Zholtovsky House on Mokhovaya street

The Zholtovsky House on Mokhovaya street is a building in the center of Moscow. The house was built in 1934 according to the project of the architect Ivan Zholtovsky for the employees of the Moscow City Council.

The construction of the building caused conflicting reviews and active discussion among architects. Zholtovsky’s house marked a turning point in Soviet architecture, it was nicknamed “the nail in the coffin of constructivism”.

The building has the status of an object of cultural heritage of regional significance. Until 1953, the building housed the US Embassy. Since the 2000s, it has housed the head office of AFK Sistema.

The main part of the house protruding forward in the form of a huge risalit is made in a large order and large plastic forms; the façade was originally designed for viewing from distant points of view and is inscribed in the building line from Theater Square to the State Museum of Fine Arts, where the Bolshoi Theater colonnade is a common compositional element.

In the central section, one- and two-level apartments of three or four rooms were designed. In the side wings there were one-two-room apartments. Many apartments had separate rooms for servants. The ceilings were decorated with paintings, each door had an individual pattern.

Ivan Vladislavovich Zholtovsky is a Russian and Soviet architect, artist and teacher, the largest representative of retrospectivism in Soviet architecture. Academician of Architecture of the Imperial Academy of Arts, full member of the Academy of Architecture of the USSR, Doctor of Architecture, Honorary Corresponding Member of RIBA. He took place as a master of neo-renaissance and neoclassicism in the pre-revolutionary period, in Soviet times he was one of the elders of the Soviet architectural school.

Nearest metro: Teatralnaya, Ohotny Ryad, Ploschad Revolyutsii.

Attractions around: Bolshoi TheatreMaly TheatreManezhnaya SquarePloschad Revolyutsii (square)State Duma buildingHouse of the UnionsTeatralnaya PloschadTSUMMonument to Alexander OstrovskyTretyakovskiy proezdCentral Children’s StoreLubyanka BuildingMetropol Hotel, Moskva HotelKremlinNikolskaya StreetPolytechnic Museum, Red Square, Tverskaya street.

See also Architecture of MoscowPalaces and most historic buildings of Moscow.

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