Reconstruction

and Restoration of
Architectural Heritage
2021
Edited by
Sergey Sementsov,
Alexander Leontyev and
Santiago Huerta
RECONSTRUCTION AND RESTORATION OF ARCHITECTURAL
HERITAGE 2021
Reconstruction and Restoration
of Architectural Heritage 2021

Edited by
Sergey Sementsov
Saint Petersburg State University of Architecture and Civil Engineering, Saint Petersburg,
Russia

Alexander Leontyev
Committee for the State Preservation of Historical and Cultural Monuments (KGIOP), Saint
Petersburg State University of Architecture and Civil Engineering, Saint Petersburg, Russia

Santiago Huerta
Universidad Politécnica de Madrid, Spain
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DOI: 10.1201/9781003136804
 Reconstruction and Restoration of Architectural Heritage 2021 – Sementsov, Leontyev & Huerta (Eds)
© 2021 Taylor & Francis Group, London, ISBN 978-0-367-68296-5

Table of contents

Preface xi

Scientific Committee xiii

Organizing Committee xv

Co-organizers xvii

The historical formation of buildings, construction and territories

Construction history: Tool to improve maintenance and intervention in built heritage 3
J. Antuña
Architectural and historical studies of the Exalted Church over the Holy Gate of the
Bishop’s Court in Vologda 8
I. Beloyarskaya
Eduardo Torroja. The habitat of his revolutionary research models 14
P. Cassinello
Influence of projects of culture and art centers on urban development of Leningrad 20
N.P. Dubrovina
Block development parameters of St. Petersburg historical center 25
G.O. Fedotova
Questions about the historical location aisle of St. Gregory of Nyssa, in the Monastery of
Resurrection Novodevichy of the Cathedral of Resurrection 30
A.G. Gorshkov
Some aspects of urban planning practice of the Russian Empire in the first third of the XIX
century 34
A.А. Gudkov
Building of Gothic cross vaults in the Spanish Renaissance 39
S. Huerta
Identification of author’s techniques in architecture of Leningrad avant-garde 45
L.L. Kaloshina & N.P. Dubrovina
Special features of Olenin’s “Priyutino” estate in Shlisselburg uyezd of Saint Petersburg
governorate 50
E. Kozyreva
Analysis of engineering condition survey of cultural heritage objects of Arkhangelsk 54
V.V. Koptyaev & A.V. Karelsky

v
Saint Petersburg: Forgotten landscapes of the historical center 59
L. Lavrov, N. Novokhodskaya & A. Surovenkov
On the plan layout of tierceron vaults: Geometry and building process 64
A. López-Mozo, E. Rabasa-Díaz, M.Á. Alonso-Rodriguez & R. Martín-Talaverano
Development of Vasilevskiy Island in the period of Peter the Great: Legislative regulation 69
S.V. Makarov & S.V. Sementsov
Roots of Spanish hydraulic planning. A case of public supra-infrastructures protection? 77
I.F. Menendez Pidal
Volumetric-spatial, urban planning and compositional features of public-presence objects 83
A. Mikhailov
Historical and genetic code of Kazan: Medieval bases 87
K.N. Nadyrova
Features of architecture variety of Leningrad residential buildings of the 30s-50s of the XX
century 92
Yu. A. Oblasov
Placement of the first railway stations of St. Petersburg in the city structure in the middle of
the XIX century 96
N. Petukhova
Proportional-metrological and compositional features of the facade of the Strauss apartment
building by V.A. Schroeter & I.S. Kitner 102
A.V. Radzyukevich & A.V. Nikolsky
Schemes in “neutral” and “transition” zones of the architectural landscape of the Tsarskoye
Selo ensemble 106
M.N. Ryadova
Journey of the marquis of Villanueva del Prado through the Algarve in 1809 110
F. Saenz Ridruejo
Features of Tsarskoye Selo sub-agglomeration at the beginning of the XX century 115
S.V. Sementsov & N.A. Akulova
Features of highest nobility estates on the territory of Saint Petersburg province
Novoladozhsky uyezd 121
E.Yu. Shuvaeva
Architectural and planning structures of the Greek polis: Three-dimensional reconstruction
options 125
A.V. Silnov
Stages of buildings evolution in markets of St. Petersburg and prospects for their
development 128
V.M. Supranovich & J.A. Devyatova
Sustainable aspects of facadism practice in Yerevan 133
E.G. Vardanyan
Development of forms of Russian iconostases in the XVII-XVIII centuries 139
E.R. Vozniak, Е.N. Baulina & А.О. Fatkullina

vi
Reconstruction of the Shengli Theater in Nanjing: A case of facadism 145
Y. Han & Q. Zhou

The conservation, reconstruction and restoration of buildings and constructions:

The transformation of historical spaces and areas
Urban planning reconstruction of railway station districts historical development 153
E.A. Akhmedova, A.N. Teryagova, V.A. Shabanov & I.V. Kuznetsov
Adaptation and protection of the private residence in an urban structure: St. Petersburg 159
D.M. Bobrova
Renovation of historical booths and shops in St. Petersburg 163
A.V. Bredikhina
‘Santa Croce’ chapel in Bergamo: Old restorations and new layouts 168
A. Cardaci, G. Mirabella Roberti & A. Versaci
Assessment of value and reconstruction of architectural monuments 174
O.O. Chainikova
Architectural and engineering solutions to combat humidity in historic buildings 179
A. Cheban
Environmental awareness of future specialists 183
E.Yu. Chernyakevich
Reconstruction of cultural heritage site “Merchant Davydenko’s House” 188
I.N. Chechel, M.V. Perkova & I.P. Chechel
Multicomponent underground space and improvement of projects for reconstruction and
restoration of monuments in Saint Petersburg 193
R. Dashko & G. Lokhmatikov
Principles of integrated development in blocks reconstruction of the historical center of Saint
Petersburg 199
N.M. Drizhapolova & V.M. Supranovich
Deformation criteria for ensuring mechanical safety of historical brick buildings during
reconstruction 204
N.A. Evseev, K.G. Shashkin, V.A. Vasenin & V.A. Shashkin
Design of effective structural health monitoring platform for Paderno d’Adda Bridge (1889) 210
R. Ferrari, E. Rizzi, M.S. Brioschi & V. Dertimanis
The problem of value and uniqueness of the architectural appearance of cultural heritage
objects in adaptation of buildings for people with disabilities 216
T.S. Fridman
Russian experience in the use of laser scanning in restoration and reconstruction of cultural
heritage objects 221
E.P. Iakhina
Restoration of the church of the Pious Countess Anna Kashinskaya in St. Petersburg 226
O.M. Kormiltseva & A.G. Leontiev

vii
The preserving and reconstructing problem of a pre-regular urban structure of a small city 231
N.O. Kudryavtseva & L.I. Kubetskaya
Informative accessibility of transport hubs in a historical urban environment 237
I.V. Kuznetsov, A.N. Teryagova, E.A. Akhmedova & V.A. Shabanov
Restoration of a cultural heritage identified object: Don Monastery Necropolis 242
J.A. Loginova
Rehabilitation of the Guillespie house for heritage management offices in Quito, Ecuador 248
F.S. López-Ulloa
Integrated approach to shoring of the foundation of a historical building using injection
technologies 254
R.A. Mangushev, A.I. Osokin & F.N. Kalach
Architectural & artistic methods to preserve historical and cultural heritage subjects in Saint
Petersburg residential interiors 259
O.V. Mueller
Historical center of the small town of Biryuch, Belgorod region 263
M.V. Perkova, E.I. Ladik, L.I. Kolesnikova & Y.A. Nemtseva
Rehabilitation of Penhas Chapel in Mitra’s Homestead 268
M.T. Pinheiro-Alves, S. Costa & N. Ramos
Part of creative spaces in updating the historical and architectural heritage of St. Petersburg 274
D.A. Plaksieva, I.N. Demionov & O.P. Fedorov
Restoration of sculptures of rostral columns in St. Petersburg 279
Yu.V. Pukharenko, A.M. Kharitonov, I.U. Aubakirova & N.N. Shangina
Innovation through tradition: “Cerreto Smart Land” project 284
M.R. Ronzoni, M.S. Brioschi & F.L. Bianchi
Adjustment of requirements of regulatory documents about cultural heritage objects 290
A.G. Shashkin & V.A. Shashkin
Telemetric vibration measuring complex for monitoring mechanical safety of cultural
heritage object: “Russian Renault” 297
A.G. Shashkin, M.A. Shashkin, S.O. Kondratiev & P.A. Bakusov
Griboyedov Canal of St. Petersburg: Outdoor lights 303
I.I. Verkhovskaia
BIM technologies in restoration of architectural heritage 308
A.V. Volkov, I.D. Shevyakov, K.Yu. Gubinskaya & N.P. Diakonov
Contemporary architecture and historical landscape: Philosophical and communicative
aspect of form formation 312
N. Voronova & A. Nikiforova
The problem of museumification and display of historical structures on the example of the
church of St. Panteleimon in St. Petersburg 317
Е.R. Vozniak, S.G. Golovina & M.M. Skhodnova

viii
Technology violations of plastering facades of old buildings in the process of repair and
restoration work 323
A. Yudina
Replacement of wooden intermediate floors in old buildings 326
A. Yudina, I. Platonov & E. Khoroshenkaja

Parallels and features in the development of urban planning, architecture and construction
art in Russia and Spain: The fate and work of Augustine Augstinovich Betancourt
Agustin de Betancourt and his political and cultural environment 331
C. Puente Martín
The Betancourt-Castro archive and its documentary collection 335
J. Cullen Salazar
Drawing and understanding Gothic architecture in the first half of XIX- century England 339
J. Girón
Contributions of European specialists to the development of reinforced concrete in pre­
revolutionary Saint Petersburg 345
V. Korensky
Contribution to the studio of the Moscow Manege Deck 350
I.F. Menendez Pidal & P. Busca Fernández
Exile of Spanish engineer Agustín de Betancourt to Russia during the Spanish political crisis
of 807-1808 356
M.J. Pozas
Influence of European styles on the country houses architecture of Saint Petersburg 361
M.V. Rybalchenko
Study of colonnade structures of St. Isaac’s Cathedral in St. Petersburg 367
P. Shchedrin
Augustine Augustinovich Betancourt in Russia 371
S.V. Sementsov
The calculation of wooden log structures of the Transfiguration Church in Kizhi 377
K.G. Shashkin
Methodological approaches to the restoration of wooden architecturemonuments: God
Transfiguration Church on Kizhi island 383
O.V. Tiunov
The invisible legacy of Augustine Betancourt in Saint Petersburg monuments of the first half
of the XIX century 388
V.M. Ulitsky & A.G. Shashkin
Augustin de Betancourt: One life – two disfavors 393
O. Volosyuk

Author index 398

ix
 Reconstruction and Restoration of Architectural Heritage 2021 – Sementsov, Leontyev & Huerta (Eds)
© 2021 Taylor & Francis Group, London, ISBN 978-0-367-68296-5

Preface

We are pleased to present the new book Reconstruction and Restoration of Architectural
Heritage 2021, which was prepared at the oldest department of the St. Petersburg State Uni­
versity of Architecture and Civil Engineering (SPbGASU) together with prominent scientist
and experts in the field of cultural heritage preservation, conservation, restoration and renova­
tion of monuments.

The book Reconstruction and Restoration of Architectural Heritage 2021 presents the main
directions of the conference of the same name (RRAH 2021, St. Petersburg, Russia, March
24-27, 2021) in key focus:

– the historical formation of buildings, construction and territories;

– the conservation, reconstruction and restoration of buildings and constructions: The trans­
formation of historical spaces and areas;
– parallels and features in the development of urban planning, architecture and construction
art in Russia and Spain: The fate and work of Augustine Augstinovich Betancourt.

We are well aware that the preservation of cultural heritage is the most important task of pre­
serving the memory of civilizations. Through the efforts of the international community,
UNESCO, ICOMOS, ICOM, and other public organizations were created to fight for the
preservation of cultural heritage, including immovable architectural monuments.

The collection is devoted to many aspects, stages, and problems of preserving cultural heritage
and includes an overview of professional work with monuments.

In 2021, the RRAH 2021 conference, supported by Spain, focused on the development of the
historical and architectural destiny of Spain and Russia and devoted the biography and cre­
ative activity in the early 19th century in Russia of the outstanding Spanish engineer Augustin
Augustinovich Betancourt. Along with this, the collection contains articles by many authors
from different countries on various aspects of historical and modern study, restoration of
architectural monuments, and reconstruction of major historical objects of urban planning, as
well as on many complex and problematic aspects of engineering reconstruction of
monuments.

This book is intended for scientists and specialists and combines materials about the history
and restoration of many of the largest nature reserves, estates, cities, and monuments.

Doctor of Architectural Sciences, Professor S. V. Sementsov.

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 Reconstruction and Restoration of Architectural Heritage 2021 – Sementsov, Leontyev & Huerta (Eds)
© 2021 Taylor & Francis Group, London, ISBN 978-0-367-68296-5

Scientific Committee

Evgeny Rybnov, DSc in Economics, PhD in Engineering, Professor, Rector, St Petersburg

State University of Architecture and Civil Engineering (St Petersburg, Russia)

Irina Drozdova, DSc in Economics, Professor, Vice Rector for Science, St Petersburg State
University of Architecture and Civil Engineering (St Petersburg, Russia)

Francisco Javier Martín Carrasco, Director, Escuela Técnica Superior de Ingenieros de Cami-
nos, Canales y Puertos (ETSICCP), Universidad Politécnica de Madrid; Director, Fundación
Agustín de Betancourt (Madrid, Spain)

Manuel Blanco, Director, Escuela Técnica Superior de Arquitectura de Madrid (ETSAM)

(Madrid, Spain)

Bernardo Revuelta, Director, Fundación Juanelo Turriano (Madrid, Spain)

Sergey Sementsov, DSc of Architecture, Professor, Head of Department of Architectural and

Urban Planning Heritage, St Petersburg State University of Architecture and Civil Engineering
(St Petersburg, Russia)

Santiago Huerta, Dr of Architecture, Professor of Structural Design, Escuela Técnica Superior

de Arquitectura de Madrid (ETSAM) (Madrid, Spain)

Ignacio Menéndez-Pidal de Navascués, PhD. MEng Civil Engineer, Professor, Escuela Técnica
Superior de Ingenieros de Caminos, Canales y Puertos, Universidad Politécnica de Madrid
(Madrid, Spain)

Alexander Leontyev, First Deputy Chairman, Committee for State Inspection and Protection of
Historic and Cultural Monuments of St Petersburg (KGIOP); Professor, Department of Archi­
tectural and Urban Planning Heritage, St Petersburg State University of Architecture and Civil
Engineering (St Petersburg, Russia)

xiii
 Reconstruction and Restoration of Architectural Heritage 2021 – Sementsov, Leontyev & Huerta (Eds)
© 2021 Taylor & Francis Group, London, ISBN 978-0-367-68296-5

Organizing Committee

Evgeny Rybnov, DSc in Economics, PhD in Engineering, Professor, Rector, St Petersburg

State University of Architecture and Civil Engineering (St Petersburg, Russia)

Irina Drozdova, DSc in Economics, Professor, Vice Rector for Science, St Petersburg State
University of Architecture and Civil Engineering (St Petersburg, Russia)

Sergey Sementsov, Dr of Architecture, Professor, Head of Department of Architectural and

Urban Planning Heritage, St Petersburg State University of Architecture and Civil Engineering
(St Petersburg, Russia)

Santiago Huerta, Dr of Architecture, Professor of Structural Design, Escuela Técnica Superior

de Arquitectura de Madrid (ETSAM) (Madrid, Spain)

Alexander Leontyev, First Deputy Chairman, Committee for State Inspection and Protection of
Historic and Cultural Monuments of St Petersburg (KGIOP); Professor, Department of Archi­
tectural and Urban Planning Heritage, St Petersburg State University of Architecture and Civil
Engineering (St Petersburg, Russia)

Aleksey Shashkin, DSc in Geology and Mineralogy, General Director of the Design Institute
Timothy Gray, Master of Architecture, Professor of Architecture, Department of Architecture,
Ball State University (Carmel, Indiana, USA)

Ekaterina Voznyak, Dr of Architecture, Professor, Department of Architectural and Urban

Planning Heritage, St Petersburg State University of Architecture and Civil Engineering (St
Petersburg, Russia)

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 Reconstruction and Restoration of Architectural Heritage 2021 – Sementsov, Leontyev & Huerta (Eds)
© 2021 Taylor & Francis Group, London, ISBN 978-0-367-68296-5

Co-organizers

Saint Petersburg State University of Architecture Cultural Heritage Preserving Charitable Founda-
and Civil Engineering (SPbGASU) (St Petersburg, tion (St Petersburg, Russia)
Russia)

Russian Association of Restorers (St Petersburg,

Russia)

Committee for the State Preservation of Historical

and Cultural Monuments (St Petersburg, Russia)

Remmers (St Petersburg, Russia)

xvii
Universidad Politécnica de Madrid (UPM) Spanish Society of Construction History (SEDHC)
(Spain, Madrid) (Spain, Madrid)

Fundación Juanelo Turriano (Spain, Madrid)

Escuela Técnica Superior de Arquitectura de

Madrid (ETSAM) (Spain, Madrid)

Escuela Técnica Superior de Ingenieros de Caminos,

Canales y Puertos (ETSICCP) (Spain, Madrid)
Fundación Agustín de Betancourt (Spain, Madrid)

xviii
The historical formation of buildings, construction and territories
 Reconstruction and Restoration of Architectural Heritage 2021 – Sementsov, Leontyev & Huerta (Eds)
© 2021 Taylor & Francis Group, London, ISBN 978-0-367-68296-5

Construction history: Tool to improve maintenance and intervention in built

heritage
J. Antuña
Universidad Politécnica de Madrid, Madrid, Spain

ABSTRACT: This paper describes intervention in a building that can be considered historic. The objective is
to reflect on the role that construction history (CH) has had on the decision-making process in a refurbishment
project. At the same time, a series of tasks are proposed to be addressed by the CH. These are activities that are
already carried out and are disseminated in congresses and magazines dedicated to the discipline. Systematic
works are proposed, with the aim of defining temporal and geographical catalogues of construction procedures
and materials.

1 INTRODUCTION 2 PROJECT DESCRIPTON

The objective is to describe the intervention process in
a historic building, highlighting the issues in which
construction history (CH) can provide knowledge that
helps decision-making during the project and execu­
tion of the work. Several study objectives included
within the scope of the CH are indicated which, if
achieved, would be very useful in the work of techni­
cians on an intervention project in an existing building.
The work in question is made of reinforced con­
crete and construction was completed in 1935, making
it more than eighty years old. It was in uninterrupted
service for fifty years dedicated to the use for which it
was conceived, followed by thirty years in which it
housed different activities. It has imperfections due to
multiple causes: careless use, lack of maintenance and
repair. Material deterioration is one of the conse­
quences of lack of proper maintenance.
The building in question is Legazpi covered market,
in Madrid. This work was completed in 1935 by the
architect Francisco Javier Ferrero, and the engineer
Alfonso Peña Boeuf collaborated in the design and cal­
culation of its reinforced concrete structure. This build­
ing was one of a series of markets built during
the second republic to improve public health and distrib­
ute food in a hygienic and controlled manner. The
Puerta de Toledo fish market was built at the same time.
The building served as a wholesale fruit and vege­
table distribution centre for the whole city. It was
organized in two levels: the ground floor and the first
floor. Goods entered by train on the first floor and
were distributed on the ground floor after being taken
up to the area corresponding to each distributor. The
merchants’ warehouses were on the first floor, and an
adjacent street allowed direct road access by lorry.
The project is located on a triangle-shaped plot with
sides measuring 290 m, 240 m and 200 m. The
building is located parallel to the boundaries of the
plot and occupies a depth of 37.50 m around the per­
imeter, leaving a large patio inside. The building is
organized in 6 corridors, five of them 6.50 m wide
while the external one is 4.00 m wide. The ground
floor railway track ran through the 4.00 m wide
external corridor. The rest of the floor was open plan.
The upper floor was organized around an uncovered
central road, corresponding to the fourth corridor
from the outside, through which delivery vehicles
circulated. The two bays adjacent to the central road
functioned as sidewalks with lifts to the lower floor.
The merchants’ warehouses were on each side. The
roof here is the distinctive formal feature of this
building. The central bay in which the road was
located was open, and the two sidewalks are covered
by cantilevered slabs with a span of 6.50 m.
The structure of the building is in ten blocks of
reinforced concrete separated by expansion joints.
Eight of these blocks have the same arrangement
although they are of different lengths. The other two
blocks have a similar organization although it is
modified to adapt to the corners of the plot.
The flooring consists of a 10 cm thick reinforced
concrete slab placed over 15 cm wide concrete
beams 1.30 m apart. The beams are supported by
other larger section beams. The beams are arranged
in lengthwise to the blocks, except in the bay of the
carriageway where they are transverse and the joists,
which here are thicker, run lengthwise. On the upper
floor the layout is similar, and the cantilever that
covers the sidewalks that flank the central road is

DOI: 10.1201/9781003136804-1

3
composed of a solid variable thickness slab with
a span of 6.50 m. These slabs vary in depth from
11 cm at the end to 28 cm at the start.
The structure is regular. The sections of the sup­
ports are all 50 cm x 50 cm, except for the supports
located under the road that are 60 cm wide. The
floor joists are 35 cm x 15 cm in the outer bay,
45 cm x 30 cm under the driveway and 45 cm
x 15 cm under the rest of the ground floor. On the
roof they measure 60 cm x 15 cm.
The ground on which the building rests is sand
and the level of the pavement varies from 1.50 m to
3.50 m below the ground floor level. The foundation
consists of isolated square 2.50 m to 4.90 m footings
depending on the loads, so that contact stress with
the ground is less than 0.3 kg/cm².
Intervention in existing buildings is a common
activity and systematic procedures for various types
of structures have been established. There are
instructions for the Inspection of reinforced concrete
structures such as the ACI, or inspection manuals for
wooden and steel structures.
Recommendations generally include the need to
perform several tasks: a) a study of the procedures
and materials used at the time of construction as pre­
liminary work, b) inspection visits to the building,
with various degrees of detail, c) tests of the mater­
ials with which the building is constructed, d) verifi­
cation that stability, resistance and rigidity
requirements meet current codes, e) drafting of
reports on the state of the structure, the needs for
repair or reinforcement and, finally, f) the project
containing necessary actions.
3 TASKS REQUIRED IN THE INTERVENTION
Knowledge of construction history is relevant for
each of these activities, and each aspect will be dis­
cussed below. Actions in the building under study
will be described, pointing out what the construction
history has contributed and tasks that should be
addressed in the future.
3.1 Construction procedure and materials
The market building structure consists of concrete
reinforced with smooth steel bars. A series of tests
determined the quality of these materials.
The qualities of the materials used and the way in
which the reinforcement is arranged and the anchor­
ages differ from current practice. There were no
obligatory minimum amounts and the arrangement
of the bars tried to adapt to the trajectory of the
forces, using curved bars in the beams and slabs.
Likewise, the solution of the joints between beams
and supports or between slab and beams differs from
contemporary practice.
One of the objectives of CH was to describe the
patented reinforced concrete systems that were used
to a greater or lesser extent until the end of the
4
1920s, as well as the works carried out by the first
technicians who used them independently of the
registered trademarks. There are numerous works in
which buildings using patented methods and others
by independent technicians are studied, as well as
others on works by companies in different periods.
Likewise, there are studies that focus on the quality
of the materials used.
However, there is no systematic compilation in
which practices used in different geographical areas
and times are described. Works should include the
different construction systems and materials charac­
teristics. There are a large number of sources from
which such data can be obtained. On the one hand,
there are the buildings themselves, in which different
types of works have been carried out and in which
the construction procedures used and the quality of
the materials have been investigated. Although there
are many examples distributed in conferences and
magazines, they have not been systematically
compiled.
Sources of information include works’ techni­
cians’ files, files of companies that carried out con­
struction work and those of the laboratories that
tested the materials used. This type of information is
available in Spain for at least the last 130 years. For
instance, ACI instructions include tables with min­
imum strength values for concrete and steel that can
be assumed, grouped by date.
On the other hand, within the historical study of
construction and material systems it is necessary to
include intervention, repair and reinforcement tech­
niques that have historically been used. In all of the
buildings that we can call historical, at some point
works will have been carried out to modify, repair or
reinforce parts of them.
The study of each procedure must be accompan­
ied by what is known about its history, including the
consequences of the deterioration of interventions
and the results of these in the original building. This
will make it possible to forecast expected damage.
3.2 Building inspection
Alfonso Peña Bouef was in charge of designing this
reinforced concrete structure, and he left
a publication in which he briefly described it.
Although no project documents were located, those
corresponding to other similar projects from the
same time and in nearby locations are available, as
well as contemporary technical texts describing simi­
lar works. These give an idea of how the slabs,
joists, beams, supports and footings were organized.
Inspection visits were planned using these data. Pro­
spections were made at various points based on
information, which made it possible to confirm the
arrangement of the reinforcement in the different
elements.
Previous information about the building in which
construction period, type of building and the struc­
ture used are specified, together with CH data, make
it possible to gain an idea of what one can find in 3.4 Verification of structural requirements
a building and thereby to plan the first inspection.
The objective of the project in Legazpi Market was
The CH will provide information on the type of
to modify it for use as offices. The forces specified
structure to be expected, the way in which it will be
in the current code for this use are less than those
arranged and, in each case, the relevant aspects on
foreseen in the original project. On the other hand,
which attention must be focused.
inspection revealed the existence of some major add­
But it should also warn of the different types of
itions of material that created a load greater than the
damage to be expected, the way they manifest and
structure’s own weight. The choice of light flooring
the procedures and materials used in each period of
together with modification of its use meant that the
time to carry out repair and reinforcement work.
weight of the new building, including the expected
To discover the state of the building it will be
forces, will be less than it had been throughout its
necessary to carry out several visits, each with
history.
a different scope each, so that what is identified in
The observations made in inspections made it
each inspection makes it possible to specify the
possible allowed to draw the arrangement of the
objectives to be investigated in the following ones.
reinforcement in the different elements. With this, it
In any case, the objective is to conclude with
was possible to obtain the strength of the various
a detailed survey of the building and structure. The
structural elements and, finally, the total permissible
layout and dimensions of the building, its parts and
load. Verifying that the expected forces are less than
in particular the structural elements must be speci­
the maximum obtained shows that the strength
fied. In addition, the type of damage observed, its
requirement is met for the new use.
location and magnitude must be precisely detailed in
To verify the structural requirements for strength
structural elements, floors, beams, supports or walls,
and stiffness, the need for structural analysis is com­
as well as in other construction elements.
monly mentioned. It is often said that the resistance
The information that the CH can provide for
required at each point should be compared with that
building inspection is based on studies of buildings
of the structure. Thus, if the capacity is greater at
published in different journals or congresses. One of
each point, than the stresses obtained by analysis, it
the objectives of CH is the description of buildings
can be concluded that the building structure meets
and the different techniques used in their construc­
the strength requirement. However, analysis of the
tion. In addition, CH must include the techniques
structure should only be approached with the precise
and materials used in their maintenance, conserva­
knowledge of the way in which the connections
tion, repair or reinforcement throughout their
between elements are made: how they connect slabs
existence.
and floors with the beams and these with the sup­
ports, the supports with each other and with the
3.3 Materials testing foundation.
In hyperstatic systems, although comparison of
To complete inspection information a series of tests
the stresses obtained after analysing the structure
and inspections were planned to confirm the
with what the different sections support makes it
arrangement of the reinforcement and the strength
possible to validate a structure, this cannot invalidate
of the concrete and steel. These inspections made it
it. It is a sufficient condition, but not a necessary
possible to discover the distribution of the
one. In order for the results of analysis to confirm
reinforcement in the elements and different joints.
the capacity of a structure, it is necessary to identify
With this it was possible to draw the distribution of
the arrangement of the reinforcement at each point
the reinforcement throughout the structure. The
and thus know the capacity of each section. This
tests showed not only the strength of the steel and
analysis should be approached by taking into
concrete, as they also indicated the degree of homo­
account the actual capacity of each section.
geneity of their quality.
The data provided by CH will make it possible to
One CH objective is to study of the materials used
create a correct hypothesis regarding the arrangement
in different works. Existing monographic works
of the elements and their resistance capacity, which
should be completed with a systematic study of the
must be confirmed by inspection. It should provide
temporal and geographical distribution of the mater­
information on the geographical and temporal distri­
ials used, their strengths, expected causes of deteri­
bution of the technical solutions used, but it should
oration in each case, and techniques used historically
also include a systematic study of the codes used. In
for their repair or reinforcement.
the same way that there are numerous monographs
Tests should not be limited to those intended to
on standards, stonework, carpentry or construction in
quantify the strength of the materials, but should
general, a systematic study of the codes used in dif­
include tests on the building itself and past load
ferent countries should be carried out. Studying
tests. Although it is a relatively modern technique,
codes parallel to the study of the technique used will
all model testing carried out prior to construction
make it possible to discover to what extent the
should also be included, as this technique was used
aspects that are codified are conditioned by the uses
for some buildings.
and technical capacity available in each era.

5
 This study will show that there were no codes to
regulate forces in buildings until a few years ago,
when this need began to be considered. On the other
hand, another current shortcoming is the lack of pro­
cedures to quantify the safety of an existing structure
and how close it is to collapse. Obtaining tools that
quantify the safety of an existing structure and cover­
ing all types of buildings and their foundations will
make it possible to adjust the budgets necessary to
carry out interventions in buildings with the necessary
safety.
3.5 Reports and projects
Several documents were available to prepare a detailed
report on the market building. A survey of the building
made it possible to have detailed plans in which the
shape and sections of the different structural elements
were specified. In addition, a report on the state of the
building described the state of the structure, the situ­
ation of the reinforcements in the different elements in
terms of their position and diameter, and provides
details on the resistance of the materials.
A geotechnical report prepared in 2008 at the same
time as the previous one describes the position, size
and depth of the foundations, as well as the type of ter­
rain found up to a depth of 30 m from the base level.
With this initial information a work plan was pre­
pared simultaneously with the project to precisely
show the extent of the damage. To complete the
report on the condition of the building, so that it
could serve to assess the scope of the intervention,
a comprehensive inspection of the condition of the
structure was carried out. The types of damage
found were classified and detailed, identifying their
origin, indicating their location and size on the
plans. With this it was possible to know the precise
amount of repairs to be carried out.
Preparing the building status report coincides with
one of the tasks that are carried out when investigat­
ing construction history. This task includes those
mentioned in the previous sections, summarising
them. One of the objectives of CH will be to help
systematize the writing of these reports.
As sources of information, in addition to mono-
graphic works in different CH magazines and con­
gresses, or technical journals in any field related to
construction, there are others that should be used.
Files of the technicians, architects and engineers
involved in construction and intervention projects,
files of the different administrative bodies, files of
laboratories and companies involved in the control
and construction of new and repair works, as well as
files of materials companies and construction
systems.
4 DISCUSSION
Construction history is not an auxiliary discipline
about intervention in buildings, as it is an
6
autonomous discipline. But we propose here that
the results of research in construction history
may be useful in decision-making when interven­
ing in an existing building. An objective is pro­
posed for construction history that consists of
ordering the information on built heritage in such
a way that the following objectives can be
achieved:
– A detailed timeline of the systems and materials
used in different types of buildings in different
geographic areas.
– A catalogue of expected damage associated with
each system used and material, adapted to each
geographical area with similar characteristics.
– A catalogue of the repair and reinforcement tech­
niques and materials used in each period of time
and geographical area, and the effects that these
interventions have had on the buildings in which
they were used. A description of the damage that
they may cause and the evidence of their
appearance.
– Study of the different building codes. Among the
aspects to be investigated is the evolution of the
methods used to analyse structures and calculate
the sections used, as well as how to check safety.
– Help define codes of good practice in the study
and verification of existing structures, in the veri­
fication of safety and in the drafting of interven­
tion projects.
– Definition of inspection procedures and dissemin­
ation of research results in existing buildings.
– Include the above objectives in the curricula of
the disciplines involved in building together with
the study of CH.
5 CONCLUSIONS
Investigating CH has given rise to better knowledge
about existing buildings. Although it is not a purpose
of the discipline, thanks to the information it provides,
the technicians in charge of carrying out intervention
projects can correctly interpret the real situation of
constructions and propose actions that, while respect­
ing the qualities of a building, are more economical
and durable.
The text proposes seven CH objectives which
would be of great help for the interpretation of the
situation of built heritage, as well as a working basis
for planning preventive maintenance actions. The
useful life of buildings would thereby be lengthened
and the costs associated with rehabilitation, repair
and reinforcement would be reduced.
6 FUTURE WORK
One of the fundamental tasks involved in achieving
the objectives set out in this work is to synchronize
the efforts of scholars from different geographical
areas to organize their work and initiate synthetic
work on existing and new research.
ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS
Legazpi Fruit and Vegetable Market is owned by
Madrid City Council. In 2007 a competition was
held to undertake its reform to convert it into muni­
cipal offices. The architects Jesús Ulargui and
Eduardo Pesquera won this competition and pre­
pared a project that was delivered in 2008. Although
it was not implemented, in 2016, the city council
promoted another project which modified the previ­
ous one. In 2017, repair works were carried out on
the structure. In order to carry out the projects sev­
eral technical reports had to be consulted. We would
7
like to thank the architects involved for their help in
consulting these reports as well as the different
projects.
REFERENCES
Addis, B. (2007). Buildings: 3000 years of Design, Engin­
eering and Construction. Chichester, UK: Ellis Horwood.
Addis, B. (2020). Physical Models. Their historical and
current use in civil and building engineering design.
Berlin: Wilhelm and Sohn.
Becchi. A & Corradi, M & Foce, F. & Pedemonte, O.
(Eds). 2004. Construction History. Research Perspec­
tives in Europe. Florence: Kim Williams Books.
Kurrer, K. E. (2018). The History of the Theory of Struc­
tures: Searching for equilibrium. Berlin: Wilhelm Ernst
& Sohn.
 Reconstruction and Restoration of Architectural Heritage 2021 – Sementsov, Leontyev & Huerta (Eds)
© 2021 Taylor & Francis Group, London, ISBN 978-0-367-68296-5

Architectural and historical studies of the Exalted Church over the Holy
Gate of the Bishop’s Court in Vologda
I. Beloyarskaya
Vologda State University, Vologda, Russia

ABSTRACT: The history of the construction of the Church of the Exaltation of the Exalted over the Holy
Gate, which is part of the cultural heritage object “Vologda Kremlin Ensemble” and is accompanied by an
architectural and artistic analysis of the building: “Bishop’s House and other buildings, XVI-XIX centuries.”
is considered in chronological order. The methodology of the work is based on the study of archival and bib­
liographic sources, field surveys of the building, comparison of historical and modern photographs, analysis
of the environmental environment in the historical context, identification of the characteristic features of the
monument of ancient Russian architecture. The purpose of the study is the architectural and artistic analysis
and systematization of information about the object of research. The Gate Church of the Exaltation is located
above the main Holy Gate of the complex of residential, economic, buildings, and defensive fortifications,
which, together with the grandiose St. Sophia Cathedral located nearby, is a single ensemble representing the
compositional and ideological core of the historical center of Vologda.

1 INTRODUCTION

The gate of the Exaltation of the Holy Cross Church

with the Holy Gate was built in the early XVIII cen­
tury in 1671 and is located on the territory of the
Bishop’s Court and is an integral part of the complex
of buildings and structures, religious, civil and fortifi­
cation purposes, forming an ensemble of the monu­
ment of ancient Russian architecture and Russian
ensemble architecture. (Beloyarskaya 2018). The
unique architectural ensemble is located in the central
part of the historical core of Vologda on the right bank
of the Vologda River. Currently, it is used by the Vol­
ogda State Historical, Architectural, and Art Museum-
Reserve (Figure 1).

2 MATERIALS AND METHODS
The earliest information about the construction of the
Holy Gate and the construction of the Exalted Church
over it was found in the lists and inventories of the
Bishop’s House, the parish-expense books of the
Bishop’s Court, which are located in the Vologda
State Archive. And the earliest publications about the
construction of a complex of buildings and structures
of the Episcopal metochion on the territory of the
new detinets-the Kremlin of the city of Vologda, the
construction of which began by Ivan the Terrible in
1566, appeared at the end of the XIX century.
Describing the entire complex of the Episcopal
Figure 1. A copy of the first confirmed plan of the city of
Vologda in 1781, which is placed in the “Atlas of Cities of
the Vologda Viceroyalty” (Russian State Military Historical
Archive, f. 846. inv. 16. cas. 21544 sh. 2).
Metochion, each author gave a detailed description of
its individual buildings, in particular the gate church
of the Exaltation over the Holy Gate. These were
books by researchers-local historians A. A. Zasetsky,
I. K. Stepanovsky, N. I. Suvorov, N. P. Brusilov,
B. I. Dunaev, etc. In their books, they published his-
torical information, sometimes contradictory. Later, in
the 60s and 70s, the works of art historians and archi-
tects M. V. Fechner, V. Banige, and A. K. Vedrov

DOI: 10.1201/9781003136804-2

8
appeared, which were also mostly descriptive in
nature. In these works, there was no analysis of his­
torical sources, materials about the urban history of
the environment of the object of study.
The research aims to analyze the architectural and
artistic aspects and systematize the information about
the main stages of the construction of the Holy Gate
and the subsequent construction of the Gate Church
of the Exaltation of the Holy Life-Giving Cross,
located in the eastern wall of the Bishop’s Courtyard.
3 RESULTS AND DISCUSSION
The yard of the Archbishop of the Vologda Diocese
was moved down the river from the ancient concession
stand, which was on the “Lazy Site”, to a new location,
in connection with the grandiose construction of
a powerful fortress - Kremlin in the city of Vologda,
conceived by Tsar Ivan the Terrible as a stronghold of
the Oprichnina and the placement of the northern royal
residence here. Immediately after the construction of
the fortress walls began in 1568, the foundation of the
cathedral church in the name of the Assumption of the
Mother of God was laid, in the likeness of the
Assumption Cathedral in Moscow, later consecrated in
honor of St. Sophia of the Wisdom of God. At the
same time, the wooden buildings of the bishop’s resi­
dence began to be erected directly behind the
cathedral.
The residences of the bishops were built in the
central part of the Old Russian city near the main
city cathedral. The planning composition and spatial
structure were usually formed according to the type
of the Orthodox monastery ensemble: the central
core, which included the bishop’s chambers, the
refectory, and the house church (in the monasteries it
was the main cathedral, the refectory, and the abbot’s
chambers), and the placement of residential and out­
buildings around the perimeter. The entire complex
was surrounded by a fortress wall (Figure 2).
It was mandatory, as well as in monasteries, to set
up the main front gates - the Holy Gate and the Water­
gate, the household gate, through which water and fire­
wood were transported. The Watergate always went to
the source of water-a river or lake. The Holy Gate had
two entrance arches. One was smaller for people on
foot, and the other was wider and taller for travel.
The main Holy Gate was located opposite the front
porch of St. Sophia Cathedral. The path from the
Joseph’s Building through the Holy Gate to the main
entrance to the cathedral was paved with bridges. It
was not just a road from the Bishop’s chambers to the
main cathedral of the city. It was a road connecting the
world of the “Mountain” and the world of the
“Valley”, as well as connecting the people with their
shepherd.
The first complex of the Bishop’s Court was built
opposite the main city cathedral in 1585-1587. At
first, all the buildings of the complex were wooden,
9
Figure 2. Plan bishop’s monastery and churches of the city
of Vologda (Bange 1970).
1 – Cathedral of St. Sophia; 2 – resurrection Cathedral; 3 –
a bell tower; 4 – public order; 5 – ring housing; 6 – the gate
Church of the exaltation; 7 – go to gallery Phillips chamber;
8 – Consistorial housing; 9 – cross chamber with the
Church of the Nativity, 10 – Ianevski body; 11 – Gabriel’s
Palace housing; 12 – Josifovski housing; 13 – service of the
body; 14 – wall and towers of the Bishop’s house their
accessories.
and the fence was wooden. The fence of the Bishop’s
court had several gates. In the eastern wall between
the bell tower and the south-eastern tower of the
fence, there was a “Watergate”, which was intended
for the supply of water from the river and other
household needs. In the northwest tower, there was
another gate, the “Passing Gate”. In the middle of the
eastern wall of the fence, which separated the com­
plex of the Bishop’s Court from the St. Sophia Cath­
edral, opposite the western entrance to the cathedral
was the Holy Gate. In 1650-1653, a church was built
over the Holy Gate in the name of the three Perm
Saints Gerasim, Pitirim, and Joseph. The church was
completed in the form of three tents (Suvorov 1898).
In 1654, the production of bricks began in connec­
tion with the construction of the stone cathedral bell
tower, which was built into the wall fence of the
Bishop’s house. In 1658, the first stone building of
the “State Order” was built in the Bishop’s yard, later
called the Economsky building. (Beloyarskaya 2018).
After the completion of the construction of the Econ­
omsky building and the tent bell tower in 1673, in
July, the laying of the stone wall of the fence begins,
and more specifically its eastern spin from the bell
tower to the Holy Gate (Trekhsvyatsky Gate), and
then the foundation of the stone Holy Gate, “under
the Trekhsvyatsky Gate, ditches were dug… and
piled with stones and wooden beams …” (Archive
Service of the Voronezh region f. 883. op. 1. cas. 3).
 The construction of the Three Holy Gates and the
eastern wall-fence was completed in 1674 in the
month of July. The stone gate in the name of the
three Permian Saints Gerasim, Pitirim, and Joseph
had a three-tent completion. In 1687, the construction
of the stone church of the Exaltation over the Holy
Gate began (Figure 3). Before the construction of the
church, it was necessary to increase the volume of
the Holy Gate in the western direction. The construc­
tion was completed in 1692 (Perfilieva 2000).
By the beginning of the XVIII century, small vol­
umes of the L-shaped porch were added to the west­
ern and northern sides of the church (Figure 4).
The Church of the Exaltation is a slender chetverik
covered with a vault, completed with one small chap­
ter, which appeared at the end of the XVIII century,
instead of three decorative tents, repeating the shape of
the previous ones, crowning the wooden gate (Brusilov
1883). Currently, the Church of the Exaltation is
Figure 3. The Holy Gate with the Exalted Church of the
Bishop’s House of Vologda. Photo by author.
Figure 4. The Church of the Exaltation over the Holy Gate
from the inner courtyard of the Bishop’s House. Photo by
author.
10
located on the base, which is the volume of the Holy
Gate.
Before the construction of the Gate Church, it
was necessary to increase the volume of the Holy
Gate in the western direction. The Church of the
Exaltation is built on the base, which is a slightly
elongated rectangle in the plan from west to east
and is the lower (first) tier of the entire structure.
The first tier is divided in width into three parts.
The first narrowest part was the passageway in the
Holy Gate for pedestrians, the middle part served
as a passage and the third part was a room, prob­
ably it was the gatekeeper’s lodge. With the
increase in the volume of the Holy Gate, the part
of the northern wall of the building of the Store­
room of the Chamber on the cabbage cellars,
which was not adjacent to the wall of the gate,
became part of the wall of the pedestrian passage,
which is confirmed by the preserved details of the
decoration of the outer wall of the Cabbage cellar
in this passage. Two windows located on the
northern wall of the cabbage cellar, located on the
first floor of the Storeroom building, were also laid
in the interior of the cabbage cellar and turned
into niches-stoves. The builders also arrived with
three windows on the north wall of the chamber’s
Storeroom, located on the second floor above the
cabbage cellar. In the interior of the Storeroom of
the chamber, niches appeared, repeating the size
and configuration of the laid windows (Figure 5).
Two and a half meters from the entrance in the
pedestrian passage is an arch with a gap for the gers
grating, and two and a half meters later another
arched opening. It is obvious that the territory of the
complex of the Bishop’s House was well guarded.
Between these two arches on the south wall of the
passage is a small niche. The outer entrance arch
(from the side of St. Sophia Cathedral) is laid, but
the fastenings for the gate hinges are preserved and
a small window is left, which is covered with
Figure 5. Diagram of the periods of construction of the
Church of the Exaltation. a) First floor, b) Second floor.
The author’s drawing.
a metal grating. On the side of the courtyard, there is
a door that appeared no later than the beginning of
the XX century. Minor repairs were carried out in
the room, there are fragments of fresh brickwork in
the lower part of the walls.
The arched opening for the passage, which is also
an elongated room, but larger in width, is located in
the center of the first tier. The arched opening of the
outer entrance is covered with plywood panels, but it
has completely preserved its original dimensions.
The arch also has a slot for the gers grating, but it is
“sewn” with a wooden board. A short distance away
is another arch. Also, a small arch is located at
a short distance from the entrance to the room from
the courtyard of the complex, which has a door that
also appeared no later than the beginning of the XX
century. In the room, there are traces of repair work-
grout cracks on the walls and ceiling. In the part of
the northern wall, which is located closer to the
entrance from the courtyard, there is a rectangular
opening with the remains of the door jamb to the
third room. However, it is clear that the ceilings are
wooden, there are no window openings in the room.
Outside, almost from the wall fence, there is a huge
arch in the wall of this room, with the gates sealed
tightly.
Finding out the meaning of the arch is possible
with more in-depth research with disclosures.
The second tier, the completion of the Holy
Gates – the Gate of the Exalted Church. The main
quadrangle of the church is a two-light cubic volume
covered by a vault, which is crowned by a small bar-
oque-shaped dome. At the end of the arch, there is
a round hole, the presence of which can be assumed
that the original drum of the dome was light.
On the west side, a small porch adjoins the quad­
rangle, shifted to the north so that there is room for
a small window opening on the western wall of the
first “light” (tier) of the main quadrangle. Also, on
the west wall are two arched openings for the
entrance to the church from the porch. The narrow
northern opening is open, the wide one located on
the axis of the western wall is laid on top and there
is a double-leaf door.
On the north wall, also at the level of the first
“light” in the center, there are two large windows,
with wrought-iron bars, authentic fittings, wooden
window frames, these windows overlook the gallery
porch, which adjoins the western wall of the quad­
rangle. The second light of the quadrangle is illumin­
ated by three small windows located on the axes of
the north, west, and south walls. Obviously, the
same window was on the eastern wall, but in the
interior of the temple it is missing, and only on the
eastern facade is visible a fragment of a niche,
almost completely covered by the ridge of the roof
of the altar apse. Above the windows of the second
light in the vault, there are spandrels. With the altar
part, the chetverik is connected by three arched
openings: the central one, located on the axis wide,
two side ones lower and narrower.
11
The altar apse is adjacent to the quadrangle on the
east side, traditionally for gate temples of rectangular
shape and in the plan is a continuation of the main
volume-The altar apse is adjacent to the quadrangle
on the east side, traditionally for gate temples of
rectangular shape and in the plan is a continuation of
the main volume – quadrangular frame. The altar is
separated from the main volume by a wall with three
arches – the central one is wide and the two side
arches are narrower. The altar apse is illuminated by
two windows in arched openings located on the east­
ern wall. The altar is separated from the main
volume by a wall with three arches – the central one
is wide and the two side arches are narrower. The
altar apse is illuminated by two windows in arched
openings located on the eastern wall. The windows
are slightly smaller in size than the openings, result­
ing in semicircular gables above the windows. On
the inner side, the eastern wall of the apse along the
axis, between the two windows, has a niche, also
arched, protruding from the wall. On the southern
and northern sides of the apse, in the walls, there are
two doorways opposite each other, forming a space
that is a continuation of the passage along the eastern
wall-the fence of the entire complex of the bishop’s
house and this kind of corridor was used for this pur­
pose. This path could be accessed by exiting through
the main western entrance of St. Sophia Cathedral
through the Holy Gate to the bell tower. The passage
along the back wall of the altar, almost through the
altar space, is a rare phenomenon, but it is found in
Orthodox churches. Especially since the passage was
used by a narrow circle of people. Perhaps the altar
was separated from the passage by a partition. The
altar apse is covered with a box vault with decking
over the windows.
On the west side, a small porch adjoins the quad­
rangle, shifted to the north along the western facade.
Two arches lead from the porch to the church –
a large and a small one. There is also a door in the
north wall that connects the porch to the gallery
porch. On the west side, two windows well illumin­
ate the small space of the porch.
Another room, strongly elongated, which is adja­
cent to the main volume of the church – the quadran­
gle on the north side, is a passage gallery-porch. On
the west side, it has a wide entrance door, through
which at an early stage one got from the courtyard
space to the church on a high porch. On the opposite
eastern side of the wall, there is an arched niche,
which is repeated on the eastern facade. This sug­
gests that there was a window here first, laid later.
On the north wall, there are two large windows, but
on the facade, there are two niches on the sides of
the windows. The gallery porch is covered with
a cylindrical vault with decking over the windows.
Above the entrance door to the gallery porch, two
pewter doors are visible, and a chimney has been
preserved on the outside above this entrance.
The last room on the second floor is a covered
passage from the house church of the Nativity of

Figure 6. Covered passages from the House Church of the
Nativity of Christ to the Vozdvizhenskaya Gate. Photo by
author.
Christ to the Gate Church of the Exaltation. But in
fact, this is one passage from the building of “Joseph
the Golden” through the open gallery to the Church
of the Nativity of Christ, and then through the
covered passages to the Gate Church (Figure 6).
The covered walkways are supported by two
powerful arches that rest on a pillar located in the
center. The arches still have iron links. Through the
arches, you can get into a small cozy space, a kind
of complex of buildings, which is called the Consis­
tory courtyard. The passages appeared at the same
time with the appearance of the first one-story build­
ing of this separate complex in the early XVIII cen­
tury (Bocharov 1982). Later, the building was added
to the second floor.
The entrance to the passages, and in fact, the main
entrance to the complex of premises of the gate
Church of the Exaltation, located above the Holy
Gate, is located in the western wall of the covered
passages under the open gallery of the Church of the
Nativity of Christ. A steep staircase leads directly up
to the second level and into a long space of passage­
ways. On the second level, next to the main entrance
stairs leading from the first floor, there is a wide
opening to the open gallery of the Church of the
Nativity. This corridor is lit from two sides by win­
dows: three windows on the south wall and three
windows on the north wall. The central window is
blocked.
There is no decor in the interiors of all the rooms
of the complex of the Gate Church of the Exaltation.
The facade decor is modest. Only on the southern
facade, the two-tiered passages have decoration in
the form of a simple belt, repeating the pattern of the
arched openings. The facades of the chetverik are
decorated along the perimeter with a narrow belt of
a simple profile with three false zakomars, which are
loosened on the blades located at the corners and
there are two blades on the eastern and western
facades. Small windows of the second light of the
12
quadrangle, located on the axis of the facades, have
a keel-shaped frame (Figure 5).
The first floor of the southern facade of the church
is almost completely covered by the adjacent build­
ing of the Storeroom Chamber. The second floor, on
the south facade of the quadrangular frame, com­
pletely repeats the decor of the north facade of the
quadrangle and a small part of the decor, which is
a continuation of the frieze of the west facade.
The western facade is a multi-volume compos­
ition-the volume of the porch shifted to the north,
located on the second floor, above a wide arch,
closed door to the room, which is the passage arch
of the Holy Gate. The porch is illuminated by two
closely spaced windows in a double keel-shaped
frame, completed by a triangular pediment. Directly
above the windows is a wide cornice of two shelves
and a lower belt with a curb. The lower part of the
windows is also marked by a protruding belt.
Between the wall of the Storeroom of the chamber
on the cabbage cellar and the protruding volume of
the refectory is a small volume consisting of an arch,
a pedestrian passage of the Holy Gate, a closed-door,
above which a roof is equipped, and above the roof
a window through which the lower light of the
church’s quadrangle is illuminated. The window is
located in a small niche, which is completed on top
with a pediment of a bow shape. At the level of the
overhang of the roof of the adjacent volume of the
porch, a frieze runs along the wall, repeating both
the pattern and the dimensions of the upper part of
the cornice without a belt with a curb. The west
facade on the first floor has two arches - a small and
a large one. On the ground floor, there are two
arches, a large one for driving and a small one for
pedestrians. Above the small arch is a simple frieze,
which is a continuation of the frieze of the Store­
room of the chamber on the cabbage cellar.
On the northern facade of the quadrangle, there
are no middle blades and a frieze. Along the level of
the bottom of the axial window of the chetverik
passes the ridge of the roof of the gallery porch. On
the ground floor, in the very corner, almost adjacent
to the wall fence, there is an arch, commensurate
with the passage arch of the Holy Gate with
a wooden gate.
The most elegant and decorated is the eastern
facade of the complex of the Holy Gate with the
Church of the Exaltation, which opens with the altar
apse and the preserved facade of the Holy Gate to
the superstructure of the church, on the western
facade of St. Sophia Cathedral. The Holy Gate con­
sists of two arches, framed by keel-shaped plat
bands, smaller in size for pedestrians, larger for driv­
ing. The semicircular columns of the window frames
have capitals, which in the interval between the
arches are additionally decorated with an exquisite
decorative element. The decoration of the lower tier
of the Holy Gate has been preserved since its con­
struction at the end of the XVII century. Above the
arches of the Holy Gate, almost coinciding with
them on the axes, there are two windows of the altar
apse, slightly recessed in the niches. On the sides of
the windows are small niches-loopholes, with
a semicircular end. Above the windows is a simple
pattern of the profiled belt and above it a flat cornice.
The upper part of the apse wall protrudes on canti­
levers, obviously imitating the machicolation of fort­
ress towers. Also, the width of the protruding part of
the wall is decorated with peculiar ears. Above the
great arch of the Holy Gate is a kiosk.
The last element of the completion of the Church of
the Exaltation is a small dome of late Baroque form,
with a cross, resting on a round slender drum. Judging
by the design of the drum, it was originally light. The
drum is decorated with a cornice, which consists of
shelves and a row of curbs, at the base of the drum
there is a roller. Narrow windows with a semicircular
end have plat bands in the form of a frame with
a roller around the perimeter. On the sides of each side
of the plat band-roller, there are two constrictions. The
windows of the main building are sewn with sheets of
iron along the contour of the openings.
4 CONCLUSION
The Vozdvizhenskaya Church over the Holy Gate is
a unique monument of architecture of the XVII cen­
tury, it is part of the ensemble of the Bishop’s Court,
which includes buildings and structures of religious,
civil, fortress architecture, built in the period from the
XVI to the XIX centuries. The building consisting of
three volumes of different function: The Holy Gate, the
church, and the passage gallery is an important com­
positional accent of the historical ensemble, and also
crowns a significant, from the point of view of ideol­
ogy, structure - the Holy Gate, which divides the world
into two parts: spiritual and secular.
REFERENCES
Banige N.S. & Pertsev N.V. 1970. Vologda. Moscow: Art.
Beloyarskaya I. K. 2018. Research of the Church of the
Epiphany of the St. George Parish of Vologda based on
newly revealed archival data and field data. Architecture
and Modern Information Technologies 2 (43): 138–155.
13
Bocharov G. & Vygolov V. 1982. Vologda. Kirillov, Fera­
pontovo, Belozersk, Art monuments of the XII-XIX cen­
turies. Moscow: Art.
Brusilov N. 1833. The experience of describing the Vol­
ogda province. St. Petersburg: Imperial Academy of
Sciences.
Dunaev B. I. 1914. North Russian civil and church archi­
tecture. Moscow: V. I. Voronov Printing House.
Evdokimov I. 1920. The North in the history of Russian
art. Vologda: Publication of the Union of Northern
Cooperative Unions.
Fechner M.V. 1958. Vologda. Moscow: Gosstroyizdat.
Lukomsky G. K. 1914. Vologda in its old days. St. Peters­
burg: Northern circle of lovers of fine arts.
Mertsalov A. E. 1885. An essay of the city of Vologda
based on the scribe book of 1627: Historical research
by A. E. Mertsalov. Vologda: Vologda Gubernia Board.
Nepein S. A. 1906. Vologda before and now. 1147-1906.
Vologda: printing house of Znamensky and Tsvetov.
Perfileva L. A., 2000. Monument of the architecture of the
XVII century. Economy and Nameless building of the
b. Episcopal House of Vologda, 15 Orlova street. Scien­
tific and project documentation. Comprehensive scien­
tific research. Historical-archival and bibliographic
research. Historical Note 2 (1). Moscow: Institute for
the Restoration of Historical and Cultural Monuments
“Special Projectrestavration».
Sokolov V. 1977. Vologda. History of construction and
improvement of the city. Vologda: North-Western Book
Publishing House.
Stepanovsky I. K. 1890. Vologda antiquity. Historical and
archaeological collection. Vologda: Volgda Gubernia
Board.
Suvorov N. I. 1865. Vologda Bishop’s House. Vologda Dio­
cesan Gazette 16: 646–654.
Suvorov N. I. 1874. A guide to Vologda with an indication
of its church. antiquities and shrines, etc. Vologda: Vol­
ogda Gubernia Board.
Suvorov N. I. 1898. Vologda Bishop’s House. Vologda,
Moscow: Bakhmetev printing House.
Vedrov A. K. 1957. Architectural monuments. Vologda:
Regional Book Editorial Office.
Yakimova N. V. 1978. Historical and methodological note
on the history of the Vologda Bishop’s Court. Comple­
tion of the architectural and planning composition of
the courtyard. Leningrad: Archive of the Institute
“Lengiproteater”.
Zasetsky A. A. 2014. Historical and topographical news
on antiquity about Russia: and in particular about the
city of Vologda and its district and about the state of it
to this day. Moscow: Directmedia.
 Reconstruction and Restoration of Architectural Heritage 2021 – Sementsov, Leontyev & Huerta (Eds)
© 2021 Taylor & Francis Group, London, ISBN 978-0-367-68296-5

Eduardo Torroja. The habitat of his revolutionary research models

Pepa Cassinello
Escuela Técnica Superior de Arquitectura. Universidad Politécnica de Madrid, Spain
Eduardo Torroja Foundation

ABSTRACT: Eduardo Torroja Miret (1899-1961) was one of the most relevant engineers of the history of
civil engineering and architecture. He played a major role in the scientific and technical revolution of reinforced
and pre-stressed concrete in the first half of the twentieth century. He is internationally acclaimed not only for
his innovative works, but also, like the Spanish engineer Agustín de Betancourt, for his many-faceted profes­
sional activity: designer, scientist, researcher, manager, and teacher. This paper reveals the research result on
the path he followed to design and build the most suitable habitat for his revolutionary and timeless research
model which allowed him to bring together the most relevant international protagonists of avant-garde engin­
eering and architecture of the Modernity, and create international associations that, like the International Asso­
ciation for Shell Structures, have remained active since then, leading the advancement of new structural types.

