Foundation of Saint Petersburg.

Saint-Petersburg was founded on the Neva River delta during a very stormy period of Russian history at the beginning of the 18th century. The Neva River had always been a very important waterway. It was part of the "Great Route" - from the Varangian lands to Greece, from Scandinavia to the Black Sea. Russians from Novgorod began to settle on the lands in the north western part of Russia at the turn of the 11th century. In fact, the largest island in the Neva River delta, Vasilyevsky Island, takes its name from a Novgorod landholder of the 15th century Vasily Selezen, who had his possessions here. More than once, during the Middle Ages, Russians had to fight their neighbours, who tried again and again to capture the strategically important delta of the Neva River and open a way to the Russian interior. At the beginning of the 17th century the Moscovite State was in such dire straits, that the Swedes were able to annex the lands along the banks of the Neva River. In order to block the outlet to the Baltic Sea they founded the Nienschantz fortress at a place, where the Okhta River flows into the Neva River. An ancient Novgorod fortress Oreshek, "Small Nut", situated on an island in the source of the Neva River from lake Ladoga, was eventually occupied and renamed Noteburg. Russia was totally cut off from the Baltic Sea, and prevented from normal economic and cultural intercourse with Europe. Russia had to reclaim the outlet to the Baltic Sea - "to open a window to Europe" in the words of Peter the Great. And this could only be done by war. Northern war took 21 years, from 1700 to 1721, to accomplish the task. On October 11 [new style: October 22] 1702, Russian troops took the Noteburg fortress by assault. To protect newly conquered lands from attack, a new fortress had to be built closer to the sea. The best place for this was the small Zayachy Island, and it was here on May 16 [new style: May 27], 1703 that St Petersburg fortress was founded. Peter the Great named it after his patron saint.

Peter the Great was born on May 30 [new style: June 9], 1672, ascended the throne in 1682, and died on January 28 [new style: February 8), 1725. He was an outstanding statesman and one of the most able figures in Russian history. His reign began an age of radical reform of the political, cultural and economic system of Russia and enabled the country to transcend its isolation and to become a part of European civilization. The founding of a new city at the mouth of the Neva River was one of Peter's most significant acts. From the middle of the 1710's, St Petersburg became Russia's capital. It played a special role in the development of economic and cultural relations with Western Europe. For Russia itself, vast and partly Asian country, the city became an outpost of Europeanized culture. St Petersburg was built under onerous conditions. The lands were practically deserted, there were scarcely more than a few villages. The land was low-lying, damp and marshy. There was a great shortage of building materials, workmen and foodstuffs. But in spite of all the difficulties the city grew rapidly. Peter compelled thousands of peasants and working people, and hundreds of merchants and noblemen to move to St Petersburg. The first houses, which appeared as early as the summer of 1703, were constructed on a large island near the new fortress, the better to be defended by its bastions. The island originally was called Gorodovoy Island. Now we know it as Petrogradskaya Side. On the Neva River bank, where Troitskaya Square is located now, the first public and trading centre of St Petersburg was established. This site also served as a dock for merchant vessels. In 1704 the left bank of the Neva River delta began to be developed. It was near the source of the Bolshoy Bezymyanny Channel, where Peter the Great chose to build his summer residence, the Summer Garden. The fountains in the garden finally provided the Channel with its name - Fontanka. A bit further down the Neva River, on its left bank, a military shipyard - the Admiraltу - was founded on November 5 (new style: November 16], 1704. The main squares of St Petersburg were put up on the esplanade, or "glacis" [free space], surrounding the Admiralty. During the first years of its existence St Petersburg was militarily on the front line. The Swedes tried to seize it twice - in the summers of 1704 and 1705 - but the garrison of the fortress repelled both attempts. The turning points of the Northern war were the defeat of Charles XII at Poltava in 1709, the capture of Vyborg in 1710 and the victory-over the Swedish squadron at Cape Hango in 1714. The Swedish threat to St Petersburg was over. The time had come to settle the Neva River banks, to begin to build the capital, and to create Russia's gateway to the sea.

