(Ending. First part was published in issue N97)
The Walcot houses, 1910s.
Before the revolution halted English influence, architect William Walcot put his stamp on Moscow with some of the city’s earliest art nouveau architecture. Walcot was actually born in Odessa and trained in St. Petersburg and Paris, then settling in Moscow to help develop art nouveau. He channelled his English roots when building a series of houses in the first decade of the 20th century. He designed the stunning pink art nouveau mansion at 8 Prechistensky Pereulok, and a geometric brick English-modernist home next door at number 10. These houses were fashionable “turnkey” mansions, meaning they were rented out by various wealthy occupants on a seasonal basis. The city’s elite clamoured for Walcot’s English designs. He also constructed a boarding house for English governesses at 9 Spiridonievsky Pereulok, responding to the demand for education and culture from the British Isles. Walcot moved to England permanently in 1908, and later the Soviet government turned his houses on Prechistensky Pereulok into office buildings. Now 8 Prechistensky Pereulok serves as the embassy of Morocco
By Emma Friedlander (internet recourses)