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The House with Chimaeras, 10 Bankovaya St, Kiev.

Via Wikipedia:

The House with Chimaeras was designed by the architect Vladislav Gorodetsky in 1901–1902. Gorodetsky was born in 1863 into a prosperous Polish szlachta family in the Podillia region. After finishing the Imperial Academy of Arts in Saint Petersburg in 1890, he moved to Kiev, where he lived for almost 30 years. At the time of the building’s construction, Gorodetsky had already established himself as a prominent Kiev architect, having designed many city buildings, from the St. Nicholas Roman Catholic Cathedral to a Karaite kenesa and the current National Art Museum of Ukraine. Besides architecture, Gorodetsky was also interested in big-game hunting, which explains why his building features many animals.

The Italian sculptor Emilio Sala was responsible for both the internal and external sculptural decorations, such as mermaids, dolphins, and frogs on the roof of the building, sinking ships and hunting trophies on the exterior walls, and exuberant interior decorations, such as grand stairways and chandeliers depicting huge catfish strangled in the stems of lotus flowers.

• A gallery of details
• The House at night on Flickr

Previously on { feuilleton }
• Adolph Sutro’s Gingerbread Palace
• The Triangular Lodge