In the 1710's dwellings were constructed on the left bank of the Neva River. The area between Tsarina Meadow [now the Field of Mars] and the Admiralty was the German Quarter, where many foreigners, invited to Russia by Peter the Great, lived. The Marine settlement was to the south and west of the Admiralty. The Moscow settlement emerged east of the Fontanka River. The first industrial enterprises were erected west of the Moscow settlement. These included the foundry yard for the casting of artillery, and the armoury, which were close to one another - on the Neva River bank. A special shipyard for the construction of small private ships was placed on the left bank of the Fontanka River in front of the Summer Grden.

In the 1710's a thoroughfare was cut through woods and marshes from the Admiralty to the south-east of the Fontanka River, where there had been an ancient road to Moscow. The thoroughfare was named the Great Perspective and eventually became Nevsky Prospekt.

The development of St Petersburg and its architecture reflected the spirit of Peter the Great's reforms. Those reforms were designed to integrate Russia into European civilization, and, with that in view, the city plan - indeed, the very language of architecture - had to be changed. Petrine Baroque was a unique architectural phenomenon. It made use of Western building methods and styles, mostly from Holland, Germany, England, France and Italy. Architects, engineers, painters, sculptors, gardeners and experts in applied art were invited from abroad to teach West European techniques. Development of the city from scratch on empty land enabled these architects to create monumental compositions in space. At the beginning of the 18th century it would have been impossible to build such large buildings as the Admiralty or the Twelve Collegia on Vasilyevsky Island in any of the ancient European capitals. Nor would West-Europeans have tolerated such vast undeveloped tracts of lands as Tsarina Meadow or the Admiralty esplanade in the very centre of their cities. And without these large unused tracts the enormous central squares of St Petersburg could not have taken shape.

St Petersburg was built in a European manner but on a Russian scale. Although it was built by European architects St Petersburg did not acquire the features of a Dutch, German, French or Italian city. It had its own peculiar architectural appearance and style. This style combined and blended Western methods, but the new architectural "alloy" contained features derived from Russia's large and flat landscape, and incorporated fundamental national values. The sharp spires of early St Petersburg come from European church belfries but they worked differently in St Petersburg than they did, say, in the densely built City of London or in the small town of ancient Riga. St Petersburg spires were located at the main points of the city and punctuated its structure. This fits the landscape of the Neva river delta and coincides with long standing Russian architectural traditions.

The style of Petrine Baroque is a unique combination of pragmatic rationalism and ceremonial elation. It stood for an age, when the rigours of military and civilian life were frequently interrupted by lively victory celebrations. In Russia building and celebrating were always done on a large scale. Peter the Great decided to establish the centre of St Petersburg on deserted Vasilyevsky Island to give free reign to bold urban planning. The eastern cape of the island became the centre of public life. The main administrative building for the Collegia [Ministries] and the Academy of Sciences were constructed on the cape, while the large Gostiny Dvor market was erected on the bank of the Malaya Neva River in the northern part of the island. Later it became the merchant port of the city.

All building in St Petersburg was supervised by the Chancellory of Construction. Founded in 1706 it ensured the "regularity" of urban development. "Prototypical designs" of apartment houses were prepared by Peter's order and dozens of these buildings were constructed on Vasilyevsky Island. The Chancellory of Construction was headed by Domenico Trezzini, a native of the Italian part of Switzerland who arrived in St Petersburg at the beginning of 1704 and worked here until his death in 1734. It was he who directed the educational activities of the Chancellory. The young Russian architects Mikhail Zemtsov, the pupil of Trezzini, and Pyotr Yeropkin and Ivan Korobov, both educated abroad, became the main architects of St Petersburg in 1730’s. they bore the responsibility of completing the buildings begun in Peter’s days. Disastrous fires totally destroyed the wooden structures of St Petersburg. In the summer of 1736 a disastrous fire totally destroyed the wooden development of the Marine settle­ment. A year later, a fire broke out in the German Quarter but as the buildings there were mostly of brick, the fire was confined. The redevelopment of the devastated sites was entrusted to the gifted architect Pyotr Yeropkin. He also designed projects for the new ter­ritories near future city boundaries.

