He wrote stories, novels, essays, theoretical articles (29, p. 340) (see appendix).
From 1909 to 1995, the architect Yakov Mikhailovich Lukin, a master of the avant-garde, neoclassical and functional architecture, lived in apartment No. 294. In 1955-1960, together with P.A. Ashastin, N.V. Baranov and engineer I.A. Rybin, a new building of the Finland Station was built (15, p. 231).

The house is associated with the name of the People's Artist of the USSR, actor of the Alexandrinsky Theater (now it is called the Drama Theater named after A.S. Pushkin) Yu.M. Yuryev (5). He settled here in 1915 and lived until 1930 (23, p.24).

The actor's fame was brought to him by roles in the classical repertoire: Romeo, Faust, Uriel Acosta, Don Juan. He created magnificent images of Arbenin, Krechinsky, Chatsky. It is known that Yuriev conducted rehearsals for the tragedies “Oedipus the King” and “Macbeth” in his apartment. Actress O.P. Beyul left memories of these classes: “We rehearsed at his house. With great pleasure they entered his beautiful apartment, always, of course, before the appointed time, so as not to be late. It even happened that they showed up when Yuriev was not yet at home. His nanny and housekeeper, a little old woman named Praskovya Ivanovna, opened the door for us and immediately called us into her kitchen. Yuri Mikhalych punished: My girls will come, give them tea, they are probably hungry.”

I remember well the large room in which we studied, apparently his office. It was furnished with antique mahogany furniture. (Now this furniture is located in the living room of the Stage Veterans House). Above the sofa hung a large copy of I.E. Repin’s painting “The Resurrection of Jairus’s Daughter.” On the desk is a photograph of M.N. Ermolova. We rehearsed a lot and for a long time. He worked with us separately, and read for all the other characters himself. He explained and showed characteristic images excellently. My role is tiny, but how interesting it was for me to live! With what joy I walked across the Trinity Bridge, to house No. 1 on Kamennoostrovsky Prospekt, went up to the fourth floor and every time with constant excitement I pressed the bell button...”6.

In 1943, Yu.M. Yuryev became a laureate of the Stalin Prize. For his teaching activities, in 1947 he was awarded the degree of Doctor of Arts (see appendix).

Before the revolution, K.K. Rakusa-Sushchevsky, director of the board of a number of large enterprises, including the Russian-Baltic Shipbuilding and Mechanical Joint Stock Company, lived in the Lidval house.

G.A.Bunge – Chairman of the Board of the Russian-Belgian Metallurgical Society.

E.K.Grube - Chairman of the Board of the Siberian Trade Bank and E.E. Ferro - Director of the Board of the Bryansk Metallurgical Plant (12, p.151-154).

In the same house lived the financier and industrialist Genrikh Genrikhovich Raupert, a member of the board of the Azov-Don Bank, director of the St. Petersburg Insurance Society (12, p. 152).

Fyodor Ivanovich Lidval was born on May 20 (old style) 1870 in St. Petersburg. Fyodor's father was a tailor, famous in the city, a cultured man, fond of literature and art. The father was a Swedish citizen, and the mother was Danish, born in St. Petersburg in 1844.
Fedor attended primary school in the Swedish parish of St. Catherine, and then in 1882–1888, the only one of the brothers, studied at the 2nd St. Petersburg Real School. After preparation, Fyodor Lidval in 1890 became a student in the architectural department of the Imperial Academy of Arts. He was lucky, because he became a student of the excellent teacher-architect Leonty Nikolaevich Benois. Fyodor Ivanovich graduated from the Academy in 1896. Subsequently, there was always a photo of L. N. Benoit on Lidval’s drawing table.

Fyodor Ivanovich and his brothers lived in an absolutely Russian environment, where they had many friends and spoke Russian fluently. Nevertheless, Fedor and his brothers maintained contacts with the Swedish diaspora of St. Petersburg. Their devotion to the homeland of their father, who died in 1886, was strong in them. As a student at the Academy of Arts, Fyodor served military service in the Swedish Royal Life Guards in 1896. Later, being a famous architect and member of the Imperial Academy of Arts, Fyodor Lidval received an offer to become a court architect. But he refused, since in this case he had to accept Russian citizenship, abandoning Swedish.

