|
 |
 |
ILYINKA STREET
The modern buildings in this street, where the shops and offices of wealthy businessmen began to be concentrated at the end of the eighteenth century, mostly date back to the late nineteenth and early twentieth century and are official or commercial premises.
View of the Kremlin from the State History Museum
|
The beginning of the street by Red Square has two interesting specimens of "Russian style" architecture, the Upper and Middle Trading Rows. We have already mentioned the Upper Rows in the chapter on Red Square and will merely remind the reader that they now house the GUM Department Store. The Middle Trading Rows were built in 1894 from a design by the architect Roman Klein. Today they house various establishments. A large section on the right-hand side of the street is taken up by the Old Trading Court, which has been described above.
Note the five-storey building (No. 5) on the left-hand side of the street, which stands out with its interestingly designed single-storey rotunda on the corner. It was built by the architect Pyotr Skomoro-shenko in 1875 and for a long time was the tallest civic building in Moscow.
Also of interest is the building opposite it, the former Exchange, erected in classical style in 1836-9 by the architect Mikhail Bykovsky and rebuilt in 1873-5 by Alexander Kaminsky. The loggia and portico with the triangular pediment, the rustication of the lower storey, and the sculptural insets lend this well-proportioned building a solemn festive air.
Here, too, in the small llyinka Square, is yet another building worthy of note, the former Rya-bushinsky Bank (now an administrative building), designed by Fyo-dor Shekhtel, the talented leader of Russian art nouveau architecture. The poetics of this work are based on the contrasting of large glass surfaces and light glazed brick, a discovery made by him. The clear geometrically austere architecture of this building, which looks like a giant crystal, introduced a new note into the ensemble of the square.
The monumental building at No. 8 (architect Adolf Erikhson) in neo-classical style and the richly decorated long buildings on the other side of the street are typical of eclectic architecture at the end of the last century. The last building on the left-hand side is the offices of the former Northern Insurance Society (No. 23) with a multi-tiered tower and rotunda in art nouveau style. Its facades are faced with natural stone and decorated with reliefs and vases. This building with its original architecture echoes the towers of the Kitai Gorod wall that used to run along here. It was erected in 1910-11 from a design by the architect Vyacheslav Oltarzhevsky and the engineer Ivan Rerberg.
|
|