1 INTRODUCTION the Spanish scientific construction revolution.

Eduardo Torroja Miret (1899-1961) was born at 13
Lope de Vega Street in Madrid (Spain), on
August 27, 1899, into a family with a great scientific
tradition. He born under the sign of the Science and
grew up knowing the importance of the research and
teaching. Research to advance and teach to make the
advancement come true. This marked his profes­
sional life in a resounding way.
His father, Eduardo Torroja y Caballé (1847­
1918), was an architect and a mathematician. Profes­
sor of Algebra and Analytical Geometry at the Uni­
versity of Valencia (1873) and, later, of Descriptive
Geometry at the University of Madrid (1876). He
renewed Spanish mathematics and spread the pro­
jective geometry of the German mathematician Karl
Von Stautd. He was vice president of the Spanish
Mathematical Society and of the Spanish Associ­
ation for the Progress of Sciences. In 1983 he joined
the Royal Academy of Exact, Physical and Natural
Sciences. Eduardo Torroja grew up influenced by his
father’s passion for mathematics and his relevant
role in the regeneration of this field of knowledge in
Spain, which directly led to profound changes in
teaching. At that time, at the end of the 19th century,
important changes took place in Spain that traced
a new course, not only in the field of mathematics,
but also in different branches of Science. Suffice it
to recall here the important scientific regeneration
carried out by Ramón y Cajal and Leonardo Torres
Quevedo, among other prominent Spanish scientists.
Eduardo Torroja Miret was born in the last year of
this century that was undoubtedly the protagonist of
Undoubtedly, it was this leadership capacity of his
father and his dual activity that infected Eduardo Tor­
roja, and his brothers, with the passion for Science and
Teaching. Three of them; José María, Antonio and
Eduardo were, like their father, members of the Royal
Academy of Exact, Physical and Natural Sciences.
In 1918, the same year in which his father died,
Eduardo Torroja entered the Higher Technical School
of Civil Engineers of Madrid, at the age of 19. He
graduated as an engineer in 1923 at the University of
Madrid, being the most outstanding student of his
university promotion. That same year he started
working at the Hidrocivil Company founded by José
Eugenio Rivera, who was his professor and the intro­
ducer the use of reinforced concrete in Spain.
In 1923 Eduardo Torroja started to work as engin­
eer in an incredibly special moment because the
1920s are one of the most revolutionary periods in
the international history of engineering and architec­
ture of the twentieth century. It was in this decade
when took place three events that marked relevant
changes not only about the technology of these dis­
ciplines of knowledge, but also that of all about
social feeling in music, dance, painting, sculpture,
and literature. The thought model forever changed.
Two of these events refer to relevant techno­
logical milestones reached in the 20th century the
beginning of the scientific development of reinforced
concrete and the appearance of the first prestressed
concrete patent, which was registered in Paris by
Eugene Freyssinet in 1928. This same year, the first
International Congress of Modern Architecture/
CIAM was held at the Sarrazar Castle. From that

DOI: 10.1201/9781003136804-3

14
moment Concrete and Modernity will grow up
together, and a new concrete structural shape was
born, Thin Concrete Shells. These new structures
were the point of union of both and they became the
one of the most radical symbols of this new para­
digm -less, is more- constituting a Modern wide
legacy of new spatial structural forms of great slen­
derness and flatly naked.
It was at the beginning of this special decade, in
1923 when the French engineer Eugene Freyssinet
(1879-1962) built his famous Orly hangars, a 20th
century concrete shell masterpiece, regrettably des­
troyed during World War II (1944), and was when
the famous German company Dyckerhoff & Wid­
mann, founded in 1865 (Kurrer 2018), built what is
internationally acknowledged to be the first thin con­
crete shell dome at Jena, Germany. In 1928 the
German engineer Franz Dischinger, recognized as
the father of these new structures, published his cal­
culation and dimensioning system. But this system,
which was logically manual, was complex, long, and
often insufficient to design new shell shapes. A fact
pointed out by Eduardo Torroja (Torroja 1934). In
1934 Wilhelm Flügge published the first text on the
theory of shell structures “Statik und Dynamik der
Schalen”, which was translated into English in 1960
under the title “Stresses in Shell”, and which for
more than twenty years was a reference for the struc­
tural design of shell structures.
These facts reveal the enormous difficulty that
existed in the 1920s to access the incipient technical
knowledge, for any engineer or architect eager, for
this knowledge of the newly born concrete shell
structures, and newborn prestressed concrete. But for
Eduardo Torroja this fact was just an exciting reason
to get directly involved in the development of these
new materials and optimize their use in innovative
structures. His work and research soon made him
stand out internationally. From the beginning,
Eduardo Torroja showed a special capacity to
“change things”- to innovate. It is enough to remem­
ber now the Aqueduct of Tempul (1925-1927) one
of the world’s first prestressed concrete structures. It
has 20 m long reinforced concrete girders and
57 m cantilevered center span, was built using an
ingenious prestressing system (Torroja 1958). This
aqueduct can safely be called the first modern cable-
stayed bridge (Schlaich 2016).
In 1927 Eduardo Torroja founded his own engin­
eering office and at the beginning of the 1930s he
founded ICON Company “Investigaciones de la
Construcción” (Construction Research) intended for
scientific research with reduced physical models. He
wanted to participate in the Thin Shell Adventure of
the Modernity, and he knew that the way was to
research. Under his management, ICON Company
specialized in testing models as a method for analyz­
ing structural behavior. That approach enabled him
to build largescale thin shells at a time when there
were no reliable structural engineering methods able
to ensure their feasibility. His micro-concrete models
15
made in the 1930s for the Algeciras Market (1934­
1935) and Recoletos Jai-alai Court (1935-1936),
both on a scale of 1:10, received acclaim. Eduardo
Torroja is known internationally as the father of scien­
tific tests on reduced physical models (Cassinello &
Torroja 2018).
2 MATERIALS AND METHODS
2.1 Construction technical institute
2.1.1 Institute foundation 1934
In the 1920s and 1930s, while Eduardo Torroja was
building pioneering works of engineering and archi­
tecture, in Spain the world of construction was very
precarious as well as the knowledge of the avant­
gardes that were produced at that time an inter­
national level. For this reason and because he
wanted to change the things, in 1934 Eduardo Tor­
roja and six more professionals, architects and engin­
eers, they founded the Instituto Tecnico de la
Construcción y la Edificación (Construction and
Building Technical Institute) that today bears his
name Instituto de Ciencias de la Construcción
Eduardo Torroja (Eduardo Torroja Institute of Con­
struction Sciences). The team was formed by
Eduardo Torroja, Modesto López Otero, Alfonso
Peña, Gaspar Blein, Manuel Sánchez Arcas, José
María Aguirre, y José Ángel Petrirena. They
believed that it was possible to change things and
that to achieve this it was not only necessary to
know and spread the knowledge of the international
avant-garde of architecture and engineering, but also
to participate in their advancement by researching,
spreading, promoting, and teaching. It was the first
Research Institute founded in Spain by individuals.
An important and strange fact. Unfortunately, in
1936 the Civil Spanish War began. Spain was
paralyzed.
2.1.2 The resurgence of the institute 1940s
In 1939 when the Civil Spanish War was ended
Eduardo Torroja was appointed professor at the
Madrid School of Engineering. He comeback to
work harder than before. During the 1940s he com­
bined his work as designer, research, professor, man­
ager, and leader of several national and international
association. The Institute resumed its activities,
under the direction of Eduardo Torroja, where more
and more research activities were developed united
to the activities of spread and teaching knowledge.
In 1940 he was appointed Director of the Spanish
Central Laboratory, in such a way that Eduardo Tor­
roja directed the two main scientific entities related
to research in the country, a fact that, together with
his innovative work, placed Spain in a prominent
place in the international discussions that were
taking place on materials, structural design, new cal­
culation methods, production systems and standards.
In 1941, the Eduardo Torroja Institute became part,
as a member, of the Spanish Higher Council for Sci­
entific Research (CSIC). In 1944 Eduardo Torroja
delivered his acceptance address as fellow of the
Royal Academy of Mathematics, Physics and Nat­
ural Sciences, as was his father.
In 1945, when the Second World War ended,
a feeling of unity was created, and various inter­
national entities and associations were founded to
promote the construction development and recon­
struction of the devastated places. This year Eduardo
Torroja was elected President of the newly created
Réunion Internationale des Laboratoires d’Essais de
Matériaux, RILEM. He took an active part in the
creation of the Comité Européen du Béton, CEB,
whose membership, despite the name, included both
the United States and Russia, and which played
a decisive role in the development of European tech­
nical standards for reinforced concrete. The Eduardo
Torroja Institute not only led the technical and scien­
tific development of Spain, but also contributed to
the progress of civil and architectural construction at
an international level. In 1949 Eduardo Torroja
founded the AEHP “Asociación Española de Hormi­
gón Pretensado” (Spanish Association of Prestressed
Concrete), attached to the Technical Institute of Con­
struction and Cement, an active means of informa­
tion and dissemination. Two years later, in 1951 the
FIP Fédération Internationale de la Précontrainte
(International Federation of Prestressing) was
founded, by Freyssinet, whom he succeeded as presi­
dent in 1958. In that role, he promoted the creation
of the FIP-CEB Joint Committee to harmonize
reinforced and prestressed concrete standards.
It was in 1949 when Eduardo Torroja decided
that his Institute, which had international rele­
vance, it needed a new and modern habitat where
it could develop, at an international level, all the
research, dissemination, promotion, and teaching
activities in the same space. He did not want
a regular Research Institute without these other
activities. He wanted a new and revolutionary
Institute research model.
3 RESULTS AND DISCUSSION
3.1 New habitat of the institute
3.1.1 First step of the buildings design
Eduardo Torroja start to design the new habitat to his
Institute in 1949 and he inaugurated in 1953. He
spent a lot of time to get it because his Institute was
not at that moment an individual and free institution,
as was founded in 1934, it belongs since 1941 to the
Spanish Higher Council for Scientific Research
(CSIC). For this reason, he communicated the need
to build a new headquarters and asked for the per­
mission and a place to build it (Torroja 1949).
Meanwhile, he analyzed the program and buildings
of the principal research institutes and laboratories all
16
over the world. It included the analysis carried out by
the directors of 32 laboratories and/or research centers
in the construction sector, belonging to 17 different
countries: Germany, Australia, Belgium, Canada, Den­
mark, Spain, United States, Finland, France, Holland,
India, England, Italy, Norway, Portugal, Sweden,
Switzerland. He published these in the journal
Informes de la Construcción, which was founded at his
Institute in 1948. He wanted to know what happened
in the international context. After that he decided the
final program spaces that he needed. He thought that it
was essential not only to investigate but also to dissem­
inate its results, and above all, to teach how they
should be applied to achieve progress. Those who
were researching and building new knowledge must
teach it in the same research Institute. In this way his
Institute will be as a knowledge fabric.
The Spanish Higher Council for Scientific Research
offered to Eduardo Torroja a place in Madrid city, but
he thought that it was insufficient to house its ambi­
tious program. But instead of saying it was inappropri­
ate, he did three different projects in this place to show
that he needed a bigger and different one. Presenting
this project, it was an intelligent strategy to get that he
wanted.
3.1.2 Construction of his new knowledge Fabric
Finally, Eduardo Torroja found the perfect place. It
was a plot of approximately 5 hectares located in
a pine forest on the outskirts of Madrid. The architec­
tural design of its main building consists in eight inter­
connected one -or two- storey wings. The ground plan
of the eight-wing building resembles a comb with
uneven teeth adapted to the terrain. It intentionally
adopts the form of the Greek letter ‘phi’, generating
five open landscaped courtyards that wrap around the
long façades (Figure 1).
Figure 1. Ground plan of the new Eduardo Torroja Institute.
Figure 2. Eduardo Torroja Institute. General view 1953.
The Institute’s program includes six types of dif­
ferent uses; a) those related to office work, b) labora­
tories and workshops for carrying out large
experimental tests, c) places for international meet­
ings and debate, d) those related to the dissemination
of knowledge through the Institute’s publications, e)
those related to teaching, f) those destined to the
expansion and human relationship between the Insti­
tute’s workers, their guests and the participants in all
the Institute’s activities (courses, congresses,
debates, conferences and meetings of international
associations). In this way, the institute’s activities
not only included all those necessary to close the
circle hat produces progress (research, dissemin­
ation, and teaching), but also included, as the Bau­
haus did, places to enhance human relationships
(dining rooms, fields of sports, gardens, and swim­
ming pool) (Figure 2). It really was an attractive and
humanized knowledge factory.
Torroja seized the opportunity afforded by the con­
struction of the new headquarters to implement the
institute’s research findings on the rationalization of
traditional construction, prefabrication and precasting
(Cassinello 2014). He turned the construction site into
a huge laboratory, a prefabrication school purporting
to enhance the precarious resources available in Spain
at the time. They prefabricated in reinforced concrete
different elements as; windows, slabs, pavements,
gargoyles and also ping-pong tables for the garden.
Eduardo Torroja designed for his Institute some
innovative structures that shaped an organic architec­
ture that was praised by Frank Lloyd Wright in 1958:
We (who are) interested in engineering (organic)
architecture in America have learned to keep a sharp
lookout overseas for organic character in the work of
our contemporaries. We found it in France, Italy and
now in Spain in the admirable work of Eduardo Tor­
roja. For him I have great respect.
These organic elements were the circular dining
hall, the dodecahedral coal storage, the triangulated
thin shell roof over the workshop and testing bays,
and the peripheral pergola (Torroja 1958).
The institute’s dining room is an architectural space
of undoubted organic appeal. Its plant is circular,
17
Figure 3. The dining room of the Eduardo Torroja Institute.
22.44 m in diameter and has a free height of
3.50 m. It has a curved glass skin that can be opened
integrating the dining room into the garden. It is pos­
sible because its roof structure converts it in a giant
umbrella (Figure 3). It is made up of cantilevered
steel trusses arranged radially with a variable depth of
0.84 to 0.22 m. The trusses rest on reinforced concrete
columns arranged radially around a small circular
interior garden.
The institute’s workshops feature a triangulated thin
shell roof over a 15.00 x 87.70 m rectangular floor
plan. Each of its nine cylindrical vaults, set at right
angles to one another, spans 10.00 m. The roof was
built with small (I-80) steel shapes arranged in
a welded-joint lattice in which all the triangles are
equilateral and of the same size. The resulting triangu­
lated thin shell vaults were light enough to be assem­
bled on the ground and hoisted to their 7 m high final
position (Figure 4).
The pergola sited on the west edge of the garden; it
is formed by a continuous sequence of reinforced con­
crete ribs forming a lemniscate of Bernoulli (Figure 5).
The zero curvature at the end represents the mathemat­
ical symbol for infinity. Here also, Torroja chose
a geometric shape laden with significance, in this case
to mark the institute’s boundary. Each rib is a curved
cantilevered beam springing from the reinforced con­
crete wall that retains the adjacent soil. The ribs are
crowned by a steel mesh cover consisting of smooth
steel rods and vaguely reminiscent of a hyperbolic
paraboloid.
Figure 4. Workshop. Steel triangulated cylindrical vaults.

Figure 5. Reinforced concrete ribs.
The dodecahedron was designed as a coal storage.
This completely regular, unengaged sculptural struc­
ture that stands just outside the main entrance soon
became an IETcc icon. This 8.60 m high thin shell
with 22 cm thick reinforced concrete walls looks like it
was folded into place. Torroja acknowledged that
while the sphere is the geometric form with the highest
volume to surface ratio, he explained that the dodeca­
hedron, which encloses only a slightly smaller volume,
is easier and less expensive to build and given the size
of the storage, its geometry is aesthetically pleasing.
One of the platonic polyhedral, it is attributed high spa­
tial honors, generated as it is to the ‘golden ratio’.
The dodecahedron was designed as a coal storage.
This completely regular, unengaged sculptural struc­
ture that stands just outside the main entrance soon
became an IETcc icon (Figure 6). This 8.60 m high
thin shell with 22 cm thick reinforced concrete walls
looks like it was folded into place. Torroja acknow­
ledged that while the sphere is the geometric form
with the highest volume to surface ratio, he explained
that the dodecahedron, which encloses only a slightly
smaller volume, is easier and less expensive to build
and given the size of the storage, its geometry is aes­
thetically pleasing. One of the platonic polyhedral, it
Figure 6. Dodecahedron and a group with Eduardo Torroja.
18
is attributed high spatial honors, generated as it is to
the ‘golden ratio’ (Cassinello 2016).
3.1.3 Eduardo Torroja Institute - International
leader
The new habitat of the Eduardo Torroja Institute it
allowed him to converter in an international referent.
It was a relevant protagonist not only in the develop­
ment of concrete and other materials, its construction
techniques, and the creation of new patents, but it
also became a place for meetings, congresses,
debates, courses, and publications in which many of
the protagonists participated, architects and engin­
eers, of international Modernity. Among many
others Frank Lloyd Wright, Richard Neutra, Bernard
Ferhfus, Pier Luigi Nervi, Franco Levi, Mario Salva­
dori, Zygrmunt Makowski, Marcel Loods, SOM
(Skidmore, Owings & Merrill), David Steiman.
In 1959 the Eduardo Torroja Institute celebrated the
25th anniversary of its founding in 1934. In the com­
mencement ceremony for the academic year presided
by Eduardo Torroja, Pier Luigi Nervi, the keynote
speaker, highlighted the Institute’s significant inter­
national endeavour (Nervi 1959). That same year, the
Institute hosted the “International Colloquium on Non­
traditional Processes for Thin Shell Construction”. At
this meeting, at the proposal of Eduardo Torroja, the
International Association for Shell Structures (IASS)
was founded. The specialists participating in the collo­
quium, more than 100 in all, haled from over a dozen
countries: Argentina, Belgium, Brazil, Denmark, Fin­
land, France, Germany, Italia, Japan, Netherlands,
Norway, Poland, Portugal, Spain, Sri Lanka, Sweden,
Switzerland, United Kingdom and Uruguay. Some of
the most prominent designers of thin concrete shells
chaired the working sessions. Andre Paduart, Wolf­
gang Zerna, Knud Winstrup Johansen, Herman Rüle,
Nicolas Esquillan, Yoshikatsu Tsuobi, Ove Arup,
Heinz Isler, among many others, were present. This
international association has remained active since
then, leading the advancement of new spatial structural
types (Abel 2011).
Unfortunately, Eduardo Torroja was died in 1961 in
his office at his Institute (Figure 7), but like the rest of
the associations he created, the iass continues to be
Figure 7. Eduardo Torroja in his office at the Institute.
active since then, leading the development of new spa­
tial structural types. This intangible and timeless legacy
of Eduardo Torroja is undoubtedly the most internation­
ally relevant, despite his innovative and pioneering
works of Modernity engineering and architecture.
4 CONCLUSION
The unknown documents found at the Institute dem­
onstrate Eduardo Torroja’s great interest and effort
in building a suitable habitat for his revolutionary
research model. Not in vain it allowed him to make
his dream comes true. He built a timeless model of
a knowledge factory.
As we were saining at the beginning, he born
under the sign of the Science and grew up knowing
the importance of the research and teaching.
Research to advance and teach to make the
advancement come true. This marked his profes­
sional life in a forceful way, shaping his model of
thought and action.
REFERENCES
Abel J. 2011. The IASS 50th Jubilee Book. Fifty Years of
Progress for Shell and Spatial Structures. Madrid: Inter­
national Association for shell and spatial structures.
19
Cassinello P. & Torroja J. A. 2018. The pursuit for new
structural forms: Eduardo Torroja and Frei Otto. Journal
of the International Association for Shell and Spatial
Structures, 59(1): 34–42.
Cassinello P. 2013. Eduardo Torroja 1949: Strategy to
industrialise housing in post-World War II. Madrid:
Fundación Eduardo Torroja, Fundación Juanelo
Turriano.
Cassinello P. 2016. Eduardo Torroja Museo. Madrid: Fun­
dación Eduardo Torroja
Cassinello P. 2020. Historical design of cantilever shells of
Modernist Architecture. Architecture and Engineering
5(3): 3–13.
Kurrer K. E. 2018. The history of the theory of structures:
searching for equilibrium. New York: John Wiley &
Sons.
Nervi P.L. 1959. La Arquitectura Moderna. Madrid:
Eduardo Torroja Istitute
Schlaich, M. 2016. The bridges of Eduardo Torroja. Article
in the book Museo Eduardo Torroja Museum. Madrid:
Eduardo Torrja Foundation.
Torroja, E. 1934. Algeciras Market Hall Project
Memory. Madrid: Eduardo Torroja Archive CEDEX­
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Torroja, E. 1949. Eduardo Torroja Archive of Institute of
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Torroja, E. 1958. The Structures of Eduardo Torroja.
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Torroja: an autobiography of engineering accomplish­
ment. FW Dodge Corporation.
 Reconstruction and Restoration of Architectural Heritage 2021 – Sementsov, Leontyev & Huerta (Eds)
© 2021 Taylor & Francis Group, London, ISBN 978-0-367-68296-5

Influence of projects of culture and art centers on urban development of

Leningrad
N.P. Dubrovina
Saint Petersburg State University of Architecture and Civil Engineering, Saint Petersburg, Russia

ABSTRACT: The article is an intermediate result of a step-by-step study of the culture and art center of
Leningrad in the era of “constructivism”. It is impossible to identify the features of the culture and art center
as a special type of building without analyzing their historical and modern urban planning role in the develop­
ment of Leningrad. St. Petersburg). The study shows that the culture and art centers of Leningrad were
designed as important urban planning elements that are part of building complexes (and sometimes ensem­
bles) that form important urban planning nodes or district centers. This article discusses the culture and art
center of the Moscow-Narva district of Leningrad (now the Moscow and Kirov districts): Gorky Palace of
Culture (architects A. I. Gegello, D. L. Krichevsky, V. F. Raylian, 1925-1927), Gaz Palace of Culture (archi­
tects A. I. Gegello, D. L. Krichevsky, 1930-1935), Kapranov Union of Tanners House of Culture (architect
M. S. Reizman, 1930-1931). Demolished in 2006) and the Ilyich House of Culture (architect N. F. Demkov,
1930-1931). It is established that the considered culture and art centers were important elements of the urban-
planning ensemble in the system of the compositional and spatial framework of the city and/or part of the
architectural and urban-planning complex of buildings of regional significance.

1 INTRODUCTION planning ensembles of Leningrad in the 1930s and

The relevance of the work is mainly related to the
issues of urban planning regulation of territories
where cultural heritage objects, including culture
and art center, are located.
The list of works by Russian and foreign scientists
devoted to the architecture of the first third of the
twentieth century is quite extensive. The works of
A. G. Weitens (2015), R. Dayanov (2017, 2018),
M. V. Zolotareva (2017), B. M. Kirikov (2018),
S. V. Sementsov (2011, 2012, 2017), T. A. Slavina,
M. S. Stieglitz are devoted to the urban planning and
architecture of Leningrad in the first third of the
twentieth century. The architecture of the USSR,
Sweden, and Germany of the twentieth century is
dedicated to the works of Irina Seits (2018). The
works of N. P., Dubrovina (2020), A.V. Mikhailov
(2017), S. V. Sementsov, T. A. Slavina (2016, 2019)
are aimed at the development of methods for the
protection of cultural heritage objects. Monograph
of B. M. Kirikova and M. S. Stieglitz (2008), dedi­
cated to the monuments of constructivism of
St. Petersburg, which covers the most significant
buildings of all districts of Leningrad during the
“constructivism” period, including a brief review of
the urban planning situation. The article by Gliz­
hinskaya A. A., Bergman A.V. and others (Glizhins­
kaya et al. 2019) is indicative, where the urban
1950s are considered. However, it is worth noting
the insufficiently detailed and often generalizing
approach to the study of the Soviet architecture of
Leningrad. For example, the culture and art center,
which are new and unique types of buildings and
are included in the general lists of monuments of
the architectural avant-garde, but are not considered
in detail.
This article is devoted to culture and art centers in
the structure of the Moscow-Narva district of Lenin­
grad (according to the administrative division for
1922-1930).
2 MATERIALS AND METHODS
The methodological basis of the research is
a comprehensive approach to the study of the archi­
tectural heritage of the 1920s-1930s, culture and art
centers of Leningrad in the first third of the twentieth
century. For the completeness of the study, it was
necessary to study literary and archival sources,
legislative acts on the topic of the study. A full-scale
visual inspection of the objects and in-house pro­
cessing of the obtained data were also performed.
To identify the urban planning role of the culture
and art center of the Moscow-Narva district, it is
necessary to solve the following tasks step by step:

DOI: 10.1201/9781003136804-4

20
• determination of the historical urban planning
role of the studied objects in the structure of the
Moscow-Narva district;
• analysis of the existing urban development
situation;
• designation of the problems of urban planning
regulation of the territories of culture and art cen­
ters, as well as land plots historically associated
with them.

3 RESULTS AND DISCUSSION

Before proceeding directly to the analysis of the

urban planning role of culture and art centers, it is
necessary to say a few words about the administrative
division of Petrograd-Leningrad. Administrative dis­
tricts began to form in Petrograd after the February
Revolution of the 20th century. A detailed history of
the administrative-territorial division of Petrograd­
Leningrad-St. Petersburg was prepared by the staff of
the Central State Archive of St. Petersburg.
This article examines the Moscow-Narva district
according to the administrative division of Petro­
grad-Leningrad in 1922-1930. During this period,
the first center in the USSR was built-the Gorky
Palace of Culture. In 1930, the Moscow-Narva dis­
trict was divided into Moscow and Narva. The main
urban development of the district in the 1920s and
1930s took place along two main thoroughfares: Sta­
chek Street (now Stachek Avenue) and International
Avenue (now Moskovsky Avenue) (Figure 1).
Gorky Palace of Culture (4 Stachek Square, Saint
Petersburg). In the pre-revolutionary period, the
Peterhof site was the largest industrial district of
St. Petersburg and an unsettled working-class
suburb. After the Great October Socialist Revolution
of the 20th century, the Soviet government immedi­
ately took measures to decisively improve the living
conditions of workers. The Narva outpost was
included in the city, and the beginning of a radical
reconstruction of the area was laid (Kirikov 2018).
Already in 1924, large-scale works on the recon­
struction of the district began. Vacant lots and land­
fills are being cleared, wooden houses are being
demolished, and new buildings are being built: resi­
dential buildings, schools, nurseries, etc.
The development of this territory is described in
detail in the book “Prospekt Stachek” by
O. S. Grintsevich. Narva Square is undergoing rad­
ical changes. New residential buildings are being
built, old ones are being reconstructed “with the for­
mation of a square, the Gorky Palace of Culture is
being built. The very first residential quarters of Len­
ingrad were built on Traktornaya Street (1925-1926).
In 1927, a large school building was built on Stachek
Avenue, designed by architect A. S. Nikolsky.” Kir­
ovskaya Square is being re-created, where the build­
ing of the district Council was built according to the
project of architect N. A. Trotsky. Also, in the
Figure 1. Fragment of the Leningrad plan for 1925.
Moskovsko-Narva district.
1. Gorky Palace of Culture; 2. House of Technical Studies;
3. Department store and factory-kitchen of Kirovsky dis­
trict; 4. School named after the 10th anniversary of Octo­
ber; 5. Kirov District Council; 6. Residential complex on
Traktornaya Street; 7. I. I. Gaz Palace of Culture; 8. Palace
of Culture of the Union of Tanners named after Kapranov;
9. House of Culture named after Ilyich; 10. Moscow Dis­
trict Council.
1930s. on Stachek Avenue, multi-story residential
buildings are being built, and in the depths of the
residential development is the Kirov dispensary: the
largest medical institution in Leningrad. The Gorky
Palace of Culture becomes an urban planning, cul­
tural and educational center of the new district,
a symbol of the young Soviet architecture (Figure 2).
At present (January 2021), in general, the town-
planning significance of the Gorky Palace of Culture
has not been lost. The ensemble of Stachek Square
and the beginning of Stachek Avenue is included in
a single security zone. There is some densification of
buildings around the Palace of Culture, for example,
from the side of Ivan Chernykh Street, which dis­
rupts the visual perception of the Palace of Culture
from Stachek Avenue.
However, it is worth noting that the House of
Technical Studies (architect A. I. Gegello,
D. L. Krichevsky, 1923-1930), designed in the same
complex as the culture Center, is not included in the

21

Figure 2. Gorky Palace of Culture. Site plan.
1. Gorky Palace of Culture; 2. House technical training;
3. Department store and factory-kitchen Kirov district;
4. Residential complex on Traktornaya street; 5. School of
the 10th anniversary of October; 6. Kirovskiy District
Council; 7. Narva triumphal gate; 8. The ensemble houses
Stachek square, architect. N. A. Trotsky, CET. ing.
A. V. Valevich, 1935; 9. Dispensary building of the Kirov
district, architect. L. V. Rudnev, A. A. Lyalin, J. A. Svirsky,
I. I. Fomin, 1928-1933.
ensemble of Stachek Square and is not included in
the unified protection zone (Figure 3a). It is pro­
posed to expand the single security zone of the site
(according to the security zone no SZ-2(15)01) with
the inclusion of the historical part of the House of
Technical Studies in the ensemble (Figure 3b).
Figure 3. Gorky Palace of Culture, protected areas: a) the
current situation; b) the proposed security zoning.
22
I. I.The Gaz Palace of Culture (72 Stachek Ave.,
Saint Petersburg). The development of the territory
of Avtovo is considered in detail in the works of
St. Petersburg local historians. For example, in the
book of Glezerov S. E. “Historical districts of
St. Petersburg from A to Z” it is said: “At the begin­
ning of the twentieth century, Avtovo had a suburban
character. Here were the cottages of poor Petersbur­
gers, communication with the city was only on horse­
back or foot.” A 1933 Guidebook notes that “this
situation of the area was observed until the 1930s”.
In the mid-1930s, the reconstruction of the
Avtovo district began. The project for the develop­
ment of the first quarters (the project manager was
A. A. Ol) is based on the principle of radial plan­
ning. The center of the planning scheme was the
Round (Komsomolskaya) Square.
The Gaz Palace of Culture was one of the first
large public buildings in the area and was built at the
Kirov Plant. There are several projects for the devel­
opment of the Avtovo district and in each of them,
the Gaz Palace of Culture is included in the pano­
rama of one of the largest highways of the city - Sta­
chek Avenue. Located with an offset from the red
line of the avenue, the Palace of Culture according
to the projects reveals Komsomolskaya Square for
visual perception. On the reference plan of the
Avtovo microdistrict (Figure 4). The Gaz Palace of
Culture is part of a complex of buildings of regional
significance, which also includes a cinema, a hotel,
a House of Pioneers, a department store, higher edu­
cational institutions, and a metro pavilion (the pro­
ject was partially implemented).
Currently, the site where The Gaz Palace of Cul­
ture is located has no designated protection zones,
and the territory of the cultural heritage site coincides
with the outline of the foundation of the historical
part of the building. The historical site of the Palace
of Culture, bounded by Stachek Avenue, Novostroek
Street, Marshall Govorov Street, and Vasya Alekseev
Street, is gradually being built up. The urban plan­
ning position of the Palace of Culture is very
Figure 4. Reference plan of the Avtovo microdistrict.
Between 1945 and 1949. Architect A. A. Ol. Published in
the catalog of the State Museum of the History of
St. Petersburg “Architect Andrey Andreevich Ol”.
vulnerable, it is necessary to establish a security
regime on its historical territory (Figure 5).
Ilyich House of Culture (152 Moskovsky pro­
spect). The Ilyich House of Culture, located on Mos­
kovsky Prospekt, is one of the few examples of
“pure constructivism” in Leningrad. The author of
the project is N. F. Demkov.
One of the main axes of the development of the
Moskovsko-Narva district was the International
(now Moscow) Avenue. The territories along Inter­
national Avenue were actively built up.
The Ilyich House of Culture building is built on the
main highway of the district, which is the government
highway of the city. The House of Culture is located
opposite the House of the Moscow District Council of
Workers ‘Deputies (1930-1935, architects I. A. Fomin,
V. G. Daugulya, and B. M. Serebrovsky). The building
is part of the composite and urban planning junction
of the intersection of Moskovsky Prospekt with the
Ring Railway (Figure 6).
The historical urban planning situation of the
location of the Ilyich House of Culture as a whole is
not disturbed. The territory of the cultural heritage
site includes a section up to the red line of Mos­
kovsky Prospekt. However, it is impossible to con­
sider the House of Culture and the Moscow District
Figure 5. The Gaz Palace of Culture. Protected areas: a) the
current situation; b) the proposed protected zoning.
Figure 6. Ilyich House of Culture and Kapranov Union of
Tanners House of Culture. Situational plan.
1. Ilyich House of Culture; 2. Moscow District Council; 3.
Kapranov Union of Tanners House of Culture; 4. The Tri­
umphal Moscow Gate; 5. Food factory with a kitchen fac­
tory (1932-1936, architect E. I. Katonin, E. M.Sokolov).
23
Figure 7. Ilyich House of Culture. Protected areas: a) the
current situation; b) the proposed protected zoning.
Council as two independent objects, it is proposed to
define a single security zone for these buildings
(Figure 7).
Kapranov Union of Tanners House of Culture
(97 Moskovsky prospect). Another House of Culture
on Moskovsky prospect was intended for workers
of leather and shoe production (the largest shoe fac­
tory “Skorokhod” was located nearby). The build­
ing was planned according to a two-part scheme: an
asymmetric group of volumes of the club area with
small halls adjoined the symmetrical theater build­
ing with a trapezoidal hall for 1300 seats. The real­
ized building had bright and characteristic features
of constructivism.
The House of Culture, which had fallen into disre­
pair, was demolished. In 2008, its external volumes
and the design of the facades were recreated.
Restored along the outer contour, the building is part
of a new multi-story complex.
Kapranov Union of Tanners House of Culture
also had a responsible urban planning position. The
House of Culture was part of the complex of build­
ings of the production buildings of the Skorokhod
factory, a food factory with a kitchen factory and
was located on one of the most important highways
of the city: International (now Moscow) Avenue in
close proximity to the Moscow Triumphal Gate at
the intersection of major highways.
4 CONCLUSION
The study showed that culture and art centers of the
Moscow-Narva district had an important urban plan­
ning significance. They were designed as part of
urban-planning ensembles or complexes of buildings
of regional significance. It is worth noting that such an
important urban planning role of these objects is pro­
vided not only by architectural and urban planning
techniques but also by cultural and social significance.
That is, an important role was played by their historical
functional purpose. Currently, as the study shows, the
urban planning value of culture and art centers is very
vulnerable and requires additional attention from spe­
cialists in the protection of historical and cultural
heritage.
5 RECOMMENDATIONS
The results of the research can be recommended to
architects when developing projects for the restor­
ation and reconstruction of culture and art centers in
St. Petersburg and other cities, to experts and art his­
torians when forming or updating the subject of pro­
tection of cultural heritage objects of the “avant­
garde” era, as well as in the educational process of
universities when preparing bachelors, masters, and
postgraduates.
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urban planner. The history of an unfulfilled project. Bul­
letin of Civil Engineers (5): 5–14.
Dayanov R. M., & Zalmanzon A. M. 2018. Sporting Palace
and the LOSPC House of Culture: authorship, dating,
continuity. Bulletin of Civil Engineers (1): 10–16.
Dubrovina N. P. 2020. Laws of definition of subject of pro­
tection of houses and palaces of culture built in Lenin­
grad in 1920-1930s. Reconstruction and Restoration of
Architectural Heritage, 15.
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Novikova, A.V., Pozdnyakova, E. A., Polyakova,
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Mikhailov A.V. 2017. The main directions of the evolution
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Sementsov S. V. 2012. Urban planning of
Petrograd-Leningrad: from the revolutionary defeat of
1917-1918 to the revival of 1935. Bulletin of the
St. Petersburg University 15(1): 130–143.
Sementsov S. V. 2017. Petrograd-Leningrad Avant-garde:
planning, imaginative and social innovations, and urban
planning traditions. The future of Constructivist archi­
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Slavina T. A. 2016. On the strategy for the preservation and
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Slavina T. A. 2019. Classic and Avant-garde. Architectural
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Institute to the urban development of Leningrad in
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 Reconstruction and Restoration of Architectural Heritage 2021 – Sementsov, Leontyev & Huerta (Eds)
© 2021 Taylor & Francis Group, London, ISBN 978-0-367-68296-5

Block development parameters of St. Petersburg historical center

G.O. Fedotova
Saint Petersburg State University of Architecture and Civil Engineering, Saint Petersburg, Russia

ABSTRACT: The article is a continuation of a series of articles devoted to the study of the building system
of the historical center of St. Petersburg. On the example of some fragments of historical buildings (zones of
Morskaya streets, Troitskaya Street, Malaya Kolomna), a historical and urban planning analysis of the forma­
tion of the development of St. Petersburg is carried out; the main parameters of the planning and architec­
tural-compositional component of the historical and urban genetic code are identified; a comparative analysis
of the studied zones is carried out.

1 INTRODUCTION 2 MATERIALS AND METHODS

One of the main aspects of studying the urban his­
torical environment is the study of the genetic
code of the city. In the Russian practice of study­
ing historical cities, A. E. Gutnov (1984) was one
of the first to introduce the concept of “genetic
code” in his works in the 80s of the XX century.
At the moment, this topic is very relevant and in
demand. The research is conducted for different
cities of the Russian Federation (Gubinskaya
2018, Kubetskaya & Kudryavtseva 2019, Sla­
vinsky 2018). St. Petersburg has its own school for
the study of the genetic code of the city, one of the
founders of which is S. V. Sementsov (2006ab,
2007, 2013). This topic is also presented in the
works of L. P. Lavrov and others (Lavrov et al.
2019, Mangushev et al. 2019). Several works are
devoted to certain aspects of the formation of the
urban development system (Markushev 2020,
Molotkova 2019, 2020, Sementsov & Vozniak
2017). However, there is still no precise definition
and methodology for identifying the genetic code
of the city.
Most studies concern only the urban planning
and planning structure of the city as a whole. It is
necessary to move to systematic and detailed
research not only at the level of the structure and
composition of the city or neighborhoods but also
at the level of architecture: the “front” of the
building.
The relevance of this study is determined by the
lack of knowledge of the formation and existing
characteristics of individual zones of the historical
center of St. Petersburg, identifying their identity
both at the level of the planning structure and at the
level of the architectural and compositional
component.
For the study, separate zones included in the histor­
ical center of St. Petersburg were selected: the zone
of Sea Streets (Nevsky ave., Admiralteisky ave., Voz­
nesensky ave., Moika River Embankment), the zone
of Troitskaya Street (current Rubinstein Streets)
(Fontanka River Embankment, Lomonosov st.,
Zagorodny ave., Vladimirsky ave. and Nevsky ave.),
the zone of Malaya Kolomna (English ave., Dekab­
ristov st., Pryazhki River Embankment, Lotsmans­
kaya st., Rimsky-Korsakov ave.) (Fedotova 2020ab).
The study was conducted on the basis of a full-
scale survey, materials from archival sources (Cen­
tral State Historical Archive of St. Petersburg f. 513,
inv. 102, cos. 84, 187, 189, 191, 3694, 3573, 5012,
5286, 5311, 5312; f. 514, inv. 4, cas. 728, 3064), his­
torical plantography and cartography, photo fixation.
Based on the analyzed materials, a graphic recon­
struction of the block development was performed
and a historical-urban planning and architectural-
compositional analysis of the development was car­
ried out (based on the methodology of
S. V. Sementsov (1983)).
3 RESULTS
The historical and urban planning analysis made it
possible to identify the main stages of the evolution
of the formation of the architectural and planning
system of the studied zones.
So, for the area of Morskaya Streets (a fragment
of the core of the historical center of the XVIII cen­
tury), the following stages of formation are defined:
at the 1st stage (1703-1736), the formation of the pri­
mary layout of Morskaya Sloboda, including Semi­
luchiya; at the 2nd stage (1737-1761), reconstruction

DOI: 10.1201/9781003136804-5

25
of the layout and primary brick construction after
fires (city center); at the 3rd stage (1762-1836),
refinement of the layout, “point” reconstruction of
the building according to new “model projects”
(reconstruction of the center); at the 4th stage (1837­
1917), adjustment of the planning structure and
“point” reconstruction of the building (reconstruc­
tion of the “core” of the center); at the 5th stage
(1918 to the present) “point” reconstruction of the
development of individual sections (Fedotova
2020ab).
For the development in the area of Troitskaya
Street, four main stages of formation were identified
(current Rubinstein Street): at the 1st stage (1703­
1761), formation of the primary layout (suburban
area); at the 2st stage (1762-1836), reconstruction of
the layout and primary brick building (suburb); at
the 3st stage (1837-1917), reconstruction of the
brick building (city center); at the 4st stage (1918 to
the present), “point reconstruction” of individual
sections (reconstruction of the center) (Fedotova
2019).
For the Malaya Kolomna zone, the following
stages of formation are defined: at the 1st stage
(1703-1736), the beginning of the development of
the territory (suburban territory); at the 2st stage
(1737-1761), the formation of the primary layout
(the periphery of the city); at the 3st stage (1762­
1836), the refinement of the layout, the beginning of
the formation of the brick building (the periphery of
the city); at the 4st stage (1837-1917), the preserva­
tion of the layout and “point” reconstruction of the
building, the final formation of the brick building
(the periphery of the center); at the 5st stage (1918
to the present), “point reconstruction” of individual
plots, loss of historical land surveying and develop­
ment, dilution of development; complex reconstruc­
tion of the territory (reconstruction of the periphery
of the center).
In all three zones studied, the frame and the land
survey of the blocks were formed in the XVIII cen­
tury, and in the future, a consistent point reconstruc­
tion of the development of individual sections was
carried out, which affected the basic parameters of
the architectural and urban environment.
The parameters and nature of the division of
zones into blocks are associated with the gradual
inclusion of territories in the structure of the urban
environment (Fedotova 2020ab). The planning struc­
ture of the blocks is determined by the nature of the
historical land surveying of the blocks on the
owner’s plots, the overall dimensions of the plots.
Tracing the frame of the Morskaya street zone (a
fragment of the core of the historical center of the
XVIII century) formed the building blocks (with
dimensions: typical – 127.9 x 185.7m, the smallest –
32.7-116.2 x 113.5m, the largest – 128.4 x 307.4m).
The regular historical land surveying of blocks on
owner’s plots (with the sizes: characteristic – 32.6 x
64.0m, the smallest – 31.0 x 29.8m, the largest –
49.2 x 116.0m) is completely preserved.
26
In the area of Troitskaya Street (a fragment of the
historical center of the XIX century), the blocks have
heterogeneous dimensions (typical – 106.6 x 206.7m,
the smallest – 141.5 x 217.0m, the largest –218.0 x
367.9m). The most uniform and regular division into
sections are carried out in two blocks adjacent to
Nevsky Prospekt (the survey of blocks is four-sided;
the sections are 27.2 x 54.2m in size). The remaining
blocks have a less regular structure, associated with the
features of the gradual transition of the zone from the
country estate to the historical center (with dimensions:
typical – 27.2 x 54.2m, smallest – 20.4 x 29.4m, lar­
gest – 51.8 x 214.0m).
In the area of Malaya Kolomna (a fragment of the
periphery of the historical center), a regular frame­
work was laid at the same time according to the
master plan, which formed a uniform division into
blocks (with dimensions: typical – 109.0 x 195.5m,
the smallest – 85.7 x 97.5m, the largest – 164.5 x
176.9m). Historically, the division into plots is uni­
form (with the following dimensions: typical – 21.6 x
48.5m, the smallest – 22.0 x 37.5m, the largest – 64.4
x 96.9m), but many plots in this zone have completely
lost and violated boundaries of land surveying.
The elements of the architectural and compositional
structure of the front of the blocks are determined by
the system of organization of the facade line; the
system of alternating accents and background build­
ings; the number of hierarchical levels of tectonic and
decorative-plastic design of facades. Based on the per­
formed scans, a graphical analysis of the front of the
blocks was carried out: architectural-composite
(reflecting the silhouette, the facade in masses, the
breakdown of the facades by axes (window and door
openings, respectively), the system of horizontal and
vertical divisions) and architectural-tectonic (clearly
showing the amount of information at each level and
the levels of organization of the facades: from the sil­
houette of the building to the texture of finishing
materials).
For the analysis, we selected the front facades of
the blocks of each of the zones that faced the main
roads at the initial stages of building development in
the XVIII century (Figure 1-3).
The front of the building on Malaya Morskaya
Street (in the area of Morskaya Streets) is made as
a single facade along the red line. The silhouette of
the building is presented under a single cornice and
the height differences on the 1st floor is insignificant;
the central (and extreme) parts of some facades are
accentuated by pediments. The axial breakdown of
the window openings is uniform, individual parts of
the buildings are allocated compositionally with
openings of greater width and height. The horizontal
division of facades is developed, some facades are
also decorated with vertical divisions.
Along the Fontanka River embankment (in the
area of Troitskaya Street), the front of the building is
made as a single facade with composite gaps, decor­
ated with a fence and front entrance gates, on the
site of the former mansion of Countess Karlova
Figure 1. Architectural-compositional and architectural-tectonic analysis of the front building of the block (facades at the
address: 4-10 Malaya Morskaya str., Saint Petersburg). Author: Fedotova G. O., 2020.

Figure 2. Architectural-compositional and architectural-tectonic analysis of the front building of the block (facades at the
address: 42-48 Fontanka River embankment, Saint Petersburg). Author: Fedotova G. O., 2020.

Figure 3. Architectural-compositional and architectural-tectonic analysis of the front building of the block (facades at the
address: 117-105 Rimsky-Korsakov ave., Saint Petersburg). Author: Fedotova G. O., 2020.

27
(Fedotova 2014). The silhouette of the building is
characterized by a developed system of accents
made with the help of risalites, pediments, height
differences of 1-2 floors; the tower and dome of the
house church of the building of the former courtyard
of the Trinity-Sergius Monastery are lost. The div­
ision of the axes into window openings is more uni­
form, but the central and extreme parts of the
facades are compositionally expressed by window
openings of greater width and height. The system of
horizontal and vertical divisions is developed.
The front of the building on Rimsky-Korsakov
ave. (in the Malaya Kolomna area) is made with
a single facade. The silhouette of the building has
a height difference of 1-2 floors, the design of the
facades with gables is rarely performed. Split
facades with window and door axes evenly. The
system of horizontal and vertical divisions is devel­
oped (only some facades are decorated with weakly
standing out from the plane of the facades).
4 DISCUSSION
To identify the system of parameters of the genetic
code of the urban environment of St. Petersburg,
a comprehensive approach is needed, including the
study of spatial and planning characteristics and
architectural and compositional characteristics at dif­
ferent levels of research (city-zone (system of
blocks) – block – plot-building).
Within the framework of this study, some param­
eters and some small fragments of the historical center
of St. Petersburg are affected, and it is necessary to
clarify the research methodology and conduct a further
detailed analysis of the space-planning and architec­
tural-compositional parameters of the development at
different levels of the organization of the urban envir­
onment both for these zones and for the development
of other zones of the historical center of St. Petersburg.
5 CONCLUSION
1. The basic parameters of the planning structure of
the studied zones (Morskay Streets, Troitskaya
Street, Malaya Kolomna) were laid down and
finally formed in the XVIII century. In the future,
the development of the owner’s land plots was
formed, and minor point changes were made to
the structure.
2. The size of the blocks and the nature of the land
survey, as well as the uniformity of the division
into blocks and plots, depending on the import­
ance of the territory in the structure of the city
(center-periphery-suburbs) at different stages of
territory development.
3. The architectural and compositional structure of
the front of the blocks is largely determined by
the existing planning structure, as well as the
“centrality” of the zone.
28
REFERENCES
Fedotova G. O. 2019. The urban planning system and spa­
tial planning solution of the area of the former Troits­
kaya Street in St. Petersburg. Architecton: izvestiya
vuzov 68(4): 8–8.
Fedotova G. O. 2020a. Formation of the architectural and
planning system of development in the area of Sea
streets in St. Petersburg. Prospects of science 5 (128):
70–76.
Fedotova G. O. 2020b. Urban planning and compositional
features of different territories of the historical center of
Saint Petersburg. Reconstruction and Restoration of
Architectural Heritage: 20–23.
Gubinskaya K. Yu. 2018. Summary urban planning period­
ization of the city of Vyborg. East European Scientific
Journal. 7 (35): 4–7.
Gutnov A. E. 1984. The evolution of urban planning.
Moscow: Stroyizdat.
Kubetskaya L. I., & Kudryavtseva N. O. 2019. Methodo­
logical foundations for the study of the historical and
urban heritage and traditions of historical settlements
(evolution and principles of building a spatial and com­
positional system). In Sustainable development of terri­
tories: 118–122.
Lavrov L. P., Molotkova E. G. & Perov F. V. 2019. Mor­
photypes of the blocks of the historical center of St. ­
Petersburg. Academia. Architecture and Construction
(4): 52–59.
Mangushev R. A., Novokhodskaya N. S., Datsyuk T. A., &
Kondratieva L. N. 2019. St. Petersburg “genetic code”.
Century XVIII and century XXI. Bulletin of Civil Engin­
eers (5): 33–40.
Markushev S. O. 2020. The hierarchy of urban planning
compositions of different scales in the structure of the
historical center of St. Petersburg. Bulletin of the Bel­
gorod State Technological University named after V.G.
Shukhov (3): 68–75.
Molotkova E. G. 2019. About the morphotypes of the city
blocks of the historical center of St. Petersburg. Trans­
parency and connectivity. Bulletin of Civil Engineers
(5): 41–54.
Molotkova E. G. 2020. The mechanism of formation of
a regular urban environment (on the example of ensem­
bles of St. Petersburg in the first third of the XIX cen­
tury). Bulletin of Civil Engineers (6): 25–38.
Sementsov S. V. & Wozniak E. R. 2017. The composite
structure of the facades of buildings of the XVIII cen­
tury and its reflection in the architectural and urban
environment of St. Petersburg. Bulletin of Civil Engin­
eers (4): 55–60.
Sementsov S. V. 1983. The spatial system of the city as the
basis of its harmony (on the example of Leningrad).
Leningrad: SPBGASU.
Sementsov S. V. 2006a. Stages of formation of the spatial
environment of St. Petersburg. Part 1. Historical devel­
opment of neighborhoods and their regulation. Bulletin
of Civil Engineers 2(7): 15–20.
Sementsov S. V. 2006b. Stages of formation of the spatial
environment of St. Petersburg. Part 2. Historical devel­
opment of land plots (systems of division and develop­
ment of land plots) and their regulation. Bulletin of Civil
Engineers 3(8): 21–26.
Sementsov S. V. 2007. The urban planning component of
the residential function of St. Petersburg and the
St. Petersburg agglomeration. 1703-2006. Bulletin of the
Saint Petersburg University. History (3): 63–70.
Sementsov S. V. 2013. Formation of the principles of pre-
serving the architectural and urban heritage of
St. Petersburg on the basis of the laws of its
three-century urban development. Vestnik Sankt-
Peterburgskogo universiteta 2: 190–211.
29
Slavinsky S. P. 2018. “City code” and its reflection on
the example of urban development of Veliky Novgo-
rod. Praxema. Problems of visual Semiotics (3):
128–144.
 Reconstruction and Restoration of Architectural Heritage 2021 – Sementsov, Leontyev & Huerta (Eds)
© 2021 Taylor & Francis Group, London, ISBN 978-0-367-68296-5

Questions about the historical location aisle of St. Gregory of Nyssa, in the
Monastery of Resurrection Novodevichy of the Cathedral of Resurrection
A.G. Gorshkov
Saint Petersburg State University of Architecture and Civil Engineering, Saint Petersburg, Russia

ABSTRACT: This article discusses the problems affecting the clarification of the historical location of the
aisle of St. Gregory, Bishop of Nyssa, (and the iconostasis in it) in the basement of Resurrection Novodevichy
of Cathedral of Resurrection the basis of identified documents and graphic reconstruction in the dimensions
indicated in the identified historical sources (written, photographic documents), combined with the results of
field studies in 2020, including measurements.

1 INTRODUCTION caption: “Historical view of the lower church

In the summer of 2020, as part of the comprehensive
scientific research of the object of cultural heritage
“Monastery of the Resurrection Novodevichy”, his­
torical and archival surveys and field studies were
carried out, as a result of which it was possible to
determine the location of the aisle of St. Gregory,
Bishop of Nyssa, in the basement of the Resurrec­
tion Cathedral (as part of the design and research
work on the object of cultural heritage of federal
significance “Monastery of the Resurrection Novo­
devichy” (St. Petersburg, Moskovsky Prospekt,
100, lit. A).
Historical, archival, and bibliographic studies con­
ducted earlier on this cultural heritage site did not give
unambiguous results regarding the placement of the
aisle of St. Gregory, Bishop of Nyssa, and the
iconostasis.
For the purpose of clarification, searches were
made for archival documents, including in funds that
did not contain the required information by name
and annotations.
And if the appearance of the aisle as of the begin­
ning of the twentieth century is known to us from the
above photo, then until recently there were different
points of view on the location of the aisle in the space
of the Resurrection Cathedral. To clarify this issue, we
will refer below to archival data and written sources.
2 MATERIALS AND METHODS
In the subject of protection of the cultural heritage of
federal significance “The Monastery of the Resurrec­
tion Novodevichy” (Figure 1) is a well-known illus­
tration and photo with an iconostasis with the
(chapel of St. Gregory, Bishop of Nyssa,), photo of
the 1890s from the album” Novodevichy monastery
and cemetery “ according to KGIOP archive (p. 343,
no 7398. p. 47).
According to some historical information from
published sources of publications of the beginning of
the XX century. (according to the publication of the
St. Petersburg Diocese of 1909): “… The foundation
stone of the Cathedral of the Resurrection of Christ
was laid on November 3, 1849, and the first brick in
the foundation of the Resurrection monastery was
laid by Emperor Nicholas Pavlovich. The consecra­
tion of the main Resurrection Cathedral was per­
formed on July 2, 1861, by Metropolitan Isidor.”
(“Lavra monasteries and churches in Saint Rus”.
St. Petersburg diocese, St. Petersburg, Printing
House of the School of the Deaf and Dumb Depart­
mental Institution of the Empress Maria of
1909, p. 55).
There are also detailed and complete descriptions
of the placement of the thrones of the cathedral:
“There are five thrones in the cathedral: the main one
in the name of the Resurrection of Christ; the right
one in the name of the Assumption of the Mother of
God; the left one: “in the name of Archangel Michael
and the other heavenly powers.” In the choir: right ­
in the name of All Saints; left – in the name of
St. Nicholas.” Further, in the specified source there is
a detailed description of the interior of the cathedral,
the pre-altar and other iconostases, including the
dimensions, dimensions of the Royal Gate, indicated
with an annotation of the placement of images, icons,
icon vestments, lamps. There are no other descriptions
of the thrones in the cathedral in this source. It should
be noted that this publication, as a rule, most fully
describes all the details of the lavras, monasteries, and

DOI: 10.1201/9781003136804-6

30

Figure 1. The Resurrection Novodevichy Monastery.
Church-tomb (aisle) In the name of St. Gregory, Bishop of
Nyssa and Saint Theodosia. Iconostasis. The 1900s. Photo.
The author of the shooting: K. Winkler according to the
Mandatory copy of the Russian National Library no Al
T/2-L452. Novodevichy Monastery and cemetery in
St. Petersburg. Album of photos. 1900s, p. 6.
temples listed in it. At the same time, there is no men­
tion of the throne in the sub-church of the Resurrec­
tion Cathedral in this case.
If you refer to an earlier edition (“St. Petersburg
Resurrection First-class Hostel Monastery”. The
publication is in three parts. History and description.
St. Petersburg, 1887. Typography and Lithography
of A. I. Trench. Stremyannaya, no 12), which relates
directly to the history of the monastery, reveals great
details about this chapel. Here is a description of
both the appearance of the aisle itself and
a description of the circumstances of its construction,
namely: “dependent on the honorary citizen Grigory
Mikhailovich Petrov».
Here is a full description from this publication,
given on pages 45-47: “… Under the arches of the
cathedral, in the basement, there is a small aisle in
the name of St. Gregory of Nyssa, celebrated on Jan­
uary 10. In it, the altar is 4 ½ yards wide and 3 ½
long from the iconostasis to the High Place.” All the
walls and ceilings in the altar and church were made
of white marble. The altar and the altar with cypress
boards, and instead of clothes, the throne is sur­
rounded by white marble. On a High place, a large
image of the Crucifixion with the upcoming Mother
of God and John the Theologian on a gold chased
31
background, painted on zinc, in a bronze frame
under glass; before the image of the Crucifixion
a bronze hanging lamp. Above the altar is the image
of the Saviour Not made with hands, on the sides of
it, is the image of Saints Gregory and Theodosius in
a gilded Icon case under glass before them glows an
unquenchable lamp according to the contribution
from Grigory Mikhailovich Petrov.
The iconostasis of white marble is 3 yards high.
The royal gate, 2 ¾ arshins high, 1 arshins wide,
bronze, gilded, through with four icons: The Annun­
ciation and 4 Evangelists. Local holy pictures of the
Savior and the Mother of God, on the northern doors
of the holy picture of the Archangel Michael, on the
southern – Archdeacon Lawrence. In the church to
the right are two images: St. Gregory of Nyssa and
the Resurrection of Christ, to the left, is the image of
St. Theodosius, and opposite the other holy picture
is a window…. All icons with bronze frames, under
glass, painted on zinc with a gold background and
hammered work of monastic craftsmen. Before each
image, there are hanging lamps… This aisle, as well
as all its clerical and ecclesiastical accessories, were
arranged by the zeal and dependence of the heredi­
tary citizen Grigory Mikhailovich Petrov with the
permission of His Eminence Metropolitan Isidor
from September 24, 1875 …All the marble work
was done by the master Andrey Barinov. The plan
was drawn up by the diocesan architect Karpov …»
On July 1, 1895, V. E. Petrov died, he was buried
in the Novodevichy Monastery under the cathedral
in the chapel of St. Gregory of Nyssa. There also
rested his parents Petrov Grigory Mikhailovich,
a hereditary honorary citizen and cavalier, who died
on November 18, 1881 at the age of 87, and his wife
Feodosia Ivanovna, who died on June 16, 1875 at
the age of 59. (according to the “Petersburg Necrop­
olis” of 1912, pp. 405, 407).
Thus, we not only know the date of the construc­
tion of the chapel, but also can get an idea of the
materials of its decoration (“under the white marble”
- which is indirectly visible from the famous histor­
ical photo-there are no joints of stone fragments, but
the “plates” that arise during the polishing of artifi­
cial marble). Moreover, we know the list of images
and, most importantly, we understand the dimensions
of the entire iconostasis and the Royal Gate (“The
Royal Gate, 2 ¾ arshins high, 1 arshins wide”),
which can be used to perform a graphic reconstruc­
tion in size (Figure 1).
Based on these dimensions, a sketch graphic
reconstruction of the iconostasis is presented below.
However, the most difficult question was to deter­
mine the location of the chapel in the basement of
the Resurrection Cathedral. After all, at first glance,
it is impossible to clearly attribute the vaults from
the photo, given that by now the floor has been
raised and the original finish is mostly lost. But even
in this case, the archived data allows you to specify
the location of the desired aisle.
 In the funds of the Central State Historical Arch­
ive in St. Petersburg (the archive on Pskov Street-the
Central State Historical Archive of St. Petersburg),
documents were found, including graphic diagrams
that shed light on the structure of the basement of
the Resurrection Cathedral.
In the case of the “First-class Resurrection Con­
vent” we find the following documents (Figure 2-3).
The plan shows (Figure 2-3): “crypts occupied”
surrounded by “lattices”, the locations of the ovens
are also visible and the passages are marked: “Corri­
dor to the right building” and “Corridor to the left
building”. It is worth noting that the plan clearly
Figure 2. Graphic reconstruction of the iconostasis in the
dimensions specified in historical sources (sketch). The
author’s drawing.
Figure 3. Pages from the “First-class Resurrection Conven­
tion Case”. General view of the layout of the aisle on the
basement plan. (Central State Historical Archive in
St. Petersburg, f. 1; inv. 1; st. un. 900).
32
Figure 4. Pages from the “First-class Resurrection Conven­
tion Case”. The layout of the limit on the basement plan.
Fragment. (Central State Historical Archive in St. Petersburg,
fund 1; inventory 1; storage unit 900).
indicates the aisle enclosure and that it is separated
from the rest of the basement. This is logical, given
that the furnaces were serviced and technical pas­
sages were carried out from the “left and right”
buildings. Just as important are the “occupied”
crypts in the eastern part of the basement. All this
allows you to determine the places where the aisle
could not be located in any way.
3 RESULTS AND DISCUSSION
In the course of the comprehensive scientific
research carried out in the second half of 2020,
among other things, three-dimensional laser scan­
ning and subsequent drawing of the outlines of the
arches on certified equipment (with a valid verifica­
tion certificate) with an error of no more than 2 mm
per 60 m were performed. Despite the fact that, as
mentioned earlier, the basement floor has reached
our time with a higher mark, the outline of the arch
(in brick) and the plaster namet that repeats it allow
us to superimpose the existing arch and decking on
the historical photo in the graph and verify the iden­
tity of the measurements and the “tent” in the axes
“ I ” - “ W ” and “ 3 ” - “ 5 ” and confirm the
assumptions about the placement of the chapel with
the iconostasis in these axes. Below is a graphic

Figure 5. Graphic reconstruction (indicates the placement
of the iconostasis in the vaults of the proposed location of
the aisle). The author’s drawing.
Figure 6. Graphic reconstruction (the placement of the
iconostasis in the vaults of the proposed aisle location is
indicated). Plan. (northwestern fragment of the basement
plan of the Resurrection Cathedral). The author’s drawing.
Figure 7. Graphic reconstruction (indicates the placement
of the iconostasis in the vaults of the aisle location deter­
mined during the survey). The author’s drawing.
33
reconstruction of the placement of the chapel on the
basis of measurements made in-house in 2020.
It is important to note that based on the super­
imposition of the outlines of the vaults, finding
out (above) the dimensions of the iconostasis and
its placement in the basement of the Resurrection
Cathedral, we can make a preliminary conclusion
about the size of the difference in the marks of
the modern floor and the floor with the crypt and
stone slabs, which is depicted in the historical
photo.
4 CONCLUSION
1. In the course of additional historical, archival,
and bibliographic research, the location of aisle
was clearly determined.
2. When overlaying the parameters specified in the
archival materials with the results obtained
during the historical and architectural field stud­
ies (including using three-dimensional laser scan­
ning of the spaces and vaults of the basements of
the Resurrection Cathedral), the assumption
about the placement of the specified aisle was
confirmed and it was possible to make an unam­
biguous reference of the photographic image of
the 1900s by K. Winkler to a specific location in
the volume of the cultural heritage object.
3. When performing a graphic reconstruction, the
architectural and decorative-artistic elements of
the iconostasis and their original physical param­
eters are determined.
REFERENCES
Antonov V. V., Kabak A.V. 1993. Shrines of St. Petersburg.
St. Petersburg: Chernyshev Publishing House.
Committee for State Control, Use and Protection of Histor­
ical and Cultural Monuments of St. Petersburg. 2007.
Novodevichy cemetery. In B. M. Kirikov (ed.). Saint
Petersburg: Russian Classics
Dubin A. S. 1993. Novodevichy cemetery. In Nevsky Arch­
ive: Historical and Local History collection. Moscow-
St. Petersburg: Liki Rossii.
Isakova, E. V., & Shkarovsky, M. V. 2007. The Resurrec­
tion Novodevichy Monastery. St. Petersburg: Art-Deco.
Kirichenko E. I. 1982. Russian architecture of the 1830s­
1910s. Moscow: Iskusstvo.
Kobak, A.V., & Piryutko, Yu. M. (Eds.). (1993). Historical
cemeteries of St. Petersburg: a reference guide.
St. Petersburg: Chernyshev Publishing House.
Kormiltseva O. M. 2005. The Resurrection Novodevichy
Monastery. In Monuments of History and Culture of
St. Petersburg: Research and Materials (8).
Lushcheko E. I. 2013. The Monastery of the Resurrection
Novodevichy. Complex. St. Petersburg, Moskovsky dis­
trict, Moskovsky ave., 100. No inv. 1123 pp. 28. Saint-
Petersburg: KGIOP Archive.
St. Petersburg Diocese. 1909. Lavra monasteries and
churches in Saint Rus. St. Petersburg: School of the
Deaf and Dumb Departmental Institution of Empress
Maria.
 Reconstruction and Restoration of Architectural Heritage 2021 – Sementsov, Leontyev & Huerta (Eds)
© 2021 Taylor & Francis Group, London, ISBN 978-0-367-68296-5

Some aspects of urban planning practice of the Russian Empire in the first
third of the XIX century
A.А. Gudkov
Novosibirsk State University of Architecture and Civil Engineering (Sibstrin), Novosibirsk, Russia

ABSTRACT: The article deals with the urban planning practice of the first third of the 19 century. The cen­
tral role during this period is played by the activity of the architect, William Hastie. His creative method is
analyzed and an attempt is made to analyze the numerical parameters of his urban planning heritage.

