The tower that eclipsed the Admiralty Needle

The punic high-rise silhouette of St. Petersburg began to form in the time of Peter I, and the bell tower of the Peter and Paul Cathedral and the Admiralty spire became the first high-rise dominants. At the beginning of the twentieth century, when Art Nouveau prevailed, the silhouettes of St. Petersburg streets blossomed with many towers, but only one of them literally could outshine the Admiralty Needle. It is a tower with a dome and a spire of the brilliant trading house "Esders and Scheifals" Au Pont Rouge.

For more than a hundred years, this trading house has been known to St. Petersburg residents as the store "At the Red Bridge". Located on the corner of the Fontanka River embankment and Gorokhovaya Street, it attracts the attention of passers-by with its exceptional architectural forms and exterior decoration, attracts St. Petersburg and visiting fashionistas with the wealth of showcases. Moreover, this place became one of the centers of European fashion in Russia back in the time of Empress Catherine, when the sewing workshop of the court tailor Christian Friedrich Poppe opened on the bank of the Moika. Back in the second half of the XVIII century, the St. Petersburg elite rushed here in search of a new fashionable dress.The first multi-storey department store in Russia In 1904, the owner of a prosperous Belgian firm, Stefan Esders, purchased a four-storey residential building on the corner of Moika and Gorokhovaya to build a fashionable trading house in its place, the sixth among his European shopping centers in Brussels, Vienna, Berlin, Rotterdam and Breslau.One of the main requirements for the building is compliance with the traditions of the company: with a corner multi—storey volume, with a tower, the main entrance at a cut corner and a light hall. The location on the corner of the block made the building more noticeable. Due to the orientation to two streets, the interior space received more daylight, and an apartment for the manager was provided on the top floor. The order for the design was received by St. Petersburg architects Konstantin de Rochefort and Vladimir Lipsky. In their career, this project has become the greatest creative achievement. In May 1905, drawings and sketches were submitted to the city council for approval. The basis of the project was a metal frame mounted on a ribbed reinforced concrete slab. This made it possible to make huge windows in the entire height of the building and a spacious atrium.

In the summer of 1906, the first stone was laid here. The ceremony was organized by the nephew of the head of the firm, Karl Schefalds, who managed the affairs on the spot. All the iron structures with a total weight of almost 1,150 tons were manufactured and installed in three months.The building was ready in 1906, and already on March 3, 1907, the first multi-storey department store in Russia opened its doors on the site of the sewing workshop. Only the nobility dressed here, and everyone else was just dreaming about how to get here.

Customers of the department store

Univermag "At the Red Bridge" has become a real palace: luxurious, fashionable, expensive. There was the richest assortment of goods in St. Petersburg and an unprecedented attentive European service. Among the department stores' clients were, for example, the famous St. Petersburg dandy Vladimir Nabokov and the wife of the reigning emperor Alexandra Feodorovna.In the department store you could find hats, men's, ladies' and children's clothing, photographic supplies and stationery, fashionable European magazines and patterns. Sewing ateliers for sewing and fitting dresses also worked here.

Univermag after the revolution

Uva, the golden era of trade at the Red Bridge did not last ten years. After the October Revolution, the store ceased to exist. The luxurious building turned out to be abandoned and was empty for a year and a half, until in July 1919, the Central State Factory for the Production of Clothing was formed on the basis of former sewing ateliers. In November 1922, it was renamed the V. Volodarsky clothing factory, and in September 1928, the ladies' clothing sewing workshop was turned into an independent factory "Bolshevichka".At the beginning of the Great Patriotic War, the main production was evacuated to Perm, but the sewing workshops on the Moika embankment in the besieged city continued to fulfill orders for the front. The factory gradually grew into the Leningrad Production Sewing Association named after Volodarsky, one of the largest in the Soviet Union, but the building on the Moika gradually lost its former luxury.In the twenties and thirties, many historical buildings that contradicted the Soviet plan of monumental propaganda were demolished in Leningrad, and almost all the domes and turrets that fell into the panoramas of the main views of the Admiralty Tower and the bell tower of the Peter and Paul Fortress. Because of this, the building at the Red Bridge was left without an upward-pointing caduceus rod and an openwork dome. A few decades later, the glass dome over the light well was dismantled — due to extreme dilapidation and leaks. In the final decline of the building came already in the late nineties, when the garment factory finally left these walls.

The birth of the building "At the Red Bridge"

The beginning of the two thousandth, the building had new owners who seriously undertook its restoration, including recreating a tower with a dome in its former place. In 2015, 108 years after its foundation, the brilliant Art Nouveau building at the intersection of the Moika River embankment and Gorokhovaya Street once again opened its doors to visitors. Today Au Pont Rouge is a place of attraction for residents and visitors of the city. On the territory of the department store, fashion, art, modern technologies and the architectural splendor of the historical past merge together and create a unique cultural and emotional space. Only by visiting Au Pont Rouge in the heart of St. Petersburg, you will be able to share the shopping experience with the imperial family and enjoy the highest level of service.

Who inside the building today

The four of the six floors of the building are retail. Their spacious interiors feature the most interesting and relevant brands — those that have already proven themselves in the fashion world, and new names that are undoubtedly worthy of your attention. Foreign and Russian designers of different levels and a wide price range surprise and satisfy the needs of even the most demanding customers. But about everything in order.

on the ground floor there is a grocery deli Prisma, so necessary for the center of St. Petersburg. Famous French brands such as Sandro, Maje, Claudie Pierlot, shoes and accessories of world brands are presented on the first floor of the department store. In the Poison Drop corner you can pick up jewelry, and in Au Pont Rouge Beauté you can find selective perfumes and cosmetics by Tom Ford Beauty, Armani Beauty, Chanel, La Mer, Bobbi Brown and other brands. Another attraction of the first floor is a boutique with a clock of the oldest Russian factory "Rocket".

The second floor is the space of women's and men's European brands. Here you will find collections of world-famous designers and new names that are not yet familiar to a wide range: Alexander Wang, Barbara Bui, Marc Jacobs, Zadig&Voltaire, IRO, WoodWood, Eytys, SET, Closed. There is also a Paul Mitchell beauty salon and a Bon men's barber shop, a unique Hermitage Bookshop curated by the Hermitage with a rich selection of books by Russian and foreign publishers about art, fashion and lifestyle.

The third floor presents the latest collections of clothes, shoes and accessories by Russian designers: URBANTIGER, BELKA Fashion, fashion house Kogel, Petra Artem Krivda, KOKO — corners of more than 70 brands, and their number is constantly growing.On the sixth floor there is a culinary space EventyOn (CulinaryOn), where you can have a delicious dinner and try any cuisine of the world, as well as hold fun parties and celebrate birthdays with the participation of professional chefs.