The House of Friderici as a Lost Element of the Background Development in Tsarskoye Selo

Abstract

The paper considers the history of the construction of lost element of the background building in Tzarskoe Selo – by the modern address Saints-Petersburg, town of Pushkin, 21, Krasnaya Zvezda street. This house was built in 1938 and was many times rebuilt and finally completely lost its initial appearance, but is still on the place of its construction. On the base of archival researchers, we manage to reveal the sequence of its reconstructions and architectural features of the building in the various periods of its existence. We have determined names of architects who participated in design and construction of the house (I.A. Rezantzev, A. A. Ton) and also found names of its owners in different periods. It was thought that widow Frideretzi was the first owner of the house. Our studies show that there were at least two owners before her. Genealogical studies allowed collecting information about Elisabeth Frideritzi, who was in fact the last but not the only owner of the house in the prerevolutionary period. The survived drafts and pictorial representations, published for the first time in our article, help to produce detailed description of the building. Special attention of the authors paid to the reconstruction to the design of architect V.D. Sokolov in 1909 – 1910. The fate of the background buildings in town of Pushkin in 20th century turned tragically. During the World War II the town was occupied by Nazi. 85% of buildings were destroyed completely, and the rest needed serious renovation. In 1947 the former house of Frideritzes was reconstructed in the style of Soviet classicism, and its initial appearance was distorted. The paper gives the critical description of the architecture of the building. In the 1960 the building has had the capital repair, which changed its internal plan. The building now keeps size and scale of the initial background building, other elements, which define its city planning significance are lost. The object lost its authentic appearance and therefore cannot be considered object of history of culture.