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Osip Ivanovich Bove (Beauvais), 1784-1834,
is particularly remembered for his reconstruction of the center of Moscow after
the liberation from the French and the fire of 1812. Alexander I appointed him
chairman of the special commission established to replan the city and control
the "Decorative aspect" of the new buildings. Most of its efforts
were directed toward cleaning the area around the Kremlin. Under Bove's
direction, rows of old brick buildings around and along the Kremlin's wall and
on the Red Square were removed. On the western side of the Kremlin runs the
small and often polluted river Neglinaya. Bove decided to move its bed, and
made it deeper, and buried it by covering it with stone vaults. Even today few
people realize that Neglinaya still runs under the Square in front of the
Bolshoy Theater, the Museum of History and the Alexander's garden, all the way
down to the Moskva river. (see what the
Grotto looks
like today)
The site of the (Bolshoy Theater in Moscow was chosen by an Englishman, Michael
Meddox, after Prince Urusov failed to build a theater that would "serve
the city as an adornment." In 1780 he built the theater which received the
name Petrovskii (Peter's) because it was located at the foot of Petrovka
street. Medox's license expired in 1796 and in 1805 the theater burned to the
ground. Artists of the Petrovskii theater continued to perform in other
locations in Moscow under the same name, but they have been sponsored and owned
by the state since 1805, when they became part of the organization of Imperial
theaters. Most of the original members of the company, musicians, singers and
ballet dancers, were serfs of a certain landlord Stolipin. Countess Golovkina
made a present of her ballerinas to the company, and the theater later acquired
more performers from another landlord, Rzhevskii. In 1824 the artists of the
Petrovskii theater moved to their beautiful new building, designed by the
Academician Mikhailov and erected by Bove on the same spot where the Meddox
theater once stood. This was part of the general reconstruction, initiated by
Bove, which changed the look of the entire quarter and opened the new Theater
Square, which has remained almost unchanged until the present. In 1853 another
fire seriously damaged the theater and entirely destroyed its interior
decoration. It was rebuilt by the architect A. Cavos the following year. He did
not spare gold and plaster to richly decorate the interior, but made the
outside more stern with the exception of the facade which remained the same as
before. Here eight Ionic orders carry the front, which is decorated with
bas-reliefs and, on the sides, two niches, one on each side, with sculptures of
Terpsichore, the muse of dancing, and of Erato, the muse of lyric poetry. On
the top of the front is an impressive quadriga, harnessed to a chariot that
carries Apollo with a lyre in his hands. Peter Carlovich Klodt was the sculptor
of the "Quadriga and Apollo," cast in red copper. The entire interior
of the theater including the ceiling is covered with wood paneling, similar to
the way a guitar is made, which, according to some architects and musicians, is
the main reason for the remarkable acoustics of the auditorium. The Bolshoi
Theater is undoubtedly one of the most beautiful opera and ballet houses in the
world, where a magnificent artistic tradition has been carried on since the
first days of its existence.
Commissioned by Nicholas I, Bove erected in 1827 the
Triumphal
Arch in Moscow, which the emperor wanted to commemorate Alexander's and
Russia's victory over Napoleon in 1812. The arch is in the Roman style and has
three openings. On the sides and in between the columns are statues of two
imperial guardsmen and above them bas-reliefs; on the top is Victoria in a
chariot. After the revolution the arch was dismantled and stored until 1968,
when the Soviet government decided to erect it again, this time on Kuruzovskii
Avenue, not far from the Borodino panorama and , of course, without the
inscriptions praising Emperor Alexander.
Bove is usually credited with building the mansion of Prince Gagarin in Moscow.
In fact this huge building was built in the seventeen-eighties and only,
reconstructed and its facade redecorated, by Bove, after the building was
seriously damaged in 1812. Particularly impressive is the main block with
stucco decoration and twelve white stone Ionic orders which dominate its entire
length. After the revolution the mansion was turned into a hospital. Another
two buildings that Bove designed are the first Municipal Hospital in Moscow,
built in 1828-1833, and the nearby church of Maria Magdalena, 1833. The
hospital with its large courtyard, portico with eight Ionic columns and its
decorations, looks from the outside much like a rich provincial mansion.
Here we show the architectural model of Bove's triumphal arch.
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