Kuznetsov Partnership Board

First owners

The history of the land plot under the modern House of Porcelain can be traced back to 1725 - then it belonged to the family of Muscovites of the Zybins. By 1780, Prince Pyotr Tyuvyakin, director of the imperial theaters, bought the property. On the basis of stone chambers left over from the previous owners, he built for himself a two-story house worth about 55 thousand rubles , which was a colossal amount by the standards of the XVIII century . The building practically did not suffer in the fire of 1812 , after World War II, Tyufyakin began to lease it: from 1813, the English Club was located in the house, and from 1815, the hostel Madame E.O. Perne . In 1830, the mansion was bought by a historian, a professor at Moscow University, Mikhail Pogodin ^[5] . On the deal, he wrote to his friend the poet Stepan Shevyryov :

Poet Alexander Pushkin visited Pogodin in the following years, Nikolai Gogol , Mikhail Shchepkin , Sergey Aksakov and other cultural figures were frequent guests of the mansion in the following years ^[5] .

Already in 1834, the mansion was resold to the translator and poetess Ekaterina Bakhmeteva , and later to the founder of the Society of Lace Mills, Natalia Ivanovna Novoseltseva. Over the years, the families of the famous teacher Alexander Chugayev and the cartoonist Nikolai Stepanov lived there. In 1879, the merchant Ivan G. Firsanov acquired all land ownership, and a year later he presented it to his daughter Vera , and in his second marriage, Gonetskaya. She leased the building to the Moscow Rubber Manufacturers Association Ivan Ossovetsky, in parallel by inviting the leading architects of the capital, Lev Kekushev and Sergey Shutsman , to head the restructuring project ^[6] . Their design solution was never implemented. From 1894 to 1898, the tea shop of the merchant Perlov worked in the building, who later built a new building for himself at Myasnitskaya, 19 ^{[7] [5]} .

Kuznetsov Trading House

In 1894, the possession of the “porcelain king” Matvey Kuznetsov bought possession on the arrow of Myasnitskaya street and Zlatoustinsky lane in order to build a new building under the office and the central capital store of his company ^[5] . Kuznetsov invited the architect Fyodor Shekhtel, who had already built a city ​​estate on 1st Meshchanskaya Street for the family of Matthew Sidorovich, to lead the construction. The work began in 1898, on the basis of the former mansion of Tyufyakin and the neighboring apartment building, the architect designed an expressive building of complex shape. It had two travel arches and opened onto Myasnitskaya street with a triangular facade with high arched windows ^[8] . In the Shekhtel project, the house had three floors - the first one for the store, the second and the third - for the government offices and employees ^[7] . In the courtyard there were several office buildings decorated in neo - gothic style ^[9] .

Kuznetsov’s trading house embodied most of the characteristic features of Moscow modernity and Schechtel’s authorial techniques: stylistic accent on arched windows on three floors, horizontal dynamics emphasized by various rusty , elements of art nouveau and baroque . Stuccoing played one of the decisive roles in the decor: the busts of the god Mercury on the pilasters between the arches symbolized the commercial purpose of the building, the women's head masquerades and twisted cartouches gave it individuality. Contemporaries and art critics ambiguously perceived such a design — at the end of the 19th century , classical, neutral restraint was more familiar, against which the works of Shekhtel looked glaring and challenging ^{[9] [10]} .

The management of the partnership Kuznetsova gradually became the center of literary meetings and art exhibitions. The organization of cultural events was a kind of advertising movement, with the help of which Matvey Sidorovich expanded the circle of customers by attracting representatives of the intelligentsia ^[11] . In 1907, on the second floor of the store was an exhibition of paintings " Blue Rose ", arranged by the editors of the magazine " Golden Fleece ". The event was attended by such artists as Nikolai Krymov , Pavel Kuznetsov , Nikolai Sapunov , Martiros Saryan , Sergey Sudeikin and others. The exhibition has become a kind of starting point for the heyday of Russian Symbolists ^[5] .

In 1913, a third floor was built near the building, the project was led by architect Fedor Alekseevich Ganeshin, the spouse of the granddaughter Matvey Kuznetsov. After the 1917 revolution, the house was nationalized and transferred to the Syndicate of the silicate industry, and later to the “United Club of the Third International”. In the 1930s, the former Kuznetsov Trading House was reconstructed and added two more floors ^[12] .

Porcelain House

Since 1957, the building has again been used to sell elegant tableware and articles of earthenware , silver and crystal, having received the name “House of Porcelain” in the speech of Muscovites. In the 1990s, there was a reconstruction, after which the store opened under a new sign, the historical inscription "M. Kuznetsov's tee" was replaced by a modern one ^{[13] [14]} .

In 2015, the development of a project for the restoration of stucco molding of the facade according to the drawings of the original Shekhtel project began: by that time one of the Maskarons-Mercurias had already been completely destroyed, and the second was distorted ^[15] . It was reported that during the repair of the facade "one of the workers out of the kindness of his soul decided to fix the emergency mask with foam." In 2016, employees of the Heritage workshop restored the damaged mascaron free of charge and recreated the lost one ^[16] .

In 2018, the Department of Cultural Heritage of Moscow approved the project for the restoration of the building, after which the second to fifth floors are planned to be transferred to the Igor Krutoy Academy of Popular Music ^[8] .

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• Photo gallery of modern interiors