Laval, House of

Categories / Architecture/Architectural Monuments/Mansions
LAVAL, HOUSE OF (4 Angliiskaya Embankment), an architectural monument of the Empire style. The first stone edifice was constructed on this place in 1719, in the middle of the 1730s it was reconstructed in the Baroque style for Count A.I. Osterman, in 1791-1793 it was extended and replanned for Baron G.A. Stroganov (architect A.N. Voronikhin). In 1806-09 the edifice was reconstructed in the Empire style for Countess A.G. Laval (architect J. F. Thomas de Thomon). The facade is adorned with the portico of adjacent Ionic columns and moulded panels. Some interiors were redecorated in 1817-1718 (architect T. Charpentier) and in the 1840s (architect G.A. Bosse). In 1911, the House of Laval was bought by the treasury to accommodate the deputies of the Senate. After October 1917, it housed Leningrad Region Communist Party History Committee and the Administration of Representative Central Archives. In the first half of the 1820s, Decembrist Count S.P. Trubetskoy, whose wife Ekaterina Ivanovna (born Countess Laval) followed him to Siberia, lived in the house. The literary salons of her mother - Countess A.G. Laval - in the 1820s were visited by A.S. Griboedov, Prince P.A. Vyazemsky, I.A. Krylov, V.A. Zhukovsky, A. Mickiewicz and others. In 1819 Alexander Pushkin read here his ode "Volnost" (Freedom), on 16 May 1828 - the tragedy "Boris Godunov". On 16 February 1840, at the ball held in the House of Laval M.Y. Lermontov quarrelled with E. Barant. The quarrel was concluded with a duel and poet's exile from St. Petersburg. The house treasured a collection of antiquities, acquired then by the Hermitage. The building now houses the Russian State Historical Archives.

References: Вайнштейн А. Л., Павлова В. П., Люлина Р. Д. Здания Центрального государственного архива СССР (быв. Сената и Синода) как архитектурный и исторический памятник // Проблемы архивоведения и истории архивных учреждений: Материалы юбил. науч. конф. архивистов Ленинграда. Л., 1970. С. 242-254.

V. V. Antonov. Barant Ernest de, Baron
Bosse G.A. (see Bosse Yu.A.)
Charpentier T.
Griboedov Alexander Sergeevich
Krylov Ivan Andreevich
Laval Alexandra Grigoryevna, Countess
Laval (Trubetskaya) Ekaterina Ivanovna, Duchess
Lermontov Mikhail Yurievich
Mickiewicz Adam
Osterman Andrey Ivanovich (Heinrich Johann Friedrich), Count
Pushkin Alexander Sergeevich
Stroganov Grigory Alexandrovich, Baron
Thomas de Thomon Jean-Francois
Trubetskoy Sergey Petrovich, Duke
Voronikhin Andrey Nikiforovich
Vyazemsky Peter Andreevich, Duke
Zhukovsky Vasily Andreevich
Angliiskaya Embankment/Saint Petersburg, city, house 4
Вайнштейн А. Л., Павлова В. П., Люлина Р. Д. Здания Центрального государственного архива СССР (бывш. Сената и Синода) как архитектурный и исторический памятник // Проблемы архивоведения и истории архивных учреждений: Материалы юбил. науч. конф. архивистов Ленинграда. Л., 1970 Baroque
Senate
Russian Historical Archive
Hermitage
Hermitage
1809