In late 1730's and early 1740's St Petersburg architecture became more ornate. The pinnacle of this style was reached in the middle of the century, during the reign of Empress Yelizaveta Petrovna, the daughter of Peter the Great. The works of the brilliant architect Francesco-Bartolommeo Rastrelli best illustrate the particular qualities of St Petersburg high Baroque, or Elizabethan Baroque. The palaces, which Rastrelli erected for Yelizaveta Petrovna, - the wooden Summer Palace, once located on the site of the Miкhail or Engineers' castle but demolished at the end of the 18th century, and the Wnter Place in Dvortsovaya Square, are pearls of the Elizabethan Baroque. Yelizaveta Petrovna was a very religious woman. A number of large and ornate churches and cathedrals were erected in her reign, amongst them St Nicholas' Naval Cathedral and the Novodevichy Smolny nunnery. Yelizaveta Petrovna's national policy was reflected in the architecture of the churches. They were crowned with five domes, traditional for ancient Russian architecture. The combination of ancient Russian church building and rich Baroque decoration marked a real synthesis of West European and Russian culture.

Founded in December 1762, the Commission on Stone Buildings in St Petersburg and Moscow started to prepare new plans for the development of St Petersburg. The work was directed by the architect Alexey Kvasov. In 1765 and 1766 he designed projects for the improvement of the city centre and for the development of its outskirts. The results of urban development in the second half of the 18th century were truly impressive. The famous French painter Elizabeth Vigee-Lebrun described St Petersburg in the year 1795: "Although I had indeed imagined Petersburg to be splendid, I felt enormous admiration for its marvellous palaces, buildings and broad streets. The Beauty-Neva River, so clear and serene, flows through the whole of the city carrying ships and boats, which scurry up and down and brighten this beautiful capital. The Neva River banks are enclosed in granite, as are the embankments of the largest canals... Splendid edifices - the Academy of Fine Arts, the Academy of Sciences and others are reflected in the river. You could hardly find-a better sight than these grand buildings..."

From the 1760's the style of St Petersburg architecture changed considerably, The aesthetics of the Enlightenment held that art was a harmonious combination of "noble simplicity" and "quiet Grandeur". The architecture of antiquity was thought to be the best example to follow. Baroque buildings were considered too ornate. Art critics called upon architects "to reject these barbarian extravagancies" and "observe simple rules dictated by common sense". The aesthetic program of the Enlightenment was incorporated into a new architectural style, Classicism, which dominated the last third of the 18’th century. Classical St Petersburg architecture went through two stages of development in the 18^th century. Early Classicism during the 1760’s and 70’s preserved some elements of Baroque. Typical of this style are the Academy of Fine Arts, the Small Hermitage and the Marble palace. The next stage of Classicism lasted from the beginning of the 1780's to the end of the 18th century. By then all traces of Baroque had disappeared. Architecture completely embodied the principle of majestic simplicity. This stage, often called high, or strict Classicism, is best seen in Taurida Palace, designed by Ivan Starov and in the Academy of Sciences and the Hermitage Theatre, the creations of Giacomo Quarenghi.

A new stage of architectural development started in the first years of the 19th century. "Northern Venice" turned into "Northern Palmyra". The magnificent ensemble of the Spit of Vasilyevsky Island, Kazan Cathedral with its stately colonnades, the monumental Grecian portico of the Mining Institute and the total reconstruction of the Admiralty started by Andreyan Zakharov in 1806 mark the beginning of this new period of Russian urban architecture. Rather than construct single buildings architects began to create grandiose ensembles, which encompassed vast areas. This tendency reached its peak in the work of the brilliant architect Carlo Rossi. From the late 1810's to the early 1830's Rossi created the magnificent ensembles of Senate [today Dekabristov], Dvortsovaya, Mikhaylovskaya [today Iskusstv] - and of Alexandrinskaya [today Ostrovsky] Square. Indeed, he redesigned the whole city between Nevsky Prospek and the Field of Mars.

St.Petersburg architecture of the first decades of the 19th century was inspired by high civic ideals. The space of the squares, the measured rhythm of the ceremonial colonnades, the stately domes and the triumphal arches and monuments to military leaders reflect the growing power of the Russian Empire and the patriotic enthusiasm, which seized the country during the war against Napoleon's armies.