At first, F. Lidval received work as an architect under the patronage of L. N. Benoit. From the very first steps, Lidval showed himself to be a supporter of modernism. His active work as an architect was determined by the number of orders he completed. Fyodor Lidval was the founder and leading master of “northern” Art Nouveau in St. Petersburg. The main period of the architect's creative activity coincided with the short Silver Age of Russian culture. If the life of the architect himself after 1917 developed dramatically, then the fate of his legacy in St. Petersburg was prosperous.

Most of Lidval's buildings have been preserved in their original form. Even during the times of sweeping criticism of modernity, the legacy of the architect, who was an emigrant with all the ensuing consequences, was not ostracized. A Swede by nationality and citizenship, a St. Petersburger by birth and education, Lidval found himself at the crossroads of two powerful trends: overcoming the eclecticism of the last century and the creation of new forms of the 20th century - modernity.

Fyodor Lidval married in 1908. He had two sons and a daughter (born in 1913). All children had Swedish citizenship.
After the February Revolution of 1917, the Swedish military attache suggested that Lidval send his children and wife to Sweden. The architect had a lot of work, and he agreed, but he could not go himself. The Lidval family never returned to St. Petersburg. Lidval's wife came briefly for her father's funeral and returned to Sweden. She did not take any valuables, she did not even withdraw money from her bank account. A relative of the architect’s wife at one time lived in a house at 1–3 Kamennoostrovsky Prospekt. Somehow she managed to transport part of the property and furniture to Revel (Tallinn). In the fall of 1923, the Lidval family received all this.

After October 1917, Lidval lived in St. Petersburg. He was not subjected to violence; he was needed as an architect. But due to the difficult situation in the country, nothing was built. These difficulties and longing for family were the reason that, having left for Sweden in the summer of 1918, Lidval never returned to Russia.
Despite his experience as an architect, Lidval initially had no luck with work and found it difficult to exist. Emmanuel Nobel, the president of the Russian Oil Company, also a refugee from Russia, provided financial assistance to the NMU until his death in 1932. Finally, one of the Swedish architects, Albin Stark, gave Lidval a job. But creative orders were rare. Mostly the work was technical. According to the recollections of his daughter Ingrid, in Sweden Lidval felt spiritually isolated and was sad about his lost creative opportunities. It is known that in 1932 and 1937 he traveled to Finland, to Terijoki. There he met Martha, the younger sister of Emmanuel Nobel.

Fyodor Lidval died in the spring of 1945, and his wife in the spring of 1962. They rest in the same grave in Djursholm Cemetery in Stockholm.

Lidval Fedor Ivanovich

Years of life: 1870 - 1945

Architect

Fyodor Ivanovich Lidval - one of the leading masters of St. Petersburg Art Nouveau, an architect-artist and builder - came from a Swedish-Danish family that settled in the city on the Neva in the middle of the 19th century. and had strong ties to the Scandinavian diaspora. He was born in 1870, studied at the Baron Stieglitz School of Technical Drawing, then at the Academy of Arts - in the workshop of L. N. Benois, performing ordinary, undistinguished course work. In 1896, having developed a graduation program (a project for an exhibition building), Lidval completed his education.

Over twenty years of continuous creative activity, Lidval built several dozen buildings in St. Petersburg, which left a noticeable mark on the architectural appearance of the city. Brought up on traditional eclecticism, he quickly rose to the forefront of adherents of the new Art Nouveau style. Two periods can be distinguished in his work: 1897-1907 and 1907-1918.

At the first stage, the architect clearly showed himself to be a master of “northern modernism”; his searches in these years were close to the aspirations of Scandinavian and Finnish architects. The main theme is the apartment building, the main type of building in capitalist St. Petersburg. Lidval, like his colleagues, sought to create a memorable image, while at the same time placing in the buildings the largest possible number of apartments for different segments of the population.

