"House with owls"

The house on the corner of Bolshoy Prospekt P.S. and Oranienbaum Street was built on the order of the merchant's widow T.N. Putilova, the owner of the manufactory store on Vasilievsky Island. The author of the masterpiece is the architect and ideologist of the Northern Art Nouveau Ippolit Alexandrovich Pretro, "The House with the Owls" is one of his main creations.

The Northern Art Nouveau was developed in St. Petersburg at the beginning of the 20th century under the influence of the Swedish and Finnish architecture of national romanticism. The building is a huge monolithic block with a courtyard-well inside. The facade, which is facing the Bolshoy Prospekt is made with granite in the lower part. A lancet portal is decorated with owl sculptures in the center of the facade.

Soon after the construction of the house, it was moved to the company of the production of rubber tires "Explorer". There was also a branch of the Russian commercial and industrial bank. The last owner of the house was commerce adviser M.L. Balabanov, chairman of the board of the Northern Glass-Industrial Society.

In the Soviet years, in the house a well-known commission shop was situated and later - various offices and salons.

In 2011-2012, the house was renovated, the architectural decor was updated, and most importantly, according to the iconographic materials, the previously lost eagle sculpture on the corner bay window of the building was recreated.