Singer House (House of Books)

The Singer House, known since 1938 as the House of Books (Dom Knigi), stands at the corner of Nevsky Prospect and the Griboyedov Canal and remains one of Saint Petersburg's most recognizable Art Nouveau buildings. It was built in 1902–1904 to a design by the architect Pavel Suzor for the Russian representative office of the American sewing-machine manufacturer Singer, which purchased the plot for a sum exceeding one million rubles.

The company had planned to build an eight-storey headquarters, but the height restriction then in force in Saint Petersburg—11 sazhens, tied to the height of the Winter Palace—forced Suzor to settle on a six-storey design. The architect designed two blocks united by a mansard roof and inner courtyards covered with glass roofs. Thanks to the steel frame, many of the outer walls were made non-load-bearing, allowing large windows to be cut into them. The façades were faced with polished granite, and the wrought bronze decoration and sculptures were created by Artemy Ober and Amandus Adamson: at the corner of the building, figures of Valkyries were placed holding spindles, with sewing machines at their feet as an allusion to the client.

The architectural dominant became the corner tower with its dome, crowned by a glass globe within a metal band bearing the inscription "Singer"—a symbol of the worldwide reach of the company's products—while a sculpture of a sea eagle was placed at the base of the dome. The building was equipped with modern engineering systems: three Otis elevators, downspouts built into the walls, and a steam-powered mechanism for clearing snow from the roof. The main staircase was built of Carrara marble, and the interiors were decorated with mosaics and gilding. Contemporaries received the building with mixed feelings: Alexander Benois compared the dome to a perfume bottle.

After the 1917 revolution, the building was nationalized, and in 1919 the "House of Books" store opened inside it, run by the Petrogosizdat publishing house—this name became the one commonly used. The building also housed the editorial offices of Leningrad magazines and publishing houses, and from the 1920s to the 1950s an entire wing was occupied by the Soviet censorship committee. Despite a bomb striking the neighboring building and a burst pipe in the winter of 1941, the bookstore almost never stopped operating during the siege.

The building underwent a full-scale restoration only in 1999–2009: the worn-out load-bearing structures were replaced, the foundation was reinforced with piles, and the figures of the Valkyries, the glass dome, and the sea-eagle sculpture were recreated. After lengthy litigation over leasing rights, the historic "House of Books" bookstore reopened in 2022, and the building also came to house the office of the VKontakte social network.