Origin of the style
Background
As part of the European cosmopolitan class of the 18th century, Catherine set the tone of Russian social and intellectual life during her long reign. [1] The Catherinian Era was a turning point in terms of the education of nobility, particularly in the fields of art and literature. French became the court language, and along with the language came the ideas of Enlightenment as well. [2] Her embrace of the neo-classicism current linked her capital to ancient Rome, and this phenomenon was particularly encouraged by poetic allusions to St. Petersburg as similar to the ancient city, and the empress as the goddess Minerva. These Roman references must have galvanized her ideas, finally declaring in a letter to Frau Johanna Dorothea Bielcke (1770):
Augustus said that he found Rome built of brick and would leave it built of marble; I say that I found Petersburg virtually wooden and will leave its buildings dressed in marble. [3]
Scholars recognize that, regardless of the motivation, Catherine found in architecture an embodiment for her aspirations, particularly the so-called Greek Project, which aimed to take Istanbul to recreate a new "Christian Byzantium". [4] According to William Brumfield, the neoclassical revival in Russian architecture was an "expression of nostalgia for bygone cultural values, and a reformulated sense of imperial monumentality." [5]
The beginnings
In 1762, the Empress had ordered the construction of the palace of Oranienbaum, and on that occasion Antonio Rinaldi had built the Chinese Palace (1762–1768) (which presented a mixture of elements of Baroque architecture, of classicism and of traditional Chinese architecture), and the pavilion Katalnaya Gorka (with a rollercoaster) (1762–1774). In this cylindrical pavilion, which had 3 branching wings, a dome and a triumphal arch with a tower ending in a spire, the search for new compositional schemes can be observed. [6] In 1763 Catherine commissioned the French architect Jean-Baptiste Vallin de la Mothe and the Russian Alexander Kokorinov for the construction of the new headquarters of the Academy of Fine Arts in St. Petersburg. In 1766, De La Mothe became the official court architect.
From 1764, the Academy was directed by the philanthropist and councilor for education of Catherine Ivan Betskoy. In those years, the empress and Betskoy, who had been a regular patron of a public education system in Russia, had conceived the ambitious project to build an orphanage in Moscow. This idealistic experiment, inspired by the Enlightenment movement, was aimed at creating the "ideal citizen" through the recovery of thousands of orphans who were to receive an adequate education. The project of the orphanage was given to Karl Blank who, trained at the school of Bartolomeo Rastrelli, was the architect who had built the first neoclassical buildings in Moscow, including said orphanage.
The 1770s: new impulses
In 1773, the Empress wrote a letter to the Academy of France, announcing a contest which asked the architects to design a house in which they were present, at the same time, forms of both Greek and Roman antiquities. [7] Two French academics, Charles de Wailly and Charles-Louis Clérisseau, sent their drawings, but these were not welcomed positively. Hence, in 1778, Catherine said she wanted to hire two Italian architects, since "the Frenchmen we have here know too much and build dreadful houses – because they know too much." [8] In 1779, she commissioned her ministers, Baron Friedrich Melchior and Johann Friedrich Reiffenstein, who at that time were representatives of the Russian Academy of Arts of St. Petersburg in Rome, to find the two architects. The same year, two Italians architects, Giacomo Trombara [ it ] and Giacomo Quarenghi, arrived at the court of Catherine. [9] Within a few years, neoclassicism in Russia, which in its first phase had drawn ideas from the French architecture of the mid-eighteenth century, turned its attention to the interpretive experiences of the Palladian architecture, especially of England and Italy. [10]
The 1780s: Giacomo Quarenghi
At the invitation of Catherine's agents in 1779, Giacomo Quarenghi arrived in St. Petersburg along with the Scottish architect Charles Cameron. [11] He was a renowned neoclassical architect, having studied in Rome with Anton Raphael Mengs, among other artists and architects who helped shape his interest and expertise in Palladian architecture. [12] Together with Cameron, he first worked on the Catherine Palace located in the Tsarskoye Selo. Specifically, this entailed the construction of a two-story gallery (Cameron's Gallery). Between 1781 and 1796, it was the turn of the palace of Paul I in Pavlovsk which, in its original version, became one of the first examples of Palladian villa built in Russia. [13]
