The House with the Chimeras

This bizarre building decorated with sculptures of fantastic animals and chimeras could be called the most unusual and intriguing mansion of well-known in Kyiv extraordinary architect Vladyslav Gorodetsky.

What is so unusual about this house? It looks like a mysterious castle. Its roof and walls are fancifully decorated with figures of mythical creatures and wild animals: nymphs and mermaids, dolphins and elephants and other exotic details. Unintentionally, Notre Dame is recalled: mysterious creatures seems to be brought from the balconies of the famous cathedral… Besides, the House strikes with its “double-facedness” as it looks like a three-floor building from one side, but like a six-floor building from another. No wonder that Kyiv the House with Chimers is often compared with famous house of Gaudi in Barcelona or house of Le Corbusier in Marseille.

Over one hundred years of its existence, this unusual mansion has been overgrown with myths and legends. One of them is that the house was built as a bet of Gorodetsky with his friends. Other say that the mansion is a memory of the architect’s daughter who was drowned. There were rumors that this architectural masterpiece is not the work of Gorodetsky but another well-known extraordinary architect. But in any case it should to be seen with own eyes, because legends are there to remain mysteries.