General Staff Building

Palace Square

Palace Square is considered to be the city's main square and serves as an excellent example of how different architectural styles can be combined in a most elaborate and aesthetically pleasing way. On the northern side of the square stands the picturesque Baroque Winter Palace (built in 1754-62).

Across the square, on the southern side, stands the classical yellow-and-white building of the former Imperial Army General Staff (built between 1819 and 1829 by the Italian architect Carlo Rossi). The building encircles the Southern side of the square and combines a central arch, designed as a Triumphal Arch after the ancient architecture of the Classical World, through which you can reach Nevsky Prospekt.

On the eastern side the building of the former Royal Guards' General Staff tastefully closes the panorama of Palace Square, while on the West the square borders with the Admiralty and the Admiralty Garden. With the guilded spire of the Admiralty and the dome of St Isaac's clearly seen from here, the view westwards across the stone-clad expanse of Palace Square is quite breathtaking. In the middle of the square the Alexander Column creates an important focal point for this great architectural ensemble.

The Alexander Column

From the creator of the marvelous St. Isaac's Cathedral came this monument to the Russian military victory in the war with Napoleon's France. Named after Emperor Alexander I, who ruled Russia between 1801 and 1825 (during the Napoleonic Wars), the column is a terrific piece of architecture and engineering.

The Alexander Column (Aleksandrovskaia Kolonna), the focal point of Palace Square, was designed by the French-born architect Auguste de Montferrand and built between 1830 and 1834. The monument is 155 feet 8 inches tall and is topped with a statue of an angel holding a cross (the face of the angel is said to be modeled on the face of Emperor Alexander I). The body of the column is made of a single monolith of red granite, which stands 83 feet 6 inches high and about 11 feet 5 inches in diameter. It is a terrific feat of engineering that this enormous column, weighing an incredible 1,322,760 pounds (600 tons), was erected in under 2 hours without the aid of modern cranes and engineering machines.

The pedestal of the Alexander Column is decorated with symbols of military glory. The monument is particularly impressive on a sunny evening shortly before dusk, when the last beams of sunlight are reflected in the polished red granite of the column.

General Staff Building

This spectacular, crescent-shaped neoclassical building, most famous for its central triumphal arch, which brings pedestrians out on to Palace Square from Nevsky Prospekt, was designed by renowned St. Petersburg architect Carlo Rossi and completed in 1827. Before the Revolution it housed not only the offices of the General Staff, in the East Wing, but also the Tsarist Foreign

Since 1993, the Hermitage has had control of both wings of the building, and uses them to display a variety of permanent exhibitions of applied art connected to the history of the building, completed at the height of the Russian Empire, soon after Russia's victory against Napoleon. An exhibition entitled 'Realms of the Eagle' compares French and Russian decorative art and costume in the Imperial Age, contrasting the cultural influences of Napoleon and Alexander I. Housed in the former offices of the General Staff, many of which have retained their original, Rossi-designed interiors, the collection is not particularly rich, but has a clear and cleverly presented concept, exploring the different ways these two militaristic empires chose to represent themselves.

Also in the former premises of the General Staff, the Museum of Guards is a straightforward exhibition detailing the history of the Russian Imperial Guards through paintings, uniforms, weaponry and regimental regalia. Likely to be of interest only to military historians, this small exhibition does have one particularly interesting room devoted to Guards-related relics returned to Russia since the fall of Communism.

The West Wing of the building is occupied in part by an exhibition dedicated to the pre-Revolutionary Russian Foreign Ministry, which is most interesting for the collection of lavish diplomatic gifts presented to the Russian Imperial Court. The most appealing exhibition in the General Staff Building for most visitors, however, is the Hermitage's permanent collection of Art Nouveau masterpieces. The movement flourished in St. Petersburg, as evidenced by the huge number of superb Style Moderne buildings throughout the city centre, and this beguiling exhibition compares Russian glass and porcelain productions with their French and even American counterparts, as well as including several magnificent tapestries.

Almost a continuation of this exhibition, the final permanent display in the General Staff Building contains panels painted by two French artists, Pierre Bonnard and Maurice Denis, both members of Les Nabis, a movement whose interests paralleled those of Art Nouveau. The works on display here were all commissioned by celebrated Moscow collector Ivan Morozov for his Moscow mansion, and comprise a triptych by Bonnard called The Mediterranean and a series of panels by Denis depicting The History of Psyche.

Date: 2015-12-17; view: 1102