In 1900, he rebuilt a large house facing the Kadetskaya Line, Kubansky and Tuchkov Lanes. The bay window and dome emphasized the responsible position of the house. In 1901, together with S.V. Belyaev, Lidval built the wooden mansion of K.K. Ekval on the territory of his own factory (Krasnogvardeisky lane, 15) - a rare monument of this kind in the Art Nouveau style. In 1903, Lidval built a hotel building at 6 Apraksin Lane, in the shopping center of the capital. The lower floors of this austere, business building house shops.

Lidval's first largest programmatic work was the apartment house of his mother, I. B. Lidval (Kamennoostrovsky Ave., 1-3, - M. Posadskaya St., 5; 1899-1904). The Lidval House is an example of a comprehensive urban planning and artistic solution for a large plot of trapezoidal configuration.

Lidval's first major building made him immediately famous, and the house was a prime example of Northern Art Nouveau forms demonstrated with lavish inventiveness.

In 1902, 1904 and 1908-1910. in the neighborhood Lidval built houses at Malaya Posadskaya Street, 15, 17 and 19, forming a large residential complex.

In 1908-1910 In the Lidval style, if you can call it that, one of the most interesting houses in terms of urban planning was built - in a completely different landscape environment. This is a house at 14 Primorsky Prospekt, unusually impressively rising on the low bank of the Nevka, just opposite the Rossi pavilion.

Actively working on the St. Petersburg side, Lidval showed himself no less clearly in the development of the city center. On Bolshaya and Malaya Konyushennaya streets he erected simultaneously in 1904-1905. two buildings, each of which is programmatic in his work and a milestone in the development of St. Petersburg Art Nouveau. The House of the Swedish Church (M. Konyushennaya Str., 3) clearly demonstrates the author’s desire to combine Art Nouveau motifs with the classical technique of the overall composition. In the courtyard part there was a concert hall that became very popular, which V. Mayakovsky loved.

An example of “northern modernism” is house No. 19 on Bolshaya Konyushennaya Street. There was no house of the Guards Economic Society (DLT) yet, and the Lidval building stood proudly in the space, and even today it is an important accent.

During these same years, he created another extraordinary building, the figurative characteristics of which are distinguished by greater restraint, even severity. The four-story house of the Vyborg citizen Kollan (92 V. O. Bolshoi Ave.) is one of the first-class monuments of “northern modernism,” without the extremes and grotesqueries that often discredited this movement.

The five-story Liebig house (Mokhovaya St., 14) also belongs to the same period, harmoniously integrated into a different spatial environment, with a rather neutral composition devoid of strong accents and a uniform rhythm of windows.

Lidval's creativity at the first stage of his activity impresses with the diversity of artistic images, united, despite the variety of forms and techniques, by special poetry and romantic emotion.

Having received wide recognition, Lidval expanded his field of activity. In the difficult environment of the struggle between various artistic movements and groups, the architect found use for his talent, turning, like many of his contemporaries, to the classics. Vivid examples of the architect's appeal to the classics were the buildings of the Second Mutual Credit Society (Sadovaya St., 34; 1907-1908) and the Azov-Don Commercial Bank (B. Morskaya St., 3-5; 1908-1909, 1912).

These monumental, ceremonial, respectable-looking houses are monuments of the new Petersburg, which caused a wide resonance and influenced the architecture of similar institutions. In both buildings there is strict St. Petersburg symmetry, emphasis on the center, interpretation of the first floor as a powerful foundation, and a certain static character.

In 1915-1916 Lidval, together with his teacher L.N. Benoin, began the construction of the Russian Bank for Foreign Trade (B. Morskaya St., 18, - Moika River embankment, 63), however, due to the war, the building remained unfinished and was completed already in 1920. x years according to the modified project. Several excellent banking buildings were built according to Lidval's designs in Moscow, Astrakhan, Kyiv and Kharkov, the best of which, in Kyiv, is the decoration of Khreshchatyk.

Lidval also proved himself in hotel construction. This is the internal reconstruction, decoration and superstructure of the Evropeyskaya Hotel on Mikhailovskaya Street (1908-1910) and the design and construction of the Astoria Hotel in the ensemble of St. Isaac's Square (1911-1912). Until now, assessments of this building are ambiguous.

