Winter Palace

1. Construction time: 1753 - 1762
2. Location: St. Petersburg, Russia

The Winter Palace in St Petersburg is one of the landmark projects in history. The location of the events that marked each historical period from the 18th century to the end of the 20th century, and now the Hermitage National Heritage Museum, absolutely does not diminish the importance of the palace.

Rich Baroque decorations on the western facade, with decorative motifs. The first Winter palaces were built during the reign of Peter the Great: the first palace by architect Georg Mattarnovi in ​​1711 and the second in 1716-1719. During the reign of Queen Anna Loannovna, in 1732 started the Winter Palace on a larger scale, designed by Bartolomeo Francesco Rastrelli, but the palace was ultimately unsuitable for royal intentions.

Discussing the construction of the fourth new palace for Queen Elizabeth began in the early 1750s, in 1753 Rastrelli submitted his final revision project . The project is complicated by the need to incorporate the existing structure (the third Winter Palace he designed) into the design of a larger-scale project, both in size and cost. At the time of construction in 1754, Rastrelli concluded that the new palace included not only expansion, but also building on the foundation of the old palace so it needed to level the structure first.

The Rastrelli did not expect to meet Elizabeth's requirements to be completed in two years, but he used his considerable experience in leading this large-scale project, organized to an unprecedented level in St Petersburg. .

Construction proceeds throughout the year, despite many harsh winters, and the queen views the palace as a national prestige issue in the Seven Years War (1756-1763), continuing to order to complete and love need to add more. In fact, it was the strong criticism of Elizabeth's financial situation when initially needed 859,555 rubles to build the Winter Palace, in a diagram devised by petr Shuvalov, taken from the profits of the pubs. licensed by the state, Rastrelli's labor force is often frequented, most of them have a monthly salary of only 1 ruble.

Regardless of the huge amount of money for the Winter Palace, the cost is constantly arising, construction is often delayed due to lack of materials and finance at the time of Russian resources being strained to the limit. for participating in the Seven Years War . Finally, the project cost about 2,500,000 rubles, taken from wine tax, salt tax on people piling up taxes. Elizabeth did not live to witness her greatest mission completed - she died on December 25, 1761. Luxurious rooms and apartments for the emperor next year are ready to serve Tsar Peter III and his wife Catherine.

Diagrams and decorations

The basic diagram of the Winter Palace forms a courtyard of a decorative quadrilateral in a manner similar to a wall. External facades - three of these are facing large common spaces that belong to the world's most spectacular buildings.On the riverbank, the palace is horizontal and continuous with a length of more than 200m , while the palace square front is highlighted in the middle by 3 main courtyard entrance arches, by Sergei Eisenstein and countless other painters. make people remember forever. They describe in an exaggerated form, "the storm of the Winter Palace" . The façade overlooking the Admiralty is an area that preserves the quintessential elements of the old palace wall, and the decorative details of the middle, flanked by retaining walls, reflecting the original Rastrelli style.

The splendor of the Winter Palace sees all the effect from the Neva River.

Actual data:

1. Main facade: about 225m
2. Side facade: about 185m
3. Number of rooms: more than 700
4. Brick: 5,000,000
5. Materials: Italian marble, red granite from Finland, other stones in the Ural range.
6. Manpower in 1757: 2,300 masons.

Although there is a tight balance in the façade structure, each structure has its own formula in the wall decoration design and the distance of the accompanying columns, the column distribution creates a consistent rhythm. with the horizontal spread, 250 columns of about 700 windows (excluding the columns of the inner courtyard), the surrounding columns decorated with 20 different patterns reflect many decorative motifs, including the mask Rastrelli's strange death and shape, assembled by Rastrelli for more than three decades.

The entrance to the Palace during the feast is the Jordan staircase or the Ambassador.This is the only part of the Palace restored in the same style as Rastrelli's original design.

The three main floors of the Winter Palace are set on a level of foundation, with semicircle windows surrounding a domed effect followed by the upper windows. The horizontal dimension of the palace is emphasized by a layer of two-storey dividing belt with the first floor, and by a complex section consisting of a floating block decorated with a bar shape, above a guardrail. 176 large decorative flower vases and statues with special meanings.

Chaos history

The change certainly occurred in the structure and decoration of the Winter Palace. In the 1890s, stone statues were placed on the railing, corroded by the harsh weather in St Petersburg, then replaced by bronze statues, the original sand color to spray on the unpainted mortar facade was washed away with time is under a series of murky red paintings (often used in the 19th century) to the present green.

The interior of the Winter Palace, with over 700 rooms, has been revised many times.Rastrelli's original design used a decorating tool similar to the one he used in the previous palaces : gilded plaster and wood decorations, sophisticated wall presses to segment large spaces. such as the Throne Room, and Rastrelli's Rococo-style decorative flooring is no longer available.

The process of completing such a space must continue for decades, when changing rooms and retooling to match the interests of Catherine the Great and her successors. More damage when the battle in 1837 raged for more than 2 days and was not extinguished. While rebuilt, most rooms are decorated in a classic New-style style applied by Rastrelli successors, such as Giacomo Quarenghi. Only the main part, the Jordan staircase, along with the corridor leading to it (the Rastrelli corridor) restored by Vasillii Staslov in the same style as Rastrelli's original design.

But the Winter Palace is still relevant when it comes to Rastrelli's name . For all of Elizabeth's erratic situation and the problems inherent in such a large-scale project, Rastrelli's genius succeeds not only in creating a unique building among the last buildings. Baroque style in Europe but also in the light of the following events - one of the memorial works in modern world history.