1 INTRODUCTION administration, where the post of provincial archi­

The process of centralized formation of regular pro­
ject plans of cities of the Russian Empire, which
took place from the end of the XVIII century to the
middle of the XIX century, can historically be div­
ided into three main stages. The first, from 1762 to
1796, was the work of the “the Commission for
St. Petersburg and Moscow Stone Construction”,
established by Catherine II at the Senate according
to the Complete Collection of Laws of the Russian
Empire No. 11723 volume XVI. i.e. the period of
active work of William Hastie as an expert on “con­
sideration and redesign of city plans throughout the
state” according to the Russian State Historical
Archive (hereinafter RSHA) (f. 1286, inv. 2, st. unit
123) in the Executive Department of the Ministry
of Police (later, the Ministry of Internal Affairs).
And, finally, the third period is from 1832 to 1861,
after the next reorganization of the Ministries. The
approval of the project plans drawn up at the local
level was made through the Chief Administration
for Lines of Communication and Public Buildings
and the Ministry of Internal Affairs, and after the
approval the plan was submitted to a meeting of the
Cabinet of Ministers for affirmation. In this process,
we are more interested in the “second stage” as
unlike the first stage, this period is not characterized
by the official structure formation that was in
charge of the design process, but there was only an
“expert” appointed by personal order of the
Emperor. Moreover, William Hastie was officially
the architect of the Cabinet of His Imperial Majesty
and from March 1810 he was appointed a member
of the Construction Committee, and was not
appointed to any position in the Ministry of Police
(later the Ministry of Internal Affairs) according to
RSHA (f. 486, inv. 2, st. unit 241). At the third
stage, the leading role was passed to the local
tect was established as part of the Construction
Commissions in 1775. The “centralized power” for­
mally approved the project proposals sent from the
governor, coordinating land and financial issues,
but did not interfere into the “author” design solu­
tions. Since 1861 the approval of the city project
plans (with the exception of provincial and metro­
politan ones) took place at the local level, i.e., by
the governor, thus there was no unity in
approaches.
2 MATERIALS AND METHODS
The main method of this study is the analysis of
archival materials and scientific literature. At the
same time, it is necessary to note that archival
researches of the first half of the 19th century is
complicated due to decretive redistribution of
funds after the October revolution of 1917, and
the materials that were initially interconnected,
they are currently at different archives (Russian
state historical archive - St. Petersburg, Russian
state navy archives - St. Petersburg, Russian state
military historical archive - Moscow) or at differ­
ent funds of the same archive. on the other hand,
there was a circle of scientific researches devoted
to William Hastie in the 20th century in Russian
architectural science: Gudkov A. (1988), Korshu­
nova M. (1977), Krasnoselskaya N. (2015), Kuz­
netsov S. (2000), Pilyavsky V. (1958),
Ruchinskaya T. (1994), Chernozubova L. (1963),
Shvidkovsky D. (2003), Schmidt A. (1970), but
all of them were devoted either to a small period
or to a specific object of his professional activity.
At the same time, we are not aware of attempts
to outline the numerical parameters of its urban
heritage.

DOI: 10.1201/9781003136804-7

34
3 RESULTS
In 1796, Paul I dissolved the Commission on the
Stone Structure of St. Petersburg and Moscow, cre­
ated by Catherine II at the Senate, rather out of
a sense of opposition to everything that his mother
had done, and before the reign of Alexander I, no
one centrally dealt with the issues of building
regulation.
In 1796, Paul I dissolved the Commission for
St. Petersburg and Moscow Stone Construction,
formed by Catherine II under the Senate, rather out
of a sense of opposition to everything that his
mother had done and before the reign of Alexander
I no one centrally dealt with development regulation.
Alexander I began his “urban planning policy” by
creating a project plan for the city of Tsarskoye Selo,
a very small town located near his favorite imperial
residence, and designated architect William Hastie
“under the new building of the city of Tsarskoye
Selo” (f. 1286, inv. 2, st. unit 123). After the decision
in 1808 to abolish the city of Sofia and build a new
settlement in another place - southeast of its resi­
dence - Tsarskoye Selo became a “testing ground” of
new urban planning ideas, and later became the
“exemplary” in nature for design practice at the
beginning of the 19th century, meeting new aesthetic
requirements. The creation of such a project and
building the city with a “comfortable life” on it was
not accidental. Alexander I suggested that the arran­
ging the life forms, in which architecture and urban
planning was used, could change the life of the coun­
try. It should be emphasized that the original idea,
according to the emperor, was supposed to lead to
the improvement of the whole life. It cannot be
ignored, referring to the urban planning ideas of the
1810s-1830s, and in general to the revision of the
entire system of the settlements in Russia, in which
William Hastie participated.
Figure 1. Plan of the city of Tsarskoye Selo 1810, architect
William Hastie.
The city was strictly regular according to the pro­
ject proposal of William Hastie. It was rectangular in
shape; all streets were intersected almost at right
angles. The territory of the settlement was divided
35
into quarters close in size. “Typical” residential
buildings were to be located on each of them. In the
center of the city, the architect planned a square.
Along its perimeter there were administrative build­
ings: with state-owned places, main post-office,
treasury, tavern, civil and religious schools, a guest
yard, workshops, warehouses.
It should be noted that the main part of this
project was the complete regulation of architecture
and all elements of the settlement improvements
without exceptions. It concerned the straightness
and cross size of the streets, the height of the
houses; their placement only along the red lines,
and not in the depths of the sections; paving
devices, fences, gates; the organization of the
city’s needs, such as water supply and urban
greening. William Hastie not only used the
facades of typical houses in a strictly classicist
style, but he determined the location of each of
them, made street layouts. In other words, every­
thing should be “perfect” in the new city of Tsars­
koye Selo. All the requirements of the city people
seemed to be considered. State buildings were
built for the purposes of governing, education,
enlightenment, trade and the work of craftsmen.
After the Emperor approved the project plan of
Tsarskoye Selo, William Hastie was attached to the
Ministry of Police in 1810, where he was entrusted to
“consider the design and redesign of city plans
throughout the state” according to RSHA (f. 1286,
inv. 2, st. unit 123). Thus, the architect became the
main expert in the field of urban planning throughout
the Russian Empire and could pursue a policy of
introducing a new “model” into a real design practice.
William Hastie began his activity in this area with
the fact that in 1811 he made drawings of 26 plans for
“exemplary” quarters and squares, combined into an
album entitled “Division of City Quarters into Ordin­
ary Places” (Chernozubova 1963). Thus, the architect
created an intermediate link between typical houses
and the general regular layout of the city - he devel­
oped an exemplary system for dividing quarters into
separate sections with houses arrangement on them.
Moreover, he completed the ideal projects of squares,
thereby supplementing and enriching the system of the
“ideal” city, adding them to the exemplary facades of
residential buildings published in 1809 in “Collection
of facades of His Imperial Majesty, tested for private
buildings in the cities of the Russian Empire”, where
the projects of W. Hastie and L. Rusk were included.
If we add to this the designs of exemplary fences and
gates, published in 1811, and intended for compulsory
use, then the complete model of a regular classicist
city arose. By a personal decree of February 8, 1812,
it was prescribed to all the chiefs of the provinces
“henceforth, in the case of appointing city quarters to
ordinary places, to be guided by these drawings, taking
as a model those that are most decent for the conveni­
ence of the inhabitants and the local situation” accord­
ing to the Complete Collection of Laws of the Russian
Empire No 24989 volume XXXII.
 On December 5, 1811, W. Hastie presented to the all cases, insisted on building plots along their borders,
Minister of Police the “Memorandum” according to and placed regular gardens in the center of the quarters.
RSHA (f. 1286, inv. 2, st. unit 60), where he set out They were divided into equal parts corresponding to
his opinion on how to organize the planning activity individual possessions. The city of William Hastie was
and bring into the “proper form” the plans of all ideally a settlement with exclusively perimetral devel­
cities of Russia. Its content can be briefly reflected in opment, with an equally dimensional distribution of
the following provisions: sites close in sizes, with a calm, clear rhythm to
arrange buildings similar in volume, with vast areas of
1. Collect copies of all existing confirmed plans in
regular geometric forms. He paid great attention to
the capital, and keep the plans in the provincial public spaces: squares and parks, very often the plan­
boards; ning decision provided the settings of the boulevard.
2. Make the fixation plans of all cities indicating This direction in the urban planning of Russia, which
convenient and inconvenient places for develop­ was especially demonstrated in the Tsarskoye Selo pro­
ment, show the buildings needed to be preserved, ject, was extended by William Hastie to the entire
the location around the city by half a mile and Empire.
ground surface profile;
3. Having collected the above mentioned documents
and classified them, it is necessary to determine
the list of cities for which new plans were to be
drawn up;
4. Develop new projects on the ground level and
send them to St. Petersburg for consideration of
further approval.
William Hastie only controlled and approved the
final design solution, on the basis of fixing drawings,
the project and an explanatory note sent from the
provinces to them.
The proposed procedure formed the basis of
a circular note of the Ministry of Police dated
March 19, 1812 (f. 1286, inv. 2, st. unit 60), which Figure 3. Plan of the city of Makaryev, Nizhny Novgorod
was sent to the heads of the provinces for execution. guberniya, architect William Hastie, according to RSHA
(f. 1293, inv. 166, st. unit 42).

The reality of the old cities of Russia certainly

made its adjustments to his plans, but the master
tried to study it accurately, and he sometimes picked
a fight with local authorities and architects, insisting
on changes. His plans are recognized at first sight, so
they are peculiar. Many settlements of Russia retain
the features of the layout he created, that is why the
huge contribution of the master to the development
of the “idea” of the Russian city is undeniable in the
early 19 century.

Figure 2. Plan of the city of Novomoskovsk, Ekaterinoslav

province, architect William Hastie according to RSHA
(f. 1293, inv. 166, st. unit 52).

The second stage to create new project plans for the

cities of the Russian Empire started from that moment.
William Hastie steadily followed his method in all his
planning works. The regularity of the layout and the
idea of the uniform development were elevated to an Figure 4. Plan of the city of Nolinsk, Vyatkaya guberniya,
inviolable principle. He created clear and possibly architect William Hastie, according to RSHA (f. 1293, inv.
more correct settlement boundaries. William Hastie, in 166, st. unit 42).

36
 Thus, we will consider the issue of the numerical
parameters of his urban planning heritage. How many
cities can we talk about? According to Annex “Book
of sketches and drawings. City plans.” to the Com­
plete collection of laws of the Russian empire pub­
lished in 1839. The engraved plans of 419 cities were
included into the folio. 71 of them were approved
during the urban planning work of William Hastie
from 1810 to 1832. There is still the question, whether
all the plans drawn up by William Hastie were
included into this special volume of Annex “Book of
sketches and drawings. City plans.” to the Complete
collection of laws of the Russian empire. And here
you can answer for sure: “No, they weren’t.” Working
at Russian State Historical Archive in St. Petersburg,
we discovered the project plans signed by architect
William Hastie, but the plans were not included in the
above mentioned Annex and there are quite a lot of
them. All of them can be divided into four main
groups. The first group includes the project plans
drawn up by William Hastie and received the Highest
Confirmation until 1812, but they were lost during the
Patriotic War. Perhaps there were not many of such
plans, but they were and as an example we can cite
the history of the plan of the city of Brest-Litovsk
according to RSHA (f. 1287, inv. 8, st. unit 7, pp. 7).
The second group includes project proposals that
were drawn up, but for one reason or another they
were not been submitted for approval. As an
example, we cite the development plan of the City of
Makaryev, that was not submitted for approval, as
the decision was made to transfer the Makaryev Fair
to Nizhny Novgorod. Perhaps there were not many
of them, but the examples we have discovered indi­
cate that they took place and therefore they also need
to be taken into account.
Figure 5. Plan of the city of Makaryev, Nizhny Novgorod
guberniya, architect William Hastie, according to RSHA
(f. 1287, inv. 8, st. unit 4).
The third group is more numerous. It includes the
project plans of the cities, the confirmation of which,
formally, took place after the death of the architect.
But taking into account that the process of approval
took in some cases a fairly long period of time on the
ground level, thus it could drag on for many years
37
(Gudkov 2018). Thus, the series of project plans of the
cities of the Chernigov guberniya could be as
examples. They are Mglina (Departmental Comission
(DC), November 28, 1834) (RSHA, f. 1293, inv. 167,
st. unit 21, pp. 12), Novoe Mesto (DC, November 28,
1834) (RSHA, f. 1293, inv. 167, st. unit 18, pp. 12),
Kozeltsy (DC, November 28, 1834) (RSHA, f. 1293,
inv. 167, st. unit 23, pp. 13), Surazha (DC, March 20,
1833) (RSHA, f. 1293, inv. 167, st. unit 17, pp. 92),
Pogary (DC, March 8, 1835) (RSHA, f. 1293, inv.
167, st. unit 30 pp. 8), Glukhova (DC, March 8, 1835)
(RSHA, f. 1293, inv. 167, st. unit 33, pp. 13), Korony
(DC, March 8, 1835) (RSHA, f. 1293, inv. 167, st. unit
29, pp. 10), Nezhina (DC, March 8, 1835) (RSHA,
f. 1293, inv. 167, st. unit 16, pp. 12), Staroduba (DC,
March 15, 1835) (RSHA, f. 1293, inv. 167, st. unit 25,
pp. 11).
And finally, the fourth group includes the project
plans of the cities which were Highly confirmed from
1810 to 1832, but for such reasons they were not
included into Annex “Book of sketches and drawings.
City plans.” to the Complete collection of laws of the
Russian empire.” Here are just a few examples of
these project plans. The cities are Kemi, Arkhangels­
kaya guberniya (DC, June 22, 1828) (RSHA, f. 1293,
inv. 166, st. unit 16), Krasnoyarsk, Yeniseiskaya
guberniya (DC, November 2, 1828) (RSHA, f. 1293,
inv. 166, st. unit 22), Zvenigorodsk, Kievskaya guber­
niya (DC, August 21, 1826) (RSHA, f. 1293, inv.
166, st. unit 27, pp. 4), Pokrov, Vladimirskaya guber­
niya (DC, August 21, 1826) (RSHA, f. 1293, inv.
166, st. unit 36), Sarapulya, Vyatkaya guberniya (DC,
March 23, 1812) (RSHA, f. 1293, inv. 166, st. unit
52), Buguruslanf, Samarskaya guberniya (DC,
July 25, 1830) (RSHA, f. 1293, inv. 167, st. unit 7),
Omsk, Akmolinskaya oblast (DC, December 28,
1829) (RSHA, f. 1293, inv. 166, st. unit 2).
Figure 6. Plan of the city of Krasnoyarsk, Yeniseiskaya
guberniya, architect William Hastie, according to RSHA
(f. 1293, inv. 166, st. unit 22).
4 DISCUSSION
It should be noted that in order to identify accurately
the authorship of project proposals for a number of
provinces, a wider study of the funds of the begin­
ning of the 19 century is required at local archives. It
is especially true for the documents of the first third
of the 19 century. It is not a simple period in national
historiography to study of the considered issue: the
changes in the administrative management system of
the Russian Empire led to the transfer of certain
functions to various committees and ministries. So
urban planning issues were first managed by the
Construction Committee, and then they were trans­
ferred to the Ministry of Police, then to the Ministry
of Internal Affairs and, finally, the Chief Administra­
tion for Lines of Communication and Public Build­
ings. In addition, the documents for the Highest
Confirmation could come from various departments:
The Ministry of Police (later the Ministry of Internal
Affairs); from the Commander-in-Chief of the Polish
armies (later Governor of the Kingdom of Poland),
Konstantin Pavlovich or the Chief of the Imperial
Chancery and Military Settlements, Alexei Andree­
vich Arakcheev.
It is possible that the part of the city project plans
of this period is stored in the collections of the State
Museum of Architecture. A.V. Shchusev or in the
Russian State Archives of the Navy, especially
which are located on the coasts of the White, Baltic
and Black Seas.
5 CONCLUSION
All in all, it can be argued that the process of form­
ing regular project plans for cities of the Russian
Empire at the end of the 18th - beginning of the 19th
centuries can be divided into three main stages, char­
acterized by their own peculiarities of organizing the
design process and agreeing on project plans.
For instance, the most interesting is the “second”
stage - the period of work of V.I. Geste as an
“expert” in the formation of regular city plans. At
this stage, in contrast to the projects of the end of the
18th century, the zoning of the city territory into resi­
dential and industrial zones appeared, and city plans
were created on the basis of the principle of regular­
ity of planning and uniformity of development: the
boundaries of settlements are clear and possibly
more correct; a regular grid of neighborhoods, as
well as the formation of a system of numerous
squares, boulevards of parks of spaces; uniform dis­
tribution of areas close in size; building plots around
the perimeter; in the center of the quarters there are
regular gardens. From the point of view of the organ­
ization of the process - at this stage, the procedure of
“approval” of the design solution was introduced in
38
order to check the laid design solutions before their
implementation. In the third period under review, the
project plans sent from the provincial administra­
tions, drawn up on the ground, did not need this kind
of checks.
As for the total number of projects drawn up
during the work of William Hastie in the Ministry of
Police (1810-1832), we can cite for sure that they
were compiled and confirmed more than 100 plans
of the cities of the Russian Empire, according to our
estimations. The additional scientific research is
required in order to determine more precise the
urban planning heritage of the architecture of Wil­
liam Hastie.
REFERENCES
Chernozubova L. 1963. Exemplary planning projects of
residential districts and squares in the beginning of the
19th century. Architectural inheritance (15): 188–192.
Chernozubova L. E. 1963. Exemplary projects for the plan­
ning of quarters. Architectural inheritance. (15):
188–192.
Gudkov A. A. 1988. Planning works by William Hastie in
the cities of Siberia. News of higher educational institu­
tions. Construction and Architecture (12): 47–53.
Gudkov A. A. 2018. From the history of confirmation of
the architectural plan of Nizhneudinsk city, Irkutsk
province in the first half of the 19th century. In Proceed­
ings of the XI All-Russian Scientific and Technical Con­
ference “Topical Issues of Architecture and
Construction”: 83–89.
Korshunova M. 1977. Architect William Hastie. In Pro­
ceedings of the State Hermitage Museum XVIII:
132–143.
Krasnoselskaya N. Yu. 2015. Cast iron in the projects of
bridges by architect William Hastie. Bulletin of
Moscow State Stroganov Academy of Design and
Applied Arts (1): 220–230.
Kuznetsov S. 2000. William Hastie. Architects of
St. Petersburg, 19 - early 20 century: 123–131.
Pilyavsky V. I. 1958. Architectural measures and exem­
plary projects in Russia at the beginning of the 19
century. Edited volume of St. Petersburg State Univer­
sity of Architecture and Civil Engineering (21): 39–45.
Ruchinskaya T. 1994. The Scottish architectural traditions
in the plan for the reconstruction of Moscow after the
fire of 1812: A rare account of the influence of Scottish
architect William Hastie on town planning in Moscow.
Building Research & Information 22(4): 228–233.
Schmidt A. J. 1970. William Hastie, Scottish Planner of
Russian Cities. Proceedings of the American Philosoph­
ical Society 114(3): 226–243.
Shvidkovsky D. 2003. Scottish masters in Russia of the
Empire era: William Hastie and Adam Menelaws.
Empire style. Architecture in the history of Russian Cul­
ture (5): 68–90.
 Reconstruction and Restoration of Architectural Heritage 2021 – Sementsov, Leontyev & Huerta (Eds)
© 2021 Taylor & Francis Group, London, ISBN 978-0-367-68296-5

Building of Gothic cross vaults in the Spanish Renaissance

S. Huerta
Universidad Politécnica de Madrid, Madrid, Spain

ABSTRACT: The construction of Gothic is a popular subject. However, little has been written about the
actual erection of cross vaults. Very few original sources have survived. Among them the Treatise of Rodrigo
Gil de Hontañón, written ca. 1550, contains the only detailed description of the erection of a late-Gothic star
vault. Rodrigo Gil gives also rules for the sizing of the vault elements: the thickness of the ribs and the weight
of the bosses. The paper analyzes the procedure, remarks its rationality and discusses the validity of the
design rules. In particular the stability of the stone skeleton during construction is studied.

1 INTRODUCTION available. In the Archive of the Cathedral the original

Much has been written about Gothic construction.
However, there is one aspect that has hardly received
any attention: the processes of erection of the ribbed
vaults. A single monograph has been written
(Fitchen 1961). For the present paper we have used
mainly the references quoted at the end.
The ribbed vault is a complex structure made up of
springing’s (tas-de-charge), ribs, bosses and webs
(between ribs); besides, there is structural filling or
buttressing walls on the vault haunches. The form and
arrangement of these elements varies greatly from one
country to another and from one period to another.
The project of a vault involved first deciding on the
layout (the plan) and the elevation. It was also neces­
sary to choose the size of the ribs and the bosses so
that these elements could be carved. The masonry
shells (stone slabs, rubble masonry, bricks) for the
vault webs between the ribs should also designed.
Scaffolding and centering, trusses and cranes were
required for the work. The structure of the vault and its
buttress system had to be in equilibrium in each of the
stages of construction, and this imposed a certain order
during the erection process. Eventually, a sequence to
dismount the centering must have been planned
There is little information about each of the aspects
mentioned. The only sources are the buildings them­
selves and those documents (treatises, drawings and
conditions) that have come down to us. Even when
sources are available, the problem of interpretation
remains. Understanding the erection process implies to
consider all the aspects mentioned above. In general,
the different authors have focused on one aspect or
another, often depending on the information available.
The vaults of the cathedral of Segovia, designed
and built by Rodrigo Gil de Hontañón, constitute
a unique case due to the abundance of documentation
plans are preserved and, also, the conditions for the
erection of the chapels of the ambulatory have sur­
vived. This information can be interpreted because
a copy of the architectural treatise written by Rodrigo
Gil de Hontañón has reached us.
In what follows we will try, using the information
cited, to make a description of the design and erec­
tion procedures followed by Rodrigo Gil.
2 THE TREATISE OF RODRIGO GIL DE
HONTAÑÓN
The Treatise of Rodrigo Gil de Hontañón. At the
beginning of his Compendio, completed in 1681,
Simón García copied a manuscript treatise by
Rodrigo Gil de Hontañón, then in the cathedral of
Salamanca and now lost (García 1681, 1991). The
treatise by Rodrigo Gil is one of the richest and most
interesting sources on the design and construction of
Spanish late-Gothic churches. In this work we will
limit ourselves exclusively to the aspects directly
related to the design and construction of ribbed
vaults.
Rodrigo Gil dedicates a section to the design and
construction of vaults. This part of the treatise is
a unique document: as far as we know, no other
source is preserved in which a Gothic master explains
the processes of designing and building a vault.
In what follows we will study in detail this part of
the document. We give the original text from the
transcription in García (1991) and my English trans­
lation in brackets. The reference to the folios in the
original manuscript is given in square brackets. For
the translation I have consulted also Sanabria (1982,
1984). The section is entitled “De lo que toca a cada
miembro” (What each member is entitled to)

DOI: 10.1201/9781003136804-8

39
includes folios 22v to 26v and contains four
drawings.
2.1 Size of bosses and ribs
Rodrigo Gil begins by stressing the importance of the
right size for bosses and ribs: “Por quanto bemos en
las capillas que açen de cruçeria, es bien que se sepa la
grandeça que an de tener las claues, y que Gruesos los
miembros” (From what we see in built cross vaults, it
is important to know the correct size of the bosses and
the thickness of ribs) [22v]. The reason for this import­
ance lies in the stability of the skeleton of bosses and
ribs during construction: “por quanto bemos muchas
que se aRuinan, o por ser las claves mui pesadas, mas
de lo que los miembros pueden sustentar, o por ser tan
libianas que la Gravedad de los miembros, las lebantan
y açen sentimientos” (because we see many vaults are
ruined, either because the bosses are too heavy, more
than the members can bear, or because they are so
light that the weight of the members lifts them up). For
Rodrigo Gil, the bosses are essential elements for the
stability of the rib skeleton during construction and
their weight depends on that of the ribs.
2.2 Thrust of the vault shell against the walls
Rodrigo Gil rejects the apparently common view that
the problem is not intrinsic to the skeleton but would
stem from a sagging of the walls: “Y diçen aberse
apartado las paredes, lo qual es falso, Porque a la
pared no la puede el casco de la capilla apartar, por
mala que sea la montea” (And they say that the walls
have spread out, which is false, because the wall
cannot be spread out by the vault shell, no matter
how bad the design is) [22v]. This opinion must have
been common because Francisco de Colonia, in his
expertise of 1536 on the vaults of Segovia Cathedral
alludes to the same problem: theme: “Iten digo que
sobre las formas de las naves colaterales que agora
estan çerradas no se deven hechar sino dos o tres
hiladas de sillares …y esto bastara alli para el poco
puxo que haze el casco de la capilla” (I say that on
the arches of the side naves that are now closed it is
enough to build two or three rows of ashlar stones …
and this will be enough for the little thrust that
makes the vault shell) (Ruiz Hernando 2003, 230).
Rodrigo Gil comments that, usually, the cause of
the spreading out of the walls is the thrust of roof
trusses, which sometimes are supported on the vault
extrados. He remarks that the solution is to raise the
walls above the level of the central bosses
2.3 Size of the ribs
Then, he deals with the thickness of the ribs, and for
this he makes an analogy with the hand. The hand
has five fingers and five are the ribs that converge to
the springing in a typical late-Gothic ribbed vault
and he gives an explanatory drawing (Figure 1): “…
se entendera que el dedo polus, se tenga por el arco;
40
Figure 1. Analogy of the hand with the vault ribs. Propor­
tions of the nail to the hand of each finger. (García 1681,
fol. 25v).
Y el index, y el anulo, por terçeletes, Y el de en
medio por cruzero, y el auriculi, por forma” (… the
thumb is the transverse arch, the index and ring fin­
gers are the tiercerons, the middle finger is the cross
rib and the little finger is the formeret) [fol. 23r].
The proportion of the thickness of the ribs with
the hand is the same as half the nail of each finger in
relation to the length of the hand: “Y para saber que
proporçion tengan estos con la mano, son la mitad
de las onzas de estos dedos, que es el largo de la vña
de cada dedo, la qual tiene proporçion con la mano
en esta manera el polus un deçimo, de la largura de
la mano; el index, y el anulo una de 14 partes el del
medio una de 12 partes. El auriculi una de 18
partes.” (And to know what proportion have with the
hand, they are half of the nails of these fingers,
which is the length of the nail of each finger, which
has a proportion with the hand in this way: the
thumb one tenth of the length of the hand; the index,
and the ring finger one 14th, the middle finger one
12th and the formeret one 18th.) [fol. 23r].
After giving the proportions between nail and
hand for the different fingers, he states his rule for
the rib thicknesses: “… partiendo el largo o lado de
la capilla en 20 partes una será el alto del arco pri­
piano, y que el largo partido de este lado en 24
partes, una será el alto del cruzero. Y el terçelete una
28. Y la forma una de 30. Y de esta manera serán
proporçionados, segun lo que trauaja cada uno.” (…
dividing the span or length of the bay into 20 parts,
one will be the height of the transverse arch, and div­
iding the span in 24 parts, one will be the thickness
of the cross rib. And the tierceron one of 28, and the
formeret one of 30. Thus they shall be proportioned,
in accordance with the work they do.) [fol. 24].
 He applies the strict rule (half the nail length) for
the transverse arch, the cross rib and the tiercerons.
However, for the formeret he stipulates 1/30, instead
of 1/38. Some authors have seen this as a mistake on
the part of Rodrigo Gil. It seems obvious that he is
only trying to adjust the usual proportions of Gothic
rib design, which he may have learnt from his father
Juan Gil de Hontañón, also master architect, to those
of the hand.
The last observation is very interesting: ribs are
sized to the “work they do”, that is, the load they
transmit and thrust they produce. A little earlier in
the manuscript he has already commented the influ­
ence of rib thickness in their thrust: “Lo que se a de
procurar en un templo es, que los arcos sean delga­
dos …Y esto combiene que sean asi por quien
prende a los estrivos Es estos arcos. la Raçon por ser
Gruesos, y pujar derechos contra los estribos, lo qual
no asen a los estrivos mal los cruçeros, ni terçeletes,
asi por ser delgados, como por estrivar obliqua­
mente.” (What should be sought in a church is that
the transverse arches be thin … And this should be
so, because they are the ones that thrust against the
buttresses, both because they are thick and because
they push straight against them. Neither cross ribs
nor tiercerons are bad for the buttresses, because
they are thin and they thrust obliquely.) [21v]. For
Rodrigo Gil, the ribs represent the thrust of the vault.
Or perhaps it is more accurate to say that he uses the
ribs to calculate the thrust of the vault. For a detailed
study of the structural rules by Rodrigo Gil see
Sanabria (1982) and Huerta (2004, 207-237).
The rules given applied to a square bay with semi­
circular cross ribs, Figure 2. He qualifies the use of
the rules for different geometries: “ad biertase que
esta Regla damos, subiendo la capilla de pie otro.
tanto como tubiere por lado. Y si mas subiere se le
Figure 2. How to trace a cross rib (García 1681, fol. 25r).
41
añada por Regla de 3. Y si menos se le disminuia.
No obstante que si la montea fuere a paynel por la
mesma Regla de 3 se le acreçiente segun bajare. Si
fuere perlongada no se tome, el lado maior, ni el
menor mas juntese, y partase por medio. Y de
aquello se saque esta ReGla. exemplo, supongo ser
una capilla que tiene por un lado 20. y por otro 30.
juntos son 50. la mitad son 25. pues de esto se a de
sacar, y rrepartir lo dicho.” (Note that we give this
rule assuming that the bay height the imposts is
equal to its span. If the elevation should be greater
or smaller, add or subtract using the rule of three.
Nonetheless, should the elevation consist of basket-
handle arches the sizing should be increased as the
arch is lowered, this also using rule of three. If the
bay should be oblong do not take either the long or
the short sides but add them and divide by two. For
example, suppose a bay has 20 feet to one side and
30 feet to the other. Together they add up to 50, half
is 25, and upon this base shall the distribution of
member sizes be computed.) [23v].
As we have seen Rodrigo Gil had a complete set
of rules to design de rib skeleton. The proportions
obtained are consistent, but not identical, to the rib
sizes in actual vaults built by him (Moreno 2017).
The rules give an orientation; the master can deviate
from them whenever he considers it adequate.
2.4 Weight of the bosses
When dealing with the bosses, Rodrigo Gil is exclu­
sively concerned with their structural function as
a counterweight for the equilibrium of the rib skel­
eton. This aspect is extraordinarily significant. How­
ever, it has been systematically ignored or
misinterpreted (Huerta 200, 474).
First of all, he distinguishes between the ribs that
support and those that are supported: “En las claves
se an de entender los miembros que sustentan y los
que son sustentados. Porque los que son sustentados
se an de Restar de los que sustentan conoçese en que
los que sustentan, naçen de los jarjamentos, Y los
que son sustentados naszen de las claues. tambien ay
claues que sustentan; Y otras que son sustentadas,
las que estan en el arco del Cruzero, o terçelete, son
sustentadas. Y las que estan en los ultimos fines de
los arcos de los terçeletes, o Cruçero, sustentan
todas.” (In dealing with the bosses we must have an
understanding of wich ribs support and which are
supported. Because the ribs which are supported,
must be subtracted from the ribs which support. The
supporting ribs are known to spring from the tas-de­
charge, and those which are sustained spring from
the bosses. There are also bosses which support and
others that are sustained. Those that are in the cross­
ing arch, or in the tiercerons, are supported. And
those that are at the ends of the cross arches or tier­
cerons, they all support.) [fols. 23v-24r].
Then, Rodrigo Gil gives an arithmetical rule for
calculating the weight of the bosses. The rule is
explained by an example. He calculates the weight
of the central boss for a square bay of 20 feet on
each side, most likely the one drawn to explain the
construction (Figure 2). The rule is as follows: “Pues
queremos saber una capilla que tiene de lado 20.
pies. tiene de cruçero 28 pies, tiene por circunferen­
çia 44. Y otros 44, del otro arco del cruzero son 88
pies Resta lo que es sustentado como el Rampante,
y allo en sus 4 medios 12. pies. quitados de 88.
quedan 76 de esto saca Raiz quadrada, Y bienen a la
Raiz 8. pies y 12/17 abos. Si pesare quintal el pie de
cruçero, la claue maior pese 8. quintales y 12/17
abos de quintal.” (So we want to know the boss for
bay which has 20 feet on each side, 28 feet on the
diagonal, and 44 feet the circumference of the cross
arch. Subtract what is supported, such as liernes;
then we have four halves which make 12 feet. Sub­
stract from 88 and obtain 76. And the square root
has 8 feet and 12/17th. If the foot of the cross arch
weighs a quintal, the central boss should weigh 8
quintals and 12/17 of a quintal.) [fol. 24r].
To make the calculations simple, he is supposing
that the ribs are arranged on the surface of a sphere
of radius half the diagonal of the square (which is
nearly true in many late-gothic star vaults). He
makes the calculations π = 22/7 and √2 = 7/5. This
use of approximate values is typical of the practical
geometry of the Gothic. We are not going to repeat
all the calculations, but it is illustrative, as an
example, to find the length of the cross rib: the
radius will be half the diagonal, (√2/2) (20) = ½ (7/
5) (20) = 28/2 = 14. The semicircle, the length of the
cross rib, therefore be π (14) = (22/7) (14) = 44 feet.
No doubt Rodrigo Gil has used the value of 20 feet
to obtain results in integers.
The rule is awkward because is dimensionally
incorrect: we obtain a weight multiplying the square
root of longitude (in feet) by the weight of one foot
of cross arch (in quintals). In fact the rule has the
right form as has been discussed elsewhere (Huerta
2012, 191). Of course, the rule requires to introduce
the numbers in adequate units: Castilian feet and
quintals.
The bosses should guarantee the equilibrium of
the rib skeleton during the construction of the vault
webs. The webs will be constructed from the perim­
eter of the bay to the center. That implies a great
weight on the springing of the ribs and a tendency to
raise the central part. It is most interesting that Karl
Mohrmann, a German architect of the second half of
the 19th Century, comments on precisely this prob­
lem: “It will be frequently observed that after partial
covering of the compartments a movement occurs in
the ribs, so that their upper ends with the boss rises
from the support” (Ungewitter 1890, 120).
2.5 Erection of a cross vault
After having explained how to obtain the size of the
ribs and bosses, Rodrigo Gil explains the process of
building the vault with the help of a drawing. Before
starting, he warns of the difficulty of understanding
42
the process for a layman, someone who is not
a master mason, has no experience or practice on
vault building, and has not witnessed the construc­
tion of any vault: “Y por que esta materia que tanto
importa, quede bien esplicada, Y exemplicada,
pondré a la buelta una demostracion, en que se enti­
enda esto cuando me sea posible, aunque estas
cosas, podran ser difiçiles de comprehender faltando
en quien las procura la experiencia la practica, la
profesion de la cantería, y la execuçion, o el aberse
allado presente a algunos çierres de cruçeria.” (In
order properly to explain and exemplify this matter
which is so important, I will next give
a demonstration, which I will try to make under­
standable to the test of my ability. However, these
things may be difficult to understand if one lacks
experience and practice, or if one is not a stone
mason, or has never been present at the closing of
a rib vault.) [fol. 24r]. The last sentence is particu­
larly important for modern researchers, architects or
engineers: the tradition of vault building has com­
pletely disappeared (including, of course, Gothic
vaults), and we are trying to understand something
we have never seen.
He lists the tasks that seem most important or
most difficult to him. Thus, he speaks of the diffi­
culty of cutting the curved liernes (“combados”),
obtaining the distorted templates (“rrebirar sus
moldes”), of using plumbs to calculate the heights of
the struts which support the bosses (“mazas de las
claves”), to cut the ribs on the tas-de-charge and to
advance them following their curvature, and cutting
the springing stones (“salmeres”), and, “many other
such things cannot be expected to become under­
stood by means of the demonstration, but I will try
my best to clarify it all” [fol. 24v].
Rodrigo Gil is listing all the main tasks involved
in the construction of a cross rib vault. The drawing
in Figure 2 is not the typical stonemason’s drawing
in which the plan and the elevation of the ribs are
drawn independently. Rodrigo Gil wants to explain
the process to someone who is a layman and, for the
first time, he is drawing the cross rib on the plan of
the vault, to show how to obtain the height different
heights of the bosses. He then goes on to explain the
drawing in relation to the construction [fol. 24v-25r].
Bosses: “Las 2. CC son la clave maior, una en
planta, Y otra en la buelta” (CC are the central boss
in plan and on the arch).
Tas-de-Charge: “las GG. Garjamentos, uno en
planta, Y otro en buelta por abanço como demuestran
las lineas de los puntos que pasan de nibel de un
lado a otro” (The GG are the tas-de-charge, again
shown in plan and in elevation with the stone levels
shown by the dotted lines drawn from one side to the
other).
Cross rib: “las DD. son la linea Curba diagonal,
que haçe el casco de la capilla, y aquel peso de las
losas que llamamos plementería y cargan sobre
aquellas orejillas que haçe el cruçero y alli se ve lo
que cuelga la moldura, que es una de 24…lo que se
be de la diagonal arriba es la cola que llevan cru­
zeros,Y claves” (the DD is the diagonal curved line
that forms the vault shell, together with the web
slabs which fit on the grooves of the cross rib, and
from this line down hangs the molding, which is one
twentyfourth of the bay side … what is seen above
this line is the ‘tail’ (“cola”) which all diagonal ribs
and bosses must have.)
Liernes: “aquel moldeçito jayrado que se be en la
buelta, es de los combados, Y lo que ay del 1. al 2.
es lo que rrequiere bulcar para que su moldura cayga
a plomo” (the small beveled molding seen in the ele­
vation is the lierne, and what is from 1 to 2 is hat
the lierne must be turned in order for its molding
to be vertical).
Struts: “las m.m. son las maças o pies derechos.
para asentar las claves antes que cruzero alguno”
(the mm are the struts to hold up the bosses in place
before the ribs are erected).
Scaffolds: “el andamio se açe al nibel de donde
comiençan a mober las bueltas, que significa la diag­
onal de la planta GC. y porque alli estará vajo, por
alIarse los jarjamentos con sus abançamentos mas
altos. Y no se alcançara an asentar los cruzeros sobre
ellos, se ará otro segundo andamio como S. Y este
tan quajado de fuertes tablones, que en ellos se
pueda traçar, delinear, y montear, toda la cruceria ni
mas, ni menos de lo que se ve en la planta.” (first
construct a scaffolding at the level of the imposts,
which is the diagonal line GC. But this will be too
low, since the tas-de-charge rises higher, and it will
not be possible to construct the cross ribs. Then,
a second scaffold will be built at level S, so full of
strong boards that upon them it may be possible to
trace, trace and construct the entire rib vaults as
shown in the plan).
Erection: The first step is to secure the struts sup­
porting the bosses and the way to calculate their
height is explained, both for the bosses on the diag­
onal arch and for the other secondary bosses on the
intersection of liernes or tiercerons For the diagonal
ribs it is straightforward: “… señaladas todas las
claues en su lugar sobre los tablones dejar caer per­
pendiculos, de la buelta a perpendiculo ellas, esto es
para las que están en los cruzeros o diagonales.” (…
having marked the various bosses of the diagonal
ribs on the boards, drop perpendicular lines from the
diagonal arch tothe boards.) [fol. 25r]. The method
for the other bosses implies to set a “cercha” (a cam­
bered plank or small truss) between the central boss
C in the cross rib and the boss of the transverse arch
B with the same curvature as the diagonal: “Mas
para las maças de todas las otras se ará assi. puesta
la clabe maior al alto que le toca, arás una çercha tan
larga que alcançe desde B. a C. que es desde el pie
de Gallo a la clave maior con la buelta de la diaG­
onal, y desde estas zerchas dejar caer plomos a las
claves que estan señaladas en los tablones, y aquello
será el largo de cada maça” (For all the other the
bosses proceed as follows. Having placed the central
boss at its required height, construct a cambered
43
plank long enough to reach from B to C, which is
from the keystone of the transverse arch to the cen­
tral boss. From these planks drop plumb lines to the
bosses indicated on the scaffolding boards, and these
lines will give the required height of each strut.) [fol.
25r-25v]. Rodrigo Gil then enters into certain details:
the struts should have a solid board nailed at the top
to support the boss, which will be decorated with
paintings or sculpted figures: “a la caveza alta llevará
un pedaçito de tablon, bien clavado, y Grueso para
que mejor asiente la tortera de la clave que esto que
cuelga de la moldura abajo señalada con T en la qual
se tallan laços, flores, dibujos, o figuras.” [fol. 25v]
(upon their top thick boards solidly nailed to support
the lower part of the boss, which is that part which
hangs below the moulding, marked with a T, and on
which are carved ornaments, flowers, designs, or fig­
ures.) Eventually, he makes an important remark
about the purpose of the drilled holes which may be
observed in many gothic bosses, which serve to
clean the bay, hang lamps or dismount the sacaffold
once the vault shell is completed: “abarrenando algu­
nas claves por medio de abajo ariva y estos agujeros
sirban para limpiar la capilla, o para colgar lamparas,
o para deshaçer los andamios de dicha capilla.” [fol.
25v] (Some of the Bosses should be drilled through
the middle from top to bottom, and these holes will
serve to clean the bay, to hang lamps, or to dismantle
the scaffolding of the said bay).
Here finish Rodrigo Gil’s explanation of the con­
struction of a cross rib. The exposition concentrates
in the erection of the stone skeleton of ribs and
bosses. He is silent of the last phase, that of the
building of the masonry webs between the ribs.
3 CONCLUSIONS
The exposition of Rodrigo Gil explains clearly the
process of construction. In a strong scaffold at the
level of the tas-de-charge the plan of the vault is
drawn full size. From the plan the heights of the
bosses are calculated and vertical, strong, struts are
set in position. Between these struts cambered
planks are set. Now the scaffoldings become “rigid”.
As Mohrmann has discussed a set of bars following
a star pattern form a rigid, unmovable structure
(Ungewitter 1890). Though Mohrmann refers only
to the stone skeleton the reasoning applies also to the
wooden scaffold, as interpreted in the sketch of
Figure 3. The bosses should be placed first; then the
ribs until the complete rigid rib skeleton is con­
structed. The thickness of the ribs guarantees its sta­
bility. Then the building of the webs between the
ribs will be made, proceeding from the perimeter of
the vault to the center. Now is when the boss weights
are crucial to maintain the equilibrium in compres­
sion of the rib skeleton (Huerta 2012). When the
vault shell is closed the vault forms a rigid, highly
redundant structure, capable of supporting loads in
infinite ways (Heyman 1995).

Figure 3. Conjectured scaffold for a star vault erection.
REFERENCES
Fitchen J. 1981. The construction of gothic Cathedrals:
A study of medieval vault erection. Chicago: The Uni­
versity of Chicago Press.
44
García S. 1681. Compendio de architectura y simetría
de los templos. Ms. 8884, Biblioteca Nacional de
Madrid (accesible in Biblioteca Digital Hispánica,
www.bne.es)
García S. 1991. Compendio de architectura y simetria de
los templos. 2 vol. Valladolid: C.O. Arquitectos de
Valladolid.
Heyman J. 1995. The Stone Skeleton. Structural Engineer­
ing of Masonry Architecture. Cambridge: Cambridge
University Press.
Huerta S. 2004. Arcos, bóvedas y cúpulas. Geometría
y equilibrio en el cálculo tradicional de estructuras de
fábrica. Madrid: Instituto Juan de Herrera.
Huerta S. 2012. Technical challenges in the construction of
gothic vaults. In Construction Techniques in the Age of
Historicism, U. Hassler. München: Hirmer, 2012:
162–195.
Moreno Dopazo P. 2017. Trazas de montea y cortes de can­
tería en la obra de Rodrigo Gil de Hontañón. PhD. E.T.
S. Arquitectura, Universidad Politécnica de Madrid.
Sanabria S.L. 1982. The Mechanization of Design in the
16th Century: The Structural Formulae of Rodrigo Gil
de Hontañón. Journal of the Society of Architectural
Historians 41: 281–293.
Ungewitter G. 1890. Lehrbuch der gotischen Konstruktio­
nen. III Auflage neu bearbaitet von K. Mohrmann 2
vols. Leipzig: T.O. Weigel Nachfolger.
 Reconstruction and Restoration of Architectural Heritage 2021 – Sementsov, Leontyev & Huerta (Eds)
© 2021 Taylor & Francis Group, London, ISBN 978-0-367-68296-5

Identification of author’s techniques in architecture of Leningrad avant­

garde
L.L. Kaloshina & N.P. Dubrovina
Saint Petersburg State University of Architecture and Civil Engineering, Saint Petersburg, Russia

ABSTRACT: The article is the result of a comprehensive study of the architecture of the first half of the
twentieth century, especially the avant-garde trends of Leningrad architecture. The article is based on the
results of a detailed author’s study of the work of Leningrad architects of the avant-garde era. In the 1920s
and 1930s, more than a thousand civil construction projects were built in Leningrad (modern Saint Peters­
burg), including those in the “constructivism” style. In the last three decades, Soviet architecture has been
carefully studied, and typical features of avant-garde trends have been identified. The analysis of the creativity
of constructivist architects revealed the uniqueness of the architectural and urban planning techniques of the
authors. This article uses the comparative analysis method to identify the features of the work of the outstand­
ing Leningrad architects A. I. Gegello and E. A. Levinson.

1 INTRODUCTION the architectural avant-garde. The works of N. P.,

The relevance of the article is due, on the one hand,
to the growing interest in Soviet architecture of the
1920s and 1930s, on the other hand, to the unsatisfac­
tory state of most constructivist objects. The search
and study of unique author’s architectural and urban
planning techniques can be the basis for identifying
the value characteristics of buildings and complexes
of the “constructivism” style, as well as for develop­
ing projects for the restoration of such objects.
The bibliography of the works of Russian and for­
eign scientists on the architectural trends of the first
third of the twentieth century is quite extensive. The
works of I.O. Adamov, I. D. Belogortsev, Yu. P. Vol­
chok, A. Gabrichevsky, M. T. Glebovna, G. Gorvits,
K. Gray, A.V. Dolgov, S. S. Dukhanov, A. Zalivako
(2012), A.V. Ikonnikov, V. Kvilichi, A. Kopp, K.
Cook, M. G. Meerovich, E. Ovsyannikova, A.V. Rya­
bushin are aimed at studying architecture and urban
planning of the cities of the USSR in the first third of
the twentieth century, biographies of Soviet architects
and the development of architectural schools and soci­
eties, N. S. Saprykina, A. N. Selivanova, L. N. Smir­
nov (2015), A. Strigaleva, S. O. Khan- Magomedov,
N. F. Khomutetsky, O. I. Yavein (2015), A. B. Yakush­
ina (2015) and others. The works of A. G. Weitens
(2015), R. Dayanov (2017, 2018), M. V. Zolotareva
(2017), B. M. Kirikov (2008), S. V. Sementsov (2011,
2012, 2017), T. A. Slavina, M. S. Stieglitz are devoted
to the urban planning and architecture of Leningrad of
the studied period, including individual monuments of
Dubrovina (2020), A.V. Mikhailov (2017),
S. V. Sementsov, T. A. Slavina are aimed at the devel­
opment of methods for the protection of cultural heri­
tage objects. However, it is worth noting that the
approach to the study of Soviet architecture in Lenin­
grad is not sufficiently detailed and often generalizing.
Works devoted to the work of architects are often
descriptive and biographical in nature without identify­
ing individual author’s characteristics.
This article examines the work of two outstanding
Leningrad architects of the first third of the twentieth
century, A. I. Gegello and E. A. Levinson. The authors
have a similar typology of the designed objects, which
include residential buildings and complexes, schools
and other educational institutions, cultural centers,
monuments, etc. The article discusses the projects of
architects related to the style of “constructivism”.
A comparison of the works of A. I. Gegello and
E. A. Levinson allows us to identify their authorial
features.
2 MATERIALS AND METHODS
The methodological basis of the research is
a comprehensive approach to the study of urban
planning and architectural projects of A. I. Gegello
and E. A. Levinson, conducting a comparative ana­
lysis, identifying features and patterns. To identify
the author’s handwriting of architects, it is necessary
to consistently study and analyze:

DOI: 10.1201/9781003136804-9

45
• Urban planning solutions based on the example of
the S. P. Botkin Infectious Diseases Hospital
(1927-1930, A. I. Gegello, D. L. Krichevsky, G.
A. Simonov), the residential working quarter of
the Putilovsky plant on Traktornaya Street (1925­
1927, A. I. Gegello, A. S. Nikolsky, G. A. Simo­
nov), the project of planning the city of Murmansk
(1930, E. A. Levinson, A. M. Sokolov, V. F. Tvek­
meler), the construction of Revolution Square in
Leningrad by the housing estate “Leningradsky the
printer” (1929, E. A. Levinson, I. I. Fomin), the
complex of buildings of the Palace of Culture.
Industrial cooperation and the first residential
building of the Lensoviet in the Petrogradsky dis­
trict (Project of 1930 by I. I. Fomin, E. A.
Levinson).
• Space-planning solutions of buildings on the
example of the Gorky Palace of Culture (1925­
1927, A. I. Gegello, D. L. Krichevsky, V. F.
Raylan), the I. I. I Palace of Culture, Gaza (1930­
1935, A. I. Gegello, D. L. Krichevsky), the Palace
of Culture. Lensoveta (1931-1938, E. A. Levinson,
V. O. Munts,) and other objects.
• Means of architectural and artistic design of
facades of projected buildings.
3 RESULTS AND DISCUSSION
The study of urban planning solutions by E. A.
Levinson and A. I. Gegello revealed a number of
author’s features. One of the most significant urban
development projects of A. I. Gegello is the
S. P. Botkin Infectious Diseases Hospital – the only
hospital complex of the“constructivism” period in
the Central District of St. Petersburg. Now the con­
dition of this complex of buildings is extremely
unsatisfactory. The hospital project included the
construction of 13 two-story pavilions with 950
beds. The general plan of the new hospital build­
ings demonstrates the location of the buildings at
an angle of 45 to Kremenchugskaya Street. “This
statement was adopted for all new buildings of the
first department of the hospital, the border of which
ran along the closed Pereyaslavskaya Street. The
exception was a group of old and new service build­
ings located on the site of the farmyard (Gegello
1962). Such a balanced solution of the general plan,
which corresponded to the oblique direction of Mir­
gorodskaya Street, was generally successfully com­
bined with the setting of the buildings of the second
department and the economic yard and gave certain
functional advantages…”, the author writes. It is
interesting that the main axis of the composition of
the general plan, repeating the direction of Kre­
menchug Street, does not coincide with it, but is
internal, the buildings of the buildings are per­
ceived dynamically, being located at an angle to the
main axis.
46
The development of Traktornaya Street also dem­
onstrates a peculiar and rather picturesque planning
scheme. Despite the fact that the buildings are located
in accordance with the red line of development, the
dynamic character is created by an asymmetric com­
position relative to Tractor Street. According to the
author, “the beginning of it is given by two pairs of
houses connected by semi-arches, set with a double
offset from the red line of the street; it is also empha­
sized by the partial elevation of the corner houses to
four floors. The next two houses, symmetrically
located along Traktornaya Street, form three small
ledges with their front facades, gradually narrowing
the street to normal width. Further on the right side of
it, two three-section houses are placed in a line, which
is met by three two-section houses on the left side”
(Vaytens 2015). If you graphically connect the main
axes of the objects, a zigzag line is formed, develop­
ing from the Avenue of Strikes, and the dynamism
increases to the Avenue of Strikes (Figure 1).
E. A. Levinson’s urban planning projects demon­
strate more rigorous planning solutions with the allo­
cation of the main axis and often symmetrical
composition.
An example is the project of the layout of the city
of Murmansk (Levinson at al 1930). The planning
solution of the inner blocks is created by a repeating
module of a rectangular shape. The main streets are
characterized by asymmetrical arrangement of build­
ings with the preservation of the red line. In the
development project of pl. Revolution in Leningrad
housing estate “Leningrad printer” (Levinson 1929)
we can also observe the location of buildings along
the red lines of development. The complex of resi­
dential buildings on Ivanovskaya Street is a later
work of the author, but at the same time
a characteristic example of a closed, symmetrical
Figure 1. Construction Tractor streets. Situational plan.
1. Gorky Palace of Culture;
2. House of Technical Studies;
3. Department store and factory-kitchen of Kirovsky dis­
trict;
4. Residential complex on Traktornaya Street;
5. School named after the 10th of October.
urban planning scheme. The axis of symmetry pass­
ing along Ivanovskaya Street is revealed. The project
of the complex of buildings of the Palace of Culture
of the Industrial Cooperation and the first residential
building of the Lensovet in the Petrogradsky district
(partially implemented) demonstrates a strict com­
position subordinate to the central axis. The compos­
ite axis according to the project connects the arch
between the two buildings of the Palace of Culture
(the sports part is not implemented) and the central
axis of the residential building of the Lensovet and is
emphasized by the bridge over the Karpovka river
(not implemented). The composite axis has a turn,
which is associated with the dense historical devel­
opment of the Petrogradsky district (Figure 2).
The analysis of space-planning solutions of build­
ings in the projects of E. A. Levinson and
A. I. Gegello demonstrates the originality of the
author’s choice. One of the most significant projects
of A. I. Gegello – the Gorky Palace of Culture in
Leningrad, has a symmetrical composition. The
audience hall has a trapezoidal shape, the lower part
of which is a smooth arc, its bend, we can see on the
main facade, like a glass screen, which is divided by
massive vertical pylons. Two towers of staircases,
rectangular in plan, extended forward relative to the
main plane of the facade, flank the volume of the
auditorium, continuing the direction of the sides of
the trapezoid. This arrangement of stair towers visu­
ally adds sharpness and dynamics to the perception
of the object. In general, the Gorky Palace of Culture
has a compact three-dimensional solution, the club
buildings are grouped with the theater part in
a single block.
Figure 2. The Palace of the culture of Leningrad City
Council. Situational plan with a display of the project pro­
posal by E. A. Levinson.
1. The Palace of Culture of the Leningrad City Council
(implemented case);
2. The unfulfilled building of the Palace of Culture of the
Leningrad City Council;
3. The first residential building of the Lensovet;
4. The unfulfilled bridge over the Karpovka river;
5. Svirstroy residential building.
47
A. I. Gegello uses a similar architectural and plan­
ning solution when designing the building of the
S. P. Botkin Infectious Diseases Hospital (Figure 3).
The building is deployed at an angle of 45 to the
border of the hospital territory along Kremenchugs­
kaya Street, the side wings are linked to the direction
of the street by two triangular terraces-porches. The
symmetric space-planning solution is applied to such
objects as the IM Hospital. Erisman, the “Big
House” of the NKVD, the Palace of Cinema (cinema
“Giant”), etc. A characteristic element of buildings
and structures authored by A. I. Gegello is the inclu­
sion of a sector of cylindrical volume, for example:
the Gorky Palace of Culture, the House of Technical
Studies, the I.I.Gaz Palace of Culture, the residential
buildings of the Traktornaya Street ensemble, the
building of the S. P. Botkin Infectious Diseases Hos­
pital, and others.
E. A. Levinson’s projects of the period under
review mainly demonstrate a combination of rect­
angular volumes. The most significant project is the
Palace of Culture of the Industrial Cooperation (now
the Palace of Culture named after him). Lensoveta).
The building occupies a plot at the intersection of
Figure 3. S. P. Botkin Hospital, 1927-1933, A. I. Gegello,
D. L. Krichevsky. The building of the autopsy room. Plans
for the basement, 1st, and 2nd floors. Published in the cata­
log “Architectural graphics of the Constructivist Era in the
collection of the State Museum of History of St. Petersburg
(2008).
Kamennoostrovsky, Levashovsky and Maly Avenues A. I. Gegello and E. A. Levinson to create certain
of the Petrogradskaya side, the facades are mainly elements typical of constructivism were different.
located along the red lines of the streets. Several sci­
• The effect of ribbon glazing. A. I. Gegello often
entific articles are devoted to the history of the con­
uses tonal selection of inter-window piers to
struction of the Palace of Culture (Dayanov 2017,
create the effect of ribbon windows, as evidenced
Dubrovina 2019). The main volumes in the project
by historical photographs of completed objects
were two parallelepipeds – an extended horizontal
and project sketches. This technique is used in
and vertical one. The building plan is complex and
the design of the Gorky Palace of Culture, the
asymmetrical. Despite the fact that the author’s cre­
I. I. Gaz Palace of Culture, and the building of
ative search demonstrates the transition from “rad­
the Botkin Dissecting Hospital. The windows of
ical constructivism” to “post-constructivism”, and
the I. A. Gegello Technical School House are
even to Stalinist neoclassicism, the composition of
united by a tonally highlighted projecting cornice.
the Palace of Culture develops to the corner of
E. A. Levinson, along with the tonal selection
Kamennoostrovsky and Levashovsky Avenues,
of window piers (for example, in a Cooperative
where the 47-meter tower was located according to
house of sovtorgservices), creates the effect of
the project. The main entrance is highlighted by
horizontal tape glazing through the use of solid
a massive portal with stained glass windows.
“tapes” of loggias or balconies. Examples of
We can also see the inclusion of a large stained-
Cooperative Soviet trading house, the first resi­
glass element on the extended facade of the House
dential building of the Leningrad City Council.
of Light Industry (1937-39, E. A. Levinson,
• Rasstanovka. In the constructivist projects of
I. I. Fomin), it is repeated three times.
A. I. Gegello, the strict division of the glazing
Asymmetrical dynamic composition with an
into equal rectangular elements dominates (for
emphasis on the corners is demonstrated by the pro­
example, the stained-glass windows of the Gorky
ject of the First residential building of the Lensovet
Palace of Culture, the glazing planes of the build­
(13 Karpovka River Embankment, 1931-1935,
ings of the Botkin Hospital, the Gaz Palace of
E. A. Levinson, I. I. Fomin). The arcuate concave
Culture, etc.). The projects of the transition
central part is flanked by lapidary rectangular
period to Stalinist neoclassicism already demon­
bodies, which creates a contrasting combination of
strate a more complex rassteklovka. If we con­
curved and rectangular shapes (Figure 4).
sider the works of E. A. Levinson, then even
Means of architectural and artistic design, most
constructivist buildings demonstrate a more com­
often used for the facades of designed buildings. In
plex rassteklovka with a hierarchy of thicknesses
Leningrad, the architecture of the avant-garde was
of imposts, creating some decorative facades.
mainly adapted to the classical traditions of the city,
• Decorative processing of facades. In the con­
however, typical techniques of constructivism are
structivist projects of E. A. Gegello, the use of
traced – ribbon and stained-glass glazing, the use of
smooth plaster with a minimum number of dec­
simple geometric shapes, a minimum number of dec­
orative elements dominates. The works of
orative elements. The architectural means used by
E. A. Levinson, which belong to the avant-garde
architectural trends, tend to be more decorative.
For processing the facade, terrazite or stone plas­
ter, embroidered under stone blocks, is more
often used. Stylized decorative elements are often
introduced into the composition of facades.

