Francesco Bartolomeo Nastrelli o his architectural works Submitted by ID : (10010MRT THSS ROMs FT MAN] NIM ean Nia VHn) was an Italian architect who worked mainly in Russia. He ENTE EESTI aeYHUNU P2101 01 (ea Late Baroque, both sumptuous ETO ey east oeBiography Francesco Bartolomeo Rastrelli was the last great baroque architect to work in St. Petersburg, and he lived to see the sumptuously ornate style that he championed fall out of favour with the city's elite. Nonetheless, as the creator of the Winter Palace and the Catherine Palace in Tsarskoye Selo, his name is synonymous with the extraordinary, at times excessive, luxury enjoyed and displayed by Russia's Romanov rulers in the 18th century, perhaps the most immediately striking aspect of St. Petersburg's architecture for visitors. Born in Paris, he was the son of Carlo Rastrelli, a sculptor who had come to St. Petersburg in {716 to work for Peter the Great. He began his professional education under his father (also a trained architect), and is presumed to have studied in Europe at some point in the !720s. His first commission, in 1721, was to build a St. Petersburg home for Prince Dmitrie Cantemir, former ruler of Moldova, on Millionaya Ulitsa, but his career really took off in the late 1730s when he began to work for Ernst Johann von Biron, favourite of Empress Anna lvanovna. His first project for his new patron was a riding school on Nevsky Prospekt (1730, demolished). He was then sent to the Duchy of Courland and Semigallia in modern day Latvia, where von Biron would become Duke in 1737. There Rastrelli built two palaces for von Biron - at Rundale (1736-1740) and Jelgava (1738-1740) He also became Chief Architect of the Imperial Court.When Von Biron fell from power in 1740, Rastrelli was recalled to St. Petersburg and commissioned to design a Summer Palace (1741-1744, demolished 1793) in the Summer Garden for Anna Leopoldovna, mother and regent of Ivan VI. After the next palace coup of February 1741, which brought to power Empress Elizabeth, Rastrelli retained his post as chief architect, but received no new commissions from the Empress until 1744, when she ordered him to build the Mariinskiy Palace as her summer residence in Kiev (1744-1730). The next year, he began work on the reconstruction and redecoration of the Grand Palace at Peterhof (officially opened in 1709). Rastrelli’s next project was the Smolny Convent (1748-1764), where Elizabeth herself had considered becoming a nun. The Cathedral is an undisputed masterpiece of late baroque architecture, although it was still under construction when Rastrelli fell out of favour, and it was not until 1835 that Vasiliy Stasov completed the building. Also in 1748, Rastrelli used an almost identical design for the Cathedral of St. Andrew in Kiev (1748-1767). The same year, Rastrelli began work in Tsarskoye Selo, completing the Hermitage Pavilion in 1749. In 1752, construction began on the Catherine Palace which, for its ornately decorated facades and sumptuous interiors, would become one of the most famously extravagant palaces in the world, reaching far beyond the oft stated aim to create a "Russian Versailles", Only Rastrelli's reconstruction of the Winter Palace (1754-1762) could match the Catherine Palace for grandeur and excess, and these two immense structures are arguably unmatched in Europe for decorative opulence. In terms of architectural value, however,it is possible that the (marginally) more modest palaces Rastrelli created for Count Mikhail Vorontsov (on Sadovaya Ulitsa, 1749-1757) and Baron Sergei Stroganay (on Nevsky Prospekt, 1753-1754) are a better testament to his talents. Soon after the completion of the Winter Palace, Catherine the Great succeeded the Russian throne, and Rastrell’'s florid designs proved anathema to her progressive tastes. He was dismissed by the Empress from his post as chief architect in 1763, and returned to his old protector Duke von Biron in Courland, where he worked on the interiors of the two palaces he had created three decades earlier. It is not clear exactly when Rastrelli returned to St. Petersburg, but he was accepted as a member of the Academy of Arts in February 1771, and two months later he died in the city. The site of his grave is unknown.“a mS) rat a — 2 eeSales AT EVA ELHThe Winter Palace of the Russian Tsars Rastrelli's masterpiece Details about Wien ele Palace9 Zal Yupitera ‘an Knutepa Hermitage Friend: 9 Winter Palace nent pope Bank Saint Petersburg @ Winter Palace State Hermitage Museum FocyaapcroeneiA Spmnrax, Golden Living Room Salon doré Tourist informnation Sonoran rocranan BureauSt. Petersburg's most famous building, the Winter Palace not only physically dominates Palace Square and the south embankment of the Neva River, but also plays a central political, symbolic, and cultural role in the three-century history of the city. The first Imperial residence on the site of the Winter Palace was a wooden house in the Dutch style built in 1708 for Peter the Great and his family. This was replaced in 17I! by a stone building, the remains of which formed the foundations of the Hermitage Theatre. Parts of this original palace have now been restored and are open to the public. Empress Anna loannovna was the first of Peter's descendants to reconstruct the palace. In 1781, she commissioned Francesco Bartolomeo Rastrelli, the recently appointed court architect who would go on to become the recognized master of late baroque in Russia, to create a new, larger palace on the site. Completed in 1790, the third Winter Palace served for only {7 years before Rastrelli was again asked, this time by Empress Elizabeth (Elizaveta Petrovna), to expand the building. After two years proposing different plans to adapt the existing building, Rastrelli eventually decided to completely rebuild the palace, and his new design was confirmed by the empress in 1704, When Catherine the Great came to the throne in 1762, the new palace was nearly complete and, although Catherine removed Rastrelli from the project, his designs for the exterior of the building have remained almost completely unaltered to this day.NTT SHO eS Winter Palace at nightSome architectural features ) Staircase at the Winter Palace / Hermitage Museum eens (Qntyee architectural features ancyNTT MET MH UT eet ATT eta ETE The green-and-white palace has the shape of an elongated rectangle, and its principal fagade is 215 metres (705 ft) long and 30 m (98 ft) high. The Winter Palace has been calculated to contain 1,786 doors, 1,945 windows, 1,000 rooms and {I7 staircases. The elegant, monumental palace is a striking monument of the Baroque style in mid-I8th-century Russian art. The palace is a brilliant example of the synthesis of architecture and decorative plastic art. All the facades are embellished by a two-tier colonnade. Forming a complex rhythm of verticals, the columns soar upwards, and this motion embraces the numerous statues and vases on the roof. The abundance of moulded decoration - fanciful cornices and window architraves, mascarons, cartouches, rocailles and a variety of pediments - creates an extremely rich play of light and shade that invest the building's appearance with magnificence.NTT MET MH UT eet ATT eta ETE Developing upon one and the same architectural motif, Rastrelli gave each of the four facades of the palace a different structural rhythm. The southern facade, overlooking the square, has a formal grandeur. Here the architect pierced the building with three arches to create a grand entrance into the courtyard and accentuated it with the vertical elements of paired columns. The majestic northern facade, giving the impression of an endless colonnade, faces the broad expanse of the Neva. The western facade, across fram the Admiralty, is reminiscent of the composition of a countryside palace with a small courtyard. The monumental eastern facade with its massive side blocks forming a large cour d'honneur is turned to Millinnaya Street, where the mansions of the nobility stood. For (00 years the palace served as an imperial residence. In November 1917, after the October Revolution, it was declared a museum. The exhibition placed in the palace includes grand halls and chambers, collections of the antiquities of Eurasia and the East, as well as collections of European and Eastern paintings, sculptures and decorative art works.