However, neither banks nor hotels could distract the architect from his main theme - a residential building, and here he again showed great flexibility in creative thinking. Houses built in the 1910s have new qualities due to the demands of the time.

Apartments of varying degrees of amenities and sizes, different outlines in the plan indicate the architect’s sensitive attitude to changing requirements. And this house influenced Lidval’s contemporaries (the house at 41 Lenin Street, built by A.L. Lishnevsky, etc.).

The house of the Swedish industrialist Nobel on Lesnoy Prospekt is one of a number of residential and industrial buildings built for him by Lidval. Among them is a thoroughly rebuilt house (6 Griboyedov Canal embankment; 1909),

a mansion for him opposite the apartment building in question (Lesnoy 21), rebuilt by Lidval in 1910, possibly a country house in Sergiev (not preserved) and industrial buildings on the Vyborg side. The house at 20 Lesnoy Prospekt is also one of the architect’s signature works.

In 1913-1914 Lidval, together with the architect D. D. Smirnov, built an excellent residential building (P. S., Bolshoy pr., 39; by the way, Smirnov actively participated in the construction of Tolstoy’s house), and together with M. M. Peretyatkovich created a reinforced concrete vault in the main hall of the Exchange.

The buildings of Lidval and the masters of his circle largely determined the originality and high level of St. Petersburg architecture of the 1900-1910s.

At the end of 1918, he left for the homeland of his ancestors - Stockholm, where he lived the last, long, but much less productive period of his life. This is understandable - after all, Lidval was connected with all his roots to the culture of St. Petersburg, Russia, he continued to consider himself a Russian architect, and the years of work in St. Petersburg were the happiest years of his life.

In 1890-1896, Fyodor Ivanovich Lidval studied at the Academy of Arts and graduated from it in the class of L. Benois with the title of artist-architect for the “project of an exhibition hall.” In 1909 he became Academician of Architecture. In 1918 he left for Sweden, but the most fruitful period of his work was associated with St. Petersburg.

Works by F.I. Lidval - leading master" Northern modern", focusing on the architecture of the Scandinavian countries and partly the Russian north, are distinguished by sharply composed combinations of large volumes and planes, textures, color spots, a complex rhythm of various window and door openings, bay windows and balconies. Poetry, generalization and dynamics of forms give great impact to these buildings and , primarily to Lidval’s own house, from which the main street of the Petersburg side begins - Kamennoostrovsky Prospekt (house No. 1/3).

Subsequently, Lidval moves on to a more strict and laconic style. And the reason for this was St. Petersburg itself, which preserved the classical basis and influenced all builders. Lidval widely uses the technical and artistic capabilities of building and finishing materials, a wide variety of plaster, smooth and rough granite, limestone, and finishing brick. Few people before Lidval were able to so deeply express the merits of each material in combination with other materials. The house on Kamennoostrovsky Prospekt No. 61 is Lidval’s most colorful work, harmoniously combining a picturesque composition with laconic architectural forms, free sculpting of volumes and soft plasticity of wall surfaces. And what’s interesting is that the design of the facades includes motifs close to Baroque, especially in the composition of the roof and main entrances. This creates a link between the monument of “northern modernism” and the architecture of the 18th century.

In the buildings of the Second Mutual Credit Society on Sadovaya Street, 14 (1909) and the building of the Azov-Don Commercial Bank on Bolshaya Morskaya Street, 3-5, the features of St. Petersburg classicism are clearly visible. The facades with a clearly accentuated center are monumental, ceremonial, the first floor is perceived as a powerful foundation of the entire building.

Among the numerous buildings of Lidval, it is worth noting the famous building of the five-star Astoria Hotel, as well as residential buildings on Rubinshteina Street 15-17 and the Nobel House on Lesnoy Prospekt, building No. 20. Behind the rather modest street facades, distinguished only by high passages - "Renaissance" triple arches - a majestic composition of the courtyard space opens - a kind of street of the architect Lidval, a ceremonial amphilade in the open air.