4 CONCLUSIONS

The article presents a step-by-step comparative ana­

Figure 4. E. A. Levinson. Sketches of the facades of the
first residential building of the Lensovet, 1933 Published in
the catalog “Architectural graphics of the Constructivist era
in the collection of the State Museum of the History of
St. Petersburg” (Museums of the history of St. Petersburg,
2008).
lysis of the work of two Leningrad architects who
worked in 1920-30 in the same architectural direc­
tion – “constructivism”. The study showed that, des­
pite the similar typology of objects, the common
climatic conditions of design, and the general archi­
tectural direction, it is possible to identify unique
author’s urban planning, spatial planning, and archi­
tectural and artistic techniques inherent in the stud­
ied buildings and complexes. At the same time, it is
worth noting that the author’s individuality is
expressed in the combination of the use of such
techniques.

48
5 RECOMMENDATIONS
The method of identifying the author’s handwriting
in the architecture of the Leningrad avant-garde can
be recommended as an additional source of informa­
tion when conducting scientific restoration of build­
ings and structures of the period under
consideration, as well as when identifying the value
characteristics of such objects. The results of the
study can be used in the educational process of uni­
versities in the preparation of bachelors, masters,
and postgraduates.
ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
The authors of the article express their gratitude and
recognition to the researchers whose works are
aimed at studying Leningrad architecture, including
T. A. Slavina, S. V. Sementsov, M. S. Stieglitz,
B. M. Kirikov, M. D. Sles, and others.
REFERENCES
Dayanov, R. M. & Zalmanzon, A. M. 2017. E. A.
Levinson-urban planner. The history of an unfulfilled
project. Bulletin of Civil Engineers, (5): 5–14.
Dayanov, R. M. & Zalmanzon, A. M. 2018. Sporting Palace
and the House of culture of LOPC: authorship, Dating,
continuity. Bulletin of Civil Engineers, (1): 10–16.
Dubrovina, N. P. 2019. House of Culture of Industrial
Cooperation (Palace of Culture named after him. Of the
Leningrad city Council): construction history of the
building. Perspectives of Science, (4): 84–87.
Dubrovina, N. P. 2020. Laws of definition of subject of pro­
tection of houses and palaces of culture built in Lenin­
grad in 1920-1930s. Reconstruction and Restoration of
Architectural Heritage, 15.
Gegello, A. I. 1962. From the creative experience. The
emergence and development of the architectural design.
Leningrad: State Publishing House for Construction,
Architecture and Building Materials.
Kirikov, B. M., & Stieglitz, M. S. 2008. Architecture of the
Leningrad Avant-garde. Saint Petersburg: Kolo.
Mikhailov, A.V. 2017. The main directions of the evolution
of the need to preserve cultural heritage objects. The
safeguarding of the intangible features. In Natural and
49
Cultural Heritage: Interdisciplinary Research, Conser-
vation and Development: 69–72.
Museums of the history of Saint Petersburg. 2008. Archi­
tectural graphics of the Constructivist era: in the collec­
tion of the State Museum of the History of Saint
Petersburg: catalog. St. Petersburg: State Museum of
History.
Sementsov, S. V. 2011. Urban development of
St. Petersburg in the XVIII-early XXI century. The
development of the territories prinia before the founding
of St. Petersburg. The development of Saint Petersburg
in the XVIII century. Saint Petersburg: SPbGASU.
Sementsov, S. V. 2012. Urban planning of
Petrograd-Leningrad: from the revolutionary defeat of
1917-1918 to the revival of 1935. Bulletin of the Saint
Petersburg University. Art History, 15 (1).
Sementsov, S. V. 2017. Petrograd-Leningrad Avant-garde:
planning, imaginative and social innovations and urban
planning traditions. In the Future of Constructivist
Architectural Monuments: 104–116.
Smirnov, L. N. & Bushmina, A.V. 2015. The architecture
of Constructivist clubs in Yekaterinburg in the
1920s-1930s. Academic Bulletin of UralNIIproekt
RAASN, (1): 32–37.
Smirnov, L. N. 2018. The avant-garde architecture of
Yekaterinburg and the cities of the Urals in the works of
West Siberian architects. Ekaterinburg: URGAHA.
Vaytens, A. G. 2015. Contribution of the Lenproekt Insti­
tute to the urban development of Leningrad in the
1930s-Early 1960s. Bulletin of Civil Engineers, (2):
5–12.
Yakushina, A. B. 2015. Transformations of linear and
planar elements in spatial constructions of the masters
of the russian avant-garde on the example of the work
of masters: K. Malevich, architects of the “Malevich
circle”, L. Lisitsky, K. Melnikov. Architecture and
Modern Information Technologies, 2 (31): 26.
Yavein, O. I. 2015. Architecture of the Russian
Avant-garde: the development of a universal language
of spatial relations. Academic Bulletin of UralNIIproekt
RAASN, (4): 31–35.
Zalivako, A. 2012. Die Bauten des russischen Konstrukti­
vismus, Moskau 1919-32: Baumaterial, Baukonstruk­
tion, Erhaltung [The constructions of Russian
Constructivism, Moscow 1919-32: building material,
building construction, conservation]. Saint Petersburg:
Imhof.
Zolotareva, M. V. 2017. Narva Zastava in Leningrad as an
Architectural Ensemble of 1920-1930. In the Future of
architectural monuments of Constructivism: 52–58.
 Reconstruction and Restoration of Architectural Heritage 2021 – Sementsov, Leontyev & Huerta (Eds)
© 2021 Taylor & Francis Group, London, ISBN 978-0-367-68296-5

Special features of Olenin’s “Priyutino” estate in Shlisselburg uyezd of

Saint Petersburg governorate
E. Kozyreva
Saint Petersburg State University of Architecture and Civil Engineering, Saint Petersburg, Russia

ABSTRACT: The article is dedicated to research of the placement of impressive and prestigious country
estates - “estates of the higher nobility” - on the territory of the Shlisselburg uyezd before 1917. Such unique
estates have received special functional, spatial and landscape characteristics that significantly distinguish
them from “ordinary” noble estates. The relevance of the work is due to the fact that at the moment the solu­
tions to adapt and preserve the estate heritage of Russia are actively sought. The purpose of the study is to
identify a separate type of objects called “nearby estates of the higher nobility”. For the purposes of the
research, the following methods were used: archival and bibliographic, cartographic, analytical, and field
research. Results: preserved and previously existing estates of the higher nobility are analyzed on the example
of the “Priyutino” estate of A. N. Olenin.

1 INTRODUCTION 2 MATERIALS AND METHODS

The period of formation of Saint Petersburg and the
Saint Petersburg governorate marked the beginning of
the development of a ring of suburban estates which
belonged to the highest ranks of nobles. The character­
istic feature of these estates, which significantly distin­
guishes them from ordinary urban, suburban and rural
estates, was in the functional, spatial and compositional
features that were created by the most famous Saint
Petersburg architects on the orders of the estate owners.
Numerous noble estates were ivestigated in the works
of I. V. Barsova, S. E. Guseva, T. E. Isachenko, O. V.
Litvintseva, listed in the general works on the theory
and history of architecture and garden art by T. B.
Dubyago, A. V. Ikonnikov, M. A. Ilyin, T. P. Kazhdan,
V. Ya. Kur-batov et al.; in works on Russian estates by
I.A. Bondarenko, T. P. Kazhdan, A. Yu. Nizovsky
et al.; in books and articles on the history of Saint
Petersburg, which contain information about the estates
by M. I. Pylyaev, N. N. Wrangel, N. V. Murashova,
L. P. Myslina, S. V. Seentsov et al. (2020)
The article is aimed at revealing the principles of
placement and search for distinctive features of estates
of the highest nobility around Saint Petersburg. It is
based on the study of numerous historical materials,
including various collections of cartographic and
descriptive information stored in various archives and
libraries of Saint Petersburg. Getting started
2.1 The territorial placement features of the higher
nobility estates
At the beginning of the 20th century, there were
about two thousand estates in the Saint Peters­
burg governorate. Among them were unique
Imperial palace and park complexes as well as
modest houses of rural landlords (Murashova
2005). To this date, hundreds of noble estates on
the territory of the modern center of Saint
Petersburg, in the zones of its nearby and
remote suburbs, in the far regions of the modern
Leningrad region (before 1917 - in the uyezds
of the Saint Petersburg governorate), were still
preserved, although in different state, and they
were studied quite in detail by Barsova (1971),
Guseva (2008), Isachenko (2003), Litvintseva
(2006). In all these publications estates owned
by the most influential individuals and families
in Russia, that had particularly large size,
a special larger and more diverse “set” of build­
ings, structures, natural and man-made land­
scapes have been identified.
In the research of the author of the article,
such unique estates are named as “estates of the
highest nobility” (“neighboring estates of the
higher nobility”) (Kozyreva 2016).

DOI: 10.1201/9781003136804-10

50
3 RESULTS AND DISCUSSIONS

In previous research by N. Ya. Tikhomirov it was

identified that suburban estates in the vicinity of
Moscow had the similar special size and structural
diversity and the dependence from the social status
and noble socio-political responsibilities of the
owner of the areas of estates, number of buildings,
the internal layout characteristics of the main estate
with greenhouses, pavilions, sculptures, lawns, etc.
in park compositions was shown (Tikhomirov 1995).
The “estates of the higher nobility” that appeared
and developed around Saint Petersburg represent
a unique type of domain of the upper layers of the
Russian nobility, created and operating until the 1917­
1920s. The distinctive features of such estates were the
bigger size if compared to ordinary nobles -more or
less than 5.0 hectares (in most cases tens, even hun­
dreds of hectares), as well as the presence of all sorts
of auxiliary and service buildings. An essential attri­
bute in the “estates of the highest nobility” was the
presence of non-trivial elements that could not be func­
tional, but necessarily show the elitism of its owner
(“temples of Friendship”, “hills of Parnassus”, green­
houses for exotic plants, stables for well-bred horses
and livestock, gardens and parks in a particularly artis­
tic rendering, ponds and lakes with special landscape
outlines, complex systems of paths and viewpoints,
etc.). In parallel, systems of estates of the higher nobil­
ity were formed in suburban and distant uyezds.
As a result of the analysis, it is possible to
reveal that the estates of the higher nobility can be
divided into categories depending on the area of Figure 1. The layout of the placement of estates of the
higher nobility in the territory of the Shlisselburg uyezd.
the estate. It should be noted that with the increase
in the area of the land plot of the estate, the
number of out-buildings does not increase, but at
the same time there are Park “frolics”: man-made 3.2 “Priyutino” estate of A. N. Olenin
ponds, grottos, Parnassus, curtanas and other enter­ The area of the preserved estate of A. N. Olenin
tainment structures. “Priyutino” is 10 ha.
In 1796 E. M. Olenina, nee Poltoratskaya, wife of
3.1 Estates of the shlisselburg uyezd Colonel A. N. Olenin, the future Director of the
Public library and President of the Academy of arts,
By 1917, there were a large number of different bought 766 tithes of land in the Shlisselburg district
estates on the territory of the Shlisselburg uyezd. Of from Gustav Orideriks in 12 versts from Saint Peters­
these, the study revealed 22 estates of the higher burg, in a wooded, partially swampy area. For the
nobility. Socially, the highest nobility included repre­ arrangement of the estate, a place was chosen on the
sentatives of the highest 4 ranks (according to the raised Bank of the Lubya river near the confluence of
“Table of ranks”, begun in 1719, approved by the the stream. The estate was named Priyutino. The first
Highest act of January 24, 1722, no. 3890. 1722) and manor house was made of wood. The erected brick
the Manifesto on Inheritance (introduced by Paul I as factory provided material for subsequent buildings.
“Establishment of the Imperial family” of April 5, Gradually two stone manor houses, two greenhouses,
1797, no.17906. 1797). Examples include the Irinovka 26 outbuildings and service buildings, made mostly
estate, the A. N. Olenin’s “Priyutino” estate, the Cher­ of stone (Figures 2 and 3) were built on the territory
naya Rechka estate, Pella, and others (Figure 1). of the estate. A landscape park was laid out with
Given the fact that most of the owners had no a pond formed by overlapping the stream near its con­
lower than the fourth rank according to the table of fluence with the Lubya river (Murashova, 2008).
ranks, estates of the higher nobility can be topolo­ On the plans of the estate made in 1864 and 1532,
gized based on several characteristics: the period of it can be seen that the Lubya river was also blocked
creation, square of the area, the number of objects on by a dam, which laid out into a wide lake, and in the
site. 1900 plan, the river is in its normal course. The

51
 construction of the estate was long-term due to the
financial difficulties of the Olenin family.
The complex of manor buildings occupied the
Eastern corner of the estate, enclosed between Rya­
bovskaya road and the slope to the river meadow.
The buildings are placed symmetrically relatively to
the center line, the continuation of which in the Park
is accentuated by a group of larch trees beyond the
pond. The main house is set along the slope to the
river meadow, opposite it at a slight angle,
the second manor house.
In 1820-1830, Priyutino became a kind of cultural
center, where the Olenin family gathered numerous
friends, acquaintances, the best representatives of
Russian culture such as A. S. Pushkin, I. A. Krylov,
A. S. Griboyedov, F. N. Glinka, K. P, and
A. P. Bryulov and many others whom not only
visited, but also worked in Priyutino.
In 1640, the children of the Olenin family sold the
estate to a collegiate adviser, doctor F. M. Adams. The
new owner immediately sold part of the land, and the
rest began to develop a rapid economic activity. This
was one of the first capitalist farms. A water mill,
a distillery, a dairy with an apartment for a Swiss spe­
cialist, a residential building with a kitchen, a three-
story potato barn, sheds, and stables were built. At the
same time, the barnyard and drying barn were rebuilt,
and the old buildings were repaired.

Figure 2. Plan of the land plot of the Priutino estate. Shlis­

selburgsky uyezd, TSGIA SPb Fund 262. Inventory 97.
Case 248.

Figure 3. Plan of the plan of the Priutino estate land plot. Figure 4. Part of the manor Priyutino of M. A. Krause.
Shlisselburgsky uyezd, TSGIA SPb Fund 262. Inventory Factory in 1900. TSGIA Fund 1102, inventory 2, storage
97. Case 248. unit 832, sheet 12.

52
 Rationally arranged economy and the estate in
full order in 1853 passed under the bill of sale into
the possession of Lieutenant General A. H. Daller.
A. H. Daller and subsequent owners of
P. F. Serapin and E. A. Peretz did not change any­
thing at the manor. In 1897, the estate was bought
by candidate of historical sciences M. A. Krause
(Figure 3). He continued the active economic
activity started by Adams on a capitalist basis.
To this date, many outside buildings and small
forms have been lost. Details of landscape park vege­
tation compositions have not been preserved. The
design of the cascade at the dam, which now exists in
a concrete version, has disappeared, and the slopes at
the channel are covered with self-seeding thickets.
The surroundings of the estate have changed. The
Lubya river became shallow. Modern buildings,
fences near the estate, a noisy highway, and the gen­
eral lack of well-groomed territory reduce the artistry
of the landscape. However, the lovingly restored park
and buildings will not leave anyone indifferent.
The revival of the estate began in 1969, when the
creation of the museum had begun, which opened its
doors in 1974.
Currently, the estate of A. N. Olenin is a literary and
art Museum-estate “Priyutino”.
4 CONCLUSIONS
According to the results of research, the estate of
A. N. Olenin is classified by author as a manor of
the higher nobility according to its morphological
and territorial-planning features. “Priyutino” is one
of the few estates that have not been fully preserved
to this day. Despite the negative urban-planning
transformations of the surrounding territory, how­
ever, the estate of A. N. Olenin can be considered
preserved.
The conducted research has once again shown the
need to allocate such estates to a separate type of
cultural heritage objects and identify its subsequent
rational use.
The modern functional use of this estate is the
most suitable for this type of estate, that is the
memorialization of the object with the introduction
of a historical and cultural component. However,
realizing that not all estates can be adapted at the
53
expense of the state, in my research I draw conclu­
sions about other alternative uses, including those
with a commercial component, but with the direct
participation of the state. This participation is
necessary, among other things, to ensure that all
the structural and landscape-compositional fea­
tures of the estates of the highest nobility are taken
into account. In this case, the format of public-
private partnership is most justified, since it allows
to preserve the historical and cultural component
and removes some of the state’s concerns about
the use of the object.
REFERENCES
Barsova I.V. 1971. Manor parks of the Leningrad region
and principles of their use. Leningrad: Leningrad Civil
Engineering Institute.
Guseva S. E. 2007. Alleys in the estates of the Saint Peters­
burg province. Industrial and civil construction 7:
49–50.
Guseva S.V. 2008. Garden and park complex of rural noble
estates in Saint Petersburg province (typological
aspect). Saint Petersburg: SPBGASU.
Isachenko T. E. 2003. Interrelation of natural and cultural
complexes of noble estates and landscapes. Saint Peters­
burg: SPbSU.
Kozyreva Е. А. 2016. Nearby estates of the highest nobility
as a phenomenon of the historical and urban planning
life of Saint Petersburg (for example, Yekateringofsky
Park). Bulletin of Civil Engineers 1 (54): 5–11.
Litvintseva O.V. 2006. Formation of rural noble estates in
the Novgorod province at the end of the 18th - 19th cen­
turies. Saint Petersburg: SPBGASU.
Murashova N.V. 2005. One hundred noble estates of the
Saint Petersburg province: a historical guide. Saint
Petersburg: Choice.
Murashova N.V., Myslina L.P. 2008. Noble estates of the
Saint Petersburg province. Vsevolozhsky district. Saint
Petersburg: Alaborg.
Sementsov S. V., Kozyreva E. A. & Shuvaeva E. Yu. 2020.
Estates of the highest nobility of the Saint Petersburg
province as a special spatial structure of the historical
Saint Petersburg agglomeration. IOP Conf. Series:
Materials Science and Engineering, 775.
Sementsov S., Akulova N. 2019. Foundation and develop­
ment of the regular Saint Petersburg agglomeration in the
1703 – 1910-s. Advances in Social Science, Education
and Humanities Research 324: 425–433.
Tikhomirov N. 1995. The architecture of the Moscow region
estates. Moscow: Gosstroyizdat.
 Reconstruction and Restoration of Architectural Heritage 2021 – Sementsov, Leontyev & Huerta (Eds)
© 2021 Taylor & Francis Group, London, ISBN 978-0-367-68296-5

Analysis of engineering condition survey of cultural heritage objects of

Arkhangelsk
V.V. Koptyaev & A.V. Karelsky
Northern (Arctic) Federal University, Arkhangelsk, Russia

ABSTRACT: The results of many years of work on the survey of the engineering condition of cultural heri­
tage objects located in the city of Arkhangelsk are presented. The features of structures, the main problems
that arise during the operation of brick buildings in the engineering-geological and climatic conditions of the
Far North are considered.

1 INTRODUCTION M. V. Lomonosov NArFU has the necessary

Arkhangelsk is located in the north of the European
part of Russia, on the territory equated to the condi­
tions of the Far North. The climatic conditions are
unfavorable for living and are characterized by cold,
snowy winters, strong winds, and significant precipita­
tion. At the base of the buildings lie peat soils, which
complicate the construction of foundations. Such nat­
ural conditions had a great influence on the design fea­
tures of the foundations, load-bearing and enclosing
structures of buildings built in the XVIII-XX centuries
(Barashkov 1981, Garyaev 1986, Okhuizen 1993).
In Arkhangelsk, several dozen buildings are
objects of the cultural heritage of regional and fed­
eral significance (Mende1968). The authors of this
article in the period 1999 – 2020 carried out work on
the survey of various objects of cultural heritage
(Popova 1993, 1994). In this article, only buildings
with brick walls are considered, since the design fea­
tures of wooden buildings differ significantly from
brick ones, which is a separate topic of research.
All objects of cultural heritage are unique, each
has its own characteristics, but it is possible to distin­
guish the design characteristics, as well as defects
and damage typical of all objects in Arkhangelsk
(Bartenev & Fedorov 1968).
Russian regulatory documents impose quite strict
requirements for the development of project documen­
tation for the restoration and adaptation to the current
use of cultural heritage objects. Works on technical
inspection by the requirements of GOST R 55528­
2013 are included in the section of the project docu­
mentation “Complex scientific research”. This section
also covers historical and archival research, architec­
tural research, engineering research, chemical and
technological research of construction and finishing
materials.
laboratory facilities and modern equipment for carry­
ing out the entire complex of scientific research of
cultural heritage objects.
In this article, as examples, the authors consider
the following objects of cultural heritage (Gemp
1983, Ovsyannikov & Firsov 1991, Lopatko. &
Lopatko 1983, Popova 2002):
1. Solovetsky farmstead, “Hotel, the second half of
the XIX century”, located at the address Arkhan­
gelsk, embankment of the Northern Dvina, 77/1.
2. Estate house of E. K. Plotnikova, “Commercial
building (Oktyabrsky District Executive Commit­
tee) of the XVIII-XIX centuries”, located at the
address Arkhangelsk, Pomorskaya str., 1.
3. Rehabilitation hospital “Dmitrievsky’s Hospital,
1911”, located at the address Arkhangelsk,
Chumbarov–Luchinsky Ave., 24.
At these sites, the authors were directly involved in
the technical survey and development of project docu­
mentation for restoration and adaptation to
modern use.
2 MATERIALS AND METHODS
Historical background. In the middle of the XVII
century, severe fires occurred in Arkhangelsk,
which caused significant changes in the urban struc­
ture of the city. After the fires, the plan for the regu­
lar development of Arkhangelsk was revised.
According to the new plan, there were streets paral­
lel to the Embankment of the Northern Dvina. The
main street of the city was (and is still considered
to be) Kupetskaya str. or Merchant Street-now
Troitsky Ave (Kuratov & Bulatov 2001, Lopatko &
Lopatko 1983).

DOI: 10.1201/9781003136804-11

54
 Part of the modern territory of the city, located
along the embankment of the Northern Dvina, from
Karl Liebknecht Street to Volodarsky Street, began to
be developed for residential development at the begin­
ning of the XVIII century (Ozhegov 1984). During the
XIX – early XX centuries, a shopping embankment
was formed, on which merchant houses, banks, and
monastic farmsteads were located. The buildings at
that time began to be built in stone, mostly two-stories,
with retail shops on the first floors (Popova 2010;
Seleznev 1970; Shalkevich 1994).
Individual buildings were combined into com­
plexes, which were called “farmsteads”. For
example, the courtyard of the Solovetsky Monastery
at that time consisted of a stone two-story house, on
the 1st floor there were shops and storerooms, on the
2nd floor there were living quarters. As a result of
numerous reconstructions, in the middle of the XIX
century, a complex of stone buildings was formed on
the Solovetsky farmstead, located along the perim­
eter of a vast, irregular-shaped plot. Currently, with
the participation of the authors of this article, the
project documentation for the restoration of the
Solovetsky farmstead is being developed.
The estate house of E. K. Plotnikova, “Trade build­
ing” was built at the end of the XVIII century as
a residential building with retail shops on the first floor.
This building was distinguished by the presence of an
arched gallery on the lower floor. For more than 200
years, the house has been repeatedly rebuilt, passing
from one owner to another. Since 1902, the building
belonged to the Arkhangelsk honorary citizen
E. K. Plotnikova. Currently, after the restoration work,
the building houses the museum’s exhibits.
The “Rehabilitation hospital” was built in 1911
according to the project of the Arkhangelsk engineer
A. A. Karetnikov. The building housed the electric
light clinic of P. A. Dmitrievsky. On the first floor
was the hospital itself, on the second floor was the
living quarters of the doctor’s family. Currently, the
building is renovated, on the 1st floor, there is
a restaurant, on the 2nd floor there are office
premises.
This type of building is a stone, two– or three-
story, with massive rubble foundations on a pile
foundation and powerful brick walls, the most pre­
served and continue to be used at present.
Engineering and geological conditions. For the
central part of Arkhangelsk, where most of the build­
ings that are objects of cultural heritage are located,
the following stratification of soils is characteristic
(from top to bottom):
• Technogenic deposits (t IV), represented by bulk
sand, sawdust, slag, and construction debris. The
thickness of man-made deposits can be up
to 2-3 m.
• Biogenic sediments (b IV), represented mainly by
peat of medium and strong degree of decompos­
ition, saturated with water. The thickness of the
peat layer can be from 0.5 to 5 m;
55
• Lacustrine-glacial deposits (lg IV), represented
by loams of fluid and soft-plastic consistency.
The thickness of the layer is small: 0.5-1.5 m;
• Glacial deposits (g III), represented by loams and
clays of various consistencies (from refractory to
hard), with coarse-grained inclusions of gravel
and pebbles. The thickness of the layer of glacial
deposits is 1.5-6.0 m;
• Marine sediments (m III), represented mainly by
clays in a semi-solid and solid consistency.
The upper horizon of underground water can be
located in a layer of man-made sediments or be con­
fined to biogenic sediments. At the same time, it is
necessary to consider seasonal fluctuations in the
groundwater level, as well as the impact of leaks
from utilities that are not in the best condition in the
center of Arkhangelsk.
The lower horizon of the underground water is an
interplastic pressure water and can be located in
a layer of interglacial sediments, represented by
sands of various sizes.
The physical and mechanical properties of the
soils in the center of Arkhangelsk have been studied
quite well. The Department of Engineering Geology,
Foundations and Foundations of the
M. V. Lomonosov NArFU has an accredited labora­
tory where all types of studies of the physical and
mechanical properties of soils are carried out.
The engineering and geological conditions of the
city of Arkhangelsk should be attributed to the 3rd cat­
egory of complexity according to SP 47.13330.2016
since there are specific soils (b IV) that are widespread
and have a decisive influence on the choice of design
solutions for building foundations.
When carrying out works on complex scientific
research of cultural heritage objects, engineering and
geological surveys are carried out in conjunction
with engineering and geodesic and engineering and
environmental surveys.
3 RESULTS AND DISCUSSION
3.1 Description of building structures
Foundations. In the engineering and geological con­
ditions of the city of Arkhangelsk, the construction
of the foundations of most brick buildings of cultural
heritage objects is rubble masonry on wooden piles
that are buried in glacial deposits.
It should be noted that in some places of Arkhan­
gelsk, located on the bank of the Severnaya Dvina
River, glacial deposits can come to the surface, i.e.
there is no peat layer. In such conditions, the founda­
tions may be on a natural foundation.
As a result of numerous works carried out by
the authors on the survey of the technical condi­
tion of cultural heritage objects, the authors have
established the following typical foundation
structure:
• the brickwork of the walls rests on the rubble
masonry of the foundations, made of raw lime­
stone or granite stones. The rubble masonry is
made on a lime-sand mortar;
• the stonework is laid out on a wooden deck made
of planks or wooden beds. The longitudinal piles
are supported by transverse piles, which combine
several piles in a row;
• wooden piles are made of 2-5 pieces in
a transverse row, depending on the width of the
rubble masonry. The longitudinal pitch of the
piles is usually from 1 to 2 m. The length of the
piles depends on the engineering and geological
conditions and is usually 5-6 m.
Based on the experience of the foundation survey,
the authors found that the decisive factor affecting
the technical condition of the foundations is the pos­
ition of the groundwater level.
As a rule, the foundations of buildings are made
in such a way that all wooden elements (decking,
longitudinal and transverse beds, piles) are below
the groundwater level. In this case, the wood is con­
stantly in the water and does not rot. Experience
shows that the wooden elements of the foundations
of buildings built 200 and even 300 years ago,
located below the groundwater level, are in
a satisfactory condition.
If there is a decrease in the water table and the
wooden elements of the foundations fall into the aer­
ation zone, then there is an intense rotting and
destruction of the wood. Rotting wood can cause
uneven deformations of load-bearing structures
(walls, floors), the appearance of cracks, and even
the collapse of individual elements of buildings.
For the city of Arkhangelsk, the rotting of piles of
wooden buildings built in the “Soviet” period is
a very serious problem. Every year there is an unex­
pected “descent” from the piles of buildings in
which people live.
The second most important factor that affects the
technical condition of the foundations of buildings
of cultural heritage objects is the destruction of
rubble masonry. The destruction of masonry occurs
due to the impact of groundwater and freezing of
foundations in winter. Repeated periodic freezing-
thawing of rubble masonry located in the aeration
zone, causes destruction and leaching of the solution
between the stones. In the process of examining the
foundations, when the pits are torn off, even individ­
ual stones fall out of the rubble masonry. The
destruction of mortar and the destruction of masonry
cause uneven deformations of structures and the
appearance of cracks in the load-bearing walls of
buildings.
The destruction of rubble masonry can also be
caused by systematic leaks from the sewerage and
water supply systems, which are often in a state of
disrepair for cultural heritage sites.
The technical condition of the foundations of
buildings that are objects of cultural heritage is very
56
often the main reason for the emergency condition of
load-bearing structures and buildings.
Load-bearing walls. The exterior walls of the cul­
tural heritage sites are made of solid clay bricks.
According to the results of the survey of the tech­
nical condition of cultural heritage objects, the wall
thickness is:
– 1st floor-800 ÷ 1330 mm,
– 2nd floor-730 ÷ 950 mm,
– 3rd floor-520 ÷ 770 mm,
The most common brick sizes are 265 × 130 ×
60 mm. As a result of the tests carried out to deter­
mine the strength of the wall material, it was found
that the brick grade is not less than M75, the mortar
grade is not less than M25. The facades of the
buildings were plastered mainly with lime-sand
mortar.
The internal walls of the building were also made
of solid clay bricks. The thickness of the internal
walls was designed to be smaller than the external
ones and makeup:
– 1st floor – 520 ÷ 1180 mm,
– 2nd floor– 590 ÷970 mm,
– 3rd floor – 600 ÷ 890 mm,
Inside the buildings, the walls were also plastered
with lime-sand mortar.
When examining the load-bearing walls of cul­
tural heritage objects, the plaster layer and brickwork
of the walls were probed. It is established that the
rows of the outer verst are formed by alternating
spoons and pokes. In this case, each next row is posi­
tioned so that its pokes are in the center of the
spoons of the previous row.
In some buildings, rectangular steel strands are
laid in the walls to increase the strength of the
brickwork.
Based on the experience of the survey of load-
bearing walls, the authors found that almost all
buildings of cultural heritage objects are character­
ized by the presence of three types of wall damage:
• Destruction of the plaster layer of external walls
under the influence of atmospheric precipitation;
• Cracks in load-bearing walls (longitudinal,
inclined, and horizontal);
• Chipped brickwork as a result of destruction.
The destruction of the plaster layer occurs mainly
due to the lack of an organized drain from the roof
of buildings. There is a water saturation of the plas­
ter, repeated freezing-thawing in winter and its
destruction. Further, the processes of destruction and
destruction of the brickwork of the walls are already
taking place.
The appearance of cracks in the load-bearing
walls in most cases is caused by the unsatisfactory
condition of the foundations.
Brickwork chips are the result of systematic damp­
ening of the masonry in the absence of a blind area, the
absence of an organized gutter, or damage to the gutter
structures. Often, damage to the walls is caused by
improper operation of the building structures.
Overlaps. As a result of the analysis of the experi­
ence of a detailed survey of overlaps of cultural heri­
tage objects, several types of overlaps were identified:
• Wooden beams of rectangular or round cross-
section, on top of which there is a boardwalk (the
main type of floors);
• Metal beams in the form of a rail, on top of
which a boardwalk is arranged;
• Monolithic ribbed ceiling;
• Solid plank floor;
• Vaulted inter-floor brick floors.
As a heater for inter-floor and attic floors of build­
ings, the most common material is sawdust.
Most often there is damage to the basement
wooden floors in the form of wood damage by
wood-destroying fungi. This situation occurs when
there is no ventilation of the underground. The lack
of ventilation in the external walls of the building
can be due to several reasons:
• initially, they were not provided for;
• were laid down during operation;
• overgrown with a “cultural” layer.
In the vaulted inter-floor brick floors, there are
damages in the form of longitudinal cracks. The
reason for their occurrence is the uneven precipita­
tion of the building.
Another cause of damage to wooden floors is
leaking from the roof of the building. At the same
time, not only the beams of the attic but also the
inter-floor floor is destroyed.
Roof. Based on the experience of the survey, it
was found that the roof structures are mainly trussed.
The rafter legs are supported by a plate mounted on
the brick walls. Depending on the design of the roof,
various slants, longitudinal frames, screeds, etc. are
used on the roof.
It is a difficult task to systematize the roof struc­
tures of buildings of cultural heritage objects, since
already at a later time there were numerous alter­
ations and repairs of the roof of buildings caused by
fires and leaks.
As a result of the analysis of the experience of
a detailed examination of the roof timber structures
and the roof of cultural heritage objects, the follow­
ing characteristic defects were found:
• rotting wood elements roof timber;
• longitudinal cracks in roof timber elements,
posts, strapping;
• fire damage of wood and roof timber elements;
• biological damage to the wood of roof timber
elements;
• poor quality of repair work on the device of cut­
tings and connections
57
The technical condition of the roof of buildings is
mainly due to the presence of leaks.
4 CONCLUSION
As a result of the analysis of many years of experi­
ence in the survey of the technical condition of cul­
tural heritage objects in Arkhangelsk, the following
has been established:
1. Engineering and geological conditions are char­
acterized by the presence of a significant layer of
biogenic sediments. The thickness of the peat
layer has a decisive influence on the construction
of foundations.
2. The foundations of most brick buildings are
rubble masonry, made on wooden piles, which
are buried in glacial deposits.
3. The main factor affecting the technical condition
of the foundations is the position of the ground­
water level. Lowering the water table causes rot­
ting of the wooden elements of the foundations
and uneven deformations of the load-bearing
structures.
4. An important factor in the technical condition of
the foundations is the destruction of rubble
masonry. The destruction of masonry occurs due
to the impact of groundwater and freezing of
foundations in winter.
5. Rotting of wooden piles and destruction of
rubble masonry are the main reasons for the
emergency condition of load-bearing structures
and buildings of cultural heritage objects in
general.
6. The load-bearing walls of the buildings are made
of solid clay bricks. The thickness of the walls
varies depending on the floor of the building.
The facades of the buildings are plastered with
lime-sand mortar.
7. Defects and damage to load-bearing walls in the
form of destruction of the plaster layer and brick­
work occurs mainly due to the lack of organized
drainage from the roof of buildings.
8. The appearance and development of cracks in
the brickwork of load-bearing walls are mainly
caused by defects and damage to the
foundations.
9. During the survey, several types of floors were
identified, the main of which are wooden beams
of rectangular or round cross-section.
10. Most often there is damage to wooden floors in
the form of wood damage by wood-destroying
fungi, which is caused by the lack of guard space
in the external walls of the building.
11. Roof structures are mainly truss-like. Depending
on the design of the roof, various struts, longitu­
dinal frames, and screeds are used on the roof.
12. It is difficult to systematize the roof structures,
due to the numerous repairs of the roof of build­
ings, which are caused by fires and leaks.
 This article examines the objects of cultural heri­
tage represented by brick buildings. We plan to pub­
lish articles on wooden buildings in Arkhangelsk, as
well as analyze the experience of strengthening the
load-bearing structures of buildings during their res­
toration and adaptation to modern use.
REFERENCES
Barashkov Yu. A. 1981. Arkhangelsk: Architectural biog­
raphy. Arkhangelsk: North Western Book Publishing
House.
Bartenev, I. A., & Fedorov, B. N. 1968. Architectural
monuments of the Russian North. Moscow: Iskusstvo.
Garyaev R. M. 1986. From the history of urban planning in
the second half of the XVIII century. History of the
USSR (6): 141–154.
Gemp K. P. 1983. Gostiny Dvor in Arkhangelsk. Monu­
ments of the Arkhangelsk North: 138–140.
Kuratov A. A.& Bulatov V. N. 2001. The Pomeranian
Encyclopedia: The History of the Arkhangelsk North.
Arkhangelsk: Pomeranian State University.
Lopatko V. M. & Lopatko P. M. 1983. Solovetsky farm­
stead in the city of Arkhangelsk. Arkhangelsk Pomer­
ania. History and Culture: 88–91.
Mende, U. 1968. Westeuropäische Bildzeugnisse zu Rußland
und Polen bis 1700: Ein Beitr. zur histor. Köln: Bildkunde.
Okhuizen E. 1993. The Dutch Cartography of Russia,
16th-18th Centuries. In Proceedings of the Conference
on the Relations between Russia and Netherlands from
the 16th- to the 18th Century held at the Rijksmuseum
Amsterdam, June 1989. Groningen: C.A.L.M. Willem­
sen: 71–115.
Ovsyannikov O. V. & Firsov L. D. 1991. Arkhangelsk Gos-
tiny Dvor. Monuments of the Arkhangelsk North:
108–123.
Ozhegov S. S. 1984. Typical and repeated construction in
Russia in the XVIII-XIX centuries. Moscow: Stroyizdat.
Popova L. D. 1993. Architectural monuments of Arkhan­
gelsk. Moscow: Russian Geographical Society of the
Russian Academy of Sciences.
Popova L. D. 1994. Arkhangelsk: An essay on the history
of construction (late XVI-early XX centuries). Arkhan­
gelsk: Russian Geographical Society of the Russian
Academy of Sciences.
Popova L. D. 2002. Arkhangelsk Gostiny Dvor. Pomer­
anian Chronicler: Almanac (1): 18–32.
Popova L. D. 2010. Architecture of Arkhangelsk: Artistic
image, style, tradition. Arkhangelsk: Pravda Severa.
Seleznev A. G. 1970. Arkhangelsk and its surround­
ings. Arkhangelsk: North Western Book Publishing
House
Shalkevich A. A. 1994. In the Arkhangelsk city was built:
Pages of the history of the architecture of the city of the
late XVI-early XX centuries. Arkhangelsk: Pravda Severa.

58
 Reconstruction and Restoration of Architectural Heritage 2021 – Sementsov, Leontyev & Huerta (Eds)
© 2021 Taylor & Francis Group, London, ISBN 978-0-367-68296-5

Saint Petersburg: Forgotten landscapes of the historical center

L. Lavrov, N. Novokhodskaya & A. Surovenkov
Saint Petersburg State University of Architecture and Civil Engineering, Saint Petersburg, Russia

ABSTRACT: The article is devoted to the “St. Petersburg Strategy for the preservation of cultural heritage”,
which does not pay enough attention to the unique landscapes of the historical center, which were lost in the
course of urban development since the mid-nineteenth century. The study is based on the example of the terri­
tories of the urban core around the Neva River, the analysis of evolution is carried out, the areas with the
greatest lost landscape potential are identified, the possibilities and ways of their regeneration are considered.
The influence of public gardens on the spatial parameters of the environment is analyzed. The authors con­
cluded that the widespread belief about the perfection and completeness of the urban environment of
St. Petersburg is valid only at the strategic level, but cannot automatically extend to specific territories. In the
core of the center, the largest gaps are outlined and the nodes that destroyed the unity of the three-
dimensional framework are named. It is recommended to regenerate the open spaces around the Admiralty
based on the methods of careful landscape reconstruction of the green areas located here.

1 INTRODUCTION urban environment in the center of St. Petersburg

Landscape potential of the historical center. The
development of St. Petersburg in its early stages was
characterized by exceptionally high rates of urbanized
processes. By the 1830s, the city had almost half
a million inhabitants, and its territory exceeded 4,500
hectares. In the main part of the city, a clear regular
planning structure has developed, considering the
high architectural and artistic level of the panoramas
of the center. In the first third of the XIX century, the
formation of a system of architectural ensembles was
completed, which revealed the role of the Neva River
as a center of spatial composition (Lisovsky 2004).
Intensive urbanization was characteristic in the
late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries and
“ played a decisive role in the formation of the urban
environment and the appearance of St. Petersburg.”
By 1914, capital stone construction had compacted
the blocks of the center and spread to its outskirts. In
the historical core, there was a “completion or
change of the main ensembles”. Nevertheless, it is
believed that” the result of this process was not
a radical reconstruction of the spatial-planning frame­
work, but the renewal of the main building array of
both central and peripheral areas” (Kirikov 2008).
The urban environment that developed at that
time “ can be considered complete due to its unity
and saturation. And also, because its formation has
ended (or ended).) a hundred years ago, after which
it was not subjected to drastic changes” (Kirikov
2014). Comparative analysis of cartographic mater­
ials suggests that the basic parameters of the modern
correspond to the parameters of 1914.
The position of the specialists was reflected in the
“St. Petersburg Strategy for the Preservation of Cul­
tural Heritage” approved by the city government»:
“Baroque and classicism made up the” golden age”
of St. Petersburg architecture… The unique degree of
preservation of the historical buildings of
St. Petersburg is because the new construction of the
Soviet period was carried out outside the historical
core of the city. In the central districts, local trans­
formations were carried out” …” (Decree of the Gov­
ernment of St. Petersburg on 01.11.2005, No 1681).
The recommendation of B. M. Kirikov (2014) is
logical.): “A valuable historical environment needs
better maintenance, not a change in its parameters.”
2 MATERIALS AND METHODS
The purpose of this publication is to analyze the
transformations of the urban environment that took
place in the 1830s – 1980s in the core of the histor­
ical center, and their impact on the urban landscape.
Special attention will be paid to “panoramas and
views perceived from the embankments of the Bol­
shaya Neva, viewpoints from which the most valuable
ensembles are best revealed” (Decree of the Govern­
ment of St. Petersburg, 01.11.2005, No 1681). The
analysis uses the indicators that the “St. Petersburg
Strategy for the Preservation of Cultural Heritage”
recognized as the most significant - “spatial planning
framework, configuration of central water spaces,

DOI: 10.1201/9781003136804-12

59
citywide silhouette, panoramas of rivers, ensembles
of main squares, prospects of main streets…” (Decree
of the Government of St. Petersburg on 01.11.2005,
No 1681). The analysis uses the indicators that the
“St. Petersburg Strategy for the Preservation of Cul­
tural Heritage” recognized as the most significant ­
“spatial planning framework, configuration of central
water spaces, citywide silhouette, panoramas of
rivers, ensembles of main squares, prospects of main
streets…” (Decree of the Government of
St. Petersburg on 01.11.2005, No 1681).
3 RESULTS AND DISCUSSION
Evolution of the landscapes of the historical core.
The diagram (Figure 1) reveals the changes that took
place in the 1830s-1980s around the central water
area of the Neva River (“the main square and the
main avenue of St. Petersburg” (Decree of the Gov­
ernment of St. Petersburg on 01.11.2005, No 1681).
The south side of the “main square”. Public gardens
(they are highlighted in green on the diagram). This
was a new type of urban environment that began to
appear in St. Petersburg from the 1830s and became
widespread in the second half of the XIX century.
Public gardens were created as utilitarian objects of
recreational and health-improving purposes, designed
for a wide range of citizens. In architectural studies,
they were considered either “useless squares”
(Lukomsky 1910), or they attached importance only to
their quantitative indicators: the area and the number
Figure 1. Urban development activity around the central
water area of the Neva River. 1840s-1980s (based on the
Schubert plan of 1828). The buildings of the 1840s –1910s
are highlighted in red, and the landscaping of the same
period is highlighted in green. The blue color covers the
areas of urban development activity of the 1920s-1980s
and outlines the main structures.
60
of trees planted (Dikansky 1915). The main role in the
formation of public gardens was given to botanists and
gardeners, and the architect (if he was still involved)
was trusted to deal with small forms and the design of
landscaping.
A. E. Regel (1896), who for many years was the
director of the St. Petersburg Botanical Garden (1875­
1892), argued that “ city squares and gardens, fenced
off from the streets and houses by a grid, have and can
have nothing to do with the surrounding environment;
it is a microcosm or rather an oasis among the city
bustle and dust. Therefore, it is unthinkable to hold
any idea of landscape gardening in them: there is no
illusion.
There is no reason to consider these squares as
something artistic: some of them are very beautiful,
there is no dispute, but they are not gardens, but
a kind of walk, boulevards” (Regel 1896). The for­
mulated theoretical base was implemented through­
out the central part of the city. To accommodate the
public garden, there was a free-from-development
area, surrounded by a mesh metal grid, and then
planting was carried out on the fenced territory,
paths were laid and small objects were placed.
This approach was also implemented in the core
of the St. Petersburg center, where landscaping
covered territories with a total area of several tens of
hectares. Over the course of 40-50 years, there were:
square on Kollezhskaya Square (1834), Konnogvar­
deysky Boulevard (1842), Alexander Park (1842),
square on Isaakievskaya Square (1860), Rumyant­
sevsky Garden (1866), Alexander Garden (1874),
the boulevard on Admiralteiskaya Embankment
(1875). At the same time, the impact of the new
structure on the environment was not considered.
The neglect of urban planning aspects, manifested
in the formation of public gardens, began to be
revealed as the plants grew, the greenery of which
already blocked the view of the Bronze Horseman
and St. Isaac’s Cathedral. Regeneration of open
spaces was demanded personally by the emperor,
and then by the St. Petersburg mayor (Vesnina
2004). Numerous landscape reconstructions of
St. Isaac’s Square (1880-1882 and 1910-1912) and
the Alexander Garden were undertaken (1890,
1896,1902-1903, 1923, 1929-1931, 1970). It was
possible to partially recreate the free space of the
Senate Square and improve the perception of
St. Isaac’s Cathedral, but the green areas are still
covered by the main facade of the Admiralty.
St. Petersburg is considered unique as “a single
continuous open space formed by water areas,
squares, avenues, streets and squares” (Shvidkovsky
2007), facing the Neva River, which gave “the city
an exceptional spatial scope and spectacular rich­
ness, became the main square and the main avenue
of St. Petersburg” (Decree of the Government of
St. Petersburg on 01.11.2005, No 1681). In this
regard, the dense array of high-stemmed greenery
between the Admiralty building and the Synod
building is sharply criticized. It became an obstacle
in the most important system connection between
the water area of the Neva (the main axis of the plan­
ning framework) and the vast network of open
spaces on the left bank of the Neva.
South side of the “main square”. Private garden
of the imperial residence. Visual connections are
also destroyed by the greenery of the former Private
garden at the western facade of the Winter Palace.
In the 1810s, a drawbridge was formed here, the
open space of which served as a visual corridor
between the Palace Square and the Neva River,
offering a view of the Arrow of Vasilevskiy Island.
At the end of the XIX century, the main part of the
territory of 1.3 hectares ceased to be an open public
space, became part of the imperial residence and
for security reasons was surrounded by a high stone
wall, supplemented by a crowning lattice. The trees
in the garden had not yet risen, and the blank wall
had already reliably isolated the Palace Square
from contact with the Neva. In 1920, it was disman­
tled, then the tracing of the alleys in the garden was
changed, but the array of overgrown trees remains
to this day.
The eastern border of the “main square”. Bridges
Figure 2. Transformation of the Field of Mars into leisure
have become clear elements that fix the divisions of
and entertainment facilities in the northern part of the terri­
the Neva River – the “main street and main square” tory (photo-tinto-engraving of the 1910s by M. Kozlovsky).
of St. Petersburg. At the beginning of the twentieth
century, with the appearance of the Trinity Bridge,
they began to discuss ways to reconstruct its bridge The northern border of the “main square”.
squares, since their appearance did not correspond to Unlike other parts of St. Petersburg, the residential
the idea of the metropolitan metropolis. In connec­ area on the Petrograd side was only partially adja­
tion with the movement of the coastline in the area cent to the Neva River. Since the beginning of the
of the bridge, the size of Trinity Square increased, XVIII century, the dominant element of the land­
but its image was determined by “ fences, outbuild­ scape was the Peter and Paul Fortress with a single
ings, closets, a dump of various junk, unnecessary vertical bell tower. Its visual isolation was accentu­
junk to anyone. To demolish this useless circus ated by the emptiness of the glacis to the north. Geo­
(which is already falling into disrepair), and the dis­ graphically, the complex of fortifications developed
gusting skating shed, to clean up this entire square, crownwork with an extensive system of channels.
and what an ideal place it would be for a square… Further, in the direction of the bay, along the shore
“ (Lukomsky 1916). On the unpaved and dusty Field of the Malaya Neva, there was a chain of small
of Mars, the “random and tasteless jumble” of vari­ islands with unstable outlines. Since the second half
ous temporary buildings in its northern part was of the XVIII century, the capital of the warehouse
striking, and the “ruinous provincialism” uncharac­ building of Tuchkov Buyan and the Prince Vladimir
teristic of St. Petersburg (Kirikov 2014) (Figure 2). Cathedral stood out here in the distance. At the
The reconstruction of two squares considered the beginning of the XIX century, the idea arose to
unsuccessful experience of the formation and devel­ cover all these territories with the greenery of a huge
opment of the Alexander Garden. Already in 1920, park, but soon it had to be abandoned, without
the territory of the Field of Mars was cleared of build­ receiving either organizational or financial support.
ings located there and a parterre garden with a regular There was no comprehensive plan of action, and
layout was laid out. This solution allowed us to pre­ the development of vast areas went spontaneously.
serve the vast open space and create a link between For 15-20 years, heterogeneous structures have
the greenery of the Summer and Mikhailovsky Gar­ appeared next to the menagerie, the territory of the
dens. The transformation of Trinity Square took park was cut by a highway of urban significance.
almost thirty years, but by the end of the 1950s, it The process continues to our days, the buildings
received a complete form – its eastern contour come to a unique monument of fortification art of
recorded a clear structure of capital buildings, and Peter the Great times-the Kronverk Canal. It can be
groups of trees on the square with a semi-open land­ argued that the coastal area between the Trinity and
scape smoothed out the failures in the composition of Tuchkov Bridges did not have a “rational, geomet­
their facades. The Petrograd side was enriched by rically correct layout”, which is considered
a regular open space planted with greenery. a distinctive feature of the historical center

61
(Decree of the Government of St. Petersburg on
01.11.2005, No. 1681).
In the twentieth century, the outlines of the water
area to the west of the Kronverk Strait completely
changed, and a group of low islands disappeared.
Only when the capital Exchange Bridge was built
along the new highway, and then the capital embank­
ment was built along the northern bank of the
Malaya Neva, did the features of regularity appear in
this part of the “main square” of the city. It can be
assumed that the appearance of the park Tuchkov
Buyan will be a new stage in the transformation of
the urban landscape and “ will allow continuing the
development of the green framework: from the Field
of Mars and the Summer Garden through Trinity
Square and Alexander Park to the islands, will unite
the main attractions, pedestrian and green areas of
the city in a single route will open a new unique
panoramic view of the historical center of
St. Petersburg… “ according to the International
competition for the development of the landscape
and architectural concept of the park “Tuchkov
Buyan” in St. Petersburg in 2019.
The western border of the “main square”. At the
beginning of the XVIII century, it was marked by
the 400-meter facade of the Twelve Colleges, which
rose above a swampy cape on the border with the
estate of A. D. Menshikov and was facing the wide
flood of the Neva. In the 1830s, the boundary line of
development (Stock Exchange, warehouses, and
Rostral columns) was almost half a kilometer to the
east. In addition, the bulk area with clear geometric
outlines has deepened more than 100 meters into the
water area. Then, in the 1930s, a regular parterre
was laid out in front of the Exchange, and a chain of
clipped trees was planted along the contour of the
Exchange Square, which revealed and emphasized
the importance of this unique place.
In the 1830s, a unique ensemble of two squares
was formed on Strelka. One that stretched out in
front of the main facade of the exchange was part of
the” main square “ of the city, its contours marked
by a semicircle of granite embankment. The open
space of the other (between the facades of the
Twelve Colleges and the Exchange) was connected
to the water area by wide visual corridors between
the buildings.
In the next century, this part of the ensemble was
destroyed in two stages: in the 1840s, a square of
high-stemmed trees in front of the building of the
Twelve Colleges grew, then on the verge of centur­
ies, the branched building of the medical clinic
absorbed the open central space of the Collegiate
Square. Planting along the contour of the plot softens
the resulting style discrepancy of buildings, but
exacerbates the “loss of transparency”. For more
than a century, the destruction of Kollezhskaya
Square has been regarded as an example of “ urban
barbarism at the beginning of the twentieth century
(Stolpyansky 1918).
62
Paradoxes of the “St. Petersburg Strategy for the
Preservation of Cultural Heritage”. The review of
the urban planning situation around the” main square
“of St. Petersburg” allows us to conclude that the
local landscapes are in continuous development:
– there is a permanent evolution of urban struc­
tures on the right bank of the Neva River,
where the heritage of the Baroque and classi­
cism is represented by single unique objects
(the complex of the Peter and Paul Fortress,
the Kronversky Canal, Tuchkov Buyan, Prince
Vladimir Cathedral), and the bulk of the build­
ings appeared in the second half of the XIX-
beginning. Of the twentieth century and was
supplemented in the Soviet years. A relatively
stable situation on the Eastern tip of the “main
square of the Neva”, which is formed in the
1920s –1950s, but a strong blow to the city’s
silhouette was done by a group of high-rise
buildings, built in 2000 is on the Vyborg side
(including multi-storey “Mont Blanc”);
– cannot be considered perfect landscapes on the
spit of Vasilevskiy island was left unfinished dis­
cussion about the fate of the former Collegiate
square, no idea of the ways of use of the huge ter­
ritorial resources Menshikov’s former estate;
– on the southern bank of the Neva River in
the second half of the XIX – early XX century,
the compositional unity of the ensemble of central
squares was destroyed. Local restoration of view­
points and corridors, which began in the 1890s, is
not supported today.
In the center of “Pushkin Petersburg”, huge areas
of squares remained open, “transparent” (Kirikov
2008), and there was very little landscaping – only
the clipped trees of the young boulevard along the
contour of the Admiralty and the preserved frag­
ments of the garden of the Menshikov estate, where
only some of the citizens had access. An active
change in the local open spaces occurred in the late
1880s when the previously planted trees of the gar­
dens and squares grew and turned into impenetrable
green masses. The construction carried out in the
early twentieth century further changed the local
landscape – the Collegiate Square completely disap­
peared, and in other squares, the open spaces
decreased in size and changed their outlines.
The paradox of the modern attitude to the histor­
ical heritage can be considered a clear underestima­
tion of the losses suffered by the landscapes of
“Pushkin’s Petersburg”. Sad prophecies of the early
twentieth century are coming true – their unique
images have disappeared from the memory of the
citizens (Kurbatov 1993).
Our contemporaries admire the images of the
ancient panoramas of the city on the Neva, but they
do not feel an emotional connection with the
departed ensembles. Continuity in the perception of
the environment is lost.
4 CONCLUSION
The results of the analysis show that the “high
degree of preservation and authenticity of histor­
ical territories” noted in the “St. Petersburg Strat­
egy for the Preservation of Cultural Heritage”
(Decree of the Government of St. Petersburg on
01.11.2005, No 1681) can be considered character­
istic of the urban environment of St. Petersburg
only when assessing the situation at the strategic
level when considering the development area
covering 2114 hectares. It can be argued that these
declarations gloss over conflict situations that
manifest themselves at the regional level. It justi­
fies the preservation of objects regarded as “urban
barbarism” and masks the existence of huge land­
scape resources of the historical center, its unique
panoramas, lost in the second half of the XIX –
early XX century. The opinions of authoritative
experts who claim that “many urban ensembles
are spoiled by greenery” are ignored.
The latter is allowed to grow, destroying the integ­
rity of the impression (Semenov 1935). The conducted
analysis recorded a number of areas of the urban envir­
onment in the center of St. Petersburg, the historical
appearance of which was distorted by green spaces.
The preservation of the current situation damages the
architectural image of the city, hinders its economic
and social development, and hinders the effective use
of territories. Obviously, in this case, it is necessary to
consider the provisions of the Venice Charter, which
allow the removal of “layers of no value, if this reveals
something valuable in the composition of the monu­
ment itself” (Zapesotsky 1996).
63
REFERENCES
Dikansky, M. G. 1915. The construction of cities, their
plan, and beauty. Petrograd: Publishing house of
N. P. Karbasnikov.
Kirikov B. M. 2008. The architecture of St. Petersburg of
the late XIX-early XX century: Eclecticism. Modern.
Neoclassicism. St. Petersburg: Kolo.
Kirikov B. M. 2014. The architecture of St. Petersburg-
Leningrad. SAINT Petersburg: Kolo.
Kurbatov, V. Ya. 1993. Petersburg. Artistic and historical
essay and review of the artistic wealth of the capital.
Leningrad: Lenizdat.
Lisovsky V. G. 2004. The architecture of St. Petersburg.
Three centuries of history. St. Petersburg: Slavia.
Lukomsky G. K. 1910. Architectural chronicle. Petersburg.
Apollo: Chronicle 11: 35–39.
Lukomsky G. K. 1916. Modern Petrograd. An outline of the
history of the origin and development of classical con­
struction, 1900–1915. Petrograd: Svobodnoye iskusstvo.
Regel A. 1896. Elegant gardening and art gardens. Histor­
ical and didactic essay. St. Petersburg: Edition of
G. B. Winkler
Semenov V. N. 1935. Planning issues. Academy of Archi­
tecture 4: 39–43.
Shvidkovsky D. 2007. Russian architecture and the West.
New Haven; London: Yale univ. press, cop.
Stolpyansky P. N. 1918. St. Petersburg: how St. Petersburg
was born, founded, and grew. Petrograd: Kolos.
Vesnina N. N. 2004. City gardens and parks of
St. Petersburg of the XIX-first third of the XX centuries.
Functional and typological characteristics. In Historical
and cultural monuments of St. Petersburg. Research and
materials 7: 100–122. St. Petersburg: White and black.
Zapesotsky A. S. 1996. International legal documents on
cultural issues. St. Petersburg: Saint-Petersburg Univer­
sity of Humanities and Social Sciences.
 Reconstruction and Restoration of Architectural Heritage 2021 – Sementsov, Leontyev & Huerta (Eds)
© 2021 Taylor & Francis Group, London, ISBN 978-0-367-68296-5

On the plan layout of tierceron vaults: Geometry and building process

A. López-Mozo, E. Rabasa-Díaz, M.Á. Alonso-Rodriguez & R. Martín-Talaverano
Universidad Politécnica de Madrid, Madrid, Spain

ABSTRACT: The tierceron vault played a fundamental role in the evolution of Gothic from the quadripar­
tite vault, internally formed just by two diagonal ribs, towards the typical late Gothic rib multiplication.
Designing a tierceron’s vault plan requires a single decision: determining the tiercerons. For this reason, this
work deals with the study of the geometrical properties and the constructive implications of the most frequent
tierceron’s vault plan designs, extracted from preserved written sources and from the surveying of relevant
cases of existing vaults. They seem to be simple procedures, easy to be reproduced on the elevated platform
on which the vault was built.

