House with poppies

To the beginning XX century Bank Street It was built up with the mansions of wealthy people of Kiev. On the street was the mansion of the sugar maker S. I. Liberman , the former home of Adjutant General F. F. Trepov . Creative Kiev loved this street as well. At Bankova stood the houses of the famous Kiev composer V.V. Pukhlitsky and the famous Kiev architect G.P. Shleifer . A little later on Bankovaya St. Architect V.V. Gorodetsky built his House with Chimeras .

The construction of a multi-storey building on Bankovaya became possible only in 1908 , when the esplanade rule was removed that limited the height of buildings on the outskirts of the Pechersk fortress .

The house is built in modern style . The division of the house only seems symmetrical at first glance. The central part of the facade is separated by two identical bay windows. The left one hangs over the rounded entrance, and the right one ends with a symbolic figure of the decor, where the curved lines are enclosed in an oval and the straight lines intersect it to serve as a window frame.

The decoration of the front facade of the House with Poppies is made with great taste. After the richness of the sculptural reliefs of the House with Chimeras, the iconographic motifs of General De Witte’s apartment building seem laconic. The eye stops only on the window, decorated with poppies, and a garland of hop leaves above the arch of the main entrance. The rest of the decor is less naturalistic.

The authors of the book "Art Nouveau Kiev" believe that the symbolic decor of the house continues the poppy theme set by a window decorated with a "Poppy" relief on its front facade.

• "Kiev in the Art Nouveau Style" A. Maclyukov M. Gantseva