House with Chimaeras
— a building wearing its bestiary out loud.
Not only on a wall.
“Vladislav Horodetsky finished his own house in 1903 to prove what concrete could carry. The roof, gables, and downpipes hold deer, mermaids, elephants, and toads, all in unreinforced cement. The slope behind the Presidential Administration drops away three storeys. The building serves the Ukrainian state now and only opens by guided tour, which makes the bestiary above the cornices feel even further from the street.
House with Chimaeras, on ceramic.
Each tile is finished by hand in our Knoxville studio. Artwork is slowly infused into the ceramic surface under high heat and pressure, and rests beneath a thin glossy finish. The colour lives in the surface, not on top of it.
Pick any four 4-inch tiles — National Parks you've been to, a Smokies set, the four seasons of one place. $ for a set of , cork-backed, ready to live on the table.
The place, in three passes.
The House with Chimaeras stands at 10 Bankova Street in the Pechersk district of central Kyiv, directly opposite the Presidential Administration of Ukraine. The architect, Vladislav Horodetsky, designed it between 1901 and 1903 as his personal residence and as a showpiece for cement, then a new structural material. The plot drops sharply behind the front facade, so the rear elevation rises six storeys while the street side reads as three. Since 2005 the building has served as a presidential ceremonial residence, used for state visits.
The exterior decoration is unreinforced Portland cement, modelled in place by Italian sculptor Elia Sala. Deer heads sprout from the corners, mermaids climb the downpipes, elephants front the gables, and frogs ring the lower bay. Horodetsky used the house partly as advertising: he wanted clients to see what a cement firm could produce. The structure has held through a hundred and twenty Ukrainian winters and a major 2003 restoration that consolidated cracks, replaced lost ornaments by mould casting, and returned the original pale ochre wash.
The house sits inside a secure perimeter and is not a walk-in museum. Public access is limited to scheduled guided tours arranged through the Office of the President, when state business allows. The exterior is freely viewable from Bankova Street, which is closed to vehicles, and from the small park opposite. Independence Square (Maidan Nezalezhnosti) is roughly a ten-minute walk north. The Mariinskyi Palace, Kyiv's other set-piece presidential building, stands a five-minute walk east through the government quarter.