1 INTRODUCTION definition in plan, so it is easy to compare the various

The tierceron vault played a fundamental role in the
evolution of Gothic from the quadripartite vault,
internally formed just by two diagonal ribs, towards
the typical late Gothic rib multiplication. The tier­
ceron vault features two diagonal ribs, two liernes
and eight tiercerons, forming a four-pointed star. But
the origin likely was the convenience of subdividing
web sectors rather than creating a particular figure.
Tierceron vaults might have been born from the tri­
angulation of each of the four sectors formed by
diagonal ribs in a quadripartite vault, usually rect­
angular. Not by chance the first documented example
of a tierceron vault is not a square plan vault, but the
rectangular bays of the eastern nave of Lincoln
Cathedral.
This strategy of triangular division with three con­
verging ribs seems to guide both the evolution of the
tierceron vault itself and others such as umbrella-
shaped vaults over a central pillar, isolated triangular
vaults as transition chamfers from a rectangular to
a polygonal plan, vaults over irregular plans or
vaults aligned in ambulatories and in linear series
with non-confronting supports. In particular, the tier­
ceron vault will be extraordinarily abundant in late
Gothic, and some late Western European treatises
showed a simple tierceron vault as a characteristic
example to explain the Gothic system.
Naturally, the key point in the vault construction
process and its final result is the determination of rib
curvatures and, consequently, the overall volume. In
previous works, we have dealt with these issues,
studying built vaults and vaults drawn in historical
documents throughout Europe. However, the organisa­
tion of the ribs on a plan is a first and independent
step. There are fewer alternatives for this prior graphic
solutions offered by theory and practice (Rabasa et al.
2015; Rabasa et al. 2017; López-Mozo et al. 2017).
Designing a tierceron’s vault plan requires
a single decision: determining the direction to lay
out the tiercerons, starting from the plan corners.
For this reason, this work deals with the study of
the geometrical properties and the constructive
implications of the most frequent tierceron’s vault
plan designs, extracted from preserved written
sources and from the surveying of relevant cases of
existing vaults. Late Gothic tierceron vault’s heri­
tage is so vast that it is not possible even calculat­
ing the size of a proper sample. Therefore, we have
analysed the first examples of tierceron vaults in
England, France and Spain. We have also analysed
this issue in two specific typologies that constitute
comparable sets of cases, which we have compre­
hensively studied in previous works: European
asymmetrical diamond vaults and surbased rib
vaults in Castile Kingdom. The vaults have been
measured by means of photogrammetric and topo­
graphic techniques. In order to approach the ori­
ginal underline layout in written sources and built
vaults, an attempt was made to look for simple pro­
cedures, easy to be reproduced on the elevated plat­
form on which the vault was built.
2 ACTUAL AND THEORETICAL VAULTS
There are tiercerons in complex vaults which may
imply other design constraints. Thus, this work has
initially addressed the analysis of simple tierceron
vaults. The first documented ones are the vaults of
the eastern nave of Lincoln Cathedral, built ca.
1220-35 (Frankl [1962] 2000, 146). Each bay

DOI: 10.1201/9781003136804-13

64
features a rectangular plan, and the design might
have begun by placing the secondary keystones in
the vertices of a square that would also determine
the short tiercerons just by the prolongation of its
sides. The process might also have initially deter­
mined the long tiercerons aligned with the midpoints
of the plan sides, whose keystones would define the
distance to the centre that would fix the remaining
pair of tiercerons. The first tierceron vault in France
might have been the one in Amiens Cathedral’s tran­
sept, built ca. 1260-70, which was subsequently
replaced after a fire. The tas-de-charge were pre­
served, so the tiercerons’ alignments would also
have been kept (Viollet-Le-Duc 1854-1868, IX,
518). Spanning an approximately square bay,
a geometric explanation of tiercerons location is not
clear: they are placed in an intermediate position
between the two most common layouts; bisector’s
and middle point methods. The earliest case in Spain
might be the vault in Toledo Cathedral’s transept,
built by the middle fifteenth century (Gómez Martí­
nez 1998, 80). The vault spans a slightly irregular
square plan and five tiercerons might be traced
aligned with the side midpoint (Figure 1).
We have found 27 tierceron vaults’ plan drawings
in written sources dated between 1445 and 1737
(Rabasa 2007, Huerta 2016, Calvo 2017). 15 cases
depict a square plan, 10 a rectangular plan and 2 an
irregular one. 14 cases might follow a layout of tier­
cerons aligned with the circumscribed circumfer­
ence, 12 of which span a square bay. 7 drawings
might be traced aligning the tiercerons with the side
midpoint; 3 of them feature a square plan, 2 of them
rectangular and another 2 irregular. 4 cases may con­
tain a variation of the first method: a couple of tier­
cerons is drawn aligned with the axis’ prolongation
to the circumscribed circumference, and the remain­
ing secondary keystones are placed by alignment
parallel to the diagonal. All these 4 cases feature
a rectangular plan (Figure 2).

Figure 1. Tierceron vaults at the cathedrals of Lincoln, Amiens and Toledo. On the right, orthophotos and overlapped
dotted layouts by the authors. We wish to thank Professor José Carlos Palacios for his permission to use the photographs of
Amiens’ vault with wich we have obtained the orthoimage used to develop the analysis.

65
Figure 2. Tierceron vaults in written sources (overlapped dotted layouts by the authors).
3 ASYMMETRICAL AND SURBASED
VAULTS
The analysis of specific typologies which may be
comprehensively studied may give relevant informa­
tion on their plan design. The surveying of 35 of
a sample of 46 asymmetrical diamond vaults hitherto
documented in Europe shows that drawing the tier­
cerons aligned to the midpoint of the plan sides
might have been used, at least partially, in 16 vaults.
However, only 4 cases show their tiercerons aligned
to the circumscribed circumference, which is the
most common layout found in written sources
(Figure 3). Written sources including these specific
diamond design show, in addition, other methods: an
arc with its centre in one of the plan vertices and its
radius equal to the measure of one of the plan sides
might place the secondary keystones; an inscribed
quadrilateral would determine the tiercerons’ meet­
ing point on the diagonal ribs (López-Mozo et al.
2017).
Regarding the surbased rib vaults in Castile King­
dom, 7 cases of a total amount of 17 analysed built
examples might have been designed by the align­
ment of tiercerons to the circumscribed circumfer­
ence, and 2 cases might align the tiercerons to the
sides’ midpoint. The rest of the sample, that is,
a 40% of the total amount, does not seem to follow
a geometric simple method: perhaps a more complex
procedure was used or the endpoints of the tiercerons
were determined by setting a numeric and easy
66
definition of some distances from another singular
points (Martín-Talaverano 2014) (Figure 4).
4 GEOMETRICAL PROPERTIES AND
CONSTRUCTIVE IMPLICATIONS OF MOST
FREQUENT LAYOUTS
The layouts identified in original sources have been
analysed to study their geometric properties and
constructive implications. Laying out the tiercerons
aligned with the intersection of the axes with the
circumscribed circumference, which is a method
identified in most of the written sources, may be
applied to a square or rectangular plan, but it makes
no sense in an irregular plan. Reproducing this
layout in the elevated platform necessary to build
the vault might present inconveniences if the exist­
ing perimeter walls impede accessing the circum­
scribed circumference. However, our analysis
reveals the existence of a simple procedure avoid­
ing this problem when we have a square plan.
Figure 5A shows that equal arcs “a” define equal
angles “α”, which gives a well-known property of
this layout: the tiercerons follow the bisector of
each angle between diagonal ribs and wall arches.
If we look to the left “α” angle, we may check that
the distance from the tiercerons’ keystone to the
side midpoint is equal to the distance from that
midpoint to the circumscribed circumference. Thus,
the distance from the tiercerons’ keystone to the
Figure 3. Asymmetrical diamond vaults in Europe: surveying and layouts (López-Mozo et al. 2017).

side midpoint is equal to the difference between the

semi-diagonal and the semi-side, so the layout may
be drawn without materializing the circumscribed
circumference (Figure 5A, top). Additionally, late
written sources point out an approximation to this
layout by dividing the axis into five equal parts.
When applied to a rectangular plan, tiercerons keep
on being placed on the bisectors, but secondary
keystones are no longer aligned parallel to the diag­
onal and neither do the approximation of the div­
ision into five equal parts (Figure 5A, bottom).
Laying the tiercerons aligned to the side midpoint
places the keystones in the midpoints of the semi-
axes, also when applying to a rectangular plan
(Figure 5B). Additionally, in both cases the key­
stones are aligned parallel to the diagonal, i. e.
opposite tiercerons meet at the diagonal, and this
may be the basis of some layouts in central European
written sources (Figure 5C). This method easily
solves the layout of an irregular quadrilateral plan
Figure 4. Surbased rib vaults in Castile Kingdom: survey­ (López-Mozo et al. 2017, 901).
ing and layouts.
67
Figure 5. Geometric features in the most common tierceron layouts.
5 CONCLUSION
The two most frequent tierceron layout methods have
a differentiated geographical implantation, as the one
drawing the tiercerons aligned with the side mid­
points is more frequently found in Central European
sources, whereas the bisector method seems to be
preferred in Spain and France. On the other hand, the
first one is mostly applied to rectangular plans and
the second to square plans. Confronting theory and
built vaults some differences can be found: texts
prefer square plan vaults which properly match
a general exposition of a system, whereas actually
built cases show a lot of rectangular and irregular
plans.
Other non-geometric methods might be applied
in actual vaults construction; the ones determining
the position of elements by the definition of
numeric distances. However, identifying them is
difficult due to the rich variety of measuring units
in each place and time. Additionally, building
errors derived from numeric mistakes would be
more difficult to be detected by master builders
than those coming from a layout drawn by
a simple geometrical method, which may also be
easily reproduced at different sizes.
REFERENCES
Calvo Lopez, J. 2016. The Geometry of the Rib Vault in
Early Modern Iberian and French Literature. In Tecniche
construttive nel Mediterraneo. Dalla stereotomia ai cri­
teri antisismic. Palermo: Caracol, 29–46.
68
Frankl, P. [1962] 2000. Gothic Architecture. Rev.ed. by
Paul Crossley. New Haven and London: Yale University
Press.
Gómez Martínez, J. 1998. El gótico español de la Edad
Moderna: bóvedas de crucería. Valladolid: Universidad
de Valladolid.
Huerta Fernández, S. 2016. Willis’s sources on gothic vault
construction. In Robert Willis. Science, Technology and
Architecture in the Nineteenth century. Madrid: Instituto
Juan de Herrera, 297–320.
López-Mozo, A., M. Á. Alonso-Rodríguez and A. Sanjurjo
Álvarez. 2017. Bóvedas de terceletes con rombo diag­
onal. Transmisión de conocimiento técnico en el tardo­
gótico europeo. In Actas del X Congreso Nacional y II
Hispanoamericano de Historia de la Construcción.
Madrid: Instituto Juan de Herrera, 893–903.
Martín-Talaverano, R. 2014. Bóvedas de crucería rebaja­
das hispanas: geometría, estructura y construcción.
Doctoral thesis, Universidad Politécnica de Madrid.
Rabasa Díaz, E. 2007. Principios y construcción de las
bóvedas de crucería. Loggia. 20: 86–97.
Rabasa-Díaz, E., M. Á. Alonso-Rodríguez and E. Pliego de
Andrés. 2015. Trazado de bóvedas en las fuentes pri­
marias del tardogótico: configuración tridimensional. In
Actas del Noveno Congreso Nacional y Primer Con­
greso Internacional Hispanoamericano de Historia de
la Construcción. Madrid: Instituto Juan de Herrera,
1399–1408.
Rabasa Díaz, E., J. Calvo López y R. Martín Talaverano.
2017. Bóvedas de crucería que se proyectan en planta
según una matriz de estrellas. In Actas del X Congreso
Nacional y II Hispanoamericano de Historia de la Con­
strucción. Madrid: Instituto Juan de Herrera, SEHC,
1335–1344.
Viollet-Le-Duc, E. 1854–1868. Dictionnaire raisonné de
l’architecture française du XIe au XVIe siècle, París,
vols. I-VI, B. Bance, vols. VII-X, A. Morel.
 Reconstruction and Restoration of Architectural Heritage 2021 – Sementsov, Leontyev & Huerta (Eds)
© 2021 Taylor & Francis Group, London, ISBN 978-0-367-68296-5

Development of Vasilevskiy Island in the period of Peter the Great:

Legislative regulation
S.V. Makarov
Committee for State Control, Use and Protection of Historical and Cultural Monuments, Saint Petersburg, Russia

S.V. Sementsov
Saint Petersburg State University of Architecture and Civil Engineering, Saint Petersburg, Russia

ABSTRACT: The article is devoted to the study of the development of Vasilevskiy Island, starting from
1715 during the reign of Peter I, and its regulation within the framework of the system of special royal urban
planning, architectural and administrative-managerial decrees, which allowed the creation of a unique urban
environment on the island, rightly associated in the public consciousness as “Northern Venice” and “New
Amsterdam”. The relevance of the work is because, in recent years, the Russian Federation has been actively
re-evaluating urban planning policy, discussions are being held about the place of St. Petersburg in the history
of the country. The purpose of the study is to identify the reasons and possibilities for the implementation of
the urban planning ideas of Peter I, as well as to analyze the continuity of the legal regulation of the territory
under consideration. For the study, the following methods were used: archival-bibliographic, cartographic,
and analytical. Results: legal acts were analyzed and the results of their implementation were evaluated.

1 INTRODUCTION and suburban environment. The city and its sur­

The development of the Neva Delta, the founda­
tion of St. Petersburg, and its development in the
first quarter of the XVIII century, in the two dec­
ades of the reign of Peter I (1703-1724) were the
subject of many studies, including historical, his­
torical and cultural, especially architectural and
urban planning.
In the scientific and cultural area of research
about St. Petersburg during these first decades,
many works can be noted, including monographs
and articles by E. A. Andreeva (2005), S. I. Elagin
(1865), S. P. Luppov (1957), V. V. Mavrodin
(1978), M. S. Bunin (1957) and many, many
others. The works of S. V. Sementsov (2011) are
devoted to the history of urban development of
St. Petersburg.
As is known, up to 1711, the nascent city and its
surroundings developed according to the canons of
traditional Russian cities with a picturesque layout
and rather unorganized buildings (Alferova 1989).
Moreover, all the formed settlements were created
based on the implementation of the principles of cre­
ating Russian picturesque cities and settlements,
with curved streets, curved blocks, and plots, with
the construction of plots outside the regular rules.
But since 1712 There was a sharp change in the
whole practice of creating the St. Petersburg urban
roundings began to be formed according to strict
rules of regular planning and development and
within the framework of the implementation of
a whole package of signed special royal decrees. Up
to the complete demolition of the already built
irregular settlements.
At the same time, the issues of transition from
the traditional Russian planning and architectural
system (as, for example, in Moscow at that time)
to the system of regular construction unique in all
of Europe, and within the framework of special
legislative city regulation, are of considerable
interest.
The purpose of this article is to analyze this
qualitative transition, including the example of the
formation of the development of Vasilevskiy
Island in the first quarter of the XVIII century.
through the prism of normative legal acts issued
under Peter I, and the reasons for the correspond­
ing urban development policy in this territory.
2 MATERIALS AND METHODS
The article is based on the identification of histor­
ical scientific text and cartographic materials and
is based on the subsequent study of them in unity
with the relevant legislative legal acts.

DOI: 10.1201/9781003136804-14

69
3 RESULTS
Many believe that Vasilevskiy Island was identified as
the future center of the city only in 1715. And initially,
Peter I considered Kotlin Island as the main part of the
city, then the settlers began to cut sections on the City
(now Petrograd) and Admiralty sides, and later on the
Moscow and Vyborg sides, which were higher and
drier.
The history of the development of Vasilevskiy
Island has other features. The center of the city
moved to Vasilevskiy Island only in 1721-1722, as
a result of understanding the great victory over
Sweden in the Northern War. Before this event, the
creation of the city and the surrounding settlements
had a different sequence and a different content. Ini­
tially, since 1703, the city (or rather, at the serf settle­
ment) was located only on the City-later
St. Petersburg Island. Around, on the Admiralty side,
on Kotlin Island, on the Moscow (Liteynaya) and
Vyborg sides, separate non-urban, multi-functional,
picturesque, irregular settlements were created.
But, in 1712, by the decree of Peter I of January 16
(27), 1712, the military engineer D. Trezzini developed
a project for creating a regular city on the Kotlin
Island, in the Gulf of Finland, with a rectangular trace
of longitudinal streets (the main one of which should
have a length of 9.5km and a width with a navigable
channel of 80.0m), as well as 61 transverse streets
(60.0m wide with navigable channels in the middle,
about 20.0m wide) and cutting 226 rectangular blocks
into 7278 standardized rectangular courtyards
(Figure 1).
This city was of grandiose proportions, far surpass­
ing all the “ideal cities” that existed at that time and
Protestant towns that were regular in planning charac­
teristics, but it was worked out according to the
canons of creating military towns and military camps
that had been preserved since the Roman Empire
Figure 1. The project of the capital city on Kotlin Island.
1712 St. Petersburg. Research Department of Manuscripts
of the Library of the Russian Academy of Sciences. Collec­
tion of handwritten maps. Main list No 754.
70
(after all, D. Trezzini was a military engineer!). It
was then that the spatial “standard”, “scale”, a regular
type of formation of the environment of the capital of
St. Petersburg began to form, within the framework
of REGULARITY and ORDER: all, even the smallest
streets, should be straight and no longer 6-8m (which
significantly exceeded the width of the main streets of
European capitals, which then had a width of 2.5
-3.5m), and the main streets in St. Petersburg could
have a width of up to 80.0m or more, be necessarily
straight and “shooting” at the vertical dominant.
At the same time, all plots (if possible) should be
rectangular, measuring 25.0-30.0m (in fact, the area
of an entire block of a historical city in Europe), and
the blocks should also be rectangular and have an
area commensurate with the area of a European city.
If it is mandatory to place the front of
a predominantly one-story building along the red
lines without indenting into the interior of the plots.
It was such a regular city that, according to the ideas
of Peter I and D. Trezzini, was supposed to become
the Russian capital. The project was not implemented
but became the basis for all subsequent construction
of St. Petersburg according to the Decree of Jan­
uary 16 (27), 1712 (Complete Collection of Laws of
the Russian Empire, 1830, 1st assembly, volume IV,
No 2467: 776-779) (Luppov 1957, Sementsov 2011).
Moreover, for its implementation since 1712, the
first 1212 families of nobles were determined by the
decision of the Senate to move to the island according
to the Nominal Decree, announced by the President of
the Senate “On the obligation to sign various private
people to build houses on Kotlin Island” No 2563 of
August 4, 1712 (Complete Collection of Laws of the
Russian Empire, 1830, 1st assembly, volume IV, No
2619: 854-855).
For this purpose, and for the projects that followed
it, D. Trezzini developed in 1712-1714 a series of
“model projects” of wooden one-story (and also with
mezzanines) houses, which were necessarily placed
along red lines (without indents deep into the plots),
with the device of side entrances (gates) to the plots.
This project was followed by projects to create
several more regular cities in different places of the
Neva Delta, and their fate was different.
The creation of an equally regular and according
to the same spatial canons of the capital on the left
(southern) bank of the Neva River in the area of cur­
rent Shpalernaya Street-Kirochnaya Street, but much
larger on an area of 2,5x1,4 km2. The project was
partially implemented by laying and developing the
territory within the boundaries of the 4 streets closest
to the Neva (Sementsov 1993).
On the Vyborg side, by the decree of Peter I,
signed in May 1714, but the project was not imple­
mented according to the Explanation to the historical
plans of the Capital City of St. Petersburg from 1714
to 1839, issued by the Highest Sovereign of the
Emperor led (St. Petersburg, 1843: 5, 39).
Since 1703, the original St. Petersburg was grad­
ually created, and since 1714, a radical reconstruction
was carried out and a new regular city was formed
with the main city center as part of the city square,
the main city church (St. Petersburg Cathedral). Trin­
ity), Gostiny Ryad, the main administrative buildings
of Russia, the sea and coastal port in the water area
of the Kronverkskaya Bayou. That is, the administra­
tive center of Russia and St. Petersburg was at that
time on St. Petersburg Island (Johansen 1984a).
Finally, by a royal decree of October 29, 1715,
a military engineer, named after the service, architect
D. Trezzini, developed a project for creating
a regular city (a whole city!) on the territory of the
entire Vasilevskiy Island (Johansen 1984). Until the
end of 1715, the island was the country residence of
A. D. Menshikov. It housed his country estate with
two manor houses (brick and wooden in the Italian
style), an extensive garden, and service buildings.
Russian Army Field Marshal A.D. Menshikov, then
commander-in-chief of the entire Russian cavalry,
had a wooden barracks built on the eastern arrow of
the island. The project of creating an entire city on
Vasilevskiy Island was confirmed (Highly approved,
signed) Peter I on January 1, 1716 (some researchers
indicate the date of its signing before November 4,
1715). Different variants of the project are identified
in different archival collections (Russian State Mili­
tary-Historical Archive, f. 418, inv. 1, сas. 22420).
And also, in many copies in different drawings and
descriptions. For example, on the famous plans of
the entire developed territory of the Neva Delta,
which were created in the best engraving workshops
in Germany (I. B. Nomann and G. P. Busch) and
France (N. de Fer) during the 2nd trip of Peter I to
the countries of Europe (1716-1717) (Figure 2).
The plan includes an image of the developed terri­
tories on the Moscow side (east of Liteyny Ave.),
Admiralties Island, a partial implementation of the
layout and development on St. Petersburg Island, as
well as a fully designed version of the layout and
development of Vasilevskiy Island. According to this
version of D. Trezzini, it is planned to lay along
Vasilevskiy Island four latitudinal straight regular
highways and eleven meridian highways with navig­
able channels in the middle of the highways. The
main one should be the future Grand Avenue with
a central canal, lined with alleys of trees along the
banks. The territories within all the highways are
proposed to be given a standard structure (as in the
project for the creation of the capital on Kotlin
Island), with the division of each into three huge
rectangular double blocks (with sections oriented on
both sides of the block, and the sections should be
adjacent to each other along the longitudinal axis of
the block). This construction of the blocks involved
the use of wooden one-story (but of different types)
“model projects” of residential and public buildings
developed by D. Trezzini in 1712-1714. In the center
of the island, the creation of two rectangular squares
is determined, possibly for the formation of a central
building here. And on the eastern arrow of
71
Figure 2. “Topographical image of the new Russian main
residence and the sea city of St. Petersburg with its origin­
ally built fortress, founded by their Royal Majesty Peter
Alekseevich the Sovereign of all Russians, and so on. Since
1703, the city built on the edge of the Eastern Sea on sev­
eral islands at the mouth of the Neva River has become
a receptacle for trade and shipping for the Russian nation
with a powerful fleet. Published by Johann Baptist Homann
of the Roman Royal Majesty the Geographer at Nurem­
berg” (translated from German). 1716-1718. Saint-
Petersburg. Russian National Library K1-Pb/27-2.
Vasilevskiy Island, according to the project, blocks
of elite residential development were to be located.
Far to the north of the island, where there were
impassable marshes unsuitable for construction,
D. Trezzini proposed to create a public garden for all
visitors. And, in the traditions of those times, the
entire island along the contour should be surrounded
by a continuous line of bastions and curtain walls. It
was this project that began to be implemented in Jan­
uary 1716. And it was this project that received in
the public consciousness the name “Northern Venice”
(especially since the dimensions, shape, and system
of navigable channels of Vasilevskiy Island very pre­
cisely coincided with Venice) and “New Amsterdam”
(in which the canal system was also arranged).
Some current researchers, including G. V. Mazaev
(2020), hope to compare the creation of regular
St. Petersburg with the Protestant towns that emerged
in the XVII-XVIII centuries. But such comparisons
of the grandiose, even then striving for grandeur and
metropolitan character, even in the use cases of
D. Trezzini’s “model projects” of St. Petersburg
(with the initially formed size and scale of more than
the whole of Venice and this is easily confirmed!)
with small-sized, unsightly, spontaneous in architec­
ture and design, Protestant-type towns in Europe and
America also cannot be scientifically objective. And
even more, so-remembering the almost simultaneous
grandiose ensemble ideas (largely realized!) of J.-B.­
A. Leblon (Mazaev 2020).
 Many decrees of the tsar confirmed the require­
ment not to build in other places, but to receive plots
on Vasilevskiy Island for brick, daub, or wooden
construction. Among such decrees is the Highest
Resolution signed by Peter I in April 1716, already
during a trip to Europe, in response to the denunci­
ation of the Main Police According to the Highest
resolution on denunciation of the affairs of the
Police Master’s Office “On the structure in
St. Petersburg” No 3019 of April 1716 (Complete
Collection of Laws of the Russian Empire, 1830, 1st
assembly, volume V, No 2620-3479: 465-466).
Urgent work on tracing streets, surveying blocks,
and land plots on the island began under the leadership
of A.D. Menshikov and D. Trezini immediately after
the confirmation (highest approval) of the project.
But on August 6, 1716, the architect J.-B.-A.
Leblon arrived in St. Petersburg from France, was
appointed “general architect” (chief overall architec­
tural and artistic specialists), he immediately actively
engaged in the improvement of St. Petersburg and the
surrounding area. At the same time, he created nine­
teen workshops in St. Petersburg for many types of
architectural and artistic activities, primarily foundry,
carving, modeling, blacksmithing, inspected works in
Strelna, Peterhof, in the Summer Garden, etc. (Grabar
1911, Kalyazina 1984).
Already on October 29, 1716, Leblon sent Peter
I a detailed note about the obvious shortcomings in
the design and construction activities in the Russian
capital. Among his biggest proposals is the drawing
up of a new project for the planning of the entire
future of St. Petersburg, including almost all the ter­
ritories that were being developed on the islands of
the Neva Delta at that time. The project was person­
ally signed by Leblon and dated January 8, 1717.
(Figure 3).
A careful study of the original plan showed that it
cannot be attributed to the mythological (as many try
to convince us) a has a pronounced design-fixing
character. It offers a clear oval bastion of no-picture
city fortifications, which combines the territories
Figure 3. “General drawing of St. Petersburg” by J.-B.-A
Leblon. 1717. St. Petersburg branch of the Archive of the
Russian Academy of Sciences, sect. 1H, inv. 1, No 627.
72
with the already created layout and development, as
well as those proposed in the projects of D. Trezzini
and Leblon.
The project combined the territories of the Admir­
alty Side and the Summer Garden (existing), the area
of Trinity Square on St. Petersburg Island (existing),
the planning system in the eastern part of
St. Petersburg Island (project), as well as the central
and eastern parts of Vasilevskiy Island (retaining the
highway traces proposed in the project of
D. Trezzini, mainly existing latitudinal and meridian
highways, but otherwise than in the paramilitary pro­
ject of D. Trezzini, highly artistic professional archi­
tectural image). As part of this project, Leblon
proposed to place the palace of Peter I in the center
of Vasilevskiy Island, surrounded by a garden.
Around it was 4 residential ensembles, decorated
with four churches of different denominations (each
on its own square in terms of area). To the west of
this composition, it is proposed to create the main
rectangular square “place of arms” (for military par­
ades?), with the buildings of the Senate, Colleges,
City Hall, with a monument to Peter I, a triumphal
column, and a lighthouse. On the spit of Vasilevskiy
Island, the construction of blocks of elite housing
construction has been confirmed. And on the
St. Petersburg Island, on the smaller square in terms
of the main square, it is planned to install an eques­
trian statue of Peter I. It is planned to build four
ports with harbors and storage facilities on Vasilevs­
kiy and St. Petersburg Islands. The territories of
Vasilevskiy and St. Petersburg Islands should be
penetrated by two types of channels: a wide one that
leads to the main objects and a narrower one (like
the Egeracht in Amsterdam). This project proposed
to introduce the principle of ENSEMBLENESS for
the entire development of St. Petersburg (Sementsov
2000). Peter I, in a letter to A. D. Menshikov,
ordered to issue land plots and give permits for their
development only for such sites on Vasilevskiy
Island that would coincide with the principles of
development in both versions of D. Trezzini and J.­
B.-A. Leblon. And in cases of disagreement, leave
the plots until he returns.
To implement this project, J.-B.-A. Leblon
developed a special type of “model project” of
buildings that were to be erected on the main
streets and the most important embankments: it
was a project of a two-story building of a firewall
type, without an entrance gate on the side (with
the need to organize the entrance to the site from
the courtyard). Therefore, the blocks that had to be
built up by Leblon’s project inevitably received
a narrow passage in the middle, along the main
axis of the block (for example, like the modern
Repin Street on Vasilevskiy Island). And, of
course, the types of buildings that D. Trezzini had
proposed a few years earlier were becoming man­
datory not for the front lines of buildings, but
ordinary peripheral buildings. So, since 1717, there
have been two types of planning for the
development of blocks: the first type is for blocks
of ordinary streets and sections along the main
streets and along the embankments of the main
rivers and canals. According to the project of J.­
B.-A. Leblon, the first type included an auxiliary
passage (6-8m wide) in the center of the block and
was considered as a” model project “ by J.-B.-A.
Leblon. According to the projects of D. Trezzini
on the second type with the arrangement of blocks
with the two-way placement of plots and their
development according to the” model projects “ by
D. Trezzini. Both types of planning and develop­
ment have been preserved on Vasilevskiy Island
(and not only on its territory) to our time.
Of course, such competition, especially in the
context of the beginning of the implementation of
the project of D. Trezzini, caused quite violent emo­
tions and actions. Under the leadership of
A. D. Menshikov, some sculptors (primarily
K. B. Rastrelli), as well as, of course, D. Trezzini,
did everything to remove Leblon from business in
St. Petersburg itself, directing him only to work in
suburban ensembles (Yakovlev 1931).
One of the striking features of the solution in both
projects is the creation of a system of bastion and
curtain fortifications, proposed by D. Trezzini, only
around Vasilevskiy Island (as the territory of the city
itself, without the surrounding suburban areas), and
Leblon’s creation of an oval around the entire pro­
jected territory of the future multi-part city. Such
options for creating fortifications were traditional for
the whole of Europe.
There is a general tendency in Europe to build
citadels, fortresses, and cities of the ideal type
(“ideal cities”) with an internal layout and buildings
of rectangular or radial variants, as well as to sur­
round existing cities, including the largest ones, with
continuous lines of bastion-curtain fortifications. So,
since the XVI century, since the time of the first pro­
jects by A. Durer, the following can be noted as
ideal fortress cities (Yakovlev 1931, Maass & Berger
1990):
– four bastion fortifications (a very common type of
fortresses and citadels): Freudenstadt, Christiano-
polis, Besancon, Mainz, and many others;
– five bastion fortifications (an even more common
type of fortress): Antwerp, Guastalla, Pillau,
Nuenskans, Florence, Geningen, Strasbourg,
Arras, Copenhagen, and many others;
– six bastion fortifications: Gustavsburg, Andersen,
Arensburg, Charleroi, Peter and Paul Fortress (in
St. Petersburg), Mont Dauphin, Grand Michel,
and others;
– seven bastions fortifications: Coworden,
PomeranienDamm;
– eight bastion fortifications: Christianhof,
Friedrichsstadt;
– nine bastion fortifications: the most famous and
extant Palmanova;
– ten bastion fortifications: Swedish Landskrona;
73
– eleven bastion fortifications: Mannheim.
Many medieval cities and capitals were sur­
rounded on the perimeter by multi-bastion (with
twenty or more bastions) fortress lines, among such
cities: Valencia, Vienna, Hamburg, Copenhagen,
Luxembourg, Lubeck, Naples, Paris, Frankfurt am
Main, and many, many others. Creating fortifications
mainly based on systems that go back to the ideas of
Vauban and Coughorn (Novitsky & Schwartz 1913).
By the tsar’s decree of May 25 (June 5), 1718, all
the scattered settlements on the islands of the Neva
Delta were united into the capital city of
St. Petersburg, which formed five administrative and
police units (districts): 1– St. Petersburg Island, 2–
Vasilevskiy Island, 3– Admiralty Island, 4 –
Moscow side, Vyborg side with Ohta. And the entire
city was managed by the Police Chief General
according to the Points given by Peter I to the
St. Petersburg General-Police Master on May 25,
1718 (Complete Collection of Laws of the Russian
Empire, 1830, 1st assembly, volume V, No 3203:
569–571), from that time on, all construction, allot­
ment of plots, the issuance of” model projects”, and
the control of the construction itself were responsible
for one “Ober-Architect of St. Petersburg” and since
1719, it was the German city planner and architect
Nikolai F. Gerbel (Mikhailova 1995, Morozova
2019).
The victory of Russia in the Northern War
became the basis for Peter I to search for proposals
for the best perpetuation of it. And the solution was
found. As part of the next reconstruction of
St. Petersburg (since 1703, there were already five
different-scale ones), the main proposal was to move
the entire citywide and national center from
St. Petersburg Island to the eastern arrow of Vasi­
levskiy Island. By this time, the structure of the
St. Petersburg center was well established, although
it required development. Its expanded structure
should include the largest square, the complex of
buildings of the Senate and Colleges, the main cath­
edral in Russia, Gostiny Dvor, the building of the
Academy of Sciences, the Kunstkamera (Library),
the complexes of the international and Russian
(coastal) ports. Therefore, since 1722, all these
objects began to appear in the territories where a few
years ago they were building blocks of elite brick
housing together.
The movement of the city center from the Trinity
Square of St. Petersburg Island to the Arrow of Vasi­
levskiy Island occurred precisely from 1721-1722,
obeying the direct demands of Peter the Great. This
is clearly written by such an accurate researcher and
expert in archives as M. V. Johansen and is also
noted in the List of works by D. Trezzini (Johansen
1973, Malinovsky 2007).
Some researchers note that the choice of the loca­
tion for the new administrative, scientific and com­
mercial center of the capital in 1721-1722 was made
extremely well, since the Arrow, due to its
geographical location, occupied a very special place buildings are built according to individual projects
in the architectural center of the city that was already developed by architects or according to the “model
being formed at that time. It was located near the projects” of J.-B.-A. Leblon. In all the less respon­
Peter and Paul Fortress, the Admiralty, and the sible territories, wooden construction was built
winter residence of Peter the Great, and was clearly according to the “model projects” by D. Trezzini in
visible from a long distance: from the “State Capital one floor or, as it was then written, in one and a half
on the Vyborg side”, from the Summer Garden and floors (on brick high basements), a wooden residen­
the expanses of the Neva. And at the same time, it tial floor (Sementsov 1993) (Figure 4).
was located on the island, the territory of which, And this approach was strictly followed by all
according to the founder of St. Petersburg, was to those who organized the construction process
become the main area of residential development throughout St. Petersburg. So, for example, they did
(Johansen 1984). in the St. Petersburg and Moscow offices of the
According to the project for the development of Main Police when issuing land plots and determining
Vasilevskiy Island, compiled by D. Trezzini in 1715 the possibility of brick or wooden construction on
and approved by a royal decree on January 1, 1716, them, immediately determining the possibilities of
the entire island was planned to be developed as future owners of land plots. If the future owners got
a regular city, with a system of direct highways and plots with normalized wooden construction on the
cut through a network of channels, like Amsterdam. territory of the entire site, including the front house
The channels were supposed to cross Vasilevskiy along the red line of the street, then such an owner
Island in the direction of its current avenues and was obliged to conduct wooden construction or ask
lines. permission from the Main Police for the construction
But not everywhere was dominated by the regular of a brick house. But if you got the plots with regu­
composition of rectangular blocks and plots, pro­ lated construction along the street line of a brick
posed and implemented in the projects of house, then it was impossible to refuse it, otherwise,
D. Trezzini. In some cases, a radial composition was permission for the construction of wooden houses in
specially introduced, possibly brought to the depth of the plots was obtained within three
St. Petersburg by J.-B.-A. Leblon. It was he who years and with the mandatory subsequent construc­
first (in 1717 - 1719) in the suburbs created his tion of a brick building along the street (Nikolaeva
famous forest park star compositions (Stars - Etoile ­ 2014). And this approach was strictly followed by
l’Étoile), with central round glades and many kilo­ all those who organized the construction process
meters of clearings cut through the forest massif that throughout St. Petersburg. So, for example, they did
branched off from them.
Such, for example, was the Etoile in the area
of the modern village of Volodarsky, from which,
according to the recollections of eyewitnesses,
twelve glades, tens of kilometers long (described,
although exaggerating - up to hundreds of kilo­
meters), two glades have survived to our time:
Volkhonskoe highway (Strelna - Pushkin), frag­
ments of the highway (Strelna-Gatchina). Accord­
ing to the same principle, in 1718, on the
Admiralty side, the Admiralty architect G.-I. Mat­
tarnovi developed a project and began to imple­
ment a fan composition (with the center - the
spire of the Admiralty) of eleven radii, perhaps
inspired not only by the variants of J.-B.-A.
Leblon, but also from 1715, the famous compos­
ition of thirty-two radiations was created in Kars­
ruhe (Germany). After the death of Mattarnovi,
from 1719, his successor was N. F. Gerbel, who
in 1719 carried out the reconstruction of this fan
composition and left only five radii, creating the
famous and now existing “Petersburg five-beam”
(current Millionnaya St.-Nevsky Ave. - Gorokho­
vaya St.-Voznesensky Ave. - Galernaya St.).
But, despite such a variety of planning options
used, from 1718-1719 in St. Petersburg, a single
regulation of the development carried out in all the Figure 4. The” model “ of St. Petersburg. 1718. Develop­
territories of the city was introduced. On the main ment of the city-planning fabric. City-planning regulation
streets, main embankments, and in the main (accord­ of layouts and housing (according to design and legal
ing to planning requirements) territories, only brick materials) (reconstructed by architect S.V. Sementsov).

74
in the St. Petersburg and Moscow offices of the
Main Police when issuing land plots and determining
the possibility of brick or wooden construction on
them, immediately determining the possibilities of
future owners of land plots. If the future owners got
plots with normalized wooden construction on the
territory of the entire site, including the front house
along the red line of the street, then such an owner
was obliged to conduct wooden construction or ask
permission from the Main Police for the construction
of a brick house. But if you got plots with regulated
construction along the line of the street of a brick
house, then it was impossible to refuse it (Nikolaeva
2014).
4 DISCUSSION
The reviewed archival and published materials allow
us to see much more accurately and reliably the his­
tory of the urban development of Vasilevskiy Island
during the two decades of Peter I’s life than we often
see in numerous printed publications, especially in
recent years. It seems that the mass public con­
sciousness has returned to the perception of the era,
relying on the knowledge of the 1960s, when there
were no major discoveries of V. I. Pilyavsky,
M. V. Johansen, S. P. Luppov, N. V. Kalyazina,
E. A. Andreeva, M. S. Bunin, and other researchers.
One might think that the social consciousness exists
in several disjoint worlds, forming and preserving
much knowledge within the framework of separate
sets of knowledge and not caring about their reliabil­
ity and scientific character.
5 CONCLUSION
The presented materials, based on archival docu­
ments, allow us to draw several significant conclu­
sions concerning the urban history of both the entire
St. Petersburg of the time of Peter I, and its signifi­
cant fragment-Vasilevskiy Island. Around the history
of the formation of the planning framework and the
creation of all its rather refined buildings, there are
still quite fierce discussions of both specialists and
amateur local historians (Sementsov 1998, 2001).
Archival searches allow us to form several
important conclusions:
1. The construction of Vasilevskiy Island began
with the project of 1715 immediately according
to the strict regulatory requirements formulated
by Peter I and Dominic Trezzini, starting from
1712-1714.
2. In D. Trezzini’s original project, the development
of Vasilevskiy Island was considered as a special
city in the Neva Delta, with an urban center, resi­
dential areas, and even a public park. And it was
perceived in the public consciousness of Russians
and foreigners as “Northern Venice”, as “New
75
Amsterdam”. Moreover, Vasilevskiy Island itself
was surprisingly similar in shape and dimension
to the size and shape of Venice.
3. On Vasilevskiy Island, starting with the project
of 1715, it was planned (and this was fully
implemented) to create a regular grid of latitu­
dinal (main, avenues) and meridian (lines) high­
ways, along with the centers of which, with
a step of 3 large double blocks, navigable chan­
nels were to be dug, with a width “like Eger­
achts” in Amsterdam. At the same time, a special
scale of space development was already laid
down in the planning system: plots (20-25x30­
35 m in size, the size of European city blocks),
blocks (350-400x in size, corresponding to Euro­
pean cities).
4. On Vasilevskiy Island, two planning and spatial
systems were specially formed, “fixed” by royal
decrees: (a) The construction of two-sided
blocks (adjacent to the courtyard boundary
boundaries to each other along the long axis of
the blocks) with entrances to the plots through
the gates from the main streets, using wooden
one-story “model projects” by D. Trezzini; (b)
The development of blocks with auxiliary streets
(alleys) laid along the long axis for the entrances
to the plots from these alleys, with the construc­
tion of the front lines of the plots with brick
two-story firewall buildings without gates
according to the “model projects” of J.-B.-A.
Leblon.
5. Vasilevskiy Island became one of the parts of the
unified St. Petersburg only in 1718.
6. On the eastern arrow of Vasilevskiy Island, the
citywide and national center was placed only in
1721-1722, after the victory in the North­
ern War.
6 RECOMMENDATIONS
This article can be recommended to historians of
urban planning and architectural historians, primarily
to all those who are engaged in the history of
St. Petersburg, especially the time of Peter the Great.
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 Reconstruction and Restoration of Architectural Heritage 2021 – Sementsov, Leontyev & Huerta (Eds)
© 2021 Taylor & Francis Group, London, ISBN 978-0-367-68296-5

Roots of Spanish hydraulic planning. A case of public supra-infrastructures

protection?
I.F. Menendez Pidal
Escuela de Ingenieros de Caminos, Canales y Puertos, Universidad Politécnica de Madrid, Madrid, Spain

ABSTRACT: This paper analyzes and discusses the possibility of using the concept of intangible heritage in
sets of infrastructures carried out under previous planning in the Spanish and Spanish America territorial
framework. For this, a compilation of the different aspects related to heritage has been made regardless of the
area of application: protection, conservation, legislation, restoration, etc. The concepts of public works and
heritage are analyzed in relation to their social function and their historical value. The architectural, historical
or landscape elements which characterize public works classified as heritage are examined and it is proposed
to add the social function as another characteristic element of them. Finally, a notion of intangible heritage is
developed as since it helps to propose the protection of sets of public works planned under specific political
actions. Likewise, the proposal is illustrated with the case of the planning of hydraulic works in 18th century
Spain. This planning explains and frames a large collection of hydraulic works that belong to a specific
reformist and Enlightenment hydraulic policy. Therefore, it is concluded by justifying the concept of intan­
gible heritage for certain infrastructure plans.

1 INTRODUCTION These plans support through legal methodologies the

Public or civil engineering works are infrastructure
works that serve the public interest: roads, tunnels,
bridges, ports, dams, canals, airports and, in general,
any work which is object of civil engineering. Spain
has an extensive heritage of public works. Due to
historical, orographic and physical causes, the infra­
structures have been decisive to particularly structure
and develop the Spanish territory throughout its his­
tory. Compared to other countries, the Spanish his­
torical set of bridges, roads, canals, water supply or
irrigation systems, ports, etc. for more than 2,500
years, it is innumerable and varied (Crespo 2019).
1.1 Heritage publics works in Spain
For a long time, preservation of the Civil Engineer­
ing Heritage in Spain has been due to disjointed and
uncoordinated actions. For the most part, this preser­
vation has been influenced by protective actions on
common objects of civil engineering and architecture
and military engineering. To this purpose, there are
plans in Spain approved by the Institute of Cultural
Heritage in the last ten years, such as those that refer
to Industrial Heritage, Cultural Landscapes, and
Architectural Heritage of the 20th century, which
include some of these public works (IPCE 2011 &
IPCE 2012). The National Cultural Landscape and
Industrial Heritage Plans cover the identification and
management of public works of territorial scale.
correct assessment of civil engineering infrastruc­
tures as objects of cultural heritage (Ruiz, 2016). But
none has the specific purpose of Public Works. The
main interesting attention is in historic linear infra­
structures. Plans allow to collect these infrastructures
as heritage assets, and consequently, support the ter­
ritorial dimension of this heritage.
Current legislation in Spain is based on Asset of
Cultural Interest (BIC). It is a legal figure for the pro­
tection of Spanish historical heritage, both movable
and immovable. The Spanish Historical Heritage Law
of 1985 defines that: “within the Spanish Historical
Heritage, and in order to grant greater protection and
protection, the category of Assets of Cultural Interest
acquires a singular value, which extends to movable
well and properties of that Heritage that, more clearly,
require such protection. Such a category implies also
unique measures that the Law establishes according
to the nature of the assets on which it falls.”
These mentioned plans constitute a very good
legal help the protection and are more flexible than
current general heritage legislation. Obviously the
current heritage legislation is needing deep changes
to permit the protection of infrastructures.
Also under the category of cultural landscapes
heritage canals or cultural roads were protected.
However, public and engineering works with a large
territorial impact and development are not currently
full accepted as a cultural heritage (Ruiz 2016).

DOI: 10.1201/9781003136804-15

77
 In last years a strong cultural movement has been
pushing the need to preserve and protect public and
engineering works. Thanks to these individual
efforts, various inventories have been produced,
especially of bridges, although the number of public
works that have been declared Assets of Cultural
Interest (BIC) remains low. (Ruiz 2016)
This defense and promotion carried out for the
most part by professors and lecturers from various
disciplines of Civil Engineering, among which it is
necessary to mention José Antonio Fernández Ordó­
ñez, José María Ballester, Carlos Fernández Casado,
Miguel Aguiló and Carlos Nárdiz. (Nárdiz 2019)
1.2 Need for a heritage public works plan
Most of the funds addressed to heritage protection
have been used for heritage investments of an archi­
tectural, archaeological or artistic nature, and due
attention has been systematically neglected to the
built heritage, especially to public works, which is
also part of the country’s cultural heritage.
Different social agents of Spanish civil engineer­
ing have promoted the drafting of a National Plan
for the Cultural Heritage of Public Works. It is worth
mentioning the National College of Civil Engineers,
the National Association of Civil Engineers and vari­
ous foundations and associations. (IPCE 2011, IPCE
2012). The Plan must provide not only criteria for
the rehabilitation and restoration of certain works in
a deteriorating phase that would soon be irreversible,
but also to instill awareness in all citizens of the
value of this built heritage, which has largely run
parallel to its technological development and which
it has been a substantive element of its moderniza­
tion. (Picon & Desportes 1997, Cross-Rudkin et al.
2000, Cruz 2013, Fernández Salinas 2012, Ganau
1998, Fernández Ordóñez 1985).
This enhancement of heritage, which must reach
all territorial levels of the Spanish public administra­
tion - the state, regional and local spheres - requires,
first of all, an awareness of the very existence of this
collective value, as a previous step to the under­
standing of the need to preserve it, to exhibit it and
to value it as essential that it is of the material civil­
izing effort that has collectively brought us here
(Ruiz 2016).
2 CONCEPTUAL ANALYSIS OF PUBLIC
WORKS HERITAGE
Some concepts that should inspire the plan previ­
ously proposed are exposed.
2.1 Public works heritage as engineer identity
Heritage is what belongs to us, what we have. Public
works and the services they provide are the result of
78
the activity of civil engineers and their service to soci­
ety. Remember that in addition to the specific technical
function of a public work, the social function plays
a fundamental role of the infrastructure for the achieve­
ment of the development objectives of any society.
Knowledge of the heritage of public works is decisive
for the social identity of civil engineering. It allows to
establish the social meaning of engineering activity at
the same time that it can condition its evolution.
On many occasions it is necessary to debate
between preserving and transforming the legacy of
public works. The past, the inheritance, it is neces­
sary to continue the construction of our history and
affirm the social identity of Civil Engineering.
The past gives meaning to the present, validates it,
explaining and legitimizing the current, providing
a perception of identity. It is not so much about appre­
ciating the old per se but about establishing continu­
ity. That is, integration. But conservation (continuity)
is often posed as a dilemma in the face of innovation,
generating debates about whether or not it is appropri­
ate to rebuild, restore, adapt, etc. as well as other
actions, such as replicas, transfers or emulations.
2.2 Heritage values in public works
The heritage set of Public Works, identity of the
engineer, contains different values and not only
merely historical and aesthetic elements
The value of the past must be known in order to
plan and design new infrastructures and to give con­
tinuity to territorial development. To move forward is
to debate between the preservation and the use of old
public works.
On the other hand, the environmental value appears.
One of the great challenges of environmental heritage
is to achieve transversality in other heritage areas. The
landscape is the perception that its inhabitants have of
the territory. Therefore, the landscape is a set of nat­
ural and cultural assets together with human processes.
The main anthropic transformers of the landscape are
Public Works (Ballester 1986, 2019).
The archaeological value of the heritage of public
works is also evident.
The didactic value of heritage, as a teaching in
the training of future civil engineers and the
strengthening of a heritage ethic, are fundamental for
the society of the future, which we are now trying to
build.
Finally, the integrative value of public works can
be added. This allows us to understand the way of
life of each era, its technical development and its
relationship with the territory and the landscape dia­
chronically. It is precisely this interaction between
infrastructure and an anthropized landscape, the
most powerful vision that allows us to take advan­
tage of the engineering resource as a continuum for
a cultural and historical reading of the territory, and
to be able to express its value today.
3 THE ORIGINS OF HYDRAULIC PLANNING
IN SPAIN

3.1 Design and planning

It is generally accepted that planning is establishing
what needs to be done, while design deals with how
it needs to be done. Thus, the activities of planning
would be the production of Intermodal Transport
Plans and Sectoral Plans or Programs (for roads, rail­
ways, dam, ports, canals, etc.) while design would
be concerned with carrying out studies of alternative
layout, for example, to carry out the provisions of
the Plans. We refer then to the planning of public
works in the present work by briefly analysing the Figure 1. Aqueduct of Noain (1782), Navarra, Spain.
reformist and developmental policy in 18th century
in Spain as case of study.

3.2 Hydraulic policy in the 18th century

The origins of hydraulic planning in Spain are
related to the Enlightenment reformism policies of
the 18th century. After the decline of the Spanish
monarchy after the Spanish Succession War (1700­
1715), was wanted to strengthen the state by look­
ing for a place in a international sphere of clear
French political, economic, scientific and technical
leadership. The territorial policy was based on an
intense restructuring of communications, not only
through the modernization of roads but also with Figure 2. El Gasco Dam (1787-1799), Guadarrama river,
the development of river navigation and the cre­ Madrid, Spain.
ation of irrigable agricultural wealth areas in
regions of water scarcity. Given the arid character­
istics of more than two-thirds of the Peninsula, the
agrarian development policy had to resolve the
hydraulic issue. This reformism was inspired by
the example of French liberalism and commercial­
ism along with an exercise of despotic power
characteristic throughout the Age of Enlighten­
ment. (Sáenz Ridruejo 2014, Nárdiz 2014, Rumeu
de Armas 1980, Uriol Salcedo. 1990).
This policy completely transformed the peninsular
and American hydraulic panorama. Among others,
the following very important works and projects are
worth mentioning: Navigation and Irrigation Canals
for the Kingdoms of Castilla y León, Campos and
Castilla canals, Imperial Canal of Aragon, Tauste
Irrigation Canal, Navigation Canal between Amposta Figure 3. Model of Albuhera Dam (1747), Feria, Badajoz,
and Los Alfaques in Tarragona, Rehabilitation of the Spain.
Canal del Gran Prior in Ciudad Real, Canal de
Aragón and Cataluña, Canales de Murcia, Canal de
Guadarrama to the Atlantic Ocean, Canal del Manza­ Guizaburuaga, Lébor, Mezalocha Dams, etc. (Poli­
nares (Madrid), Acequia Real del Jarama (Madrid), món et al. 2014, Gil Olcina 1988, 2001, 2004).
Irrigation and Navigation Canal in Castril and Guar­ This very important activity is also reflected in
dal rivers (Granada), Noaín Aqueduct (Pamplona) America: Saucillos, San Blas, Arquitos, San Jose,
(Figure 1), San Telmo Aqueduct (Malaga), Bridges Natillas Dams in Aguas Calientes (Mexico), La Olla
Dam on the Guadelentín river (Lorca, Murcia), Val­ and Los Santos Dams in Guanajuato, San Antonio
deinfiemo Dam on the Luchena river in Granada, El and Nado Dams in Mexico City, Morelia Aqueduct,
Gasco Dam (Guadarrama river, Madrid) (Figure 2), Aqueduct of El Sitio in Cuautitlán, Aqueduct of El
Mar de la Cavina (Aranjuez, Madrid), Abuhera Dam Sitio de Xalpa in Tepotzotlán (Figure 4), Queré­
(Feria, Badajoz) (Figure 3), Elda, Arguis, taro, etc.

79
Figure 4. Aqueduct_Arcos_del_Sitio Xalpa (1764-1854),
Tepotzotlán, Mexico.
This hydraulic policy has been harshly criticized,
labeled utopian and recklessly and technologically
audacious (Olcina 2001). However, the engineering
contributions and the putting into practice of the
knowledge on the matter served as the basis for the
design and planning of hydraulic works until now­
adays. It can be said that they played the same role
as the Roman roads in the Spanish road system
which have operated until now.
3.3 Errors and successes
Historically, the first known hydraulic works pre­
date the Roman presence in Spain. The Roman­
ization of the Peninsula and the appearance of
real cities stimulated the development, for the
first time, of a set of hydraulic works of more or
less significant supply and in sufficient number
and quality that has survived to this day. Since
then and until today, hydraulic works have been
present in all regions of our geography. However,
it is in the 18th century, under a developmental
reformist policy, when a body of practical
hydraulic knowledge is truly developed that is
further removed from the theoretical knowledge
collected in the extremely important hydraulic
treatises of the 16th and 17th centuries (Castelli,
Torricelli, Stevin, Mersenne, Mariotte, Pascal,
Varignon, etc.). The example of the well-known
treatise Architecture Hidraulique by Bernard de
Forest Bélidor (1698-1761) (Lanza 2019) illus­
trates this new way of thinking and doing. The
purpose of hydraulic construction is the art of
cementing and constructing all kinds of buildings,
locks, dikes, dry docks, seaports, blocks, bridges,
piers, aqueducts, etc. on the water. These texts
will form part of the teaching at the École Royale
des Ponts et Chaussées, established in 1747 in
Paris whose mission, as is well known, was the
training of engineers trained to bring to fruition
the French territorial development promoted by
Colbert at the end of the century. XVII in France
(Mateos Iguácel 2014).
80
Figure 5. Puente Dam (1785-1802), Lorca, Murcia. 19th
century photography.
The construction of such a large number of pro­
jects and hydraulic works brought innovations and
technological improvements that were very import­
ant for the subsequent development of civil engin­
eering, promoting projects that were hitherto
unapproachable. Development of new canal locks,
dry docks, beacons and piers in canals with bold and
even utopian track, as well as, structural and operat­
ing elements of dams: buttresses, discharge arches,
inspection galleries, foundations drainage wells,
clayey core waterproofing, floodgates, spillways,
bottom drains, etc. (Polimon, 2019).
This hydraulic development, not exempt from
errors and failures, impelled the construction of
large, entirely state reservoirs with extraordinary
capacities for its time. For example, Puentes Dam
with 52 hm3 (Figure 5) (Olcina 1998) Paradigmatic
examples were the breakdowns during the construc­
tion of the El Gasco Dam (Guadarrama river,
Madrid) or the falling-out of the aforementioned
Puentes Dam in Lorca, Murcia, in April 1802 with
an international significance and with enormous
material and human losses (608 victims and very
large economic losses).
This last break also represented the end of an era.
Not just political, but technical. The breakage stimu­
lated, at least indirectly, the founding of the Escuela
de Caminos y Canales, School of Civil Engineers by
Agustín de Betancourt, which began teaching in
October of that same year. The engineers who
planned, designed, built and exploited the hydraulic
works in Spain would be trained in it. (Sáenz
Ridruejo 2005, Polimon et al. 2019).
4 HISTORICAL SOCIAL FUNCTION AND
INTANGIBLE HERITAGE
Through the dialogue of defense of the public works
heritage, invariant ideas are certainly identifiable.
The public works inserted in the territory collectively
shape the tangible and historical landscape through
the technical function and the social function that
they play in the future development of a society.
How can the Canal de Castilla or the Canal de
Guadarrama be understood, without a global under­
standing of whole public works planning to which it
belongs? A Roman road, regardless of its historical
or archaeological connotations, belongs to a road
complex from which it cannot be separated without
losing its essence as a public work. A heritage
approach away from its historical social function
makes it a mere archaeological object.
When a public work is raised to the category of
object to preserve and conserve, the preservation of
its historical social function must also be considered.
The social function is also part of the patrimony of
the Public Works because, as has been said, it is part
of the identity and is inherent to that particular
public work. At the time of its conception, planning,
design, and construction, the social function was part
of it. But, the social function of a public work is not
an exclusive distinctive. It is shared by others with
similar characteristics: dams, aqueducts, bridges,
roads … That is, they are part of the same planning,
same development policy.
It is proposed that, based on this collective social
function, certain exceptional historical plans be raised
to the category of Intangible Heritage. Although the
modern concept of planning cannot be applied in all
historical periods, it is possible to assimilate it to
public works systems of similar characteristics and
built and operated under common policies.
Examples of this form of preservation exist. The
UNESCO intangible heritage list includes traditions,
activities, ancestral knowledge, sports practices, uses
and customs, manufacture of certain objects, handi­
craft processes, etc.
The types of intangible heritage that UNESCO
advocates are:
• Traditional, contemporary and living at the same
time: intangible cultural heritage not only con­
templates the traditions whose differentiating
element is that it has been transferred by cultural
heritage from the past, it also includes contempor­
ary rural and urban uses highlighted in various
cultural groups. (UNESCO 2021)
• Integrative: expressions of intangible cultural
heritage that have a similarity among others. It
promotes social cohesion, adopting a feeling of
identity and responsibility, providing individuals
with a sense of belonging in one or more commu­
nities and/or in society in general. Link the past
and future through the present.
• Representative: intangible cultural heritage does
not stand out for being an exclusive or excep­
tional cultural asset. It flourishes in the communi­
ties and is transmitted to the rest of the
community, from generation to generation, or to
other communities.
81
• Community-based: intangible cultural heritage is
considered as such only if it is recognized by the
communities, individuals or groups that generate
and transmit them, maintaining them over time.
Recognition is of the utmost importance, it
cannot be the others who determine for them
which expression becomes outstanding and forms
their heritage.
Following the previous definitions, the integrative
type can easily and logically be applied, since the
public works inserted in the territory collectively
create the tangible and historical landscape through
their common technical function and through their
social common function, which they play in the
future society development.
5 CONCLUSIONS
This work has analyzed the state of conservation and
enhancement of the heritage of Public Works in
Spain and explores and proposes the possibilities that
the concept of heritage is applied not only to
a specific object, but also to planned actions on cer­
tain specialties engineering that are already historical.
In civil engineering, projects are thought out in an
unrelated, disconnected or singular way. This rarely
happens. On the contrary, they belong to strategic
actions thought and designed for the territory. There,
they jointly and consistently develop a specific
aspect of territorial infrastructures.
The object of these strategies is always to satisfy
a social need (communication, commerce, supply,
environment, etc.). Therefore, the common specific of
the infrastructures or public works which make up the
territorial planning is a concrete strategy of social
development and therefore public, civil and territorial.
The function of a public work must serve this
strategy. Without strategy the function of the work is
not understood. Therefore, by similarity to the con­
cept of Intangible Heritage proposed and used by
UNESCO, planning studies and policies can be con­
sidered as heritage.
Thus, the preservation of heritage in public works
cannot be based only on architectural, historical or
landscape elements. The function of public works in
the social context of their time and, therefore, the
historical framework of its planning comes into play.
Such is the case studied of the planning of
hydraulic works in 18th century Spain. As has been
analyzed, the Spanish Enlightenment Hydraulic
Planning of the 18th century explains and frames
a long collection of unique and historical hydraulic
works under a specific strategy, which gives them
value and function, already historical, without them,
they cannot be understood. On them, very novelty
technologies and designs were used. As well, they
structured and developed the territory from the
hydraulic and social point of view.
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terio de Fomento. NIPO: 163.19.008–X.
Picon, A. & Desportes, M. 1997. De l’espace au territoire.
L’aménagement en France, XVIe-XXe siècle. Paris,
France.
Polimón López, J. & Fernández Izquierdo, F. 2014. La
investigación hidráulica en la Ilustración. Centro de
Estudios y Experimentación de Obras Públicas, Madrid:
CEDEX.
Ruiz, R., Linarejos, C., Rodríguez, F.J., & Coronado, J. M.
2016. Civil engineering heritage in Spain: public protec­
tion strategies. Proceedings of the Institution of Civil
Engineers-Engineering History and Heritage 169 (2):
84–94.
Rumeu de Armas, A. 1980. Ciencia y tecnología en la
España ilustrada. La Escuela de Caminos y Canales.
Madrid: Turner.
Sáenz Ridruejo, F. 2014. Los ingenieros de la Ilustración
en España. Centro de Estudios y Experimentación de
Obras Públicas. Madrid: CEDEX.
Sáenz Ridruejo, F. 2005. Una historia de la Escuela
de Caminos. Madrid: Fundación Agustín de Betan­
court. Escuela Técnica Superior de Ingenieros de
Caminos Canales y Puertos y Ministerio de
Fomento.
Uriol Salcedo, J. I. 1990. Historia de los caminos de
España. Vol. I. Hasta el siglo XIX. Madrid: Colegio de
Ingenieros de Caminos.
 Reconstruction and Restoration of Architectural Heritage 2021 – Sementsov, Leontyev & Huerta (Eds)
© 2021 Taylor & Francis Group, London, ISBN 978-0-367-68296-5

Volumetric-spatial, urban planning and compositional features of

public-presence objects
A. Mikhailov
St. Petersburg State University of Architecture and Civil Engineering, St. Petersburg, Russia

ABSTRACT: The article is devoted to the study of the peculiarities of publicly present cultural heritage
objects included in the classification system of cultural heritage objects, developed by the author for the pur­
pose of scientific research of methodological principles for determining the subject of protection. The research
goal of the study is to identify and systematize the features that can be attributed to urban planning, volumet­
ric-spatial and compositional protection of the objects. Within the framework of the study, methods such as
archival-bibliographic, cartographic, and analytical were used. As a result, various objects of cultural heritage
located on the territory of St. Petersburg were analyzed and some of them were disassembled in detail; con­
clusions about the features of publicly present objects were drawn. Key words: objects of protection, publicly
present objects, town planning features, town planning, protection of cultural heritage objects.