From the time of the opening of the Academy of Fine Arts in l757, its graduates have taken a leading role in the development of St Petersburg's architecture. Among them Vasily Bazhenov, Ivan Starov, Andreyan Zakharov, Andrey Mikhaylov and Alexander Bryullov. Specialists from abroad also worked in the city. The most famous of them were the Italians Antonio Rinaldi, Giacomo Quarenghi, Vincenzo Brenna, Luigi Rusca and the Frenchmen Jean-Baptiste Vallin de la Mothe, Jean-Francois Thomas de Thomon, Auguste-Ricard de Montferrand and Paul Jacot. Charles Baird and William Hastie, both Englishmen, also contributed a great deal to the development of urban engineering. In 1810, the St Petersburg Institute of Railway Engineering was established. It was founded by the famous Spanish engineer Agusten de Betancourt who first headed the Institute. In the early years Russians shared teaching duties with a number of French engineers and scientists, amongst them Pyotr Basin, Gabriel Lame, Benois-Paul-Emil Clapeiron and others, who were from the famous Paris School of Bridges and Roads. Graduates of the Railway Institute, like Yegor Adam, Andrey Gotman, Dmitry Zhuravsky and Stanislaw Kerbedz, constructed many of St Petersburg's bridges, including the first metal bridge across the Neva River.

Inhabitants of St Petersburg and visitors to the city were delighted by the balanced and harmonious appearance of its architecture. This feeling is best expressed by Alexander Pushkin's couplet: "...I Love you, Peter's great creation, /I like your stern and slender look..." But time goes by and architectural tastes and ideals change, and so do the look of cities. Classicism entered a period of decline in the West and in Russia at the turn of the 1840's. A new style based upon the legacy of different historical epochs emerged. In Russia the architectural style produced by this method was called "eclectic" [from the Greek "eklektikos" - to choose, to select]. In Europe it is known as "historicism". In the middle of the 19th century, during early Eclecticism, architects tried to make the facade fit the function of the building. But in St Petersburg there were a variety of architectural trends from Neo-Gothic and Neo-Baroque to Neo-Renaissance and Neo-Greek. These trends continued during late Eclecticism from the 1860's to the 1890's, but other epochs and styles were also imitated. Facades in the Louis XVI style were commonplace. And there were multi-storeyed apartment houses in the Roman, Moorish and French Renaissance styles. Most frequently, however, architects mixed a variety of different historical styles in the same building. A national Russian school developed alongside the Europeanized eclectic trends. It was based on pre-Petrine traditions of Russian architecture. This school held sway in church architecture. The resurrection cathedral, also known as salvation-on-the-blood, is one of the most famous examples of this school. Only rarely were apartment houses, designed in the national style.

