House with chimeras

A house of Gaudi in Barcelona, House of Corbusier in Marsele is visiting-cards of these cities. Such card at Kiev is famous House with Chimeras. Built by Vladislaw Gorodetskiy this house became the real masterpiece and after centuries is one of main decorations of the capital of Ukraine.

It a legendary hose is in the center of the capital – in the Bankova street, opposite the residence of Presidents of Ukraine.

This remarkable building decorated with the fabulous figures of animals and chimeras like as they were took from peaked roofs of Notre Dame de Paris can be easily called the most unusual Kiev building. On the roof of the building are sitting good-natured toads with nereids, heads of rhinos and antelope are built into walls, drain pipes look like snakes and elephant trunks. Constructed on a steep slope house astonishes by one more details - from the front side it has only 3 floors and from back side whole 6!

Italian sculptor Elio Sala decorated the front of the building by fantastical figures of sea monsters and exotic animals being taken from the sketches of Gorodetskiy. There is a legend that sea monsters are an architect tribute for his drown daughter.

This building was constructed by the architect Gorodetskiy in 1903 — on the former bank of drained swamp. This place was prohibited for building up by Kiev house-building society. Many people at that time considered construction on the steep slope to be the sheer madness. That’s why the house was primordially cloaked in legends: it is said that Gorodetskiy started building because of bet with other architects who contended that it's impossible to build something in that place. Nevertheless the house was built in record time constraints — only for 2 years.