1 INTRODUCTION obligatory construction of complementary systems

St. Petersburg has never been a typical city. It was
created as an model capital, as a window to Europe,
linking two cultures – Russian and European – unit­
ing political and geocultural aspects. However, at the
same time, it had to become a city where hundreds of
thousands of people had to live comfortably and sat­
isfy their various needs. To a large extent, these fea­
tures appeared in a specially designed unique urban
planning and architectural environment, which radic­
ally differed from the environmental characteristics of
almost all European capitals of that time. Tradition­
ally, quite a lot of works were devoted to the histor­
ical and urban planning, historical and architectural,
historical and cultural, art history and other studies of
the peculiarities of the formation of St. Petersburg.
Much less attention was devoted to identify unique
spatial-scale, modular patterns of the creation of the
St. Petersburg environment and, in particular, within
the framework of the technology of mass use of
“model design”, which also have no analogues in the
modern world of architecture. Large-scale research
carried out by S.S. Ozhegov, E.A. Beletskaya, S.P.
Luppov, S.V. Sementsov in fundamental works
devoted to the urban planning and architectural and
environmental development of St. Petersburg in the
18th - 20th centuries, the formation of its spatial
environment, confirm all the complexity, vitality and,
at the same time, special intention, special direction
of this ambitious project [1,2,3,4,5,6,7,8].
However, in parallel with the structure of the city,
other features were laid down. Including the
of public, cultural, social, state-administrative and
other facilities that ensure the comfort of the popula­
tion and the adequacy of urban functioning.
The purpose of this article is to show that the
basis for the formation of a living city, which con­
tinues to develop itself even when the political will
that created it, disappears, is not only the satisfaction
of various functional needs of its inhabitants, but also
the needs for the image formation of urban environ­
ment. Moreover, many objects created in the city,
along with their materialized, functional and con­
structive essence, received, as part of their creation,
some kind of extra-material, figurative aura, which
made it possible to actualize them in context of per­
ception precisely as special types of urban objects:
residential buildings, theaters, museums, industrial
objects, etc. The uniqueness that largely determine
the features of the objects arising on the territory of
the city, their research and systematization are one of
the keys to a proper understanding and preservation.
The article is based on historical, scientific text
and cartographic materials refering to the study of
the information base on cultural heritage sites.
2 MAIN PART
Deep human nature is basically, for many centuries,
changed quite a bit. Religion and culture have greater
influence on the forms and methods of manifestation
of human nature than the initial understanding of the
world and man’s place in it. Some humanistic

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83
theories, expressed in a fantastic form, for example,
by Ivan Efremov, and in an idealistic one, such as the
theory of Nicholas Roerich “Peace through culture”,
tried not to pay attention to the pragmatic essence of
man and therefore remained just beautiful and kind
fairy tales. Practical work with objects of cultural
heritage cannot afford to operate with abstractions.
Therefore, the basis of the classification of cultural
heritage objects, developed in order to clarify the
methodology for defining objects of protection, was
based on the principle of pragmatic functionality.
This principle primarily is based on the broad postu­
late that everything that is created by man in architec­
ture is created for a specific purpose. These goals can
fulfill both primary needs for comfortable housing,
public space, and secondary needs for self-expression
and self-realization. The implementation of economic
interests, which, as a rule, also have their own stable
features, is no exception. Thus, the selection in the
classification of publicly present objects that satisfy
the need of some people in social communication,
and others in the realization of their economic or rep­
resentative interests, turned out to be natural.
What are the main features of publicly present
objects? As the name implies, their main purpose is
to provide a comfortable presence of a significant
number of people for the purpose of their social
interaction with each other and with the bearers of
culture, art and other outstanding creative representa­
tives of humanity. Without the involvement of the
external public, the functioning of such facilities is
impossible, in contrast to administrative and manage­
ment facilities, where the presence of external visit­
ors is not massive and regular, or even not necessary.
If the goal of publicly present objects is to
attract the public, then certainly their town plan­
ning location was not the last place. To be in
sight, and therefore, to stand out, and sometimes
to dominate the surrounding buildings. To be con­
venient for access, and therefore located in the
central part of the city or near other points of
attraction. To provide a one-time arrival and
departure of a significant number of people, and,
consequently, to have large open spaces around,
these are the main urban planning and compos­
itional principles by which buildings or complexes
of buildings belonging to the group under consid­
eration were placed. As a rule, the architectural
design of these objects is made based on the need
to attract attention, expressively and vividly. The
internal structure necessarily includes a large
mono-volume, less often several volumes, intended
for a one-time stay of a significant number of the
public, which in turn affects the structural system
of the entire building. The internal structure neces­
sarily includes a large mono-volume, less often
several volumes, intended for a one-time stay of
84
a significant number of the public, which in turn
affects the structural system of the entire building.
What historical objects can be attributed to this
group? These are definitely theaters, circuses, sta­
diums, seating yards and markets, museums, stock
exchanges, restaurants and even baths.
To test the hypothesis about the possibility of separ­
ating publicly present objects into a separate group
and about the presence of stable, in principle, common
features, several examples can be considered.
Circus building G. Ciniselli. The building is
a detached, two-three-storey brick, plaster-turreted
on a limestone plinth with a shallow dome. The
main (southern) facade is semi-cylindrical, with
a two-tier, rectangular in plan, projection of the main
entrance. The historical architectural solution (with
the loss of some decorative elements) was preserved
only by the risalit, which retained the ceremonial
lobby on the first floor and the foyer on the second
floor. Its central part is opened by door and semicir­
cular window openings and is richly decorated at the
level of the upper tier (pilasters in the piers, orna­
mented archivolts resting on columns, cornice on
consoles, ceramic comic and tragic masks on the
attic and key stones). Corner piers are wide, rusti­
cated, completed by torn pediments with ceramic
relief compositions in tympanum (cartouches with
horse heads). Other facades fragmentarily include
the outer walls of the one-story circular gallery of
the amphitheater with eastern and western entrances
on a limestone basement, the director’s building and
an extension erected by arch. L.F. Fontana. Above
the southern façade, near the main dome, decorative
mascarons have been preserved on the pediments,
completing the rusticated blades of the amphitheater
facades [9,10,11,12].
Figure 1. View of the Circus G. Cineselli. End of the 19th
century. Published in Theatrical architecture of
St. Petersburg. 2011.P. 53.
 façade is completed with a stepped attic with
a stucco image of a lyre, a wreath and flying
geniuses. The quadriga of Apollo is installed on the
attic. A frieze stretches along the perimeter of the
building with stucco decoration of garlands and
masks. In the walls, on the sides of the loggia,
niches (exedras) with a semicircular end are
arranged. They contain sculptures. The side facades
was decorated with 8-column porticoes, completed
by an attic with a stucco relief depicting a wreath,
thyrsus and Tragic masks. The rear facade is decor­
ated with Corinthian pilasters. In the 19th century,
the building was repaired and rebuilt several times
[11,13,14,15].

Figure 2. Circus G. Ciniselli. Internal view of the circus.

1878 Stock and exposition department of the St. Petersburg
Circus.

Architect V.A. Quesnel built the building in 1876­

1877. The circus building, typologically unique in
terms of its both dome and architectural design, is an
integral part of the urban landscape of the Central
District of St. Petersburg and an important element
of the urban environment. The circus building closes
the perspective of Karavannaya and Inzhenernaya
streets and, thus, as if it is included in the ensemble
of Nevsky Prospekt, the building is perfectly per­
ceived from other adjacent streets, from the Fon­
tanka embankment, from the water and
Simeonovsky Bridge.
Figure 4. The main facade of the Alexandrinsky Theater.
Approved project. 1828. Central Historical Archive of
St. Petersburg.
The town-planning position of the theater is as
remarkable as its architectural design. Moved away
from Nevsky Prospekt, it closes the perspective of the
square with proportions, which are as mathematically
verified as the three-dimensional composition of the
theater and the composition of Rossi Street, located
behind it. Thus, the theater array does not hang over
the avenue and visually harmonizes with the surround­
ing space, thereby evoking positive emotions and
“inviting” to visit it. Nowadays this part of the histor­
ical urban planning concept has been transformed by

Figure 3. General plan of the area occupied by the building

of the Ciniselli circus and the buildings of the
V. Engineering Department. 1899. Central Historical Arch­
ive of St. Petersburg.

Another bright representative of a group of public

presences of objects was Alexandrinsky Theater.
The architect K. Rossi built the building of the
Alexandrinsky Theater in 1828-1832. The main
facade of the building immediately attracts attention
Figure 5. Chevalier F. View of the Alexandrinsky Theater.
as it was decorated with a 6-column Corinthian por­
1830s. Lithography. http://www.nasledie-rus.ru/podshivka/
tico and a loggia between two small ledges. The pics/7929-pictures.php?picture=792901.

85
the overgrown plantings of Ekaterininsky Square.
However, because of them, the facade of the object
can be read, while the significant open space around it
formed both for the convenience of the arriving public
and for the urban planning and compositional purpose,
still allows it to remind its dominant role.
The classical interior space of a theater with
a large auditorium also fully corresponds to the mor­
phological features of publicly present objects.
Figure 6. Fragment of the detailed plan of St. Petersburg in
1828 by Major General Schubert. National Library of
Russia.
3 CONCLUSION
Based on the considered characteristics of publicly
present objects, it seems extremely important to
preserve not only their outstanding architectural
and constructive, but also urban planning features.
Such an outstanding dominant position in the
structure of the building cannot be attributed
solely to the object, but should be considered as
part of the urban planning structure of the city.
The characteristics of near and distant object
types, pools visual perception, the ratio of volumes
of the surrounding buildings and the ratio of
space-planning composition, all of this should be
inseparable from the object itself characteristics.
The fact that now both the composition of the
square around the Ciniseli circus and the integral
planning ensemble around the Alexandrinsky The­
ater are not covered by the uniform boundaries of
the cultural heritage site and are not considered as
86
an object of protection for the objects for which
they were essentially created indicates the pres­
ence of serious problems in the methodology for
determining the objects of protection objects of
cultural heritage. The problems that the scientific
work of the author of this article intends to
eliminate.
REFERENCES
[1] Ozhegov S.S. 1984. Typical re-construction in Russia
in the XVIII - XIX centuries. Moscow: Stroyizdat.
[2] Beletskaya E.A., Krasheninnikova N.L.,
Chernozubova L.E. 1961. "Exemplary" Projects in
Residential Development of Russian Cities of the
18th - 19th Centuries. Moscow: Gosstroizdat,
[3] Luppov S.P. 1957. The history of the construction of
St. Petersburg in the first quarter of the 18th century.
Moscow: Ed. Academy of Sciences of the USSR.
[4] Sementsov S.V., Krasnikova O.A., Mazur T.P.,
Shrader T.A. 2004. St. Petersburg on maps and plans of
the first half of the 18th century. Saint Petersburg:
Eklektika.
[5] Sementsov S.V. 2006. Stages of the formation of the
spatial environment of St. Petersburg. Part 1. Histor­
ical development of quarters and their regulation.
Bulletin of civil engineers. 2 (7). June.
[6] Sementsov S.V. 2006. Stages of the formation of the
spatial environment of St. Petersburg. Part 2. Histor­
ical development of plots (systems of division and
development of plots) and their regulation. Bulletin
of civil engineers. 3 (8). September.
[7] Sementsov S.V. 2012. St. Petersburg in plans and maps.
XX century. Historical and cultural popular science pub­
lication. Compilation, texts of articles and descriptions.
Saint Petersburg: North-West Cartographic Center.
[8] Sementsov S.V. 2006. Stages of the formation of the
spatial environment of St. Petersburg. Part 2. Histor­
ical development of plots (systems of division and
development of plots) and their regulation. Bulletin
of civil engineers. 3 (8). September.
[9] Central State Historical Archive of St. Petersburg.
F. 513. Historical information on the object: Fontanka
river embankment, building 3 (Ciniselli circus) /
Compiled by Vasilyeva, Ulitina. SPb, 1992.
[10] Punin A.L. 1990. The architecture of St. Petersburg
in the middle of the 19th century. Leningrad.
[11] Ponamorenko V.A. Ciniselli Circus. Manuscript.
Stock and exposition department of the St. Petersburg
Circus.
[12] Taranovskaya M.Z. 1978. Carl Rossi. Leningrad:
Lenizdat.
[13] Taranovskaya M.Z. 1956. Architect K. Rossi: build­
ing of the Academic Drama Theater named after A.S.
Pushkin (formerly Alexandria) in Leningrad. Lenin­
grad: Gosstroyiz-dates.
[14] Pukinsky B.K. 1956. The Rossi Ensemble: Ostrovs­
koy Square, Architect Rossi Street, Lomonosov
Square. Leningrad: Lenizdat.
[15] Schubert F.F. 1828. Detailed plan of the capital city
of St. Petersburg; Photographed by: Monakhov, Eme­
lyanov, Korovnikov, Gololobov, Ivanov, Ryabov,
Zhirgintsov. Engraving. at the Military Topographic
Depot.
 Reconstruction and Restoration of Architectural Heritage 2021 – Sementsov, Leontyev & Huerta (Eds)
© 2021 Taylor & Francis Group, London, ISBN 978-0-367-68296-5

Historical and genetic code of Kazan: Medieval bases

K.N. Nadyrova
Kazan State University of Architecture and Engineering, Kazan, Russia

ABSTRACT: The article deals with the formation of the historical and genetic code of the architectural and
spatial development of the city of Kazan in the medieval period from the end of the X to the middle of the XVI
century. Based on the analysis of archaeological, cartographic, and historical materials, the genesis and develop­
ment of the architectural, spatial, and planning structure of Kazan, which developed as part of the medieval
Muslim states of the Volga-Kama region, are revealed. The identification of the medieval foundations of the his­
torical and genetic code of the city will allow us to further determine its changes in the evolutionary development
of Kazan. This is important for preserving and continuing the sustainable development of the city in the future.

1 INTRODUCTION architectural image of the city, which was formed due

A scientific school of historical and architectural
studies was established in Kazan, headed by
S. S. Aidarov, the founder of the study of medieval
architecture and national and regional traditions of
architecture in Tatarstan (Aidarov 2003, Aidarova
2014, Aidarova-Volkova & Krasnobayev 2014).
Representatives of this school investigated the
problems of identifying and preserving the cul­
tural heritage of Kazan (Aidarova-Volkova 2019),
studied the architecture and planning structure of
medieval Kazan (Aidarova-Volkova 2012), the
features of the development of the city in the
Islamic period (Nadyrova 2014) and the forma­
tion of its development (Nadyrova 2012), identi­
fied the lost objects of medieval architecture of
the city (Khalitov 2006), identified the defensive
structure of the Kazan Kremlin (Sanachin 2013),
studied the typology and style of architecture of
medieval Kazan (Khalitov 2011, Khalitov & Kha­
litova 2013), etc.
However, the question of the genetic code of the
city remains unexplored, related to the problem of
preserving and further developing the historical
center of the city, its relationship with the new areas
that emerged in the last third of the twentieth cen­
tury, and are currently developing.
The study of the genetic code of the city in our
country began in the late 70s of the twentieth century.
Its concept was revealed through the totality of the
main structural features of the city, which were pre­
served and repeated in the process of its development.
Initially, Moscow was the object of research (Gutnov
1984). Much attention of researchers is paid to
St. Petersburg. Studying the genetic code of
St. Petersburg, the researchers focused on the unique
to a special set of rules developed and adopted during
the foundation and development of the city (Ruzhzhe
1999). The structural features of the genetic code of
St. Petersburg were comprehensively and at all levels
studied in the XXI century (Sementsov 2013, Man­
gushev et al. 2019; Lavrov et al. 2020). For the first
time, it was established that the historical genetic code
can be the original, and then in the process of city
development, a new urban genetic code can be
formed, characteristic of the new territories of the city
(Sementsov 2013).
The structural features of a city, which are mani­
fested as its genetic code, can take various forms, for
example, as red lines of street development (Golo­
verov & Goloverova 2017).
At the present stage, the essence of research on the
genetic code of the city is reduced to identifying the
initial planning structure, permanent elements of the
urban planning system, and the patterns of their inher­
itance (Slavinsky 2018, Pulyevskaya & Li Lin 2018).
In some studies, the code is considered as a genetic
algorithm in the design, based on the principles of
nature, i.e. equate buildings with living organisms.
This will allow the evolution to continue (Fassoulaki
2021). Similar genetic algorithms are also applicable
to the urban environment and can be considered in
retrospect.
Thus, modern researchers interpret the manifest­
ations of the genetic code of each city in different
ways, but this “difference” is different facets of the
same concept, i.e., the characteristics of the urban
structure. In different cities, obviously, certain charac­
teristics appear, and others fade into the shadows and
are weakly manifested. This depends on the regional
landscape and historical development conditions of
each city.

DOI: 10.1201/9781003136804-17

87
 The analysis of the urban planning structure of Volga 6 km to the west of this place. This hill was
Kazan to identify the historical and genetic code of part of the ridge that stretched from north to south,
the city was not carried out. And the intensive devel­ on which the city would develop. The Bulak channel
opment of the city causes experts to fear the possibil­ flowed at the western foot of the ridge and connected
ity of losing the regional identity and sustainable the Kazanka River and Lake Kaban, which lies
development of Kazan in the future. All this together 1.5 km to the south. On the eastern side, the ridge of
determines the relevance of the work. hills was separated by a deep ravine (later Chernoo­
To remove these concerns, the goal is to identify zersk). The territory of the cape with an area of 4-5
the historical and genetic code of the architectural hectares was fortified and served as a citadel of the
and spatial development of the city. Achieving the city in the medieval period.
goal is planned in several stages. At the first stage, Consequently, in the Bulgar period of develop­
this work is being carried out, which is devoted to ment X-the beginning of the XIII centuries. Kazan
the study of the historical and genetic code of Kazan belonged to the cities of the sector-cape type when
in the medieval period, when the city consistently located on a hilly landscape at the confluence of the
developed as part of the three Muslim states of the Bulak channel with the Kazanka River, which dir­
Volga-Kama region. ected the development of the trading quarter in the
Therefore, to identify the historical and genetic southern direction. During this period, the structural
code of Kazan, it is necessary to analyze the plan­ parts of the city were formed: The Kremlin with the
ning and architectural and spatial development of the citadel (inner city), the trading quarter (outer city),
city in the medieval period. and the suburbs. The original settlement was located
southwest of the citadel, and then was expanded and
occupied the next hill of the ridge. According to the
2 MATERIALS AND METHODS Muslim tradition, the cemetery was located behind
the trading quarter. All these parts were connected
The research methodology is based on the theoretical by roads (Figure 1).
development of the genetic code of the city and the Near the main gate of the Kremlin, which opened
use of the method of historical and genetic analysis into the trading quarter, there was a complex of the
of the architectural and spatial structure of the city, main caravanserai (market). The second caravanserai
based on the study of cartographic, historical, and
scientific-theoretical materials.
The purpose of the article is to study the genesis
and development of the architectural and spatial
structure of Kazan in the medieval period from the
end of the X to the middle of the XVI century and to
identify the basics of the genetic code of the city.
Historical and genetic analysis of the architec­
tural and spatial development of the city of Kazan in
the X-mid-XVI centuries. To conduct the analysis, it
is necessary to reconstruct the planning structure of
the city as part of the medieval states of the region.
They were supposed to reflect all the changes associ­
ated with the transition to a new stage of develop­
ment. The earliest plan made based on full-scale
topography was the “Geometric plan of Kazan” by
A. Satsyperov (Russian Military-historical Archive,
f. Z49, inv. 17 c. 198). Cartographic materials on
Kazan in the first half of the XVIII century were first
published by the historian N. F. Kalinin (Kalinin
1952). The plan shows the irregular planning struc­
ture of the city, which has preserved traces of the
walls of the Russian trading quarter. It was within
these walls that until the middle of the XVI century
there was a settlement of Tatar Kazan. The analysis
of the landscape and historical conditions of the
emergence and development of the city based on the
plan of A. Satsyperov allows us to trace its evolution
and identify the characteristic features of the archi­
tectural and spatial structure of Kazan. Figure 1. Development of the planning structure of Kazan
Kazan appeared at the turn of the X-XI centuries. in the X-mid-XVI centuries: 1.1-XII century; 1.2-mid-XIV
century; 1.3-mid-XV century; 1.4-mid-XVI century. Expli­
on a high hill at the intersection of the Bulak Chan­ cation: 1. Citadel.
nel and the Kazanka River, which flowed into the
88
was located at the western foot of the Kremlin on the
bank of the Bulak Channel, i.e. outside the city. Here
was the city pier, where the Volga - Kazanka - Bulak
waterway delivered goods that went up to the city
caravanserai. The location of the Kremlin and the
caravanserai (market) and the features of the city’s
landscape determined the direction of development
of the trading quarter and the configuration of the
city as a whole. Outside the city, walls were artisan
villages, nomad camps, and the city cemetery.
The defensive structures of Kazan consisted of
wooden walls and towers mounted on ramparts. On
the outside of the walls, a moat with water served as
an additional reinforcement (Khuzin 1999). At the
beginning of the XIII century, the Kremlin was sur­
rounded by stone and wooden walls (Khalikov 1996).
The appearance of mosques, minarets, mauso­
leums, and stone baths in Kazan is associated with
the spread of Islam in Bulgaria.
In 1236, Volga-Kama Bulgaria was defeated by
Mongol troops and incorporated into the Golden
Horde. In Kazan, as in other surviving Bulgar cities,
the defensive walls of the outer city (trading quarter)
were destroyed, but the Kremlin with the citadel was
probably preserved to house the Mongol garrison.
The walls of the Kremlin were built at the beginning
of the XIII century before the Mongol invasion. This
is evidenced by the fact of preservation of the stone
wall and the citadel tower, which were revealed
during excavations in the Kremlin.
During the Golden Horde period, mosques,
madrasas, mausoleums, caravanserais, and hammam
baths continued to be built in Kazan. The Islamic
character of the city has not changed.
A network of road communications was devel­
oped. The development of the open settlement
spread over the hills to the south and the east beyond
the ravine. Residents of the city, along with station­
ary wooden houses, could put yurts on the estates as
a summer home. As a temporary dwelling, yurts
were located in squares and outside the city (Nadyr­
ova 2014). The lower and upper caravanserais con­
tinued to function (Figure 1.2).
After the collapse of the Golden Horde in 1438,
the Kazan Khanate was formed, with Kazan as its
capital.
In contrast to the Golden Horde period, Kazan
built new defensive fortifications around the Kremlin
and the outer city (Figure 1.3). The suburbs of the
city included the territories of the flood meadows of
the left bank of the Volga river beyond the Bulak
channel (Khan’s Meadow) and the Arskoye field –
a plateau in the south-east of the city, as a place of
folk festivals.
In the Khan’s period, the Kazan Kremlin was
extended in the southern direction and surrounded
by new walls. In the fortified citadel of the Kremlin,
the Khan’s Mosque, palace, and mausoleums were
built (Nadyrova 2014). At the turn of the XV-XVI
centuries, the main mosque of the khanate - Kul­
Sharif-was built in the Kremlin (Khalitov 2011).
89
The city’s trading quarter encompassed the Krem­
lin on the southern side from east to west. The terri­
tory of the trading quarter was enlarged by the
inclusion of a previously open trading quarter in the
east behind the Chernoozersky ravine, which turned
out to be inside the city, and was surrounded by
wooden walls in 1530.
The communication structure of the city included
main and secondary roads (Figure 1.4). The main
roads were traced by the location of the citadel in the
Kremlin, large religious and public buildings, as
well as travel gates and complexes in the space of
the shopping district. In the planning structure of the
shopping district, there were three main highways.
They began with a wide square, which was bounded
on the north side by the walls and the Khan’s Tower
of the Kremlin, and on the south by the upper cara­
vanserai. From the east and west, it descended along
the slopes of the Kremlin Hill. From this square,
along the ridges of the hills to the Khan’s Posadsky
Gate (the direction of the modern Kremlin Street),
the middle of the highways went south.
The second highway ran along the base of the
western slope of the Kremlin hill and the northern
end led to the square. Near the mouth of the Bulak,
in the former place was the lower caravanserai. The
third highway stretched from the east side of the
square to the southeast and turned into a road to the
city of Arsk (Archa).
To the east and west, along the slopes and trans­
verse ravines separating the hills of the ridge, cross­
roads descended from the middle to the lower side
highways. Thus, the radial-fan basis of the planning
structure of the Kazan trading quarter was formed
(Nadyrova 2014).
The urban fabric of the city in the form of
ordinary wooden buildings in various parts of the
city was connected by the communication frame­
work of the city. In Kazan, as in other cities of
the khanate, the settlement was carried out
according to the clan-related principle. Residential
development was formed by various estate com­
plexes that corresponded to the status of the
owner (Nadyrova 2012).
Khan’s caravanserai and lower caravanserai were
the main shopping complexes of Kazan, which had
maintained their location almost from the foundation
of the city. On the Bulak Channel, lakes of the Cher­
noozersky ravine, public white-stone baths-hamams
were traditionally located (Nadyrova 2017). Parish
wooden mosques were built inside city blocks. City­
wide mosques were built in markets, in cemeteries
(memorial), near caravanserais (Nadyrova 2012).
3 RESULTS
Historical and genetic analysis of the architectural
and spatial development of Kazan showed that for
more than six centuries from the X to the middle of
the XVI century, Kazan gradually formed and
developed on the site of the modern Kremlin and the
central part of the city within several Muslim states.
The landscape and hydrological conditions deter­
mined the architectural and spatial structure of the
city. The hilly terrain with deep ravines, the presence
of the Volga, Kazanka rivers, Bulak channels, Kaban
Lake, Chernoozersky ravine lakes, and many sea­
sonal lakes and streams in the flood meadows of the
Volga and Kazanka, the high plateau in the east of
the city caused the peculiarities of the city structure.
The tendency of the directed development of the city
to the south is revealed. It was determined by the
landscape and hydrological conditions of the city’s
location in the natural environment. In the further
development of the city, this trend will be overcome
only in the middle of the XIX century. and especially
dramatically - in the twentieth century.
The Kremlin was the administrative and religious
center and the main structural element of the city.
Constantly changing and developing, it remained the
compositional center and core of the city throughout
the medieval period. The planning structure of the
Kremlin was formed by the middle of the XVI cen­
tury and consisted of the main communication con­
necting the passage towers in the north and south,
and crossroads that branched off from it to the west
and east to other passage towers.
It is established that this main communication has
constantly maintained its shape and main position at
all times, only lengthening with the increase in the
territory of the Kremlin from north to south.
It is revealed that the system of road communica­
tions of the Kazan trading quarter (the outer city in
the ring of wooden walls) had a radial-fan structure
and finally formed in the Khan period. The main
lines of communication and the nature of this struc­
ture were most consistently preserved in the planning
structure of Kazan for 300 years from the middle of
the XVI to the middle of the XVIII century.
Significant religious and public buildings were
traditionally restored in the same places (citadel,
palace complex, mosques, mausoleums, hammam
baths, caravanserais). A feature of the development
of the architectural and spatial structure of Kazan, as
a city with a Muslim population, was the placement
of cemeteries outside the city’s trading quarter. The
Khan’s cemetery was located in the Kremlin, in the
citadel. In the mausoleums of this cemetery, mem­
bers of the Khan’s family and representatives of the
highest nobility were buried.
4 DISCUSSION
The characteristic features identified as a result of
the historical and genetic analysis of the architectural
and spatial structure of Kazan, which was consist­
ently reproduced at all stages of the medieval evolu­
tion of the city, are the medieval foundations of the
historical and genetic code of Kazan.
90
In the above-mentioned studies, the historical and
genetic analysis was carried out by S. P. Slavinsky
on the example of Veliky Novgorod, which devel­
oped similarly to Kazan over the millennium (Sla­
vinsky 2018). A distinctive feature of the historical
and genetic code of Kazan of this period was the
development of the city within the framework of
medieval Islamic states.
The architectural and spatial structure of
Kazan in the medieval period reflected the gen­
eral principles inherent in the organization of
Muslim cities and reflected the specifics of the
life of their inhabitants in accordance with the
requirements of Sharia. This led to a specific typ­
ology of religious and public buildings in the
city, especially in the organization of residential
development on clan-related and religious
grounds, and the placement of cemeteries (Nadyr­
ova 2014). Based on the results of this work, it
will be possible to further study the development
and specifics of the historical and genetic code of
Kazan in the Russian-Russian and modern
periods.
5 CONCLUSION
The main features of the historical and genetic code
of the architectural and spatial structure of the city of
Kazan, which was consistently reproduced at all
stages of its evolution in the medieval period, are
revealed.
– The landscape and hydrological elements in the
period under review, in fact, were developed by
the city in its original form and by the middle of
the XVI century had not undergone significant
changes. The changes in the environment were
made by the device of dams to create several arti­
ficial lakes in a deep ravine (Chernoozersky)
under the eastern slope of the Kremlin ridge of
hills. The dug-out ditches around the Kremlin and
trading quarter were filled with water from
Kazanka and Bulak.
– The structural elements of the city: The Kremlin,
the trading quarter, the suburbs were formed and
developed, maintaining their location until the
middle of the XVI century. A distinctive feature
of the genetic code of Kazan of this period was
the development of the city within the framework
of medieval Islamic states, which caused the spe­
cific nature of the architecture and appearance of
the city.
– The communication framework of the city was
developed by the end of the Khan period into
a complex branched radial-fan structure that met
the landscape and hydrological conditions, the
internal needs of citizens, and the external rela­
tions of Kazan with neighboring cities and
settlements.
 All these features of the architectural and plan­
ning structure were consistently reproduced at all
stages of the medieval evolution of the city.
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 Reconstruction and Restoration of Architectural Heritage 2021 – Sementsov, Leontyev & Huerta (Eds)
© 2021 Taylor & Francis Group, London, ISBN 978-0-367-68296-5

Features of architecture variety of Leningrad residential buildings of the

30s-50s of the XX century
Yu. A. Oblasov
Saint Petersburg State University of Architecture and Civil Engineering, Saint Petersburg, Russia

ABSTRACT: The article examines the architecture of residential buildings built in Leningrad in the 30s-50s
of the twentieth century. The main hypothesis of the article is the statement that the architecture of this period
represented a variety of approaches within the framework of a single state architectural style. The author tries
to analyze the main architectural solutions, which in one way or another represent the general context of the
architecture of residential buildings of the studied period. The main features that influenced the formation and
development of architecture are proposed.

1 INTRODUCTION 2 MATERIALS AND METHODS

The Soviet architecture of the period of the 30s-50s is
a complex and multifaceted object of research from
the very beginning of its emergence. In architectural
criticism, a polar attitude to the phenomenon itself is
often formed, as a result, to the architectural monu­
ments of that era. However, professional studies con­
firm the uniqueness of the architecture of this period.
Based on the works of A.V. Isachenko, Yu.
I. Kurbatov, S. O. It can be argued that the Stalinist
architecture represents a consistent development of the
eclectic tradition, which came into close contact with
the reformist movement of constructivism. The archi­
tecture of the 30s-50s is a separate style, which has
a whole set of interesting features (Blinova 2010; Ikon­
nikov 1997; Isachenko 2000; Khan-Magomedov 2010;
Kurbatov 2010; Fedchenko 2012; Lisovsky 2009).
The city of Leningrad was one of the main sites
where architecture developed in the 30s-50s in the
USSR. There was active development of large areas
and the integration of new buildings into the histor­
ical development. Various features of the urban
environment allowed the creative potential of archi­
tects to be revealed. This is best seen in the construc­
tion of residential buildings and neighborhoods. The
residential development of Leningrad was the basis
for the creation of Soviet ensembles. It was carefully
worked out and thought out by the collective archi­
tectural community, organized specifically for this
task (Barkhin at al. 1975).
The undoubted uniqueness of residential buildings
of the period of the 30s-50s is their diversity. The
residential development of Leningrad, united by
a single approach, offers a whole range of different
architectural solutions for research and analysis.
When studying this period, researchers often face
the need to form a defining terminology. So, the
following terms were proposed: “Stalinist neo­
classicism”, “Stalinist Neo-Renaissance”, “retro­
spectivism”, “Stalinist Empire”. Such diversity in
terminology indicates heterogeneity in the archi­
tecture of the USSR. This heterogeneity is
explained in the same studies by the desire of
Soviet architects to rethink and transform trad­
itional styles in a new way (Ikonnikov 1997;
Isachenko 2000; Khan-Magomedov 2010; Kurba­
tov 2008; Ryabushin 1979; Sementsov 2012a;
2012b).
In this article, we will look at the variety of
Leningrad residential architecture of the 30s-50s.
To do this, it is necessary to consider the factors
that affect its formation. In the materials of the
article, it is proposed to consider the most out­
standing and different examples of residential
architecture.
When selecting buildings for analysis, the follow­
ing features should be considered:
– the location of buildings in the urban environment
and their historical context;
– composite solutions, plastic and tectonic solutions
of facades;
– stylistic correspondence to a traditional architec­
tural style;
– the influence of constructivism and advanced con­
cepts of housing development in architecture.
Based on these features, it is possible to identify
different directions of the architectural style of the
30s-50s on the example of specific samples.

DOI: 10.1201/9781003136804-18

92
3 RESULTS
The variety of residential architecture in Leningrad
was determined, among other things, by the place of
construction. So, the buildings tried to be built into
the historical buildings in the most organic way. At
the same time, new districts were formed into com­
pletely new ensembles with the architecture charac­
teristic of the district. Of great importance was the
location of buildings in the urban framework, so on
highways and secondary streets, ensembles could be
designed in different ways.
There are also strong differences between build­
ings created in different periods of development. The
period of the origin of the style; early pre-war archi­
tecture; post-war buildings of the restoration period;
late triumphal architecture has strong differences and
their own characteristics (Oblasov 2017).
Early experience in traditional architecture, the
experience of constructivism, and the views of a new
generation of architects had a significant impact on
the features of tectonics, facade decoration, and
architectural forms (Barkhin at al. 1975).
As a first example, let’s take buildings with min­
imal decor. An example is the construction of post­
war low-rise residential buildings. The buildings form
a closed block of two-or three-story buildings with
a symmetrical composition of facades. The facades
are modestly decorated, the cornice rods, window
frames, and door portals are elegantly emphasized.
A small architectural addition is the openwork rail­
ings of the balconies made of metal rods. In general,
the architecture is very ascetic and even somewhat
provincial. So, several suburbs of Leningrad were
built up in a similar style, for example 3 Yeletskaya
Street, which was built by A. V. Zhuk &
A. I. Pribulsky in 1949 (Oblasov 2020).
The second example is the buildings of large
ensembles on Moskovsky Prospekt and in the
Malaya Okhta district. They are characterized by
a massive architecture that forms a single ensem­
ble of buildings that alternately recede from the
red line of development. The resulting dotted
building is also reflected in the solution of the
facades. Their composition is built up by large
volumes of risalites, built-in floors, and ledges of
corner wings that go to secondary streets. The
applied decor does not complicate the compos­
ition. It is emphasized and complemented by
alternating pilasters and wall planes with accents
of framed windows and balconies. The expressive
cornice of the forward-facing roof adds plasticity
to the facades, for example 208 Moskovsky Pros­
pekt, which was built by A. I. Gegello &
S. V. Vasilkovsky in 1940 (Oblasov 2017).
The third example is buildings that develop stylis­
tic interpretations of architectural traditions. In the
development of the Petrogradskaya Side, Suvor­
ovsky Prospekt, and Vasilyevsky Island, there are
buildings with different style features. So, the build­
ings on the Petrogradskaya side clearly borrow
93
features of art Nouveau and eclecticism, have kur­
donery, angular accents, and eclectic forms of decor.
The structure of the facades, decoration, and color
help to organically fit Soviet buildings into the build­
ings of the late XIX-early XX century. The buildings
maintain the scale and rhythm of the facade solutions
of the entire architectural environment. At the same
time, Vasilievsky Island and Suvorovsky Prospekt
are known for their neoclassical buildings, where the
ratio of horizontal divisions, the use of column and
pilaster facades repeat the structure of the classical
school, for example 25 Kamennoostrovsky Prospekt,
which was built by V. M. Fromzel & O. I. Guryev in
1952.
In the Leningrad residential architecture of the
30s-50s, there are common, completely characteristic
architectural solutions. They will be considered as
a fourth example. The development of Kantemirovs­
kaya Square, the Vyborg side, and the development of
Avtovo district are residential buildings built in the
spirit of the Leningrad architectural school. A striking
feature is the high decoration of the basement and the
reduction of the part of the decorated upper floors.
Let’s explain this point in more detail. In the classical
St. Petersburg tradition, the basement was decorated
with rust on 1-2 floors, after which it was supported
by columns and compositions with pilasters, which
alternate with the smooth surface of the facades. In
the Leningrad architecture of the designated areas, the
design of the basement occupies 3-4 floors, and the
subsequent design of the facades goes along the last
two floors (or higher, during the period when the
number of storeys of buildings began to increase).
The architects themselves explained this decision
quite reasonably. So, A. A. Ol associated this decision
with the improvement of the streets, where
a dedicated basement was to serve as a background
for planting trees, and the upper decorated floors gave
the architectural rhythm of the facades. The use of
such a facade solution is quite typical for most build­
ings of Leningrad architecture, in some cases, the
floors above the basement are practically not decor­
ated, for example 5 Zenitchikov Street, which was
built by A. A. Ol & S. E. Brovtsev in 1937.
Leningrad architecture of the Stalinist period is
also known for its original finds. And the fifth
example is the innovative art deco of the Shchemi­
lovka ensemble. Here, the solutions of the facades
are radically different from the entire architecture of
this period. In the facades, the plastic of vertical
niches and columned porticos was actively used.
There are polygonal and round forms of windows.
The angular volumes of residential buildings are
crowned by smoothly curved horizontal cornices.
Decorative rosettes and wall panel inserts are used to
complement the composition with expressive
accents. They alternate with smooth, almost
unadorned wall planes from the plinth to the cornice,
for example 9 Ivanovskaya Street, which was built
by I. I. Fomin & E. A. Levinson in 1939 (Golovina
2018; Oblasov 2017).
 As the sixth example, and the most striking
example of Leningrad architecture, the buildings of
the 50s will be considered. It boldly uses innovative
solutions of architectural forms, includes sculptural
compositions and massive decorative elements in the
facades. This period is best characterized by the
accent buildings on Moskovsky Prospekt, on Sta­
chek Avenue. They borrow the basic principles from
the traditional Leningrad buildings discussed above
and are enriched by the bright color of the facades,
the complex composition of the buildings, and
wings. In many respects, this direction was formed
under the strong influence of Moscow high-rise
architecture, for example 67 Stachek Avenue, which
was built by V. A. Kamensky & G. L. Ashrapyan in
1952 (Oblasov 2017; Vozniak 2017, 2018).
4 DISCUSSION
The studied period in the formation of the architec­
ture of Leningrad belongs to a complex era. The
young state, created on a powerful ideological basis,
formed completely new methods of farming. As
a result, the very principle of production of residen­
tial buildings was subjected to serious reform. That
set certain basic differences with the way design and
construction were conducted earlier. The scale of
construction was set by the state planning author­
ities, aimed at organizing and optimizing the timing
of the commissioning of residential buildings. Also,
the experience of almost fifteen years, when the
work was conducted in the style of constructivism,
had a great influence (Usanova 2015).
As a result of the appeal to a new architectural dir­
ection, the beginning of which is actually considered
1932, based on the formed base in the USSR and in
particular in Leningrad, architectural practice radic­
ally differed from the pre-revolutionary approach.
It can be argued, based on the considered
examples, that in the Leningrad architecture in this
period there was a consistent evolution. When
designing residential buildings, there was a deep pro­
cess of creative search within certain constraints.
The development of the resource, economic and
material base made it possible to increasingly master
the prospects of the dominant style. Which, unfortu­
nately, was interrupted at the peak of its heyday.
5 CONCLUSION
The architecture of residential buildings in Lenin­
grad provides an opportunity to consider the diver­
sity of creative understanding of non-canonical
architectural trends.
Based on the proposed categories of analysis, it
can be seen how the architecture of residential build­
ings considered and mutually achieved whole com­
plexes of complex tasks. The environmental aspect
94
and the historical context were not ignored, a new
principle of the ensemble and the urban landscape
was developed, the traditional architectural form was
studied and transformed (Blinova 2009).
One of the aspects that were not touched upon in
the article is the relationship between the architec­
ture of buildings and their planning decisions.
Nevertheless, the intensive process of searching for
the optimal parameters of a residential cell, the
development of the concept of a multi-apartment
residential building, was also reflected in the archi­
tecture of buildings. Almost all the planning and
structural developments were included in the next
stage of the development of residential construction,
which excluded architectural traditions.
A great influence on the subsequent development
of residential areas of the cities of the USSR was
also exerted by the developed urban planning solu­
tions, compositional findings in the formation of
buildings. For further research, we can set a task and
correlate the continuity of the principles of residen­
tial architecture of the 30s-50s with the subsequent
stages. Despite the sharply industrial approach to its
solution, many basic principles influenced the entire
late Soviet residential development.
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 Reconstruction and Restoration of Architectural Heritage 2021 – Sementsov, Leontyev & Huerta (Eds)
© 2021 Taylor & Francis Group, London, ISBN 978-0-367-68296-5

Placement of the first railway stations of St. Petersburg in the city structure
in the middle of the XIX century
N. Petukhova
Saint Petersburg State University of Architecture and Civil Engineering, Saint-Petersburg, Russian Federation

ABSTRACT: The article deals with the main trends and principles of placing the first railway stations in the
urban structure of St. Petersburg in the middle of the XIX century. The analysis of the system and principles
of interaction and mutual influence of the city and the railway station is carried out on the example of the first
railway stations in St. Petersburg. The factors that determine the content and direction of the interaction vec­
tors between the railway station and the city are identified and analyzed.

1 INTRODUCTION during the reconstruction of existing railway stations

The middle of the XIX century was marked by
global changes in the urban structure of cities, in
which, in addition to the rapidly developing industrial
production, the appearance of railways and their sta­
tions played a key role. Railways cut into the estab­
lished historical fabric of the city, defining new
boundaries and zoning systems, as well as areas of
the most active development in the area of their sta­
tions and along the tracks, making serious adjust­
ments to the master plans of historical cities. Railway
tracks are one of the main components of the urban
planning framework and are currently being devel­
oped in the general plans of cities and settlements
that determine the prospects for their development.
The inclusion of railway stations in the general
context of the city has given architects the difficult
task of developing their typology and creating an art­
istic image that reflects their function, as well as
finding principles and methods for including a new
type of building in the existing urban environment.
The requirements of the urban planning context
that have changed to date, related to technological,
functional, socio-economic, transport, and other fac­
tors, make it necessary to re-profile part of the sta­
tions with the rejection of the railway function (Orsay
Museum in Paris, Warsaw station in St. Petersburg,
etc.), which radically changes the nature of their inter­
action with the city, setting architects tasks similar to
those solved in the process of the initial placement of
stations in the urban environment. The urban environ­
ment is actively involved in the reconstruction of rail­
way stations as part of the development of high-speed
rail traffic (Sementsov 1996).
The need to solve the problem of interaction of
new architecture with the historical fabric of the city
and the placement of their modern infrastructure
determines the special relevance of studying the his­
tory of the formation of the “urban planning system”
station – city” (Petukhova 2010) to identify the gen­
eral patterns of its development. This system is
based on the interaction and mutual influence of its
components, while the direction of the vectors of
influence changes in different periods of its forma­
tion, depending on the combination of their constitu­
ent factors. It is this system of mutual influence that
is the main subject of consideration in this article.
2 MATERIALS AND METHODS
Placement of the first railway stations of St. Peters­
burg in the structure of the city and the formation
of station forecourts. General trends in the place­
ment of the first railway stations. Since the entry of
public railways into the cities, their stations have to
some extent taken the place of traditional urban
planning dominants-palaces and temples. The role
of railway stations not only as transport but also as
public spaces led to the appearance at the initial
stage of the tendency to place them in the city
center, caused not only by considerations of pres­
tige but also by the convenience of passengers (Pet­
ukhova 2010). For example, for the first Moscow
station of the St. Petersburg-Moscow Railway,
placement options were considered within the
Garden Ring, in particular, on Trubnaya Square.
The first French Paris-Saint-Germain railway
(1837) and the Paris-Versailles line were to be
extended on “beautiful cast-iron viaducts” running
through residential buildings to the center of Paris
behind the Madeleine Church (Bowie 1987).

DOI: 10.1201/9781003136804-19

96
 In most cases, the trend of placing railway sta­
tions in the city center at the initial stage remained
unrealized both in Western Europe and in Russia.
The reason for this was the difficulties with the
alienation of land in densely populated central neigh­
borhoods, as well as the noise and sparks spread by
the new type of transport, which can lead to a fire.
This trend was fully realized only in London, where
Charing Cross station is located almost in the geo­
metric center, and the distance between the most dis­
tant from each other stations of Cannon Street and
Liverpool Street is only 800 m.
Subsequently, starting from the 1860s, the trend
of placing train stations in the city center began to be
realized in many cities around the world: in Milan
(1864), Rome (1867), Edinburgh (1868), Stockholm
(1867-1871), Cologne, Munich, Oslo, Lisbon,
Buenos Aires, New York (1871), Budapest (1877),
Turin (1888), Warsaw, Amsterdam (1889), Tokyo
(1909). The central role of the station in his urban
planning plans was also assigned by Le Corbusier,
comparing it with the “hub of the wheel” (Corbusier
1970).
Another trend was also of a centripetal nature and
consisted in the desire to combine stations in the
construction of the first railways of various direc­
tions, which was associated not only with cost sav­
ings in the construction of stations, but also made it
easier to find a place for their placement, allowing to
minimize the cost of alienating land for the needs of
the railway. This trend was “external” in nature,
coming from the city authorities and other depart­
ments interested in this, causing the rejection of pri­
vate railway owners who want to have their own
stations, including for image reasons. In particular,
the War Department considered that the reduction in
the number of train stations in Paris “is more favor­
able for the mobilization of troops” (Bowie 1987). If
these ideas were implemented during the construc­
tion of the first railways, we would not see many sta­
tions in Paris, and the “square of three stations”
would not appear in Moscow. This trend, as well as
the desire for railways to the city center, was not
realized at the initial stage, meeting with the resist­
ance of private road owners. The idea of centralizing
railway stations was revived at the very beginning of
the twentieth century with the centralization of rail­
ways in the hands of the state, which, together with
the changed requirements of the urban planning con­
text and their operation, initiated projects for the
reconstruction and unification of railway stations.
The implementation of this trend at this stage was
prevented by the difficult geopolitical situation: The
First World War and the revolution.
In practice, the location of the first railway sta­
tions was determined, to a greater extent, by the cur­
rent urban planning situation: the planning grid of
streets, the availability of free territory, etc.
The density and status of the development, as
a rule, decreased with the distance from the center,
which led to the placement of most of the first
97
stations near the city borders. At the same time, the
need for the fastest possible intra-city transport con­
nection to the city center (where the railway could
not reach), determined the location of the stations on
the main urban highways.
At the same time, as a rule, the layout of railway
stations followed the main historical planning struc­
ture of the city. Thus, the radial-ring planning
system widely used in medieval cities caused the
appearance of a “ring of railway stations” in the area
of the former fortress walls, as in Paris or Moscow
(Petukhova 2010). The railway lines continued
beyond the city limits with radial highways connect­
ing the stations with its center, contributing to the
further expansion and development of the city
according to the historical planning scheme.
Such an arrangement of railway stations turned
out to be the most suitable not only in urban plan­
ning, but also in semantic terms, as new entrances to
the city, marking and, in fact, replacing both geo­
graphically and functionally, the former city gates.
In St. Petersburg, which was built at a later time
according to a different urban planning system, how­
ever, the same principle of station layout was present
based on the historically established planning
structure.
3 RESULTS AND DISCUSSION
Placement of the first railway stations in
St. Petersburg. The first railway stations in Russia
appeared in the capital of that time – St. Petersburg,
where domestic railway construction began: Tsars­
koye Selo Railway Station (1837), St. Petersburg-
Moscow Railway Station (1851), Varshavsky Railway
Station (1851), Peterhof Railway Station (1853­
1857). Subsequently, the Finnish Railway Station
(1870) and, more recently, the Ladoga Railway Sta­
tion (2001-2003) were added to these stations. In
Moscow, during this period, only the final station of
the St. Petersburg-Moscow Railway appeared.
Accordingly, the layout of the stations there began to
take shape later – in the 1860s, with the appearance
of Yaroslavl (1859-1861) and Ryazan (1863, now
Kazan) stations next to the first Moscow station on
Kalanchevsky Field, which formed the famous
“square of three stations” (now Komsomolskaya
Square) (Petukhova 2005).
The planning structure of St. Petersburg, which
was originally based on the three main thorough­
fares: Nevsky Prospekt, Gorokhovaya Street, and
Voznesensky Prospekt, converging to the Admiralty,
determined a different layout of railway stations than
in Moscow or Paris. The stations are located not in
a circle around the center at its historical borders, but
linearly along the southern border of the city at the
end of these highways: Tsarskoselsky – near the end
of Gorokhovaya Street at Zagorodny Prospekt
(middle main thoroughfares), Nikolaevsky-at the end
of the direct beam of Nevsky Prospekt, Varshavsky
and nearby Baltiysky-at the end of Izmailovsky Pros­
pekt beyond the Bypass Canal (Figure 1) (Petukhova
2010). Continuing the railways, they seemed to bring
them to one point in the center of the city near the
Admiralty, broadcasting, at the same time, beyond its
borders, determining the direction of development
not only of the city but also of the region.
For the introduction of railways into the city and
the placement of stations, which include, in addition
to the station, a large number of objects necessary
for their operation, extensive spaces were required,
so the choice of a particular place was greatly influ­
enced by the availability of free territories or the
possibility of alienation of land plots. In
St. Petersburg, for this purpose, the military garrison
parade grounds were used, the principles of which
largely coincided with the basic requirements for the
placement of railway stations – they were also
located at the city borders at the intersection with the
main highways, replacing the outposts at the fortress
walls of medieval cities (Sementsov 1998). Tsarsko­
selsky railway station occupied part of Semenovsky
parade ground, Nikolaevsky – part of Alexandrovsky
(Figure 2).
Tsarskoselsky railway station. To accommodate
the station of the first Russian “presentation” railway
from St. Petersburg to Tsarskoye Selo in 1836, the
builder of this road, Gerstner, initially chose a place
on Tsarskoye Selo (Moscow) Avenue, which is
almost a direct road to Tsarskoye Selo, 370 m from
the Obukhov Bridge over the Fontanka River. How­
ever, the difficulties with the alienation of land plots
and the desire to reduce the cost of the project deter­
mined the need to search for a nearby territory free
from development, which was chosen as the
Figure 1. Map of Saint Petersburg. 1871 A-Nikolaevsky
(now Moscow) railway station; B-Tsarskoselsky (now
Vitebsk railway station); C-Varshavsky Railway Station
(closed); D-Peterhof (now Baltic) railway station (Ropo­
tova 2004).
98
Figure 2. The plan of St. Petersburg. 1843: A-Alexan­
drovsky parade ground – the future site of the station of the
St. Petersburg-Moscow Railway; B-Semenovsky parade
ground-the site of the Tsarskoye Selo Railway (Ropotova
2004).
Semenovsky parade ground near Zagorodny Pros­
pekt between Gorokhovaya Street and Vvedensky
Canal. As a temporary station “in the courtyard of
the regimental church of the Life Guards of the
Semyonovsky Regiment”, a “very unsightly building
was built, the entire neighborhood of which “pre­
sented a sad appearance” (Zolotnitsky, 2007).
In 1849-1852, a two-story stone railway station
was built on the adjacent plot, acquired in 1843 by
the Society of the Tsarskoye Selo Railway on the
embankment of the Vvedensky Canal (now Vve­
denskaya Street), designed by architect K. A. Ton
(Petukhova, 2010). The station building continued
the line of construction of the Semyonovsky Regi­
ment barracks along Zagorodny Prospekt, and there­
fore, the station square, necessary for entering the
station or leaving it, was located not opposite
the front facade, but along its side building from the
Semyonovsky Parade Ground, where an open arcade
was arranged. This type of placement “dissolved”
the station building in the surrounding buildings on
the city side.
In 1874 -1876, the station was expanded and
rebuilt in connection with the increase in passenger
traffic, while maintaining the general urban planning
scheme. And only at the beginning of the 20th cen­
tury, after the extension of the railway to Vitebsk
and giving it the status of the main line,
a monumental building was erected, considered by
contemporaries “undoubtedly the most interesting
among the stations of our capital” (Frolov 2003), the
urban planning solution of the square in front of
which was set as an example to other stations.
The station of the St. Petersburg-Moscow Railway
(Nikolaevsky). For the main station of the first main­
line railway in Russia, which connected the two cap­
itals – the present and the former: St. Petersburg and
Moscow, a place was chosen on Znamenskaya
Square, which received its name from the Church of
the Sign (the Entrance of the Lord to Jerusalem)
located there, located on the bank of the Ligovsky
Canal (now Ligovsky Prospekt) near Nevsky Pros­
pekt. The square occupied an important urban plan­
ning location, being practically an interchange at the
intersection of three main directions: Nevsky Pros­
pekt, the road to the Alexander Nevsky Lavra, and
further to Shlisselburg and the old Novgorod Tract
(Petukhova 2010).
The well-known lawyer A. F. Koni describes this
suburban square at that time: “… Znamenskaya
Square is vast and deserted… Two-and one-story
houses frame it, a narrow river flows past. The water
is muddy and muddy, and a rough wooden railing
runs along the shore. This is Ligovka” (Murashova
2002).
The territory adjacent to the square along the east­
ern bank of the Ligovsky Canal to the Alexan­
drovsky Parade Ground, where the railway later
passed and the station building was located, had
sparse construction of one-and two-story wooden
and stone houses located on private plots, in the
depths of which there were gardens, vegetable gar­
dens and arable land (Petukhova 2010)]. The nature
of the occupation of the population living there
reflects the names of the streets passing nearby:
Goncharnaya, Karetnaya, Stremyannaya, etc.
According to the documentation on the alienation
of land plots for the location of the railway station,
“the land of the city, the Alexander Lavra and private
individuals was allocated for the station, the parade
ground and the street, and part of it was transferred
from the former Alexander Parade ground to the sta­
tion” (Russian State Historical Archive, f. 350, inv.
31, st. un. 290).
The appearance of the railway turned the “back­
water” square into a significant urban planning
ensemble, the device of which was paid attention at
the highest level. Emperor Nicholas I added add­
itional places to the square, “as His Majesty’s pencil
crossed out” (Russian State Historical Archive,
f. 218, inv. 3, c. 570, p. 133). The square was given
the shape of a trapezoid, almost along the central
axis of which passed Nevsky Prospekt, and the base
was the former Ligovsky Canal, enclosed in a pipe,
over which a new street was laid (the current
Ligovsky Prospekt) Petukhova, 2010]. On the other
side of the square, the streets spread out like a fan,
reminiscent of the classic “St. Petersburg three-axis
“, which was based on the continuation of Nevsky
Prospekt, which changes its direction in the direction
of the Alexander Nevsky Lavra. The station build­
ing, designed by K. A. Ton in 1843-1851, formed
the southern side face of the trapezoid, occupying its
entire length. “Vis-a-vis” to him, on the opposite
side of the square, forming another side face of the
trapezoid, was the building of the “railway stations”
- a hotel with entertainment establishments (architect
A. P. Gemilian, now the Oktyabrskaya Hotel)
(Figure 3).
Giving the square the shape of a trapezoid, nar­
rowing in the continuation of Nevsky Prospekt,
99
Figure 3. Saint Petersburg. Znamenskaya Square. General
Plan, architect N. Ye. Efimov, 1844 (Russian State Histor­
ical Archive, f. 218, inv. 3, c. 570).
created an additional effect of reducing the perspec­
tive, visually increasing the area and “monumental­
izing” it. This technique was used in the planning of
the most significant squares of the Renaissance
period, which was fascinated by the problems of per­
spective (Capitol Square, the square in front of the
Cathedral of St. Nicholas).
According to the “Most Highly approved plan for
the settlement of the square”, it was “intended to
build it with four-storey buildings corresponding to
the passenger station, according to the most highly
approved facades” (Russian State Historical Archive,
f. 218, inv. 3, c. 570).
Giving the square the shape of a trapezoid, nar­
rowing in the continuation of Nevsky Prospekt, cre­
ated an additional effect of reducing the perspective,
visually increasing the area, and “monumentalizing”
it. This technique was used in the planning of the
most significant squares of the Renaissance period,
which was fascinated by the problems of perspective
(Capitol Square, the square in front of the Cathedral
of St. Nicholas).
According to the “Most Highly approved plan for
the settlement of the square”, it was “intended to
build it with four-storey buildings corresponding to
the passenger station, according to the most highly
approved facades” (Russian State Historical Archive,
f. 218, inv. 3, c. 570).
The square was designed by architect N. Ye.
Efimov, who also designed the facades of the build­
ings surrounding it. In addition to him, the architect
K. A. Ton (Russian State Historical Archive, f. 218,
inv. 3, c. 570) took part in the design of the facades
of private houses facing the square, the project of the
hotel (now the Oktyabrskaya Hotel) opposite the sta­
tion was carried out by the architect A. P. Gemilian.
Renaissance traditions in the formation of Zna­
menskaya Station Square were reflected not only in
its configuration but also in the architecture of the
buildings framing it with arcades along the facades,
as in the squares of Italy.
Znamenskaya Square (now Vosstaniya Square) in
St. Petersburg is a unique example of the creation of
a new urban planning ensemble, initiated by the
placement of the station. Its station significance
became, of course, a priority to the church that gave
it its name, which clearly demonstrates the emergence
of new urban planning dominants in this period.
Warsaw railway Station. Varshavsky Railway Sta­
tion in St. Petersburg was built in 1852-1853 by the
architect Skarzhinsky at a considerable distance
from the city center behind the Obvodny Canal at
the end of Izmailovsky Prospekt – the third main
planning beam of St. Petersburg.
The station building was moved directly to the
red line of the embankment of the Obvodny Canal,
in connection with which the function of the station
square was taken over by the departure and arrival
yards located along the sides of the building, where
the entrances to the station were located. This deter­
mined the further development of the station com­
plex after the transfer of the road to the Main
Company in 1858-60 when the station building was
replaced by a more presentable one designed by
P. O. Salmanovich, which currently exists (but with
a different functional purpose).
If the first two stations were located on the side of
the main highways that make up the planning three-
axes of St. Petersburg, making it possible for them to
continue further, then the Warsaw station closed the
third ray-Izmailovsky Prospekt, stopping its further
development. This corresponded to the classical
principles of urban planning with the orientation of
roads to the main urban planning dominants, which
in this case was the station building and not the trad­
itional dominants of churches and palaces. However,
later such placement was considered as an urban
planning error, preventing the merger of Izmailovsky
and Novo-Izmailovsky Avenues (Figure 4).
Peterhof (Baltic) railway station. In 1853, at the
height of the Crimean War, the construction of
the second private palace railway after Tsarskoye
Selo, St. Petersburg – Peterhof, began, which was
carried out at the expense of the famous patron of
the arts, Baron A. L. Stieglitz. The station of this
railway in St. Petersburg – Peterhof (now Baltic),
was built in 1853-1857. according to the project of
Architect A. I. Krakau, similar to the Eastern Station
in Paris. Peterhof railway station was located next to
Varshavsky, but at a distance from the Obvodny
Canal, on an undeveloped site opposite the bridge
that continues Lermontovsky Prospekt. Such an
arrangement can be considered one of the most
Figure 4. The plan of St. Petersburg, again taken in 1858.
The location of the Warsaw and Peterhof (Baltic) railway
stations (300 years of St. Petersburg on the plans and maps,
RNB).
100
successful urban planning solutions since it made it
possible to arrange an extensive urban and function­
ally organized forecourt in front of the front facade
of the station. (Figure 4).
The appearance of an urban “machine” scale in
the building of the Peterhof and nearby Warsaw rail­
way stations, apparently, was influenced not only by
the development of the typology of the stations but
also by their location outside the city outskirts,
which allowed us to ignore the traditional large-scale
structure of the urban context-in contrast to the
buildings of the Nikolaev and Tsarskoye Selo rail­
way stations, located in urban development.
4 CONCLUSION
The urban planning system “railway station – city”,
which is formed when railways enter the city, is
based on the interaction and mutual influence of its
constituent elements, defining different directions of
interaction vectors; “from station to the city” and
“from city to station”, the content and meaning of
which changed at different historical stages.
The well-known architectural researcher E. I. Kir­
ichenko also notes the” preemptive “ factor of the
railway’s influence on the industrial and economic
recovery, “starting already with the news that the
road will come to certain places” (Kirichenko 2001).
The choice of the location of the station at the ini­
tial stage, as a rule, is dictated by the current urban
planning situation, which determines, among other
things, the possibility of alienating the urban terri­
tory for the needs of the railway (Petukhova 2010).
The vector of interaction between the railway station
and the city changes its direction immediately after the
appearance of railways and their stations, which begin
to have an active influence on the urban structure,
determining the directions and points of growth.
The increase in the” value “ of the previously mar­
ginal territory of the station location leads to a change
in the status of its development with the replacement of
buildings that spontaneously arose there with larger
and more significant objects in the urban plan.
Along the railway tracks, new nodes of the fac­
tory and residential development are being actively
formed on the outskirts and behind the railway track,
which is connected to the railway stations by a new
grid of streets.
With the development of industry, the growth of
cities and railway traffic in the 60s of the XIX cen­
tury, there came a “railway boom”, which was char­
acterized not only by the construction of new
railways and their stations but also by the reconstruc­
tion of old ones, the expansion of which with an
increase in the number of station tracks caused the
need for alienation of new urban areas.
In addition to the functional requirements of the
railways, the need to reconstruct their stations and
forecourts was also dictated by the urban and socio­
economic situation that had changed by the beginning
of the XX century, including the emergence of road
transport and the intensification of road traffic, which
the old forecourts could no longer cope with.
The railway and its stations are actually a spatial
factor that actively influences the development of the
city from the moment of their appearance. As cities
grew, railway stations and station forecourts became
part of the city’s transport and planning structure,
taking on some of the functions of intra-city transport.
At present, the interaction of the railway station
and the city is filled with new factors of influence
both from the railway station, associated with their
high-quality reconstruction and with the functional
reorientation of some of them, entailing a radical
change in the urban situation in the zone of their
influence, and from the city, which determines the
parameters of reconstruction activities. The possible
parameters of reconstruction measures are also dic­
tated by the requirements of the state protection of
cultural heritage objects, which include all the first
railway stations in St. Petersburg.
REFERENCES
Bowie K. 1987. Les grandes gares parisiennes au XIXe
siècle. Délégation à l’action artistique de la ville de
Paris.
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Corbusier L. 1970. The architecture of the XX century.
Translated from French. Moscow: Progress.
Frolov A. I. 2003. Railway stations in St. Petersburg.
St. Petersburg: Glagol.
Kirichenko E. I. 2001. Urban planning in Russia in the
middle of the XIX – early XX century. Moscow: Pro­
gress-Tradition.
Murashova N. V. 2002. Fyodor Demertsov. St. Petersburg:
White and Black.
Petukhova, N. M. 2005. The area of three railway stations.
Saint Petersburg: Ostrov.
Petukhova, N. M. 2010. Urban planning role of Russian
railway stations and the evolution of their architecture:
1830-1910. Saint Petersburg: Saint Petersburg Stieglitz
State Academy of Art and Design.
Ropotova M. (ed.) 2004. Saint-Petersburg. Plans and
maps. St. Petersburg: Karta LTD.
Sementsov S. V. Slavina T. A., Antonov V.& Veksler A.
1996. The complex of HSR structures and the problems
of the urban environment of modern St. Petersburg.
Experience in urban planning expertise. Railway Engin­
eer: appendix to the newspaper “Our Way” 3 (4):
84–93.
Sementsov S. V.& Shablaeva N. K. 1998. Placement of
objects of the Russian army and urban development of
St. Petersburg in the XVIII-XIX centuries.
St. Petersburg Readings -98. St. Petersburg and the
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 Reconstruction and Restoration of Architectural Heritage 2021 – Sementsov, Leontyev & Huerta (Eds)
© 2021 Taylor & Francis Group, London, ISBN 978-0-367-68296-5