But if Cameron had been successful for the display of his fanciful polychrome, the heirs of Catherine Paul and Maria Feodorovna forced him to absolute sobriety, so at Pavlovsk became prominent the use of white and gold. However, Cameron could not comply to the impositions of the new taste. Between 1786 and 1789 Cameron's duties in Pavlovsk passed to the Italian Vincenzo Brenna, hired by Paul in 1782. [14] In the meantime Quarenghi became the official architect of Catherine II, and between the 1780 and 1785 transformed St. Petersburg into a classical city. [15]
As first assignment, in 1779 Catherine commissioned the architect of Bergamo the task of introducing the neoclassical style in the Peterhof Palace. The intervention was performed in the southwest of the Top Park , where he was made the English Park and in its interior the English Palace , [16] which became the model to which inspire in Russia up to the beginning of 19th century for the villas in the countryside. Between 1782 and 1785 he built the Hermitage Theatre whose interior is inspired by the Teatro Olimpico of Vicenza and for the decorations and the capitals by the ruins of the Theatre of Pompey. Later, between 1787 and 1792, in the Winter Palace Quarenghi had designed and built a place that was the exact replica of the Raphael's Loggia located in the Apostolic Palace in Vatican City, [17] here were then inserted the copies of the drawings of the ceilings. Copies of which were commissioned in 1778 by the Empress to von Grimm who, through Reiffenstein, did reproduce in Rome copies of life-sized vault; the encaustic paintings were made by Christoforo Unterperger.
In 1783, Quarenghi designed the Palace of the State Bank on the Griboyedov Canal, given the importance of the building, the author gives the monument a majestic appearance. Different was the architect's attitude in the most sober Academy of Sciences (1783–1789) where the outside, unadorned, is marked by a heavy porch in Ionic order and in the inside the elegant proportions and the solemnity of the spaces remind the taste of ancient Rome. [18] In those years Quarenghi was also busy, after the interventions of the Russian architect Karl Blank and Francesco Camporesi, to complete the Catherine Palace in Moscow (1790–1797). Quarenghi had built numerous palaces and brought into vogue an original monumental style, of Palladian inspiration, which was a reference for many architects who worked in Russia, among them Ivan Starov that, for the Prince Potemkin, created the Tauride Palace. The building, consisting of a main building and two adjoining wings complemented by side pavilions, in perfect adherence to the Palladian villa type, served as a model for innumerable manors scattered across the Russian Empire. Nikolay Lvov's architecture represented the second, "strict" generation of neoclassicism stylistically close to Giacomo Quarenghi. [19] The polymath architect, among other things, had translated into Russian the treatise I quattro libri dell'architettura by Palladio.
Vasily Ivanovich Bazhenov was a Russian neoclassical architect, graphic artist, architectural theorist and educator. Bazhenov and his associates Matvey Kazakov and Ivan Starov were the leading local architects of the Russian Enlightenment, a period dominated by foreign architects. According to Dmitry Shvidkovsky, in the 1770s Bazhenov became the first Russian architect to create a national architectural language since the 17th century tradition interrupted by Peter I of Russia.
Charles Cameron was a Scottish architect who made an illustrious career at the court of Catherine II of Russia. Cameron, a practitioner of early neoclassical architecture, was the chief architect of Tsarskoye Selo and Pavlovsk palaces and the adjacent new town of Sophia from his arrival in Russia in 1779 to Catherine's death in 1796. Cameron concentrated exclusively on country palaces and landscape gardens. Twice dismissed by Paul of Russia during the Battle of the Palaces, Cameron enjoyed a brief revival of his career under Alexander I in 1803–1805. All his indisputable tangible works "can be encompassed in a day's tour".