The abolition of serfdom and the reforms of the 1860's led to the rapid growth of the St Petersburg population. Plants and factories and blocks of flats were built in the suburbs, along the shore of Vyborgskaya Side, and on Pelrogradskaya Side and near the Gull of Finland. Thousands of such buildings were constructed in the second half of the 19th and at the beginning of the 20th centuries. In many respects, this rash of building is responsible for the appearance of St Petersburg's streets today. Given the domination of private business interests, classical urban architecture gave way to new demands and new building methods. As a result, few of the ensembles begun in the period of Classicism were completed; and those which were dismantled by the interpolation of buildings of different styles. This was a time when new building materials were introduced - iron and steel, tile and natural stone. Eclecticism, having declined, gave way to the Art Nouveau style, a new trend, which appeared at the end of the 19th century, and which also contributed to the rejection of classical architectural ideals. Russian architects became interested in Art Nouveau after Belgium, France, Austria and Germany took up the trend. The new movement was called "Modern style" or simply "the Moderne" in Russia; the name was derived from German and French. At the turn of the 20th century villas and mansions on Kamenny Island, one thinks immediately of the Кshesinskaya mansion and others in the city centre and several trading houses, restaurants and banks were constructed in the Art Nouveau style. The Yeliseyev brothers' store and the Singer company building in Nevsky Prospekt are good examples of Art Nouveau style. So too is the Vitebsk Railway Terminal. Large numbers of blocks of flats were constructed in the Art Nouveau style, especially, on Petrogradskaya Side, which was developed rapidly at the beginning of the 20th century. The passion of St Petersburg architects for Art Nouveau had an effect on the national school as well. The Russia insurance company in Bolshaya Morskaya Street is a fine example of that influence and its emergence as the new style. Neo-Classicism, another new trend of St.Petersburg architecture, emerged in late 1900's, early 1910's. It had its origin in a disillusionment with Art Nouveau and a growing interest in the architectura legacy of "Old Petersburg". The Azоv - Dоn Вanк in Bolshaya Morskaya Street near the arch of the general staff building was one of the first examples of early Neo-Classicism. The Neo-Classical style dominated St Petersburg architecture in the 1910's. One of the leading figures of St Petersburg Neo-Classicism was the architect Ivan Fomm. His Abamelek-Lazarev's mansion on the Moyka River and Polovtsov's palace on Kamenny Island harkened back to the sophisticated world of the nobility at the end of the 18th and beginning of the 19th centuries. It was comparatively difficult to apply the Neo-Classicism to five- and six-storeyed apartment houses. It was no easy task to compose such large buildings using methods borrowed from the architecture of the Classicism, the Renaissance or the Baroque. Nevertheless, architectural critics of the time embraced Neo-Classicism. The famous expert of St Petersburg architecture, Georgy Lukomsky wrote: "In spite of later accretions, Petersburg has its own nature and its own style which has survived the century. Much work went into creating it and it is worth preserving; after all it was bequeathed to us by our ancestors!" In those years, a large part of the Russian intelligentsia shared his views. Many architects stuck to this opinion after the October Revolution of 1917. A few things were built in the city during the decade immediately following the Revolution. Trees and shrubs were planted on the Field of Mars and Propilaea were built as the entrance to the Smolny Institute; both were examples of discreet insertions of new elements into the historical fabric of the old city districts. A strong Avant-Garde movement manifested itself at celebrations and in monuments to proletarian leaders and revolutionaries of all times. This tendency gave life to the Constructivist architectural stule which reached its peak at the end of the 1920's and at the beginning of the 1930's. The buildings in Stachek Square date from that period. A few Constructivist buildings were erected in the centre of the city as well. The communal home of political prisoners in Troitskaya square is a good example of the Constructivist style. A great number of churches were either demolished or revamped as warehouses, workshops and cinemas in those days. Autocratic sistems are always drawn to classical styles. Soviet architecture of the 1930's was no exception to this rule. There are hosts of interesting architectural monuments of that period in the centre of the city and in its suburbs. Some successful attempts were made to revive the classical tradition of St-Petersburg's ensemble architecture. On June 22,1941 Nazi Germany invaded the USSR. The resulting ravages lasted until May 9,1945.

The tragic Siege of Leningrad launched on September 8, 1941, lasted for nine hundred days. Hundreds of thousands people were killed and died from hunger - some historians estimate about a million of victims. Nearly three thousand buildings were destroyed by bombs and fire and more than seven thousand were damaged. But the besieged city did work and fight. On January 18,1943 the ring of the siege was broken to the south of lake Ladoga, but it took a year to defeat the German troops completely in the battle which lasted from January 14 to 29,1944. The city survived. People had to rebuild the city: to restore the buildings and construct new dwellings, schools, hospitals and plants. Leningrad began to grow gradually. Neo-Classicism dominated the first decade after the end of the World War II. But this resurgence of Classicism cannot be explained by political ambitions alone. People sincerely believed classicism method was an expression of post-war optimism.

Moving along Moskovsky Avenue you can see the development of stages of Soviet architecture. The latest stage of Soviet architecture started in the 1960's. Buildings became more simple and rational. Typical of the style are the vast housing developments built during the last thirty years which encircle the historical centre of St.Petersburg. You can see these new construction sites when your aircraft lands. If you come to St Petersburg by sea you can see them as a part of a sea-scope which has taken form in recent years. The area of St Petersburg devoted to apartment dwelling increased from 25 million square metres in 1917 to 90 million in 1990. During that time the population of the city grew from 2.3 million to 4.8 million people. The new districts are monotonous and of poor construction but hundreds of thousands of people found accommodation in these buildings. This was a significant accomplishment of modern urban planning. St Petersburg architects are drawing up projects for the reconstruction of the historical sections of the city centre. There are also plans for the reconstruction of New Holland and the Apraksin Dvor shopping centre, the Niсhоlas Marкet and the former stables in Konjushennaya Square. The first sky scraper is projected to be built on the Gulf of Finland coast near the mouth of Smolenka River. This is a challenging task because this prominent building has to blend in with ancient buildings, with the domes of the churches and cathedrals and with the slender gilded spires of Petrine epoch.

Date: 2015-02-03; view: 1797