House of the Weeping Widow, Art Nouveau architectural monument on Liuteranska Street, Kyiv, Ukraine.
The House of the Weeping Widow is a three-story mansion on Liuteranska Street featuring Art Nouveau details and an ornamental stone woman's face carved into the facade. The building displays rich decorative patterns typical of early modernist architecture with carefully crafted stone embellishments throughout.
The mansion was built in 1907 by architect Eduard-Ferdinand Bradtman as a private residence for merchant Sergei Arshavsky. Following the revolution, it was repurposed as a government facility serving official state functions and diplomatic events.
The carved woman's face on the facade embodies human emotion in modern design, connecting sculpture to everyday urban life in early 1900s Kyiv. Visitors can observe how decorative elements tell stories about the city's cultural values during that period.
The building sits on a central Kyiv street and is easy to locate thanks to the prominent carved woman's face on its exterior. Since it now serves as a government facility, visitors can view and photograph the outside, though access to the interior is restricted.
The building's name does not stem from a sad story but from an architectural feature: rainwater runs through carved channels in the stone woman's face, creating the visual effect of tears. This water-management detail reveals how early architects merged practical design with poetic symbolism.
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