Alexander Filippovich Kokorinov was a Russian architect and educator of Siberian origin, one of the founders, the first builder, director (1761) and rector (1769) of the Imperial Academy of Arts in Saint Peterburg. Kokorinov has been house architect of the Razumovsky family and Ivan Shuvalov, the first President of the Academy. Kokorinov's surviving architectural legacy, once believed to be substantial, has been reduced by recent research to only two buildings, the Imperial Academy of Arts and Kirill Razumovsky palace in Saint Petersburg. The Academy was designed by Jean-Baptiste Vallin de la Mothe based on an earlier proposal by Jacques-François Blondel, while Kokorinov managed the construction in its early phases (1764–1772).
Giacomo Quarenghi was an Italian architect who was the foremost and most prolific practitioner of neoclassical architecture in Imperial Russia, particularly in Saint Petersburg. He brought into vogue an original monumental style, of Palladian inspiration, which was a reference for many architects who worked in Russia as well as the Grand Duchy of Finland.
Pavlovsk Palace is an 18th-century Russian Imperial residence built by the order of Catherine the Great for her son Grand Duke Paul, in Pavlovsk, within Saint Petersburg. After his death, it became the home of his widow, Maria Feodorovna. The palace and the large English garden surrounding it are now a Russian state museum and public park.
The Anichkov Palace, a former imperial palace in Saint Petersburg, stands at the intersection of Nevsky Avenue and the Fontanka River.
Pella Palace was a summer residence built during the reign of Catherine II of Russia for her grandson, future emperor Alexander. It was situated on the left bank of the Neva River, 30 km east of Saint Petersburg, where the town of Otradnoye now stands. If completed, it would have been Russia's largest imperial palace. Pella, partially built in 1785-1789, has been razed to the ground by Catherine's son, Paul I of Russia. Not only the buildings disappeared, but very few images of it survived the Battle of the Palaces: existing knowledge of Pella relies on a few facade elevations and watercolors by Giacomo Quarenghi and an elaborate drawing on Catherine's fan, also based on Quarenghi's drafts.
Yelagin Palace is a Palladian villa on Yelagin Island in Saint Petersburg, which served as a royal summer palace during the reign of Alexander I. The villa was designed for Alexander's mother, Maria Fyodorovna, by the architect Carlo Rossi. It was constructed in 1822 on the site of an earlier mansion built during the rule of Catherine the Great. The house was destroyed during World War II but was rebuilt and currently houses a museum.
William Hastie was a Russian architect, civil engineer and town planner of Scottish descent. His name is also transliterated back from Russian as William Heste or, seldom, Vasily Heste. Because of his influence at court Heste's designs for buildings and whole towns can be seen throughout Russia.
Vincenzo Brenna was an Italian architect and painter who was the house architect of Paul I of Russia. Brenna was hired by Paul and his spouse Maria Fyodorovna as interior decorator in 1781 and by the end of 1780s became the couple's leading architect. Brenna worked on Pavlovsk Palace and Gatchina palaces, rebuilt Saint Isaac's Cathedral, and most notably created Saint Michael's Castle in Saint Petersburg. Most of his architectural works were created concurrently during Paul's brief reign. Soon after Paul was murdered in a palace coup Brenna, renowned for fraud and embezzlement barely tolerated by his late patron, retired and left Russia for an uneventful life in Saxony.
The Winter Palace is a palace in Saint Petersburg that served as the official residence of the House of Romanov, previous emperors, from 1732 to 1917. The palace and its precincts now house the Hermitage Museum. Situated between Palace Embankment and Palace Square, adjacent to the site of Peter the Great's original Winter Palace, the present and fourth Winter Palace was built and altered almost continuously between the late 1730s and 1837, when it was severely damaged by fire and immediately rebuilt. The storming of the palace in 1917, as depicted in Soviet art and in Sergei Eisenstein's 1928 film October, became a symbol of the October Revolution.
