The House with Chimeras or "Animal House" Ukrainian Style

August 2010













 It is clear the House with Chimeras in Kyiv, Ukraine, has nothing to do with the movie about American fraternity students acting badly.  However, I did get the impression that there were some wild parties held here.  Vladislav Gorodestsky (1863-1930), the renown architect and major partner in the cement factory, designed and constructed this fantastic house in 1902-1903.  You may remember him enjoying a cup of coffee on a fashionable  boulevard from my previous post, On the Streets of Kyiv.

Gorodetsky was reportedly a "bon vivant" in his time.  He was among the great game hunters of that era--Hemingway, Teddy Roosevelt, and many other notables.  Having seen the magnificent African wildlife roaming the grassland of Tanzania,  I despise the needless slaughter of those animals, but I have to remember to judge a man within the context of his times.  I heard that Gorodetsky had the first car in Kyiv and rode around town with a monkey on his shoulder.  But then again, he apparently liked to start outlandish rumors about himself to keep things interesting.









Looking up at the menagerie of animals and mythical figures that were added by his request to the house by sculptor Elio Sala, I felt like I had entered someone's strange and magical dream.

The top of the house is covered with  an interesting mix of animals: deer, rhinos, elephants, fish, lizards, snakes, frogs, eagles, octopus, mermaids--I'm sure there are more.We arrived late in the afternoon when the contrast of shadows and bright sun created interesting and sur-real effects 

The house was quite remarkable for its time.  It was built on the edge of a steep hill with 3 stories in the front, but 6 stories in the back, and used the "new" building technologies of reinforced concrete.  While it has elements of cubist and Art Nouveau style, it is totally unique and delightfully "over the top."   Gorodetsky kept one floor of the house for his apartment and rented the others to wealthy associates.

Gorodetsky also designed jewelry and a number of structures in Kyiv, notably the St. Nicholas Cathedral and the Ukrainian National Art Museum.  But his expensive tastes eventually caught up with him, and he had to sell the house a decade after it was finished.  It was perhaps just as well, for winds of the Bolshevik Revolution had started to stir, and the austere era of communist utilitarianism  was approaching.




The Ukrainian Parliament building was later built across the street in Soviet style, and 10 families ended up housed in Gorodetsky's one-floor apartment (reminds me of Dr. Zhivago).  Perhaps the most amazing thing about The House with Chimeras is that this highly  individualistic structure was not destroyed along with beautiful churches and other "unnecessary structures" during the bleak communist period.

Gorodetsky, who was from the  Polish area of the Ukraine, moved to Warsaw, then to exotic Tehran, Iran, where he died and was buried in 1930.  Today the inside of his famous house is only seen by those invited by the President of the Ukraine to special receptions and events. But from my glimpse of the outside, I just want to say, "Thank you, Mr. Gorodetsky" for reminding us to imagine things fantastical  and improbable.