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Another boom in Russian architecture was
caused by Count Bartholomeo Rastrelli, 1700-1771, during the reign of Peter's
daughter Elizabeth. Rastrelli was the son of an Italian sculptor who brought
his family to work in Russia. Though educated abroad, he showed interest in
ancient Rus architectural monuments and grew to like Russian kremlins,
monasteries and churches, but the preference of Russian royalty and nobility
was for the styles of Western Europe. They wanted turn their backs on the
ancient forms and traditions, and found that the talented and highly qualified
Rastrelli could best satisfy their new taste. In the course of time he became
the leading architect of his generation and the founder of the western version
of the baroque school in Russia. His fame grew very rapidly. Princes and dukes,
rich merchants and court favorites impatiently wait their turn to have
Rastrelli design their homes. They did not care about the price they had to
pay, and Rastrelli was busy. In Saint Petersburg and vicinity, in Moscow and n
several other places throughout Russia there are palaces and churches that were
either planned or erected by him. Rastrelli gave the Russians exactly what they
wanted, and to Russia, what she needed to make an important step in catching up
architecturally with the West. Rastrelli's buildings were grandiose, sometimes
oversized, with beautiful and colorful facades, and luxurious details. He used
gold in profusion, and surrounded the palaces with large beautiful parks dotted
with fountains and monuments. Estates were usually enclosed by wrought iron
fences with beautiful gates. A gifted architect and an accomplished artist,
Rastrelli ingeniously responded to the demands of Russian high society for
"Europeanization," particularly for the empresses who needed palaces
and parks to satisfy their ever-increasing desire for luxury and pleasure and,
of course, churches in which to pray.
Rastrelli's first works date back to 1723, after he returned from his first
trip to Western Europe. Both Anna Ioanovna and Anna Leopoldovna used his
services, but his major work begun in 1744 when Elizabeth commissioned him to
build the Anichkov palace, which she offered to her favorite, count
Razumovskii. Later this palace was given by Catherine II to another famous
lover, Prince Potemkin, and has since been reconstructed several times;
Rastrelli, if he were alive, could hardly recognize it. In 1743-1745 he built a
palace for Count M. I. Vorontsov in Saint Petersburg; in 1750-1754, another for
Count Stroganov. From 1747-1752 he reconstructed the Peterhof (Petrodvorets)
palace originally planned by Leblond; and in 1752-1756 the Catherine palace in
Tsarskoye Selo, (Pushkino in Soviet era), a vast, very impressive, highly
decorated building in the rococo style, almost 800 feet long, with a mass of
Corinthian orders, statues, vases etc. This palace became the summer residence
of the imperial family. Rastrelli added to it a beautiful park with triumphal
arches, monuments, grottoes, and hermitages, and a large lake with lovely
bridges and kiosks, some in the Chinese style. Please go to the sections on St.
Petersburg and the individual
palaces for photos.
When in 1748 Elizabeth I wanted to replace the old Smolnii Monastery in Saint
Petersburg and build modern buildings to house young orphan girls in its place,
she invited Rastrelli to prepare the blueprints. Rastrelli saw a great
opportunity to create a magnificent complex of buildings, similar to the
ancient Russian kremlins, with which to crown all his life's work. The Kremlin
in Moscow, with its palaces, cathedrals and monasteries, served him as an
inspiration and, to a certain degree, as a model. He wanted to follow the
classical Russian pattern and build a Bell tower, higher than the Kremlin's
Spaskii, with two smaller towers on its sides, to serve at the same time as the
main gate to the Monastery. Inside the gate there would be a very impressive
cathedral with five poles, several churches and chapels, various buildings,
dormitories etc. However, very little came of all these grandiose projects with
the exception of the Cathedral of the Resurrection of Christ. Its construction
started in 1748, as planned, but it was completed almost a century later (1835)
by the Russian architect Stasov. The cross shaped cathedral has the tractional
five cupolas, but is executed quite differently from the usual Russian model.
Instead of the short drums that usually carry larger cupolas, Rastrelli decided
to put at the four corners very tall two-story towers, and replace the drum of
the central cupola with a much larger dome, ending in a small drum, instead of
a lantern, and crowned with a cupola.
The Winter Palace in Saint Petersburg was one of the last edifices that
Rastrelii built. It was erected on the site where the mansion of Peter's
admiral, Fedor Apraxine had once stood. Initial blue-prints for the new palace,
a large rectangular baroque building, of about 460 by 360 feet, heavily
decorated with ornaments, statues etc., were made and approved by Empress Ann.
Her death interrupted the work for a while, but it was resumed under Elizabeth,
and yet the palace was completed only in 1762 under Catherine II. A good part
of the palace was destroyed by fire in 1832 and rebuilt a few years later.
The Cathedral of Saint Andrew in Kiev is one of the best existing architectural
monuments designed by Rastrelli outside of Saint Petersburg. It has many things
in common with the one in Saint Petersburg. The cathedral was built in
1747-1767 under the supervision of the Russian architect Michurin, on the spot
where, according to legend, Saint Andrew planted a cross and thus laid the
foundation of the future city of Kiev, while propagating Christianity among the
Scythians and other tribes of the region. When a Jesuit missionary tried to
convince Ivan the Terrible to accept the Pope's supreme authority over the
Orthodox Church, based on the fact that Saint Peter had lived and worked in
Rome, the Tsar remembered Saint Andrew's stay in his country and retorted that
Andrew, Peter's brother, was in Kiev at about the same time and nobody there
claims special privileges because of that. Saint Andrew was a popular saint and
was the patron of seaman. When Peter the Great established the first flag of
his navy, he added to the national banner the blue cross of Saint Andrew, the
same cross that Scotland has on her flag. St Andrew 1,
2 ,3.
Another impressive monument related to Rastrelli is the five-tiered bell-towerand
again in the Saint
Sergius Trinity Monastery, built in 1741-1769. The original plans were drawn by
Rastrelli and the construction started immediately afterwards, but it dragged
on for almost thirty years. During this log period of time a few other
architects added some changes which qualified them to share credit for the
building. It appears that Rastrelli's plan for a three-story tower was revised
by Schumacher, that the construction was supervised in the beginning by
Michurin, and that Ukhtomskii later added two more stories. Soviet historians
sometimes forget Rastrelli's share and tend to refer to Ukhtomskii as the man
who built the tower. He did add many decorative elements to the entire tower
and gave it a rococo look, and crowned it with a strange pillow-like cupola.
Here are several models of Rastrelii buildings.
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