Jean-Baptiste Michel Vallin de la Mothe was a French architect whose major career was spent in St. Petersburg, where he became court architect to Catherine II. His students were Ivan Starov and Vasily Bazhenov.
Adam Menelaws, also spelled Menelas was an architect and landscape designer of Scottish origin, active in the Russian Empire from 1784 to 1831. Menelaws achieved success in the first two decades of the 19th century as the designer of town and country residences and parks of Razumovsky and Stroganov families, and later worked for emperor Alexander I, specializing in Gothic Revival architecture. From 1825 to 1831 Menelaws, then in his seventies, became the first house architect of Nicholas I and de facto the leading architect of the Empire. Except for this final, properly evidenced, stage, life story of Adam Menelaws remains scarcely documented and has been reconstructed by biographers based on sketchy archive data and circumstantial evidence; Menelaws still "belongs to the category of almost unknown".
Dmitry Shvidkovsky is a Russian educator and historian of architecture of Russia and the United Kingdom during the Age of Enlightenment. A 1982 alumnus and long-term professor of Moscow Architectural Institute, Shvidkovsky was appointed its rector in 2007.
The "Battle of the Palaces" occurred in the Russian Empire in the last decade of the reign of Catherine II (1784–1796) and the reign of Paul I (1796–1801), with ripple effects extending into the beginning of the reign of Alexander I. A bitter standoff between Catherine and Paul, her only legitimate son and heir, manifested itself in transient political and ideological conflicts, but also had a lasting, tangible impact on Russian architecture. Both parties materialized their political statements and their understanding of sovereign power in expensive construction projects involving the most illustrious architects of the period – Vasily Bazhenov, Vincenzo Brenna, Charles Cameron, Matvey Kazakov, Giacomo Quarenghi, and Ivan Starov. Catherine's palace projects followed the neoclassical canon of the Age of Enlightenment, while Paul deliberately leaned to emerging Romanticism. Buildings that stylistically fell apart from these programs were demolished or rebuilt without hesitation. The "battle" began in 1785 with the demolition of the main palace in Tsaritsyno, and culminated in 1796 with the demolition of Pella, the largest imperial palace in the Saint Petersburg area.
Jean-François Thomas de Thomon was a French neoclassical architect who worked in Eastern Europe in 1791–1813. Thomas de Thomon was responsible for the design of Old Saint Petersburg Stock Exchange and Rostral Columns on the spit of Vasilievsky Island in Saint Petersburg and the first building of the Odessa Theatre, destroyed by fire in 1873. Thomas de Thomon, graduate of the French Academy in Rome, "imported" the high classicism practiced by this school in 1780s into Russia and thus contributed to the formation of Russian national variant of neoclassicism practiced during the reign of Alexander I.
Luigi Rusca was a Neoclassical architect from Ticino who worked in Russia, Ukraine and Estonia between 1783 and 1818.
The Saltykov Mansion is a Neoclassical palace situated between Palace Embankment and Millionnaya Street in Saint Petersburg, Russia. It was built to the design of Giacomo Quarenghi in the 1780s. A few months before her death, Catherine the Great presented the edifice to Prince Nikolai Saltykov, the tutor of her eldest grandsons.
Elizabethan Baroque is a term for the Russian Baroque architectural style, developed during the reign of Elizabeth of Russia between 1741 and 1762. It is also called style Rocaille or Rococo style. The Italian architect Francesco Bartolomeo Rastrelli is the key figure of this trend, which is still given the name 'Rastrellian Baroque'. The Russian architect Savva Chevakinsky is also a renowned figure representing this style.
The English Palace was a neoclassical palace within the Peterhof Palace complex in Petergof, Russia. Sometimes, it is also named the New Peterhof palace. It was Giacomo Quarenghi’s first important commission in Russia, a magnificent rectangular edifice with a Corinthian portico in Palladian style. The palace, commissioned by empress Catherine II the Great, was blown up by the Germany army during World War II, and was later demolished by the Soviet government.
