City Trade Building

Brief information

The city trading building was built in the center of the former Fair Square as a structure with a dual purpose: trade downstairs and city administration upstairs. The lower floor was designed for 16 rentable retail spaces, while the upper floor housed the city council, a branch of the state bank, the treasury, and the city hall. The building is therefore interesting not only for its facade, but for its very layout: commerce, administration, and urban infrastructure were brought together in one structure.

Since 1985, the Novosibirsk Museum of Local Lore has been located here. This change of function alters the way one sees the building: today’s museum occupies not a neutral shell, but a former urban hub where shops, officials, a bank, storage rooms, a boiler room, and a power station for lighting the building itself once worked side by side.

What to notice first

It makes sense to read the building vertically. The two floors here are not merely a matter of scale: the lower one was connected with retail premises, while the upper one was connected with administration, money, and the city hall. The basement adds a third, less visible level: it housed the boiler room, power station, and storage rooms for the shops. In this way, the building’s organization shows how a single structure served shoppers, municipal authority, and its own technical operations.

You can compare the sides of the building. The main facade faces Krasny Prospekt; in its northern part is the entrance to the Ploshchad Lenina metro station. On the rear side, Pervomaysky Square adjoins the building. These adjacencies help one see the building not in isolation, but as a stable urban hub: the former commercial and administrative structure continues to connect movement, public space, and its museum function.