The Petersburg Style in Architecture.
If one were to make Hughes’s comparison between Moscow and St Petersburg in the realm of architecture, one would more easily be able to draw a distinction between the buildings of the two centres. In Moscow – even today- the traditional Muscovite forms of decorative tent roofs, mosques and onion domes triumph. Russian architecture was left out of a historical evolution that incorporated the sequence of classical (including the orders), gothic (medieval) and the renaissance, the launch pad of the modern style which only came to Russia during Ivan III’s rule. Russia’s backwardness in building design was noted by European countries which is why in 1717 after Peter had started his architectural reforms, the Paris Academy of Sciences named him an honorary fellow, not only for his military victories over Sweden, but for Peter’s contribution to civilisation. As Cracraft points out, the members of academies in Europe would have regarded Old Russia architectural form as inconsistent with “clearly defined ways” of building churches and houses as set out in the tripartite division above.[1] Anybody stepping off the train in St Petersburg will immediately note the difference in the style of buildings than Moscow: there is more linearity, order and horizontal emphasis then in cities like Moscow and Novgorod where the curved skyline is a frequent landmark. “Peter’s line” to use the phrase of the Russian novelist Andrei Bely whose 1916 novel Petersburg is a virtual Baedeker of the city was marked by parallel lines marked out by Peter like the very famous rectilinear street, Nevsky Prospect; Bely also writes of Petrine houses (designed by the architect Tressini): “some were enclosed in granite, others with low fences of stone, still others with fences of wood.” Bely concludes with an architectural history condensed into a sentence: “Peter’s line turned into the line of a later age; the rounded one of Catherine (the Great), the regular ranks of colonnades.”[2] The “simple baroque” is exemplified in Domenico Trezzani’s Cathedral of St Peter and St Paul (1714-1733) above which apart from its piercing spire (the highest in the city at 394 ft) is recognisable as a product of the baroque. This church served as the resting place of all Russian rulers from Peter the Great on.[3] This can be compared with St Isaac’s Cathedral (though this is 19th century) which awkwardly meshes baroque towers, neo-classical façade and Muscovite helmet domes in a startling confection; its major draw though must surely be the spectacular views of the city from the top. Turning to civic architecture, the Winter Palace designed by Rastrelli in 1754 is an over-decorated structure that is notable for its length; as we shall see next week the Empress Elizabeth ornamented it while Catherine relieved Rastrelli of his duties and turned it into the oversize jewel box that would become the Hermitage museum. The successful formula of classicising Russian architecture without completely discarding its heritage can be seen in the “Russian Versailles,” Peterhof Palace, the summer residence of the Tsar designed by Le Blond in the regency style surrounded by a large park. Le Blonde’s architectural masterpiece consists of white walls and baroque domes which are entirely gilded, decoration which owed more to Tressini who took over the project when Le Blonde died tragically early in 1719. In the words of Bunt: “a plain cake [was] elaborated with superfluous icing.”[4]
[1] Cracraft, The Revolution of Peter the Great, 78.
[2] Bely, Petersburg, 12-13. Bely’s annotator states: “Bely gives a capsule history of the major architectural styles which shaped the city: the relatively simple northern baroque of Peter’s reign, the flamboyant rococo of the Empress Elizabeth’s times, the sober but elegant neoclassical style of Catherine the Great and her grandson, Alexander I.”
[3] According to Bely’s annotator, “The spire throws the rest of the building out of proportion, and “was an aggressive assertion of Peter’s wish that the horizon of St Petersburg should be the antithesis of the rounded, bell-like aspect of Moscow.” Quoting George Hamilton’s The Art and Architecture of Russia (1954).
[4] Cyril G. Bunt, Russian Art: From Scyths to Soviets, (The Studio: London and New York, 1946), 68.
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