There are houses that stand alone, like a mushroom in a clearing; there are houses with enough space around them for windows and a view on every side, but if something new is built nearby, the windows end up facing a neighbour's wall or else…

There are houses with blind side walls from the very start: it was planned from the outset that they would stand hard against other buildings, on one side or on both. Even when the built-up area was wooden and low-rise, there were many such houses: a thick brick wall, a firewall (brandmauer), was built between them so that in the event of a fire the flames would not leap from one building to the next.

And then there are houses whose firewall has only lately been laid bare because the old neighbour is no more. Here, on this empty plot at the corner of Bolshoy and Maly Kiselny Lanes, there once stood the handsome apartment house of the glass magnate Maximilian Frank, designed by Kekushev; in 2023 this Art Nouveau monument was demolished. Every time I walk past, I look with sadness at this yawning gap in the panorama of the Kiselny Lanes.

A bare firewall always recalls the loss of someone close.