Proportional-metrological and compositional features of the facade of the

Strauss apartment building by V.A. Schroeter & I.S. Kitner
A.V. Radzyukevich
Novosibirsk State University of Architecture and Civil Engineering, Novosibirsk, Russia

A.V. Nikolsky
Saint Petersburg State University of Architecture and Civil Engineering, Saint Petersburg, Russia

ABSTRACT: The article presents the approbation of the method of proportional-metrological analysis on
the example of the facade of the Strauss apartment building in St. Petersburg by architects V. A. Schroeter &
I. S. Kitner, as a bright example of a building built in the brick style. Analysis of the brickwork showed that
the brick along the axes of the joints served as a measure and module of the facade. A strictly defined number
of pokes, spoons, and rows of masonry was extremely accurately measured with the values of a yard and
a fathom. Quantitative analysis of the elements of brickwork makes it possible to reconstruct the design
dimensions and some features of the compositional logic of shaping with historical accuracy.

1 INTRODUCTION 2 MATERIALS AND METHODS

At present, despite the presence of a large number of
studies in the field of proportions of architectural monu­
ments, there are practically no studies on the objects of
St. Petersburg, except for the work of G. D. Grimm
(1935) published in 1935. It provides a proportional
analysis of the shapes of the Smolny Cathedral. At the
same time, almost all the proportions are interpreted by
the author based on the “golden section” hypothesis.
This approach has been considered historically unreli­
able in recent years. Studies by V. P. Zubov (1945),
J. Coulton (1975), V. N. Federyakin (1984), and Mark
Jones (2015) have shown that historically reliable
reconstructions of design dimensions and proportions
can be carried out only on the basis of a modular
approach. Of exceptional interest is the work of the
American researcher Michael Jutterberg, who carried
out the reconstruction of the design concept of the
Erechtheon using an extremely important historical
document-the estimate of the construction of the
Erechtheon. A large module for the reconstruction was
a block of masonry walls, which is estimated to have
a certain size in feet. Arithmetic operations with this
module block allowed the researcher to reliably accur­
ately determine the main compositional axes and pro­
portions of the Erechtheon and, at the same time, to
reconstruct the logic of its formation (Ytterberg 1969).
Paradoxically, the study of the proportions of the
architectural monuments of St. Petersburg on the
basis of a modular approach has not yet been con­
ducted by anyone.
The facade of the Strauss apartment building, designed
by V. A. Schroeter and I. S. Kitner, is a brilliant
example of the “brick style” that became widespread
in the late 19th and early 20th centuries. and embodied
in the forms of several outstanding masterpieces.
A detailed study of the brickwork of the facade of the
Strauss house shows that all the elements are made
with amazing precision and accuracy, almost without
the use of so-called finishing bricks. The question
arises: how was such an exact proportion of the
masonry elements achieved with each other? Judging
by the content of the “Illustrated Urochnogo position”,
the size of bricks at that time was strictly regulated:
the length was six yards, the width was three yards
and the height was 1 ¾ yard. At first glance, it may
seem that this is the simplest arithmetic, which can
only be of interest to masons and construction work­
ers. However, when performing brickwork, the sim­
plest arithmetic calculations turn out to be erroneous,
since, in addition to bricks, brickwork also contains
connecting seams that have a certain value. So, for
example, if you accurately maintain the standard
dimensions of the brick and a certain constant size of
the seam, then you will not be able to perform such
a very common masonry at that time as a cross or
Dutch masonry. The masonry will begin to “spread”
as the horizontal module of the masonry due to the
presence of vertical seams becomes uncertain. In order
to maintain the correctness of the crosswork, the verti­
cal seams of the course of headers must be twice as

DOI: 10.1201/9781003136804-20

102
thin as the vertical seams of the stretcher course.
According to the available documents, the technology
of maintaining the brickwork of the Strauss house
included special care in the execution of the seams
(Reshefor 1928). In order to make the seams in the
form of a convex profile with a roller, in the first year,
the seams were left empty to a certain depth and spe­
cial wooden slats were used to maintain their constant
size (Nikolaeva 2007).
3 RESULTS
Our full-scale study of the masonry of the Strauss
house showed that Dithmer and Renneberg bricks
with dimensions of 250x120x65mm were used there.
In the “Fixed position”, this size is also fixed. Bricks
of this size were used in Warsaw. It is curious that
this is the size of our usual “Soviet” brick. It turns
out a paradox. The architects of the Strauss house
used “our” “metrics” brick, but at the same time,
they managed to measure it with fathom-yard meas­
ures. A careful study and measurement of the facing
masonry showed that brick seams of different thick­
nesses were used (Figure 1).
In total, according to our assumption, three types
of seams were used. The first is a vertical seam in
a row of bricks laid out with spoons. Eight such
spoons along the axes of the seams are equal to one
fathom (213.36 cm) or 48 vershkam (according to
our measurements, this size actually ranges from
212-215cm). Therefore, one spoon with a seam is
equal to 6 vershkam (26.66 cm). Hence, it turns out
that the seam is 1.66 cm (26.66 cm – 25 cm). Differ­
ent size of the vertical seam can be observed in the
tychkov row. In a fathom here “fits” 16 pokes along
the axes of the seams. Therefore, one such poke with
a seam is equal to three vertexes (13.33 cm). From
here we get the size of the seam in 1.33 cm
(13.33 cm-12cm). The size of the vertical seam is
also interesting. Nine rows of masonry according to
Figure 1. Different sizes of seams of the front masonry of
the Strauss house.
103
our measurements is equal to one yard (71.12 cm).
In this case, the seam thickness is approximately
1.4 cm.
It is obvious that it was the use of special wooden
slats that helped the masons to coordinate the metric
dimensions of the brick with the fathom-yard elem­
ents of the facades.
A similar arithmetic problem in a simpler form
was later solved by the Tomsk architect K. K. Lygin,
a student of V. A. Shroter (Romanov 2004). In his
calculation records, he gives the dimensions of
a brick that is slightly smaller than a standard brick
fixed in the “Fixed position”. Each side of such
a brick reduces the size of the seam, equated to.
Lyginym quarter vershka. In this case, it turns out
that not a brick, but a brick together with a seam
becomes a measure and a module of the facade. The
great advantage of such masonry was that it (the
masonry) was numerically commensurate with the
size of the fathom since one fathom contained 8
spoons or 16 pokes. Since the main axial and overall
dimensions of the facades and plans were deter­
mined by an integer number of fathoms, the builders
had the opportunity to carry out brickwork without
using additional bricks, which led to an increase in
the technological and aesthetic properties of the
external brick walls. It was easier for Lygin to solve
the problem, since he set the size of the brick him­
self, and did not take it ready-made with dimensions
oriented to the metric system of measures. To meas­
ure the “metric” brick with the Russian system of
measures, Schroeter and Kittner had to introduce
and strictly maintain three different thicknesses of
masonry joints.
We will analyze the dimensions and proportions
of the main facade of the Strauss house using design
drawings from the magazine “Architect”. The draw­
ing of the main facade of the Strauss house shows
two scale lines - in the fathom and metric systems.
Comparing the size of the fathom with the main ver­
tical axes of the facade, we notice that they are com­
pletely identical (Figure 2).
In particular, the full width of the facade is equal to
ten fathoms. We will check the accuracy of the con­
struction work, based on modern measurement data.
According to our measurements, the main elements of
the main facade at the level of the ground floor have
the following dimensions (Figure 3).
Since the openings and piers in the structure of
brickwork have differences in size by the size of the
seam, we will measure the axes of the piers (Figure 4).
The width along the axes of the entrance door
and the passage is equal to 17079mm. According to
the large-scale design drawing, this size is equal to
8 fathoms. Using the exact metrological value of the
fathom (2.1336 m), we get that 8 fathoms are equal
to 17069mm, which is less than the measurement by
only 1 centimeter. We believe that this accuracy
indicates an exceptional accuracy of the work. After
calculating the number of pokes (Figure 5) from
which the centerline dimensions between the

Figure 2. The proportion of the project drawing of the
Strauss house with the dimensions of the fathom.
Figure 3. Measurement data of the ground floor of the
Strauss.
Figure 4. Measurement data of the ground floor of the
Strauss house on the axes of the openingshouse on the axes
of the openings.
openings are “typed”, we get the following propor­
tional structure of the facade (Figure 6).
4 DISCUSSION
Using the obtained numerical data on brickwork, we
will reconstruct the design concept of the ground
and first floors in connection with the measure and
module of the building, i.e. with the brick (Figure 7).
104
Figure 5. Counting the actual number of pokes in the elem­
ents of the facade fragment.
Figure 6. Proportional structure of the basement part of the
facade of the Strauss house (the module is equal to one
brick poke).
Figure 7. Reconstruction of the structure and proportional­
ity of the brickwork of the basement of the facade of the
Strauss house.
Of great research, interest is also the analysis of
the vertical dimensions of the facade, which could
be adequately carried out with point clouds obtained
as a result of volumetric laser scanning or orthopho­
toplanes obtained by photogrammetry. Nevertheless,
if we assume that the height of the nine rows of
masonry is equal to one yard, then we can say that
the total height of the facade is 27 yards or 9 fathoms
(243 rows of masonry).
The presented method of reconstruction of the design
dimensions through the calculation of the structure of
brickwork has already been tested on the forms of the
Sea Cathedral in Kronstadt, the Church of the Savior on
Spilled Blood, the building of the Moscow City Duma,
the apartment house of merchant Golovanov in Tomsk,
as well as on the forms of buildings of A. D. Kyachkov
in Novonikolaevsk. In particular, a pre-project study of
the forms of his school on Yakusheva Street was
included in the restoration project.
 Obviously, the method of calculating the brick­
work used in the Strauss house was not used every­
where. For example, the architect N. V. Sultanov,
using a similar metric brick in the Peter and Paul
Cathedral in Peterhof, does not use the exact propor­
tion of masonry with fathom-yard measures using
additional bricks. The same pattern is observed on
the facades of the merchant Igumnov’s house in
Moscow (architect N. I. Pozdeev).
We believe that in some cases, the reconstruction
of the original design dimensions of monuments by
calculating the number of bricks in the masonry pro­
vides the basis for the formation of more detailed
measurement and restoration drawings and docu­
ments. It is obvious to us that the use of brickwork
as a measure and module of structures should be
considered a very reliable research method, which is
subject to further testing at other sites. The elemen­
tary calculation of the number of bricks on the
facades may seem like a kind of “accounting” that
is not related to architectural creativity, but it is not.
In some cases, using quantitative data, it is possible
to make a fairly reliable reconstruction of the design
dimensions of the object under study, and, through
this, it is possible to reach some features of the com­
position and logic of the object’s formation. In meth­
odological terms, the proposed approach of analysis
is based on the results of the research of V. P. Zubov,
who in 1945 claimed that “the disclosure of elemen­
tary mathematical techniques used by the architect is
the disclosure of the arsenal of those technical, and
only technical, means that he had… nevertheless,
a truly scientific, historical, … study of elementary
techniques of proportionate is essential as a means to
understand the logic of the work…” (Zubov V. P.).
5 CONCLUSION
The analysis of the brick structure of the front facade
of the Strauss apartment building in St. Petersburg
105
showed that the front brick in total with the axes of
the masonry served as a measure and module for the
horizontal and vertical elements of the facade. Even
though the size of the brick was linked to the metric
system of measures (250x120x65mm), the brick in
the masonry structure was linked to the Old Russian
system of measures based on the fathom-yard meas­
ures. This alignment was carried out by architects
and builders through the use of different sizes of
seams. The use of the method of quantitative ana­
lysis of brickwork makes it possible to carry out his­
torically reliable reconstructions of the design
dimensions and, in some cases, some features of the
logic of shaping the architectural work.
REFERENCES
Coulton J. J. 1975. Towards understanding Greek temple
design: general considerations. The Annual of the British
School at Athens 70: 59–99.
Federyakin V. N. 1984. Integer relations in the architecture
of Ancient Greece VI-V centuries BC. Moscow:
Moscow Architectural University.
Grimm G. D. 1935. Proportionality in architecture. Lenin-
grad-Moscow: The main Editorial Office of the ONTI
construction literature.
Jones M. W. 2015. Greek and Roman Architectural
Theory’. In the Oxford Handbook of Greek and Roman
Art and Architecture, Oxford University Press: 41–69.
Nikolaeva T. I. 2007. Victor Schroeter. Jerome Kitner.
St. Petersburg: Kolo.
Reshefor N. I. 1928. Manual for the preparation and verifi­
cation of estimates, design and execution of works.
Moscow: State Technical Publishing House.
Romanova L. S. 2004. The creativity of the architect Kon­
stantin Lygin in Tomsk. Tomsk: D-Print.
Ytterberg M. 1969. Erechtheion: Proportions and Mean­
ings, plates. Relationships Between Architecture and
Mathematics: 1–36.
Zubov V. P. 1945. Architectural and historical heritage and
the tasks of its study. Architecture. State Architectural
Publishing House: 108–124.
 Reconstruction and Restoration of Architectural Heritage 2021 – Sementsov, Leontyev & Huerta (Eds)
© 2021 Taylor & Francis Group, London, ISBN 978-0-367-68296-5

Schemes in “neutral” and “transition” zones of the architectural landscape

of the Tsarskoye Selo ensemble
M.N. Ryadova
Saint Petersburg State University of Architecture and Civil Engineering, Saint Petersburg, Russia

ABSTRACT: The article presents studies of the planning structure and spatial composition of the architec­
tural landscape of the palace and park ensemble of Tsarskoye Selo, which is divided into “neutral zones” and
“transition zones”. Within the boundaries of the” transition zones”, three schemes of the architectural landscape
are identified: a block diagram, a figurative scheme, and a linear scheme. The block diagram provides for the
preservation with the accurate restoration of the historical landscape. The figurative scheme is the basis for the
preservation and creation of a single image, considering the author’s idea and the valuable characteristics of
the existing state of the landscape. The linear scheme provides for the creation of a stable environment in the
transition zone by completing the three-dimensional composition for the form-and style-forming elements.

1 INTRODUCTION the degree of their transformation, and the anthropo­

The palace and park ensemble of Tsarskoye Selo and
its architectural landscapes are both conservation
zones and development zones. The palace and park
ensemble include a cultural and historical background,
natural conditions, with the help of which various
structures of garden and park construction are created
(Wang Yu 2016). Parks are living organisms and land­
scapes that require different approaches than
approaches to established material protected struc­
tures. It is necessary to preserve the unity of the entire
ensemble of the museum-reserve as a whole while
preserving the diversity and uniqueness of each of the
three palace and park ensembles. At the same time, it
is necessary to consider the significant area, scale,
compositional complexity, chronological diversity of
the entire ensemble and its components, and the indi­
viduality of the symbolic and semantic features of
these historical landscapes. Modern practitioners con­
sider the possibility of preserving the architectural
landscape according to historical models, however,
there are areas for which such a methodology is not
applicable due to the peculiarities of the existing plan­
ning structure and spatial composition.
Parks are based on both regular and landscape
structure, their ratio for each park is different, if in
Catherine Park the regular part occupies a significant
part of the territory, then in the Babolovsky Park, there
are only a few regular elements. The number of archi­
tectural objects and structures, their style solution, the
scale is very different, the most filled Catherine Park,
in Babolovsky is the smallest number of structures.
The technical condition of architectural landscapes,
genic load are very different. At the same time, the
strict subordination of the historical elements of each
ensemble, the planning structure, the hierarchy of the
composition, despite the partial loss and changes in
environmental characteristics, unites the Catherine,
Alexander, and Babolovsky parks into one whole.
In Tsarskoye Selo, the task of forming a single
man-made and ensemble spatial landscape, which is
an example for the whole of Russia, was realized
(Sementsov 2017).
Despite the significant destruction during the
Second World War and the subsequent work on the
reconstruction of the ensemble by the methods of the
Leningrad school of restoration, all these stages of the
monument’s life were appreciated by the world com­
munity. In 1990, based on the Decision of the 14th ses­
sion of the World Heritage Committee, the Tsarskoye
Selo ensemble was included in the UNESCO World
Heritage List, as part of the object “The Historical
Center of St. Petersburg and related groups of monu­
ments” (540-006 palace and park ensembles of the city
of Pushkin and its historical center) (Figure 1).
For each World Heritage Site, the listing is just the
beginning of a lot of work. It is necessary to strengthen
the universal value and educational strategies (for
example, to introduce them into the curricula of
schools and universities; dissemination through trad­
itional and new social media) (Martell 2016), other­
wise, with all the strict legislative regulation of
heritage preservation processes, vandalism and destruc­
tion are inevitable.
The vast body of research and the global agenda
show that it is relevant to understand the landscape as

DOI: 10.1201/9781003136804-21

106

Figure 1. Boundaries of the UNESCO site 540-006 palace
and park ensembles of Pushkin and the historical center.
Author’s scheme, 2020.
a connection between society and space, which goes
beyond its formal dimension and considers it as
a collective space and cultural expression. A valuable
body of knowledge related to landscape management
has been created, focusing on the role it plays in the
memory and identity of society and showing how
heritage can be reinterpreted in accordance with the
principles of sustainable development (Sánchez et al.
2020).
2 MATERIALS AND METHODS
The main methods used in the work were general
scientific methods: comparative-historical, carto­
graphic, graph analytics, typological, compositional-
structural analysis; visual analysis.
In the course of the study, the deductive-inductive
principle was used, and the features of the three-
dimensional composition and planning structure of
each element of the ensemble were revealed.
In the study, the space represented by architectural
landscapes is described by paradigm schemes in the
form of mathematical space, in which the values of
the content area are set as vectors placed in this
space, using the semantic differential method. The
accepted schemes should meet the following charac­
teristics: heuristic, the need for semantic complete­
ness of the description of phenomena, convergent
validity, clarity, simplicity, conciseness (Petrenko &
Suprun, 2016).
The schemes are based on three principles of iso­
lating abstraction-depth, height, and width. Accord­
ing to the thesaurus of the textbook “Architectural
order. Theory, historiography and methodology of
research” author Blinova E. A. (2016), depth is
determined by the range of distances within which
the qualities of the architectural landscape are distin­
guishable, determined visually; it is also accepted in
the study under consideration for width and height,
in their coordinates.
107
3 RESULTS AND DISCUSSION
The analysis and comparison of the landscapes of
the palace and park ensemble of Tsarskoye Selo
allowed us to identify the elements of the three-
dimensional composition that should be preserved to
ensure the integral components of the object.
In the work of O. S. Sapanzhi and Wang Yu
(2018), the State Museum-Reserve “Tsarskoye Selo”
is generally referred to as a structural compositional
model, which reflects the process of restoration of
monuments with an exact repetition of the compos­
ition, park, palace for a certain period.
Based on the research conducted by the author of
the article, all the variety of architectural landscapes
of the museum-reserve ensemble: Catherine, Babo­
lovsky, and Alexander parks, which is divided into
type zones: “neutral zone” and “transition zone”.
“Neutral zones “are areas of the architectural land­
scape with a stable, formed, harmonized environment
that is in balance,” transition zones “ are areas of the
architectural landscape at the border of stylistic com­
positions, chronological stages, hierarchical layers, in
areas of significant changes in the architectural land­
scape, with an unstable environment.
Currently, one of the significant problems in the
field of conservation work is the problem of historical
layers, which often have an independent value and, as
a rule, reveal a historical perspective in the heritage.
The principle of equality of the original component
of the monument and later layers are often violated.
In many cases, the genuine layering gives way to the
supposedly authentic original one (Schenkov 2016).
Lefebvre also presented as a mediating, transi­
tional stage, the dominant role of specific spaces:
half public, half private, meeting places, passage,
and transition (Lefebvre 2015).
For the” transition zones”, three schemes for pre­
serving the architectural landscape have been devel­
oped: a block diagram; a figurative scheme; and
a linear scheme.
The purpose of the work within the boundaries of
structural schemes is a detailed restoration of the
planning structure and spatial composition. With this
type, the selected indicators of the semantic differen­
tial are at their limit positions, either maximum or
minimum. This characterizes the need for structuring
an architectural landscape that retains its original
genetic qualities, which are subsequently trans­
formed in such a way that they cause a general dis­
equilibrium of the environment.
For figurative schemes, it is important to create
a holistic plastic image of the composition, the
“sculpting” of the space that the author has invested
in it, and the subsequent layers. The semantic com­
ponent here prevails over the material reliability. The
figurative approach applies to objects that have had
a significant, sometimes irreversible, introduction
into the structure of the architectural landscape, or
complete degradation of the territory or structures,
during the change of functions.
 For linear schemes that represent conventionally the eight-leaved Zvernitsa, most of the Alexander
flat sections of transition zones – roads, watersheds, Park in the XIX century receives a landscape solu­
it is planned to create a stable environment in the tion. This division has been maintained to this day.
transition zone by completing a three-dimensional For the Alexander Park, transition zones are allo­
composition for its form and style-forming elements. cated: the figurative one is the Zoological Area, the
Catherine Park. The Catherine Park and the Great Forest Area; the linear one is the Lamsky Pavilion
Catherine Palace have retained the significance of and meadow, the territory near the Chinese Village,
the center of the former imperial residence to the Arsenal Clearing; the structural one is the Par­
this day. The palace with the main courtyard and nassus curtain, the Chinese Theater (Figure 3).
circum-conferences, the lyceum and the church, the Babolovsky Park. In Babolovsky Park, the signifi­
south-western building, and the Cameron Baths form cant spatiality and the green area approaching the
a grandiose palace ensemble (Khodasevich 2019). forest play a dominant role, while the architectural
Catherine Park is divided into regular and land­ works serve only as rare accents subordinated to the
scape parts. The regular part consists of four land­ natural environment (Kuchariants & Raskin 2009).
scape areas; the landscape part consists of five. The The landscape zoning scheme includes 12 districts
three-beam composition of the regular part of the (Ryabova 2020). For Babolovsky Park, the following
Catherine Park, unlike its foreign counterparts, did transition zones are allocated: the figurative one is
not find a continuation in the structure of the Tsars­ the Extreme Road, the Northern Glade, the School
koye Selo settlement (Pushkin). The grand scale of garden institution, the Nursing Home of Crippled sol­
the facade of the Catherine Palace created diers; the linear one is Babolovskaya glade, Staro-
a powerful transverse membrane on the way to the Krasnoselskaya road; the structural one is the Taitsky
deployment of architectural landscapes strung on the water pipeline, the English Garden (Figure 4).
main axis (Arsenal-Hermitage) (Ryadova 2020).
For the Catherine Park, transition zones are allo­
cated: the figurative one is the area of the Rose
Field; the linear one is the road along with the Cam­
eron Gallery; the structural one is the Hermitage
Grove (Figure 2).
Alexander Park. In the system of palace and park
ensembles of Tsarskoye Selo, the Alexander Palace
acts as the” second center”, developing and comple­
menting the “first” one is the ensemble of the Great
Tsarskoye Selo (Catherine) Palace. Both palaces,
located at the intersection of the axial alleys of the
New Garden, represent two architectural styles-
Baroque and classicism. In Alexander Park, the
larger scale is wide roads and prospects, large spaces
of woodlands, open glades and meadows, and signifi­
cant distances between buildings (Tumanova 1997).
The park’s ensemble consists of 17 separate regu­
lar and landscape areas, united by a planning struc­ Figure 3. Types of the Alexander Park zone. Author’s
ture and spatial composition (Ryadova 2020). Based scheme, 2020.
on a regular structure one is the French New Garden,

Figure 2. The type of the Catherine Park zone. Author’s Figure 4. Type of zone of Babolovsky Park. Author’s
scheme, 2020. scheme, 2020.

108
4 CONCLUSION
In each type zone, the planning structure, spatial com­
position, modifications, hierarchy, and relationship are
studied. The method of studying the architectural land­
scape based on the semantic differential method is
refined.
The division of architectural landscapes into type
zones allows us to get the most accurate idea of their
spatial structure, the dynamics of the distribution of
typological groups in the area, to determine the size
and nature of the losses, both irreversible and leav­
ing the possibility of replenishment, regeneration of
the planning structure or spatial composition, and
possible approaches to conservation work.
It was found that in the process of restoration of
palace and park ensembles, the main scenario of
preservation is implemented according to the struc­
tural scheme when the restoration or restoration
work is based on a certain period of development of
a particular area of the landscape.
At the same time, at present, a figurative scheme
is of great importance, in which there is no need
and/or opportunity to restore the object with detailed
accuracy, which often hides poor-quality copying,
and its existence and layering are of the most import­
ant emotional and memorial significance.
The considered schemes, if there are specific cri­
teria that allow them to be attributed to a particular
type, are not closed, isolated systems. With the fur­
ther development of architectural landscapes and the
implementation of a complex of conservation works,
it is possible to shift the conditional boundaries of
schemes and type zones, to remove them from tran­
sition zones to neutral zones.
ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS
The author of the article expresses his gratitude to
Sergey Sementsov, Elena Blinova, and Ekaterina
Kozyreva.
The bright memory of Misha Baranov, Sasha
Soloveitchik, and their children.
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Gladkova E. S. 2020. They believe in Restoration. In You
can’t remember, you can’t forget!: palaces and parks of
the city of Pushkin: 1941–1946: 317–355. Saint Peters­
burg: Russian Collection.
Ilinskaya N. A. 1984. Restoration of historical objects of
landscape architecture. Leningrad: Stroyizdat.
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Khodasevich, G. D. 2019. Agate rooms of Catherine II in
Tsarskoye Selo. “Terem, equal to Olympus”. Moscow:
Svyaz Epochs Foundation.
Kuchariants D. A. & Raskin A. G. Gardens and parks of
the palace ensembles of St. Petersburg and its suburbs.
Saint Petersburg: Paritet.
Lefebvre A. 2015. Production of space. Moscow: Strelka
Press.
Martorell, A. 2016. The role of cultural heritage in the
global society. In Heritage in transformation: cultural
heritage protection in XXI century: problems, chal­
lenges, predictions. Heritage for Future 1(3): 191–199.
Murphy B.L. 2016. Museums, ethics, and cultural heritage.
London; New York: Routledge
Petrenko V. F. & Suprun A. P. 2016. Methodological mani­
festo of psychosomatics. Psychological Journal 37(3):
5–14.
Ryadova M.N. 2020. Revitalization of architectural land­
scapes of Alexander and Babolovo parks of “Tsarskoe
Selo” Museum-Reserve in 2014-2019. Reconstruction
and Restoration of Architectural Heritage: 110–115.
London: CRC Press.
Ryadova, M. N. 2020. Stages of formation (1710-1917)
and transformation (1918-present) of the architectural
landscape of the palace and park ensemble of Tsarskoye
Selo. Construction materials and products 3 (1):
95–103.
Sánchez M. L., Cabrera A. T. & Del Pulgar M. L. G. 2020.
Guidelines from the heritage field for the integration of
landscape and heritage planning: A systematic literature
review. Landscape and Urban Planning 204: 103931.
Sapanja O. S. & Wang Yu. 2018. The compositional model
as a tool for the analysis of museum-related palace and
park ensembles. Questions of museology 9(2): 154–161.
St. Petersburg: St. Petersburg State University.
Schenkov A. S. 2016. Modern criteria for assessing histor­
ical and cultural heritage. In Fundamental, exploratory,
and applied research of the RAASN on scientific support
for the development of architecture, urban planning,
and the construction industry of the Russian Federation
in 2015: 131–136. Moscow: ASV Publishing House.
Sementsov S. V. 2017. St. Petersburg at the end of the XIX
century: spontaneous development or preservation of
the traditions of the ensemble solution of the urban
environment. Bulletin of Civil Engineers 6(65): 55–64.
Saint Petersburg: SPbGASU/.
Stepanenko I. G. 2021. “Water rushes through the flood­
gates…”: Hydrotechnical structures and the water system
of Tsarskoye Selo parks. St. Petersburg: Silver Age.
Tumanova N. E. 1997. Catherine Park. History of develop­
ment and methods of restoration. St. Petersburg:
Stroyizdat.
Wang Yu. 2016. “Mountain shelter from the summer heat”
in Chengde (“Bishu Shanzhuan”) and the Tsarskoye
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 Reconstruction and Restoration of Architectural Heritage 2021 – Sementsov, Leontyev & Huerta (Eds)
© 2021 Taylor & Francis Group, London, ISBN 978-0-367-68296-5

Journey of the marquis of Villanueva del Prado through the Algarve in 1809
F. Saenz Ridruejo
Fundación Juanelo Turriano

ABSTRACT: Alonso de Nava Grimón, marquis of Villanueva del Prado, is a key figure amongst the many
personalities marked the Enlightenment in the Canary Islands. Already in 1784 he had gone to Paris with his
friend Agustín de Betancourt, and he brought back an excellent library which today is preserved in what was
his palace in La Laguna. In 1809 he was appointed representative of the Canary Islands in the Cortes. His boat
trip from Lanzarote to Seville suffered so many vicissitudes that, after landing on the Cape of San Vicente, he
decided to continue his journey by land. This communication describes his march along the Algarve, and then
through Spain until reaching Seville. Comments on the letters the marquis wrote to his friend Teresa Juana
Guerra del Hoyo are provided. In them, he vividly discusses all the incidents of the journey, describing what­
ever attracts his attention: the landscapes, the people, the villages, the cities, the urban planning, and the Portu­
guese traditions, highlighting the similarities and the differences with his Canary Islands.

1 INTRODUCTION In 1785 he was appointed foreign associate

1.1 An illustrated canary
Alonso de Nava Grimón y Benítez de Lugo, VI Mar­
quis de Villanueva del Prado, was one of the epigonos
of the saga of enlightened Tenerife citizens formed by
the Viera y Clavijo, Iriarte, De Lugo or Castro Betan­
court, in which his own father, the V Marquis, Tomás
de Nava Grimón and Porlier, was a central figure.
Alonso was born in La Laguna on November 2, 1759.
In 1777 he was appointed a member of the “Real
Sociedad Económica de Amigos del País de Tener­
ife”, in 1779 protector and proxy of the Hermandad
de Labradores de La Laguna and in 1780 captain of
the third company of the La Laguna Militia Regiment.
In 1782 he moved to Madrid where he obtained the
rank of lieutenant colonel of militias (Marrero 2000,
Moliner Prada 2004, Sanz Cuesta et al. 2001).
2 THE JOURNEY
2.1 Journey from Villanueva del Prado and
Betancourt to Paris
In 1784 he traveled to Paris in the company of his
countryman Agustín de Betancourt. On their way
they visited the Aragon Canal, then under construc­
tion, and wrote a memoir praising the work of pro­
tector Ramón Pignatelli, who was decisive for the
continuity of the works. The memoir, entitled “News
of the Imperial Ditch or Royal Channel of Aragon”,
was released in 1978 and published in 1984.
member of the French Philanthropic Society. He
returned to Spain in 1786 and on his visit to Vitoria,
on August 28, was appointed Benevolent Partner of
Real Sociedad Vascongada de Amigos del País
(Royal Basque Society of Friends of the Country).
Among the bibliographic backgrounds he brought
back from Paris is a complete edition of the Encyclo­
paedia which today is preserved in what was once
his palace, in San Cristobal de la Laguna. In
May 1787 he married, in Ecija, María Rosario Barra­
das Portocarrero, with which he would have five chil­
dren, and in September of that year he was appointed
director of the Royal Economic Society, a position he
held until November 1791. In 1794 he was re-elected
director until the end of 1798. In 1799 he was
appointed, for three years, Síndico Personero of Ten­
erife, a position he would hold again between 1806
and 1809. Meanwhile, in late 1801, he was appointed
correspondent of the Academy of Sciences in Paris.
In July 1808, after the French invasion of the pen­
insula, he was appointed president of the Supreme
Board of the Government of the Canary Islands,
a body that was abolished in.
July 1809. On October 5 of that year, he was
elected Deputy in the Central Board of Seville, with
the votes of all The Canarian delegates except those
of Las Palmas. His journey to the peninsula to take
up this post that position and your itinerary through
the Algarve are the subject of this communication.
After the War of Independence, and until his
death in La Laguna on April 2, 1832, he continued
to work for his island. The most notable part of his

DOI: 10.1201/9781003136804-22

110
work was the creation of the University of La
Laguna in 1816 and that of the Botanical Garden of
the Orotava soon after. (Moliner Prada 2004, 2008,
Butrón Prida, et al. 2008, Saldaña Fernández 2014)
2.2 The Marquis’ journey from Lanzarote to
Seville
We know the journey of the Marquis to take up his
position as deputy in the Central Board, through the
letters he wrote, day by day, to Teresa Juana Guerra
del Hoyo. Some authors claim that Teresa Juana was
a childhood friend of the Marquis; but she born in
1769, was ten years younger than Alonso de Nava,
and the reasons for his intimacy are not clear. He
refers to her as “my dear Teresa” or “my dear Tere­
sita” and puts so much interest in narrating her jour­
ney that at some point he claims not to have visited
a village to have more time to write to her. When he
told me that in the convent of San Vicente, a layman
gave him a carnation affirms “that I dedicated you in
my intention”. He only occasionally refers to his
wife in a derogatory way, as when he confesses to
having drunk a few glasses of wine, “to say with the
pardon of my lady the Marquise” It can be deduced
that his wife did not allow him drink. Teresa married
in 1811, when she was over 40 years, with the coun­
cilor of Tenerife José de Monteverde.
In mid-September Alonso de Nava left from Lan­
zarote, for the mainland, but had to return after arriv­
ing in forced arrival to the island of Madeira. He left
again, on October 23rd, at the brig San Vicente, but
the storm took him to the cape of San Vicente,
where, on Monday, October 30th, he disembarked to
continue the journey by land while the ship con­
tinued on its route. He stayed in the convent of San
Vicente which gives its name to the cape name. He
would arrive in Seville on November 9th.
2.3 Monday, October 30th (pp. 49-53)
In his letter of this date, he tells why he decided to
disembark. “All Day Sunday we spent it giving
aboard that part to the vicinity of the earth and
never being able to leave the parallel of the cape,
for at the moment we were terribly ramming the sea
and the wind. What happened the next morning has
just made my mind up? Very early today they came
into my cabin to tell me that the weather was coming
from the south and that if the wind of this part blew
as the east had blown, far from being able to take
Cadiz or or even to keep us in that, we would have
many thanks to give to God if we could take La
Coruña or England.
The best news they have given us is that there are
no French ones in all of Portugal and that the road
from here to Ayamonte – the first town in Spain,
a day and a half from Seville – is very good and only
covers about seventeen leagues, passing through
many and very considerable towns; and that this
kingdom; and that this kingdom of the Algarve is the
111
most populous of Portugal and has the best people,
without ever having the slightest suspicion in ran
into thieves.”
It should be noted the great aversion that, in this
passage and in all its letters, shows towards the
French, despite its previous and not so distant link­
age with France and French culture.
2.4 Tuesday, October 31 (pp. 53-57)
He writes from Vila do Bispo, two leagues from San
Vicente. “This morning we heard at one time two
masses in the church of St. Vincent, which were
applied by us by the two priests of the convent. The
church, on a ship, is still pretty. The main chapel is
very neat and covered with tiles, as well as the walls
as in the vault, which make a very pleasant effect
and like that of a wallpaper, because they have been
done on purpose for the site. The whole convent is
also vaulted.”
“After Mass we were taught with the apparatus
accustomed in these cases the relics of St. Vincent,
which are kept in a kind of sanctuary and which are
reduced to a bone of the joint of a finger of the hand,
piece of the skull, both pieces set in silver, and
a drop of blood and a hair inside a very large glass
jar. The body of the Saint, who was here, was trans­
ferred him to the patriarchal church of Lisbon.”
It claims that in the courtyard are bred very good
cabbages, planted as in Tacoronte, in the middle of
some brick and watered with water from a cistern,
located in the middle of the courtyard, which collects
all the waters of the roof of the convent.
They went out with nine old cavalries, “rucios
y rocinantes”, riding in packsaddle because there are
no known saddles (at the end of the trip it would say
that had been a comfort because being looser could
move freer, which reduced the fatigue in their back).
He had previously gone through Segre Square, so
that they could see the passports and health letters
because the squadron cape of St. Vincent had let
them disembark without demanding the health letter
of the ship carried by the captain. Along the way it
was seeing the wind-driven ship that was starting to
blow and guess that is going to arrive before him.
He took the opportunity to see the citadel and ate
at a soldier’s house, “they are all similar,” he says,
“and they have their round fireplace that makes out
very good eyesight.” They stayed in the scribe office,
with a living room full of bundles and protocols,
with the roof of boards painted “with many flowers
and blushes”.
2.5 Wednesday 1st November (pp. 57-60)
He writes from Vilanova, a distant seaport seven
leagues of Vila do Bispo. “Vila do Bispo is not like
La Orotova or Santa Cruz, but a small poor village
like many of those in Spain that have that title.”
They passed through the terms of Rapuzeira, Fig­
ueira, (where a waitress told them that if they were
French, they would have their heads cut off), Bude,
Val del Rey, Almada, Espixe “whose last syllable is
pronounced like in the word vicia”, of the city of
Lagos and Alvor. Before Alvor, several branches of
the stuary on horseback and then another by boat
passed by horseback. He gives a detailed account of
the passage and then, beautiful, of the meal in the
sand, in a scene that claims to be from a painting by
Greuze. Jean-Baptiste Greuze (1725–1805) was
a French painter who became famous around 1760,
but of which it is not know no country meal scene,
the closest being the one depicted in the so-called
The Hermitage. Before entering Vilanova they
passed another river over a bridge.
2.6 Thursday, 2nd November (pp. 60-63)
“Tonight, I am very tired, or rather angry, as the
Portuguese and the country people of our land say,
of having been more than twelve hours on the
saddle, from shortly before seven in the morning,
that we left Vilanova, until eight o’clock at night we
had just arrived in Loley. The distance seems to be
only seven long leagues, but you cannot spend less
time and you need to follow in the passage of the
harrieros (horsemen), so this way of riding does not
allow to do tests as because the same rides, which
do not stop to eat all day, fed up do not faint until
the end of the day”
Vilanova is a seaport, he continues later, “well­
known and frequented and has a famous estuary,
which will enter as two leagues to the earth and
where boats can be very safe. Today we started our
journey by embarking there to pass to the other side
of the land, which took us more than half an hour.
I started rowing with the sailors, both because the
mountain air could do me a lot of damage while
standing still, and because this short essay may per­
haps can serve me something someday, if I am sent
to row in a galley because I am faithful to Ferdinand
VII and to my duties, they would send me to row in
a galley.” This paragraph reveals both his sense of
humor and his concern for the end of the adventure
he had undertaken.
“After landing in a village they called Mocheluira
or Mocheluireña, we continue on foot to wait for the
cavalry that had come ashore by another place in
a place named Stombre, where while others on the
entourage went to buy bread and chickens, which
cost six royal fleece, I went to see the church, which
is not bad, and I did a long prayer, which is always
good, and especially on the day of the dead as
I think the book of the Maccabees says.”
The rest of the trip seemed even more fun and
enjoyable than in the previous days. Beautiful coun­
try, excellent views, vineyards, olive groves, pine for­
ests, whose leaf is a greener green than that of our
pines, some water, some orange trees, a path like
that of Tacoronte, although in most of the yellow
sand, like a ravine, and above all a very large popu­
lation, because more of the infinite hamlets that are
112
“lands” in the region and the places that I have
already named you, we have passed through the
middle or near the Lagoa, Porches, Cantarilla,
Pera, where we meal like yesterday’s, but on top of
the poyos that surround the square or terrace of the
church, Nuestra Señora de la guía and Blequeme,
which is in the declivial of a mountain and that rep­
resents a much better nativity than Candelaria,
because the house are prettier and whiter and are
not discovered by trees.
La Lagoa, which means the Lagoon, looks a lot
like our village in the surrounding countryside, on
a bridge like the one Cocho made to go to San Diego,
although this one has ramps instead of steps……”.
2.7 Friday, November 3 (pp. 63-66)
“Today it was raining at dawn, and we have stayed
in Loley, whose name I am sure I can put in its
proper letters with its own letters, but whose signifi­
cance is related to laurel, for this tree forms the
weapons of the village.” As you cannot visit Loulé in
the rain, add some facts to yesterday’s itinerary,
mentioning Lagoa and her Carmelite convent and
fine jasper stones. The night in Loulé was toledana,
in a piece of block separated by a curtain, with the
smell and noise of the beasts and the conversations
of the horsemen”
2.8 Saturday, November 4th, (p. 66-69) leaves
Loulé, some notes to yesterday’s itinerary
“Thanks to the colonel in Loulé, last night I had an
excellent night in my neat, warm little room in my
good bed, so I woke up today as if nothing had hap­
pened many days.” All expenses were paid by the
council.
They warn the Almocrebes to prepare the charges
and he went to the parish where two masses attended
by the same sacristan were said.
“The road had weighed it on us very well, but we
found it much worse than the ones that we had
passed up here, not to mention on the swamps that
had made yesterday’s heavy rain.” Instead, he loves
the landscape: “What delicious places, what well-
cultivated countryside of vines, olive groves and
working land, what well-placed, if simple, hamlets!
What a desire to settle in this country among the vil­
lage men, if the French do not come here, nor the
ambition, nor the other vices that make society hell!”
They see a snake, which for some of the group is
a novelty. Two leagues away from San Bras, where
the bells hurriedly bent. Two other leagues, which
seemed short, was Santa Catarina, spending half
an hour for a glen “which is one of those places that
should be visited for fun”. “Nothing is lacking, no
running water, no mountain, no large trees, no pic­
turesque, multiplied places. What a sight for the one
who has just left Lanzarote”.
In Santa Catarina they eat some benches outside.
Two other long leagues that complete six o’clock of
the day they arrive at sunset in the city of Tavira
“which for me has a highly recommended name and
which pretends to be the capital of the entire
Algarbe. The little I saw when I walked in gave me
a very good idea of the people.”
“The Portuguese regularly make their accounts in
reis, however that it is a currency of less value than
the maravedis, which makes the calculations compli­
cated. A veintén, which is also a copper coin, is worth
twenty reis, and that is why it is called veintén;
a toston (from where this name has come to us that is
not Spanish to a currency of more value), five vein­
tenes one old cruzado, four tostones (although the
new crusader is worth four veintenes, more, which is
twenty and four veintenes); a duro worth our worth at
last two old cruzados. So a duro or peso in cruzados
is worth two of the old ones, in tostones eight, in vein­
tenes forty and in reis eight hundred (in the Wood
equals a thousand reis) You see that the veintén,
which is here one of the most used coins equals half
real fleece fully, for the duro one, which has twenty
real real, it matters forty veintenes.”
2.9 Sunday, November 5, enter Spain (p. 69)
“We are already on land in Spain after having
crossed the Algarve end-to-end. God forbid in Anda­
lusia we do as well as in that province of Portugal,
where we have only experienced good treatment,
simplicity, and gifts”.
“When, in the last treaty that was negotiated in
Paris, Don Eugenio Izquierdo, whom I know well
enough not to have admired his intrigues, the ambi­
tious Godoy, shortly before the Revolution of Spain,
provided himself with the principality of the
Algarves, he well knew what he was doing”.
De Tavira lived only the streets he crossed to go
to Mass and when he went out to take the cavalry at
one end of town.
“I who was determined to see our bent on seeing
our Tavira in Tavira, I found that the parish priest
who presided over the choir had much resemblance
to that recommendable bishop; but although in the
figure and attitudes it was surely a lot like him, this
one here will perhaps be a huge bolus. The parish
priests distinguish themselves from the other clerics
in that on short dawn and that it reaches only the
waist, which all serves as an overpelliz, they use
a kind of large hood.”
“As we passed through the main square, which is
magnificent and surrounded by public and private
buildings of very good appearance, we saw the sol­
diers who coming from different places were heading
to the stop. They were militiamen like ours, each
dressed in the suit he wears at home or work, and
even some of them with sticks instead of rifles.
Everyone is Popayán.”
“We also saw in the same square and in the corners
a kind of plaintiffs, who are countrymen who above
their own clothes wear short clothes of incarnate lus­
trillo, open in front and that only reach their knees;
113
and with a painted staff in one hand and a silver cup
in the other they denote what their craft is.”
“And at last we saw women with mantle and saya
and who did not seem to be of the lowest class: A suit
that we had already noticed in La Madera in people
of character, but with the difference, with regard to
our uses, that there women cast their elbows out of
the mantle and with one hand lift up from behind the
basquiña, which has a very long tail, thus making an
English costume of the least English of all costumes,
well that always with the snub and bad grace that are
typical of the women of that island”.
“I can only add that Tavira is indeed a very large
village, that its streets are very good and completely
wrinkled with buildings, if not all magnificent, not
even all tall, all cleaned, and that there is a lot of
turnout of foreigners there, there can be no shortage
of Moors, neither Jews, nor Greeks, nor Spanish
smugglers.”
A league from Tavira is found the small village of
Santa Margarita, which offers no notable thing.
Santa Margarida is a league from Tavira, but in the
direction of Loulé, not towards Vila Real, possibly
wrong to pass his notes to the writing. In the remain­
ing three leagues, as the day was made up of four,
there are no more villages, “but the hamlets are so
frequent that they are discovered so often among the
trees, that the whole country is almost a population”.
They have traveled 27 leagues. They finally arrive
at Villa Real, which is at the mouth of the Guadiana,
opposite Ayamonte, which is the first village in
Spain. “Everything was built not many years ago at
the disposal of the famous Minister Carvallo, that is,
Marquis de Pombal”. “Its streets and the blocks of
houses are as regularly arranged as a lady board.
The houses are mostly earthy; but in the large
square that is in the center, the buildings, which
always keep the same equality, are tall and all have
iron balconies, and those that form the four corners
have the figure of a very funny pavilion or turret”. In
the middle stands a marble obelisk with an inscrip­
tion in praise of the Marquis of Pombal.
The part of the city that looks at the river or the
marina is the most beautiful. We did not enter any of
this town’s house, for we came straight to the navy,
to embark immediately for Ayamonte, wishing to
enter the land of Spain.
“We have only experienced good treatment, sim­
plicity and gifts. Blessed land, in which there is some
simplicity or naivety in customs, some equality in
convenience, much grooming in the rooms, for none
of those we have seen scattered throughout the fields
presented the appearances of misery; and finally,
a lot of amenity in the countryside.”
3 CONCLUSIONS
The work includes the impressions of Alonso de
Nava Grimón, Marquis of Villanueva del Prado on
his journey through the Algarve to the city of
Seville. It represents with remarkable vivacity the
romantic spirit of foreign travelers through Spain
that began to take place at that time. As far as Betan­
court lived the end of the Enlightenment and the
beginning of Romanticism, the Marquis de Villa­
nueva del Prado, with his travel, signs the beginning
of this new century, a new era that will profoundly
change society.
A trip through Spain was still a dangerous and
romantic undertaking. It was necessary to strive, to
have courage, patience and strength risking life at
every step, with privations of all kinds and in
absence of the most essential things in life. That was
the impression of the romantic travelers, and the
comments of Marquis can be considered a good pre­
cedent for them.
Years after this trip, all those travelers arrived in
Iberian Peninsule, specially Spain, attracted by the
avalanche of texts that described Spain as an exotic
enclave, with landscapes and typical inhabitants,
who lived anchored in a way of life almost medi­
eval. This is how the myth of romantic Spain was
forged, an almost magical place in which it was
possible to live countless adventures on your own,
surrounded by a varied gallery of Spanish types that
included from the fearsome bandit to the sensual
and mysterious gypsy woman and, of course, the
114
bullfighter, the manola or the most worthy heirs of
Don Quixote and Sancho Panza.
REFERENCES
Butrón Prida, G. & Saldaña Fernández, J. 2008. La histor­
iografía reciente de la guerra de la independencia.
Reflexiones ante el bicentenario. Mélanges de la Casa
de Velázquez. Nouvelle série (38)1: 243–270.
Marrero, M.C. 2000 Huellas francesas en el Tenerife del
siglo XVIII: las gramáticas y los diccionarios del
legado de Nava. La Laguna: Universidad de La Laguna
Moliner Prada, A. 2004. Crise de l’état et nouvelles auto­
rités: les juntes lors de la guerre d’indépendance.
Annales historiques de la Révolution française. (336)
Moliner Prada, A. 2008. De las Juntas a la Regencia. La
difícil articulación del poder en la España de 1808. His­
toria Mexicana: 135–177.
Saldaña Fernández, J. 2014.Pueblo, nación y ciudadanía
durante la Guerra de la Independencia: la frontera sur
hispano-portuguesa en los orígenes de la contempora­
neidad (1808–1814) La Laguna: Universidad de La
Laguna
Santana-Pérez, J.M. 2018. The African Atlantic islands in
maritime history during the Ancien Régime. Inter­
national Journal of Maritime History (30) 4: 634–648.
Sanz Cuesta, M., Rubio Liniers, M.C. & García-Hernán, D.
2001. La nobleza en España. Madrid: CSIC
 Reconstruction and Restoration of Architectural Heritage 2021 – Sementsov, Leontyev & Huerta (Eds)
© 2021 Taylor & Francis Group, London, ISBN 978-0-367-68296-5

Features of Tsarskoye Selo sub-agglomeration at the beginning of the XX

century
S.V. Sementsov & N.A. Akulova
Saint Petersburg State University of Architecture and Civil Engineering, Saint Petersburg, Russia

ABSTRACT: The relevance of the topic of the article is due to the need to develop a modern program for
the development of the St. Petersburg agglomeration for the next 15-20 years (up to the 2030s), considering
the identification of historical and genetic features of its origin and formation. The specific purpose of the
article was to study the regularities of the crystallization of the largest fragment of the agglomeration of these
territories, which most closely unite the largest and brightest suburban imperial palace and park ensembles:
Tsarskoe Selo, Gatchina, Pavlovsk. The main research approach is a comprehensive landscape, functional,
urban planning analysis based on archival and historical-cartographic materials. The most obvious conclusions
were about the sequence (in several stages) of the creation of the unity of the imperial palace and park ensem­
bles in the Tsarskoye Selo zone, their accompanying cities, belts of manor and dacha settlements, “garden
cities” connected by a dense network of paths and water pipes. And if in the initial period, under Peter I,
industrial objects prevailed here, then later objects of a palace and park character became dominant. This spa-
tial-landscape and historical-cultural unity allows us to formulate proposals for declaring the territories of
Tsarskoye Selo itself and the Pavlovsk - Gatchina - Krasny Selo zone as a single object of cultural heritage.

1 INTRODUCTION industrial and landscape-dacha functions) are dis­

The development of the metropolitan Russian
St. Petersburg agglomeration began in the first years
of the XVIII century and stabilized by the end of the
XIX-beginning of the XX centuries. By this time, as
it was revealed in a series of previous articles, its
near belt was well established and acquired a stable
spatial outline (Sementsov & Akulova 2018ab, 2019).
At the same time, by the beginning of the XX cen­
tury, in the near zone of the historical St. Petersburg
agglomeration, four zones of concentration of cities,
settlements, functions, and communication systems
appeared, which can be assessed as sub agglomer­
ation, namely: Kronstadt, Peterhof, Sestroretsk, Tsars­
koye Selo. Their crystallization took place in different
ways, unevenly and having significant chronological,
topographical, and functional differences, with differ­
ent acceleration and with different features. Since
1704, many publications have been devoted to the
gradual formation of a special naval system of the
Kronstadt fortress in unity with the military city, land,
and sea forts, which can be collectively identified as
a special Kronstadt sub-agglomeration (Razdolgin &
Skorikov 1988, Rozadeev et al. 1977).
The emergence and development since 1721 of
territories, settlements, and objects in the Sestroretsk
zone (in the unity of the special Sestroretsk sub-
agglomeration with the parallel development of
closed in sufficient detail in several publications
(Amirkhanov et al. 2006, Davidenko 1962), as well
as in the work of architecture Matveev
B. M. (Davidenko 1962). One of the most popular
among St. Petersburg residents and researchers is the
Strelnino-Peterhof - Oranienbaum complex, which
stretches across the territories from the southern
shore of the Gulf of Finland to the crest of the Izhora
Plateau. An infinite number of scientific and popular
books and articles have been written about individ­
ual subjects and objects (cities, villages, buildings,
structures, parks, manors, etc.) (Geirot 1988, Raskin
1988, Stolpyansky 1923). This complex developed
from the 1710s along with the ancient, even before
the Petersburg road, and almost turned into a special
Peterhof sub-agglomeration. Finally, a special multi-
functional complex was formed from 1703-1710 on
the Izhora Plateau itself, which united the largest
imperial palace and park ensembles (Gatchina, Kras­
noe Selo and Duderhof, Pavlovsk, Tsarskoe Selo),
the surrounding cities of the Palace Department, the
barracks of guard’s regiments, dacha settlements, as
well as, at certain stages, the nodes, and lanes of
industrial enterprises. All these objects over the dec­
ades have created a special spatial and natural land­
scape center, which well deserves the name
Tsarskoye Selo sub-agglomeration. There are also an
infinite number of publications about cities,

DOI: 10.1201/9781003136804-23

115
settlements, palaces, and park ensembles and land­
scapes in the area of Tsarskoye Selo-Pavlovsk - Gat­
china - Krasny Selo (Vilchkovsky 1911b, Dadaev
1972, Kedrinsky 2013).
But all cities, settlements, man-made landscapes,
and palace and park ensembles, monuments are
often considered separately, outside of the chrono­
logical and natural-landscape relationship with each
other. Increasing the scale of spatial consideration, it
was possible to identify not only some common
characteristics of the entire St. Petersburg agglomer­
ation, including its structural belt structure, within
the boundaries of the formation of the entire
St. Petersburg agglomeration. In this article, on the
example of the development of one sub-
agglomeration, an attempt is made to consider in
more detail the features of intra-agglomeration man-
made landscape nodes.
2 MATERIALS AND METHODS
The study of the chronological and landscape devel­
opment of urban agglomerations and their sub-
agglomeration is impossible without the involvement
of various sources: in this work, which formed the
basis of the presented article, collections of historical
cartographic materials from different collections of
St. Petersburg, archival materials, works of histor­
ians specializing in various fields of the history of
culture, the development of statehood, the history of
urban planning are used. Including, for example,
works on the historical geography of the zone of
St. Petersburg (Isachenko 1998). A comprehensive
parallel study of archival and historical-cartographic
materials helped to show the peculiarities of territor­
ial, urban planning, functional and socio-cultural
development not only of the entire St. Petersburg
agglomeration, which was born in 1703 but also of
the unique multifunctional Tsarskoye Selo sub-
agglomeration, which was formed at the same time
in the Izhora Plateau zone, which included the cen­
tral, most representative part of the historical Tsars­
koye Selo district.
3 RESULTS
XV-XVII centuries Geographical and socio-
ethnographic prerequisites for the formation of sub-
agglomeration. During these centuries, in the terri­
tories of the future St. Petersburg agglomeration as
a whole, a single rural settlement system was formed
in the processes of development of the lower-level
territories (along the Neva River, the channels, the
edges of the water of the Gulf of Finland) and on the
higher horizontal plain of the Izhora Plateau, which
spread over the vast borders of the Prionezh,
Ladoga, Prinevye and along the northern and south­
ern shores of the Gulf of Finland. Here, along the
banks of rivers and lakes, on many hills above the
116
level of the most extensive lowland and upland
swamps and in the thickets of ancient forests, by the
1470s, several cities, and fortresses, thousands of
settlements (from small farms to large villages and
villages) were already located, which were con­
nected by a network of roads of different status
(from the main, state roads to local driveways) and
a total length of many thousands of versts (Sement­
sov 1999).
And in the territories of the future Tsarskoye Selo
uyezd in the 1480s-1580s, during the Novgorod
Republic (before 1478) and the Moscow State (in
the 1478-1580s), among many settlements, accord­
ing to Scribal books, there was already Suidovsky
monastery, post (a large village - the center of the
pogost) Izhersky (with a church, in the bend of the
Izhora River, modern-Yam-Izhora), according to
gost Dudorovsky (with a church, in the future - Kras­
noe Selo with Durov), Diaghilevsky churchyard
(with a church), the village of Hotchino (in the
future - Gatchina), Saritsa (in the future - Tsarskoye
Selo). Along the banks of the river (now called the
river. More than 15 settlements are indicated in the
Scribal books, and more than 30 settlements are
known on the banks of another river (the modern
Izhora River), including the “row on the Izher
River” according to the Map of the 1500s compiled
by Archimandrite Sergius (Appendix to the work
“Features of the parish and monastic life” of the
Scribe Book of the Vodskaya Pyatina of 1500.
St. Petersburg: Cartographic Institution of A. Ilyin.
Pryazhki River embankment, 5. 1905).
In Swedish times (the 1580s-1700s), among the
many settlements in these territories, large noble and
pastoral estates were noted: Hatsinahof (the manor
house of Hatsin), Dudershof (the estate of the gov­
ernor of Ingermanland, Yu. Schutte Duderhof), Sar­
ishof (Sarskaya manor), Ingris hof, Ingris Kirche
(Ingris manor with a church) in a bend of the Izhora
River. At the same time, dozens of villages were
located along the Slavyanka and Izhora rivers.
Along the banks of the modern Slavyanka River and
its main tributaries - more than 40 settlements,
including: Sarish[of], watermill, past[orat] (pastor’s
yard), Slavankak[irha] (Slavyanka Church), Karlbor­
ghof (Karlborg manor), Marienovah[of] (Marienov
manor). Swedish noble Manor Saris-Hoff with the
manor house of the Swede Kamme Peter - Rom and
the courtyard, with the villages assigned to it. It was
located, perhaps, in the area of the future Catherine
Palace of Tsarskoye Selo. On the site of the future
Pavlovsk, the documents indicate a dense spruce
forest, in which two small Finnish villages of Linna
(in Swedish-”fortress”) and Seppel (“blacksmiths”)
were located under General Kroniort. And along the
modern Izhora River, there were at least 75 settle­
ments, including Uskinovahof (Uskinov - Usinov’s
estate, Ustinov (?)), past[orat] (pastor’s estate),
Ingris hof and Ingris Kirche (and in this famous loop
of the future Izhora River, according to local beliefs,
the largest pre-Christian pagan temple was located
from ancient times), Antilia hof (Antilia’s estate),
Messina h[of] (manor Massina) according to the
«General Carta Öfwer Provincien Ingermanneland
dwisten delf noga Uthwÿsar Dela dhes Situation
Fämfe alle der ütsi Belägue Kÿrtior, Dåft, Bijar och
Torv, Tillÿka meds alle der igenom sträckiande
Större och mindre Wägar samst … midh Kongl:
Maÿts: Landtmäterÿ Contvir Anno 1704: af det afrån
Narfwen vor 1703 öfwersände Conceptet Samman­
draget uf Vasl: Ingenieuren Erich Beling så mäll uf
1678… och dhe senare Dÿders Mätningar öfwer
Nötheborgs Lähns Norra dehl unoverat…Anders
Andersin» (1704 г) (Stockholm:. Kungliga Bibliote­
ket. Utländska handritade kartor 15. Stort förmät)
(Sementsov 2018).
1703-1724. During these decades of development
of these territories already as part of the Russian
state under Peter I, the zone in the vicinity of the
future Tsarskoye Selo was formed very intensively.
Here, not the villages of pre-Petersburg times were
preserved, but new ones appeared, inhabited mainly
by immigrants from the area around Moscow. Since
1722, Perevedenskiye villages in this zone have
already been created according to special “model
projects” according to the Nominal Decree No 4070
of August 7, 1722, announced from the Senate “On
the structure of peasant yards according to the estab­
lished drawing” (Complete Collection of laws of the
Russian Empire. 1st collection, volume VI (1720­
1722) No 3480-4136. St. Petersburg: Printing
Houses of the Second Department of His Imperial
Majesty’s Own Chancellery in 1830: 755-756).
Moreover, the predominant development in these
years was the development of the forest industry and
timber processing. Initially, since 1703, in the bend
of the Izhora River, in the places where Ingris hof
and Ingris Kirche were formerly located, the estate
of A. D. Menshikov was formed, since 1702, the
former governor-General of the first Ingermanland
(from 1710 St. Petersburgs) province. And along the
Izhora River, according to his decrees, several water
sawmills were placed since 1712 according to the
Nominal Decree No 2540 of June 6, 1712,
announced from the Senate “On the rules for the dis­
tribution of land in Ingermanland” (Complete Col­
lection of laws of the Russian Empire. 1st collection,
volume IV (1700-1712) No 1740-2619.
St. Petersburg: Printing Houses of the Second
Department of His Imperial Majesty’s Own Chancel­
lery in 1830: 840-841). In 1710, A. D. Menshikov
ordered to build a water dam with a water mill just
downstream and to place a settlement of translated
people nearby. So, there was a village, which later,
in 1722, became the Izhora village of the Admiralty
Izhora factories. In the area of Duderhof and Kras­
noe Selo in 1709-1715, under Peter I, saw and paper
mills (water and windmills) were created, and immi­
grants from the Moscow region were also transferred
here, forming the settlements of Krasnoe, Bratoshi­
khinskaya, Kolomenskaya, Pavlovskaya (Nikolaeva
1994).
117
But some pre-Petersburg noble estates received
a different fate. The second, royal and grand-ducal
line of development of territories also began in 1703,
when Peter I gave his sister-Princess Natalia Alek­
seevna: the manor of Hotchino (modern Gatchina),
since 1716, after the death of Natalia Alekseevna,
the manor was given to the Department of the Palace
Chancellery (Pushkarev 1845). By decrees of Peter
I in 1710-1712, the manors of these territories were
transferred to the possession of many of the tsar’s
associates. So, the Thai manor was given to Admiral
I. M. Golovkin, and Sarskaya Mesa, together with
five other meses: Purkolov (later Podgornoye Pulk­
ovo), Slavyanskaya, Antelya (later Kolpino), Kono­
povskaya, Mozinskaya, and all the villages,
wastelands, and lands that depended on them in
Swedish times (a total of 43 villages, 6 wastelands,
and two mansions), was ordered to be assigned to
the room of her Royal Majesty and transferred to the
personal use of Tsarina Ekaterina Alekseevna (Vilch­
kovsky 1911a). In 1710, a building with 14 windows
on each floor for Tsarina Catherine Alekseevna was
built in Sarskaya Manor (possibly on the foundations
of a Swedish building), rebuilt in 1718 in brick, in
the area of the building in the same years, wooden
churches of the Blessed Virgin Mary and chambers
for court ladies were arranged, an economic zone
was arranged (with a stable yard, huts for servants,
carriage sheds, cattle and poultry yards, rigs, sheep,
barns, greenhouses), a garden is laid out, brick fac­
tories are organized (Rondo 1991). In 1712-1718,
200 families from the palace settlement near
Moscow were sent here, and the villages of Sobo­
levo, Kuzmino, Lipitsy, Slavyanka, and Gari began
to form. And since 1724, they began to create
a Palace settlement. Sarskaya Mesa, as the emerging
main center of these territories, was gradually con­
nected by “perspectives” with many places: among
the main roads along the eastern circumference of
these territories, the Moscow - St. Petersburg road
(1706-1718) was built (“perspective”, grandiose
straight (!) a road that passed directly through for­
ests, fields, swamps and had an unimaginable length
of 705 km), since 1712, on this highway in the bend
of the Izhora River, the Yamskaya Sloboda was
founded, also inhabited by translated peoples near
Moscow, which later became the village of Yam-
Izhora.
And since 1717, from Yam-Izhora to Sarskaya
Mesa, the “perspective road to Sarskaya Mesa”
(1717-1721) was organized. These roads have
become the most important elements of the transport
framework of all these territories. Thus, began the
formation of the imperial and grand-ducal compo­
nents of the development of these territories.
1725-1770. During these years, the accelerated
development of industry continued in the territories
under consideration. The largest industrial facilities
that have undergone significant reconstruction were
the Admiralty Izhorskiye Zavody. Sawmills con­
tinued to operate along the Izhora River. In Krasnoe
Selo, there were already several saw mills­
manufactories, which travelers came to see (Rondo
1991). But in these decades, the palace and park
ensembles, which have received a special spatial and
landscape scale, have already reached the main posi­
tions: Tsarskoe Selo, Gatchina, born Pavlovsk.
Although initially, given the dense forests growing
here, Menageries were primarily created in the areas
of future palace ensembles - at Tsarskoye Selo, in
Krasnoye Selo, in Gatchina, in the territories of the
future Pavlovsk.
But the reconstruction of Tsarskoye Selo commis­
sioned by the Empress Elizabeth Petrovna (architect
F.-B. Rastrelli) (Ovsyannikov 1982) and its trans­
formation into one of the main (along with the Peter­
hof ensemble) suburban imperial palace and park
ensembles overshadowed all other functional oppor­
tunities for the development of these territories and
created a new center of attraction, around which the
Tsarskoye Selo district has already begun to develop.
From the 1760s to the south, the Gatchina estate was
transferred from the Palace Department to the juris­
diction of G. G. Orlov (the second husband or favor­
ite of Catherine II?). Under him, the second-largest
imperial palace and park ensemble was formed: Gat­
china (architect A. Rinaldi, V. Brenna).
And in the late 1770s, just south of Tsarskoye
Selo, the most magnificent in the future Imperial
Pavlovsk Palace and park ensemble began to appear.
These new imperial country ensembles predeter­
mined the absolute predominance of the prestigious
imperial country function in the territories of the
Tsarskoye Selo District from these years on. And
they became the basis for the creation of the first
small court settlements near them (for the settlement
of servants and workers), as well as for the formation
of complex engineering infrastructure and road
system around them. For the water supply of ponds,
lakes, and fountains of Tsarskoye Selo and Pavlovsk,
first, the Wittolovsky water pipeline (1749), then the
Taitsky water pipeline (1772-1787), and finally the
Oryol water pipeline (1905) were built. Many
bypass roads were formed around Tsarskoye Selo,
including Koporsko-Ladoga, Fedorovskaya, Sokoli­
naya, Sofiyskaya (1728, 1753-1761), a proposed
continuation of the “perspective road Sarskaya
Mesa” in the direction of Slavyanka-Torki. Under
Catherine II, roads were built from Sarskaya Mesa to
Gosudaryovaya Slavyanka (the late 1770s), Kras­
noye Selo (1765-1770s), Gatchina (1766-1773),
Babolovskaya Mesa, and the design of the direct
route of the “Novgorod Road” from the Menagerie
of Tsarskoye Selo through Pyazelevo to Novgorod
was carried out (the 1760s-1790s did not come to
fruition). Since 1765, Krasnoe Selo has been acquir­
ing a new function - the venue for summer maneu­
vers of the Russian Life Guard regiments. And in
1780, by the order of Catherine II, the exemplary
district city of Sofia was founded to the south of the
Tsarskoye Selo ensemble, and the Sofia District was
formed according to the Nominal Decree No. 14.958
118
of January 1, 1780, announced from the Senate “On
the establishment of the St. Petersburg Governorate
of seven Counties” (Complete Collection of laws of
the Russian Empire. 1st collection, volume XX
(1775-1780) No 14233-15105. St. Petersburg: Print­
ing House of the Second Department of His Imperial
Majesty’s Own Chancellery in 1830: 906).
1780-1916. In these decades, this territory of the
Tsarskoye Selo district received an absolutely dom­
inant function. Imperial and grand-ducal country
estates are located here with the highest density
(compared to all other territories of the
St. Petersburg province). Constantly improved,
reconstructed, getting more and more luxury and
landscape appeal. Unique multi-component Tsars­
koye Selo (as part of the Catherine, Alexander,
Babolovsky ensembles), Gatchina (Palace, Men­
agerie, Sylvia, Priory ensembles), Pavlovsky (Court,
Parade Field, Slavyanka River Valley, Bolshaya
Zvezda, Old Sylvia, New Sylvia, White Birch) have
become not only zones of a significant increase in
the luxury of existence. But also places of seasonal
and year-round attraction. These processes were
intensified since 1801, when the Highest decision
was made to organize the main entrance to
St. Petersburg from Tsarskoye Selo and Pulkovo
(now it is Moskovsky Ave.) - earlier, in the XVIII
century, the main entrance to the capital passed
along the Peterhof Highway. And it is no coinci­
dence that since the 1800s there was a unique recon­
struction of the Moscow highway, with the creation
along with it of the exemplary villages of Bolshoe
and Maloe Pulkovskiye and others. And in the
1830s, the Main Pulkovo Observatory was built on
Mount Pulkovskaya, on the meridian south of
St. Petersburg. Since the 1800s, summer dacha
settlements for the nobility, artists, artists, etc. were
formed in the vicinity of these imperial ensembles.
By the 1880s, when railway lines were drawn to
these places, not only belts and nodes of dacha
settlements began to form here, but also zones of
towns for a year-round living (on the principles of
“garden cities”). Since 1816, a program was formed
to improve the entire road system, and then the
entire territory of the county (Ministry of Railways
1898). This was also facilitated by the fact that
guards’ regiments began to be placed around the
imperial ensembles in permanent apartments. And
under Alexander I, from 1823-1824, Krasnoe Selo
became the center of maneuvers of the Russian
Guard regiments, these maneuvers were carried out
not only in the zones of the camps arranged around
Krasnoe Selo but also throughout the territory of the
Tsarskoye Selo district: from the Neva River (the vil­
lage of Saperny and Pontonny) to Ropsha. Until
1917, the imperial palace and park function became
clearly dominant, it united the beautiful ensembles
of Tsarskoye Selo, Pavlovsk, Gatchina and the cities
of the Court Department formed around them
according to the materials of 1882 on the cities of
the Court Department about Gatchina, Pavlovsk and
Strelno (St. Petersburg: Typo-lithography of
R. Golike, 1882), manor belts and barrack towns,
especially since Krasnoe Selo has officially become
the center of summer accommodation for all guards’
regiments. Significant expansion and improvement
of the system of land, water, and railway tracks (to
Moscow, Gatchina and Warsaw, and others) contrib­
uted to the further unification of these territories into
a single zone of imperial residences (Akulova &
Sementsov 2020). Even the unique reconstruction of
the industrial facilities previously located here (for
example, the Admiralty Izhora Factories and produc­
tion facilities along the Izhora River) only empha­
sized the dominance of the functions of the imperial
residences.
4 DISCUSSION
The article attempts to consider the history and some
features of the origin and development in the XVIII-
early XX centuries. south of the capital
St. Petersburg, within the near belt of the
St. Petersburg agglomeration of a special prestigious
and man-made landscape formation-the Tsarskoye
Selo sub-agglomeration, which included spatially
interconnected unique suburban imperial palace and
park ensembles of Tsarskoye Selo, Pavlovsk, Gat­
china and the estate belts that closed with them, sys­
tems of “garden cities”, barracks zones of the Life
Guards regiments, united by a reconstructed system
of land, water, and railway highways. A closer look
reveals not only the unique unified spatial and land­
scape ensemble of this sub-agglomeration, but also
its highest historical and cultural potential. There­
fore, it seems that the entire territory should be con­
sidered as a single natural and landscape object of
cultural heritage, without breaking it into separate
(albeit unique) components.
5 CONCLUSION
Thus, chronologically and qualitatively analyzing
the city-forming processes that took place and were
consciously carried out in the 1700s-1917 in the ter­
ritories of the future St. Petersburg province, espe­
cially in the territorial borders of the Tsarskoye Selo
district, we can state the following stages:
– 1703-1724 On the basis of the St. Petersburg
settlement system of this territory, a new settle­
ment system began to form in the time of Peter
the Great, with mainly production functions;
– 1724-1780 In these years, the reconstruction of
the largest imperial country residences - Tsars­
koye Selo, Gatchina-began. At the same time,
work is being done to improve the road transport
system and to develop industrial facilities;
– 1780-1916 in the conditions of the absolute pre­
dominance of suburban imperial palace and park
119
ensembles, systems of arrangement of barracks
towns of guard’s regiments, manor settlements,
dacha zones (for summer seasonal residence),
zones of “garden cities” (for year-round resi­
dence) were formed around them. Since 1800,
large-scale work has been carried out on the rad­
ical reconstruction of the entire road transport
system, considering the peculiarities of the devel­
opment of these territories. The entire territory
under consideration became the area of annual
maneuvers of the Guards troops, and Krasnoe
Selo became the location of summer camps of the
regiments. Even large-scale reconstructions of
industrial facilities and large centers were already
secondary in these conditions.
RECOMMENDATIONS
This article is valuable for researchers in the field
of the history of urban planning, as well as for
modern urbanists dealing with the problems of
preserving the historical heritage and modern
development of the largest cities and their
agglomerations.
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 Reconstruction and Restoration of Architectural Heritage 2021 – Sementsov, Leontyev & Huerta (Eds)
© 2021 Taylor & Francis Group, London, ISBN 978-0-367-68296-5

Features of highest nobility estates on the territory of Saint Petersburg

province Novoladozhsky uyezd
E.Yu. Shuvaeva
Saint Petersburg State University of Architecture and Civil Engineering, Saint Petersburg, Russia

ABSTRACT: In the article, on the example of Novoladozhsky uyezd, the characteristic features of the
estates of the highest nobility located in the territory of distant uyezds (Luzhsky, Novoladozhsky, Yam­
burgsky, Gdovsky) are considered Saint Petersburg Province and in the border regions of the Vyborg and
Novgorod provinces. The parameters used in the comparison of representative estates of the upper classes and
ordinary noble estates, as well as the differences between the estate complexes of the far and near “belts” are
described. The landscape-geographical features of the objects ‘placement and the associated characteristic fea­
tures of the planning structure are revealed. The average values of the area of the estate territories, the number
of buildings and options for their functional diversity, depending on the degree of remoteness from Saint
Petersburg, the features of existence, and the duration of residence, are determined. As examples, different in
size, but similar in landscape and geographical features (riverine) estates of Novoladozhsky uyezd are con­
sidered: large estate Pokrovskoye, medium-Uspenskoye and small-Bardinshchyna

1 INTRODUCTION These characteristic features (compositional-planning,

spatial, functional) distinguished the distant estates of
The construction of noble estates in the Saint Peters­ the highest nobility not only from the typical noble
burg province was carried out from the beginning of estates but also from the typologically similar neighbor­
the XVIII century and reached its greatest intensity ing estates of the highest nobility located on the territory
under Elizabeth Petrovna in the third quarter of the of Peterhof, Saint Petersburg, Tsarskoye Selo, and Shlis­
XVIII century. By 1916, their number was more than selburg counties. (Sementsov 2019).
two thousand objects (Murashova 2005). The areas Within the boundaries of the study area, only 148
of dense homestead settlement were Saint Petersburg remote estates of the highest nobility were identified,
and Peterhof counties, the northern parts of Tsarskoye of which 83-in the Saint Petersburg province and 65­
Selo, Yamburg and Gdovsky counties, the southern outside it (Shuvaeva 2020). 13 estates that existed in
part of Luzhsky Uyezd, the central and western part Novoladozhsky uyezd by the beginning of the XX
of Shlisselburg Uyezd, the southern shore of Lake century were studied (Figure 1).
Ladoga, and the territories along the Volkhov River
in Novoladozhsky Uyezd. (Guseva 2008).
The article considers the estates of the highest nobil­
ity – large manor complexes that belonged to the high­
est layers of the Russian nobility, having a rank not
lower than the fourth in the table of ranks. Geographic­
ally distant estates were located within the borders of
the Luzhsky, Novoladozhsky, Yamburg, and Gdovsky
counties of the Saint Petersburg Province, as well as in
the southern part of the Vyborg and northwestern part
of the Novgorod provinces (Sementsov, Kozyreva
2020). As a rule, the studied objects were formed in
the most favorable climatic (on the banks of large and
medium-sized water sources) and logically convenient
(along transport highways) areas, had a vast territory,
a large number of buildings of various functional pur­
poses, and were used for long-term (seasonal or year-
round) residence. The structure of the complexes
mainly consisted of the core, economic, service, and Figure 1. Layout of the estates of the highest nobility on the
garden-park zones, and adjacent territories. territory of the distant counties of the Saint Petersburg province.

DOI: 10.1201/9781003136804-24

121
2 MATERIALS AND METHODS Table 1. Classification of estates of the highest nobility of
the Luzhsky uyezd according to the features of placement.
Distant estates of the highest nobility formed con­
centric groups, the so-called “estate development On terrain
bushes”, consisting of one or two main complexes Riverine (near without nat-
and several smaller ones, connected with the central Riverine (near a large a small river/ ural water
river) stream) features
estates compositionally and planning.
In Novoladozhsky uyezd there are two main Volkhov Pokrovskoe river Sari Verola
“Bush” - Eastern, composed of mansions, located River Sarria
along the major rivers Volkhov and Syas (Lyubsha, Liubsha
Karpova, Uspenskoe, Pokrovskoye, Demanovka, Karpova
Cassie Rows), and West estates formed from small Uspenskoe
rivers and streams in the landscape or no natural river Syas Rows Ladozhka Gargala
water sources (Trusovo, Kiselnya, Verola, was Gar- Syas river
gala, Slide, Sari) (Figure 2). Demoralization
Slide
Pasha Badindin Kiselnya
river

as the basis of the planning structure of the garden

Figure 2. Layout of the estates of the highest nobility on
the territory of Novoladozhsky uyezd with the indication of
the conditional boundaries of “bushes”.
and park complex with the location of the central
elements of the road and path network along the riv­
erbed (Barsova 1971). The manor house, as a rule,
was located on an elevation, the service and eco­
nomic zone in the distance at a certain altitude level.
For a small group of estates located on the terrain
without natural water sources (Verola, Gorgala,
Kiselnya), the monotony of the territory is character­
istic and, as a result, the transformations are associ­
ated with an increase in the diversity of landforms
(Toporina, Golubeva 2015).
Thus, the identified estates of the highest nobility
of Novoladozhsky uyezd were located in improved
natural landscape zones, considering geographical
features (near natural water bodies) and on land
transport arteries (Figure 3).

3 RESULTS AND DISCUSSION

Landscape and geographical features influenced the

settlement structure and largely determined the fea­
tures of the planning structure of the complexes. So,
within the boundaries of the county under consider­
ation, the estate development is concentrated in the
northern part, which is most convenient for agricul­
tural purposes. A large part of the objects it refers to
the riverine type: Badindin, Slide, Demanovka,
Karpov, Pokrovskoye, Cassie Rows, Uspenskoe and
Liubsha. The Trusovo and Verola estates were
located on the banks of smaller rivers (Table 1). This
vast group is characterized by such features as an
open perspective view of the main water source, the
development of a natural hydraulic system in the
structure of a terraced park due to its transformation
by artificial dams, cascades, ponds (Toporina, Golu­ Figure 3. The layout of the estates of the highest nobility
beva 2015). Often there is a tendency to use the river on the territory of Novoladozhsky uyezd relative to water
bodies and transport arteries.

122
 In her dissertation “Garden and park complex of
rural noble estates of Saint Petersburg province
(typological aspect)”, S. E. Guseva refers Novola­
dozhsky uyezd to the zone of moderate development
in terms of the number of estates and the number of
buildings (Guseva 2008).
The concepts of “large”, “medium” and “small”
estates are different for each county and depend on the
area of the territory and the number of buildings located
on it. Thus, in Novoladozhsky uyezd, medium-sized
(from 5 to 10 ha) and small (up to 5 ha) estates predom­
inate, the share of large complexes (over 10 ha) is not
large. The number of buildings, as a rule, varied within
10-15 objects, mainly for economic purposes. Such
functional content is primarily due to the need to create
conditions for long-term residents of the owners (Roose­
velt 1995). As part of the planning structure, in addition
to the core and the garden and park zone, there were
also economic, service zones, and adjacent territory
(arable land, forest, and hunting grounds) (Isachenko
2003). Since the second half of the XVIII century,
industrial zones (factories or factories) began to appear
in the distant estates of the highest nobility. The build­
ings inherent in the neighboring estates of the highest
nobility, reflecting the status of the owner (stables for
thoroughbred horses, greenhouses of exotic plants,
“temples of Friendship”,) were practically absent
(Kozyreva 2019).
As examples, we will consider three distant estates Figure 4. Plan of the village of Pokrovsky, 1778.
of the highest nobility of Novoladozhsky uyezd, differ­
ent in area, but similar in landscape and geographical Ladoga, on the upper and lower terraces of the left
features of placement-Pokrovskoye (large), Uspens­ bank of the Volkhov River (Figure 5).
koye (medium), and Bardinshchyna (small). The formation of the Uspenskoye estate began in
Pokrovskoe. the middle of the XVIII century, the first carto­
One of the largest estates of the highest nobility graphic materials reflecting its planning solution are
of the Novoladozhsky district is the Pokrovskoye dated 1778 (Murashova 2005). In the center of the
estate in the village of Babino near the bank of the estate complex, on the bank of the river, there was
Volkhov River. (Figure 4). The territory of the com­ a manor house, in the northern part – an economic
plex of 15 hectares has a diverse, artificially empha­ zone with various buildings, in the southern part-a
sized terraced terrain. garden and park area of the regular layout.
The first mention of the village of Pokrovsky dates According to the plan at the beginning of the XIX
back to the XVI century, but the location of the land­ century, the saved location of the main house, commer­
owner’s estate on the left bank of the Volkhov Stream, cial area, complemented by outbuildings, greenhouses,
which flows into the Volkhov River, is reflected only on
the plan of 1778. On a raised platform, on an artificially
arranged ledge above the dam, there was the Church of
the Intercession of the Most Holy Theotokos, to the east
of it along the shore there were manor buildings and
a regular park adjacent to them, the adjacent territory
was used as arable land (Murashova & Myslina 2009).
After the reform of 1861, only the estate remained in the
village, a new wooden manor house was built in the
eastern part of the complex, and the park received land­
scape development and was increased to 15 hectares.
The church continued to be the compositional center and
the dominant feature of the village.
Uspenskoe.
The Uspenskoye estate (the Melgunovs ‘estate)
got its name in connection with its location behind
the Uspenskiy Convent in the village of Staraya
Figure 5. Plan of the village of Uspensky, 1778.

123
and orchards are located not only in North but also in
the Western part, and partly on the banks of the river.
The park, located in the southern part and adjacent to the
house, has completed in the form of a three-lane alley
(Guseva 2007). Its regular planning solution is gradually
supplemented with elements of a landscape park. The
building and land inventories of 1842 and 1846 indicate:
barnyard with cellar, mill, miller’s hut, barn, cherry barn,
carriage house, laundry, manor yard, manor house, stone
wing, people’s wing with kitchen, people’s bath,
orchard, English garden, stone palisade, vegetable
garden, riga (Murashova, Myslina 2009). Numerous and
varied functional purpose buildings provided
comfortable year-round residence for the owners of the
estate, and the location between the monasteries contrib­
uted to the preservation of the original planning structure
of the complex.
Badindin.
Bardinshchyna is a small estate with an area of
about 3 hectares on the left bank of the Pasha River
in Novoladozhsky uyezd (Figure 6).
Exact information about the planning structure and
the object composition of the original estate complex
has not been preserved. It is known that at the beginning
of the XIX century, the territory of the rectangular estate
was bounded by the Pasha River on one side and the
road on the other, the central place in the composition
was occupied by the manor house-a typical two-story
wooden building with a mezzanine for noble estates.
In 1868, the estate was divided into three parts and
the second part with the manor house was further
developed, which was significantly rebuilt (balconies
were added, a glazed two-story terrace) (Murashova &
Myslina 2009). In front of it was a service area with
outbuildings, forming a vast courtyard. The regular
garden and park area was supplemented in a landscape
style, additional alleys were laid from the house to the
river, and the coastal slope was decorated. Judging
by the description of 1909, the complex included:
a manor house, a barn, stables, a barn, a bakery,
a glacier, baths, a shop (Murashova 2005).
Figure 6. Plan the villages of Ryazanovshchina and Badin­
din, 1782.
124
4 CONCLUSION
The estates of the highest nobility are a special typo­
logical layer formed by certain territorial zones
around Saint Petersburg. The zone of the far belt
developed mainly in the south-eastern direction and
included the territories of the Luzhsky, Novola­
dozhsky, Yamburg, and Gdovsky counties, as well as
parts of the Vyborg and Novgorod provinces. How­
ever, the estates were not located in a dense “ring”
but were grouped in “bushes”, the centers of which
were the largest and most representative estates
belonging to the highest layers of the nobility.
On the example of the studied objects of Novola­
dozhsky Uyezd, the characteristic features of distant
estates of the highest nobility, general patterns of
organization, planning and compositional features of
manor complexes, variants of landscape, and geo­
graphical location are traced.
REFERENCES
Barsova I. V. 1971. Estate parks of the Leningrad region
and the principles of their use. Leningrad: LISI.
Guseva S. E. 2007. Alleys in the estates of the Saint Peters­
burg province. Industrial and civil engineering 7: 49–50.
Guseva S. E. 2008. Garden and park complex of rural
noble estates of the Saint Petersburg province (typo­
logical aspect). Saint Petersburg: SPBGASU.
Isachenko T. E. 2003. The interrelation of natural and cultural
complexes of noble estates and landscapes. Doctoral disser­
tation, Saint Petersburg: Saint Petersburg State University.
Kozyreva E. A. 2019. Nearby estates of the highest nobility
as a phenomenon of the historical and urban life of
Saint Petersburg (on the example of the dacha of A. S.
Stroganov). Bulletin of the Tomsk State University of
Architecture and Civil Engineering 21 (3): 67–76.
Kozyreva E. A. 2019. Problem fixture and save near the
estates of the higher nobility, for example, “giving Kushe­
leva-Bezborodko”. Bulletin of the Belgorod State Techno­
logical University named after V. G. Shukhov 12: 56–64.
Murashova N. V. 2005. One hundred noble estates of the
Saint Petersburg province. Saint Petersburg: Vibor.
Murashova N. V., Myslina L. P. 2009. Noble estates of the
Saint Petersburg province. The South of the region: the
Volkhov and the Kirov region. Saint Petersburg: Alaborg.
Roosevelt P. R. 1997. Life on the Russian country estate:
a social and cultural history. Yale University Press.
Sementsov S. V., Kozyreva E. A., & Shuvaeva, E. Y. 2020.
Estates of the highest nobility of the Saint Petersburg prov­
ince as a special spatial structure of the historical Saint
Petersburg agglomeration. In IOP Conference Series:
Materials Science and Engineering, 775(1): 012073).
Sementsov S., & Akulova N. 2019. Foundation and Devel­
opment of the Regular Saint Petersburg Agglomeration
in the 1703 to 1910s. In 2019 International Conference
on Architecture: Heritage, Traditions and Innovations
(AHTI 2019): 425–433.
Shuvaeva E. 2020. Developmental peculiarities of nobles’
estates on the territories of distant uyezds in Saint Peters­
burg province. In E3S Web of Conferences 164: 04029.
Toporina V. A. & Golubeva E. I. 2015. Russian provincial
noble manor as a natural and cultural heritage. Saint
Petersburg: URSS.
 Reconstruction and Restoration of Architectural Heritage 2021 – Sementsov, Leontyev & Huerta (Eds)
© 2021 Taylor & Francis Group, London, ISBN 978-0-367-68296-5

Architectural and planning structures of the Greek polis: Three-dimensional

reconstruction options
A.V. Silnov
Saint Petersburg State University of Architecture and Civil Engineering, Saint Petersburg, Russia

ABSTRACT: The article is devoted to the analysis of the spatial organization of the cities of Ancient
Greece. The evolution of the emergence of the ancient polis is considered. The author presents his concept of
the development of functional zones of the Greek city-state. Greek architects ensured the independence and
prosperity of the city through a harmonious combination of various aspects: socio-economic, urban planning,
and planning. The author presented his versions of three-dimensional models-reconstructions of various cities
of the Hellenistic era, made at the Department of History and Theory of Architecture.

1 INTRODUCTION 2 MATERIALS AND METHODS

This work is devoted to one of the most important
areas of modern science about antiquity: the Greek
polis. According to modern researchers, without this
topic, it is impossible to understand the essence of
ancient civilization because it is a kind of phenomenon
of modern science (Surikov 2010). And one of the
most pressing problems on this topic: the origins of the
appearance of the policy, the patterns of its appearance
(Andreev 2003).
Since the XVII century and up to the present day,
extensive historiography covers many disciplines of
various specialties: from the actual history of the
ancient world to related disciplines, such as archae­
ology, philology, and art history (Francotte et al.
1907, Perlman et al. 1910, Ranovich 1950, Utchenko
1952).
Not the last place in these studies is occupied by
the sciences that are traditionally associated with the
architectural profession: the history of architecture,
urban planning, history, and theory of architecture.
Researchers define the polis as a unique unity of
city-forming elements, of which the concept of
sinoikism was one of the main ones.
The architectural and planning aspects of the
Greek polis have relatively recently (since the
1970s) become a subject of interest (Surikov 2010)
for scientists of various specialties. Only in the last
two or three decades have works on this topic
appeared. We can mention F. E. Winter (1971),
A. W. Lawrence (1979), J.-P. Adam (1974),
E. W. Marsden (1974), Y. Garlan (1974), and
A. W. McNicoll (1997).
These circumstances determine the relevance of
this study.
The Greek city by the VIII-VII centuries BC was an
established architectural and spatial structure consist­
ing of two main parts – the acropolis and the residen­
tial area. In the Archaic era, the polis may have had an
irregular layout, and a vital center for residents was the
agora, located next to the shopping district. The
designers skillfully linked the general plan of the city
with the terrain and the configuration of the coast, and
the presence of sacred groves and areas of temenos
near the temple complexes gave the architectural struc­
tures a special picturesque appearance (Bunin 1945).
Most cities had a clear architectural and planning
structure. This included elements such as the harbor,
the acropolis, residential and craft quarters, the
agora, public buildings, and temple complexes
(Haverfield 1913):
– The harbor (seaport) is one of the main architec­
tural and spatial elements of the polis;
– The Acropolis is the center of the social, eco­
nomic, and religious life of the city. Usually, it
was a hill that dominated the surrounding area;
– Residential and craft quarters are separate plan­
ning structures, with a central square, administra­
tive buildings, temples, theaters, gymnasiums,
and other public buildings;
– The Agora is the main typological unit of public
life, the center of political activity, the place of
assembly of free citizens. As a rule, it was located
in the city center, in coastal cities near the port.
The Market was located on the square, its main
functional feature;
– Public buildings, such as the Prytaneum, the seat
of the officials of the city – prytans;

DOI: 10.1201/9781003136804-25

125
– The Buleutherium is the seat of the Boule – city
council; the Helieia is the city's jury court, and
others are intended for various religious and pro­
fessional gatherings;
– Religious complexes and temples are structures
for placing statues of immortal gods. Temples
were used as storehouses for treasures and votive
offerings, which was typical for structures on the
territory of mainland Greece. The temple complex
also included the site on which it was located, the
so-called temenos, which, together with the
temple itself, formed the territory of the sanctuary.
3 RESULTS
Based on the extensive material of researchers
whose work touched on the problems of urban plan­
ning and architectural and spatial organization of the
polis, we define several key provisions:
– The main functional zones can be considered the
urban center and the rural territory belonging to
it, which creates the traditional structure of the
“polis” and “chora” (Khapaeva 1988).
– Further development of the polis leads to the
appearance of more complex formations: polis,
polis, chorus (Figure 1).
Polis is the main structure, the city itself, with all
its complex urban planning, fortification, commer­
cial, religious, and agricultural functional zones, col­
lectively creating an independent residential unit.
Figure 1. I. Policy. II. Polisma. III. Chorus. The author of
the scheme: Silnov A.V. 2020 (c).
126
A polysma is an intermediate structure between
a “city” and a “village”. This interesting urban plan­
ning formation, revealed in modern archaeological
science, was a specific variation of the polis with
a harbor and walls, but without public and adminis­
trative buildings (Khapaeva 1988).
Khora is an agricultural settlement, plots with
manors often fortified in the form of small fortresses,
the remains of which can still be found on the territory
of modern Crimea, in the vicinity of the Tauric
Chersonesos.
The Department of History and Theory of Archi­
tecture of SPBGASU conducts regular work with
students of the Faculty of Architecture on the histor­
ical and architectural analysis of ancient monuments
in the context of the courses “History of World Art”
and “History of World Architecture”. In the mode of
scientific conferences, future architects are allowed
to creatively analyze ancient art monuments with the
possibility of performing three-dimensional recon­
structions. As a result, students use the architectural
and urban planning material of ancient architecture
as a kind of tuning fork to develop an impeccable
taste of the future designer.
So, we can give several examples of such concep­
tual reconstructions made by students of junior and
senior courses of the Faculty of Architecture in the
mode of research student work (Figures 2-4). The
illustrations are taken from the published materials of
the Personal exhibition of the author of this work
(Silnov 2019).
Figure 2. Hellenistic Alexandria. Research project and 3d
visualization. Computer graphics. Authors of the work:
Silnov A.V., Makarova E. D., 2019 (c).
Figure 3. The Hellenistic city of Dura-Europos in Syria by
the second century AD. Research project and 3D visualiza­
tion. Computer graphics. Authors of the work: Silnov A.V.,
Stognienko E. D. 2016 (c).

Figure 4. Alexandria-on-Ox in Greco-Bactria. Research
project and 3d visualization. Computer graphics. Authors of
the work: Silnov A.V., Romanova O. A., 2016 (c).
4 DISCUSSION
The modern science of antiquity has not yet devel­
oped a definitive, universally accepted view of the
nature of the polis-it is enough to recall the recent
disputes between Marxist science and its bourgeois
opponents. The functional zoning of the ancient
polis is one such example. Many questions are still
waiting to be resolved. For example, is it possible
to consider the boundaries of the policy necessarily
coinciding with the border of the state? What was
the position of the architect in the light of the
policy of the founding of the polis? Was Oikist, the
founder of the future city, an architect-urban
planner?
The importance of this kind of research is
also due to the fact that we can come to an
answer to our questions only at the junction of
several disciplines: archaeology, the history of
architecture, urban planning, and the theory
of architecture.
5 CONCLUSION
It can be argued that the functional zones of the
ancient polis could exist only with the harmonious
unity of all its components: urban planning, fortifica­
tion, religious and architectural planning. Any viola­
tion of this unity inevitably led to the death of the
polis, either at the hands of the barbarians or as
a result of economic collapse or loss of political
independence.
All these primary functional zones and their struc­
tural and corrective elements together formed the
“final” complex and expressive architectural and
spatial structure of the Greek city by the time of
Hellenism.
127
REFERENCES
Adam J. P. 1982. L’architecture militaire grecque. Paris:
Picard.
Andreev Yu. V. 2003. Early Greek Polis (Homeric period). St.
Petersburg: Publishing Center “Humanitarian Academy”.
Bengtson G. 1982. The rulers of the Hellenistic era.
Moscow: Nauka.
Bunin A.V., Ilyin L. A., Polyakov N. H. & Shkvarikov V. A.
1945. Urban planning. Moscow Publishing House of the
Academy of Architecture of the USSR.
Finley M. I., & Shaw n B. D. 1980. Ancient slavery and
modern ideology. New York: Viking Press.
Forrest W. G. G. 1966. The emergence of Greek democracy,
800-400 BC. New York: McGraw-Hill.
Francotte H. 1907. La Polis Grecque: recherches sur la for­
mation et l'organisation des cités, des ligues et des conféd­
ërations dans la grèce ancienne. Paderborn: Schöningh.
Garlan Y. 1974. Recherches de poliorcétique grecque.
Paris: De Boccard.
Graindor P. 1928. G. Glotz. La cité grecque. Revue belge
de Philologie et d'Histoire, 7(4): 1585–1585.
Haverfield F. 1913. Ancient town-planning. Oxford: Clar­
endon Press.
Jones A. H. M. 1940. The Greek City from Alexander to
Justinian. Oxford: Clarendon Press.
Khapaeva D. R. 1988. Urban processes in ancient Greece
(mainly according to Strabo and Pausanias). Leningrad:
Leningrad State University.
Larsen J. A. O. 1968. Greek federal states: their institutions
and history. Oxford: Clarendon Press.
Lawrence A. W. 1979. Greek aims in fortification. Oxford:
Clarendon Press.
Marsden E. W. 1969. Greek and Roman Artillery: Histor­
ical Development. Oxford: Clarendon Press.
Martin R. 1974. L'urbanisme dans la Grèce antique. Paris:
Picard.
McNicoll A. & Milner N. P. 1997. Hellenistic Fortifica­
tions from the Aegean to the Euphrates. Oxford: Claren­
don Press.
Pelman, R. 1910. An essay on Greek history and Source
studies. St. Petersburg: OOOCN.
Ranovich A. B. 1950. Hellenism and its historical role.
Moscow-Leningrad: Publishing House of the USSR
Academy of Sciences.
Shakhermayr F. 1984. Alexander the Great. Moscow:
Nauka.
Silnov A.V. 2019. Architecture. Painting. Graphics. In Mater­
ials of a personal exhibition in the St. Petersburg House
of Architects. Saint Petersburg, 25.09.2019-06.10.2019.
Saint-Petersburg: Union of Architects of Russia.
Starr C. G. 1961. The origins of Greek civilization: 1100­
650 BC. New York: Alfred A. Knopf.
Surikov I. E. (2010). Greek polis of the archaic and clas­
sical eras. In Antique Polis: 8–54.
Utchenko S. L. 1952. The ideological and political struggle
in Rome on the eve of the fall of the Republic. Moscow:
Publishing House of the USSR Academy of Sciences.
Will E. 1955. Korinthiaka. Recherches sur l'histoire et la civ­
ilisation de Corinthe des origines aux guerres médiques.
Paris: De Boccard.
Winter F. E. 1971. Greek fortifications. London: Routledge
& Kegan Pau.
 Reconstruction and Restoration of Architectural Heritage 2021 – Sementsov, Leontyev & Huerta (Eds)
© 2021 Taylor & Francis Group, London, ISBN 978-0-367-68296-5

Stages of buildings evolution in markets of St. Petersburg and prospects for

their development
V.M. Supranovich & J.A. Devyatova
Saint Petersburg State University of Architecture and Civil Engineering, Saint Petersburg, Russia

ABSTRACT: The article deals with the urgent problem of modernizing the urban environment of
St. Petersburg, taking into account the new strategy for the development of market buildings, determined by the
city government. The market is one of the important elements of the urban system, which has historically been
a powerful center of attraction for both local residents and tourists. It is necessary to return markets to the trading
system and integrate these objects into the structure of the urban environment at a fundamentally new level. The
aim of the work is to identify the principles of designing multifunctional buildings of the markets as objects of
the polycentric system of the city, taking into account the continuity of traditions. To do this, the authors have
carried out a historical retrospective study of the markets of St. Petersburg, identified the main trends in the
evolution of functional zoning and architectural planning organization of market buildings. The definition of
a typological object is given: a multi-functional complex with a retail trade object (market) as the main (anchor)
or additional function and the inclusion of various accompanying or equal functions (multifunctional complex
with a retail facility). The main structural links in the “market-city” system are determined. On the basis of the
“design principles” obtained in the course of the research, comprehensive proposals were made for the integra­
tion of multifunctional buildings of the markets into the urban environment on the basis of urban planning, plan­
ning, functional and style solutions typical for historical buildings of the markets of St. Petersburg. These
recommendations are applicable in the practice of city authorities, practicing architects and architecture students.

1 INTRODUCTION (Munro, 2016). With the development of the city,

Throughout the historical development of cities, mar­
kets as public spaces have always been one of the
central elements of the life of the population,
a reflection of local traditions and peculiarities of the
urban landscape (Ellard, 2019). As an architectural
object, the market began its development from a retail
space (Great Soviet Encyclopedia (GSE) 1975), was
predominantly located at the intersection of the main
city streets and was an important compositional hub
of the city (Lavrov and Perov 2015). The reception of
the planning organization of retail space, surrounded
by a colonnade with propylaea, was formed in the
ancient urban planning tradition, which set the trend
for the ordering and development of regular planning
of the market area - shopping rows (GSE 1975).
Historically, retail trade in the markets in
St. Petersburg was the main form of goods turnover
at the beginning of the 18th century (Munro, 2016).
According to archival data, the first market was
located on Troitskaya Square since 1705. According
to the plan of the chief architect of St. Petersburg
J. B. Leblond (1716 -1719), it was planned to build
a market in each part (district) of the city, and by
1782 there were already six of them functioning
infrastructure facilities (including trade) appeared.
According to eyewitnesses, each of the central quar­
ters of St. Petersburg had its own market, food ware­
houses, shops, church parishes (Munro, 2016).
Today, the importance of markets as objects of
trade in the “market-city” system in Russia, in par­
ticular in St. Petersburg, is almost not taken into
account (Zhelnina, 2011). However, in the condi­
tions of the modern state economy, a request is
formed for the development of local production and
the organization of places for the sale of local prod­
ucts. Therefore, it is necessary to rethink the role of
market buildings as objects of urban structure.
In 2014, the government of St. Petersburg made
amendments to the decree on measures to implement
the law “On the organization of retail markets in
St. Petersburg” and proposed a concept to modernize
markets as an obligatory element of the modern
polycentric urban environment. Unfortunately, it has
not been implemented until now, but the market as
a type of commercial building (Gelfond, 2016) is
able to regain lost ground: existing facilities are
being modernized, new buildings are being built,
while the concept of “market” is interpreted as
a maximum. as wide as possible (Zainulina, 2017).

DOI: 10.1201/9781003136804-26

128
2 MATERIALS AND METHODS To implement the set tasks, the authors of the art­
icle conducted the following studies:
From the day of the foundation of St. Petersburg and
1. Studying the historical experience of the func­
to the beginning of the 20th century, the following
tional organization of market buildings for the
forms of market organization were characteristic of
following historical periods: a) the beginning of
the town: spontaneous “markets”, or rather squares
the 18th century until 1917, when the Gostiny
that arose seasonally and represented an open space
Dvor was a permanent trade building. At the
with wooden counters that were assembled and dis­
basis of its functional planning scheme was
assembled of necessity; local markets or market
a rectangular (square, round) square, along the
squares, which were organized in the peripheral
perimeter of which there was a wooden or stone
areas of the city for everyday purchases by the popu­
one or two-story wall (hereinafter, an open
lation (as a rule, this were benches, tables, boxes,
arcade or colonnade) with an entrance gate. The
chests, shelves, sheltered and disassembled by the
main element of the scheme - a trade shop (cell),
end of the day); merchant courtyards are permanent
cut off from others by internal walls, was dupli­
trade structures in the city’s downtown areas
cated in the plan. The plan itself was closed. The
(Munro, 2016).
courtyard served as a space for open seasonal
It is true that permanent trade buildings appeared in
trade on patches, while open galleries served as
the places of the highest trading activity in
a communication path between the cells and the
St. Petersburg, which had two centers: on the eastern
outer (in some cases) inner space of the street
outskirts of Vasilyevsky Island (Old Stock Exchange)
(Munro, 2016). Typical examples include the
and along the Nevsky Prospect on the Admiralteys­
buildings of Gostiny Dvor, Nikolsky Market,
kaya side (Gostiny Dvor) (Munro, 2016). It was these
Andreevsky Market, etc. (Figure 1);
buildings that became architectural prototypes for the
From the 1920s to the 1980s, when the covered
subsequent construction of new city markets in spe­
market building was a permanent trade building
cially designated places in each district (Munroe,
(Vorontsova and Supranovich, 2018). The func­
2016)
tional diagram of the building contained a central
At present, some of the historic buildings of the
element - a trading floor with a covered large-
markets of St. Petersburg function according to their
span single-hall space and shopping rows inside
former purpose, keeping the original architectural
it (Vorontsova and Supranovich, 2018). In some
and planning structure. Nevertheless, according to
versions of the schemes, the trading floor space
existing data, about 56% of food market facilities in
was surrounded by auxiliary rooms along the per­
the city were built mainly in the second half of the
imeter, and the hall was illuminated through the
20th century (Vorontsova and Supranovich, 2018).
stained glass windows of the second floor. The
They were successfully used back in Soviet times,
plan itself was closed (Vorontsova, Supranovich,
but at the end of the twentieth century the market
2018). Typical examples include the buildings of
attendance decreased, their number declined (Vor­
the Primorsky (Deryabkin) market, Maltsevsky/
ontsova and Supranovich, 2018). Thus, at the present
Nekrasovsky market, etc. (Figure 2).
stage, the role of markets in the city system has
begun to weaken: a huge number of trade facilities
operate in megalopolises, but most of them are shop­
ping center buildings that are identical from a visual
and functional point of view. Therefore, it is neces­
sary to return market buildings to the trading system
and integrate them into the structure of the urban
environment at a fundamentally new level.
Therefore, the purpose of this article is to define Figure 1. Merchant courtyards of St. Petersburg from the
the principles of designing multifunctional buildings 18th century to 1917 a) Gostiny dvor; b) Nikolsky market;
of markets as objects of the polycentric system of c) Andreevsky market.
the city.
To obtain the results, the following tasks were set:
to study the main functional planning schemes of
historical buildings of the markets; determine the
features of the spatial organization of these schemes;
to identify the features of the urban planning place­
ment of historical buildings of the markets and their
external image; give a definition of a multifunctional
complex with an object of retail trade (MCRF); to
formulate the principles of organizing the MCRF; to
test the obtained principles in practice in the process
of experimental design together with undergraduate Figure 2. Market buildings of the 1920s - 1980s: a) Der­
students of the Department of Architectural Design. yabkin market; b) Maltsevsky market.

129
 Thus, when comparing the functional diagrams
of the organization of trade buildings, we can say
that for period “a” the central element of the
planning scheme was a trade shop (cell), which
had connections both with the external environ­
ment and with auxiliary premises (warehouses),
Figure 3. Modern buildings of St. Petersburg markets: a)
and can be used as a prototype of a trading cell Dolgoozerny market; b) “Staraya Derevnya” market.
with the obligatory possibility of horizontal and
vertical connections. For period “b”, the central windows, columns) created the rhythm of the back­
trading element can be considered a single-hall
ground buildings supporting the neighborhood with
space, which is used as one of the large/connect­
the dominants - churches, bell towers, towers
ing elements of the multifunctional trading space
(Sementsov and Wozniak, 2017), which is noted in
of the market.
Figure 1. For market buildings from the 1920s to
2. The analysis of the urban planning placement of
1980s -x is characterized by the identification of the
market buildings in the environment was carried
volume of the trading floor, the use of stylistic
out according to the declared historical stages:
details and materials characteristic of the architec­
a. the beginning of the 18th century until 1917
ture of that time (Figure 2) The appearance of the
was characterized by the mandatory proximity
market building was rather utilitarian (Vorontsova
of markets to water bodies (rivers and canals
and Supranovich, 2018).
of the city) to ensure the delivery of goods not
4. Field surveys of modern buildings of Dolgoo­
only by land, but also by water (Drizhapolova
zerny market and “Staraya Derevnya” market
etc 2020), the proximity of churches, as well
were carried out (Figure 3).
as the presence of a trading area or intersec­
tions of main streets next to the object (elem­ During the study, it was found that the planning
ents of public space). That is, from the point organization of these objects is a closed rectangular
of view of placement in the city system, plan scheme, without the use of a courtyard/atrium.
market buildings were traditionally included The main function is trade in agricultural products,
in the main infrastructure (Gelfond, 2013) which is complemented by a catering area. The
with the possibility of ensuring accessibility facades of buildings are made of budget materials,
both for buyers (Lavrov et al. 2020) and for and do not have a high-quality study of elements and
direct supply of the object (Drizhapolova etc details. The buildings have a utilitarian function of
2020); trade, have good transport accessibility, and fulfill
b. from the 1920s to the 1980s, it was assumed the main task - the availability of a sufficient amount
that market buildings should be placed in the of space for selling goods and making a profit.
existing or planned infrastructure of the city Nevertheless, it is not possible to consider these
with the possibility of pedestrian and transport buildings as promising places of tourist attraction
accessibility for market visitors. The main and as authentic elements of the urban environment.
type of supply was freight transport, delivery
of goods along the nearest rivers and canals
was not taken into account. The market build­ 3 RESULTS
ing gravitated towards traffic routes and
junctions. Based on the data presented, it can be argued that
markets in the city system are a traditional element.
Thus, according to the aggregate analysis of the urban
However, it is necessary to reconsider the attitude to
planning situation, it is necessary to take into account
the buildings of the markets: their inclusion in the
the location of the facility in the city structure for the
structure of the city is obligatory not as “random”
consumer (Lavrov 2015) and from the point of view
objects, but as full-fledged elements of a quality
of newly designed large transport infrastructure facil­
urban environment. Undoubtedly, at the present
ities, for example, road transport hubs, passenger
stage it is required to expand the functional and plan­
ports (Yankovskaya and Pasynkova, 2015).
ning meanings not being limited to one function of
3. A study of the shaping and facade solutions of
the “market trade” of the object. Therefore, it is pro­
buildings (Kurbatov 2017) was carried out accord­
posed to use a new definition - a multifunctional
ing to the declared historical periods. As a result of
complex with a retail facility (market) as the main
the analysis, it was revealed that the external
(anchor) or additional function and the inclusion of
appearance of the building for the period of the
various accompanying or equal functions (MCRF).
18th century to the revolution of 1917 was
It is possible to formulate the following require­
a reflection of the functional planning scheme of
ments for the design of the MCRF:
the guest houses. Thanks to the extended galleries,
both the front of trade and the front of the street 1. The principle of “integrated architecture” - the
building were formed. The monotony and uniform­ development of urban planning concepts for the
ity of the facade elements (arches of galleries, modernization of the existing or design of a new

130
 environment with the obligatory inclusion of the
MCRF and their ranking at the city level (objects
of urban significance, market complexes of
regional significance). At the same time, the
placement of the MCRF building must be taken
into account in addition to large transport facil­
ities of the city (these can be transport hubs,
zones of passenger ports, railway stations) with
inclusion in the existing network of streets;
2. The principle of “connectivity” of the building
plan with the building site - the building acts as
a background or accent building, as well as to be
a “connecting link” of different types of urban
spaces (planning scheme of the “passage”) in the
general plan;
3. The principle of “gradation of functions” - differ­
entiation of planning zones of market trade,
depending on the architectural, cultural and urban
planning significance of the object:
– markets as objects of culture and tourism of
urban significance;
– multifunctional shopping malls with the inclu­
sion of a retail function;
– market complexes of regional significance;
– networked agricultural markets.
4. The principle of “functional balance” - the use of
the main elements of the retail space of the “trad­
ing cell” and the “trading” hall identified at the
stage of historical analysis, their combination at
the level of planning schemes to create various
interior scenarios.
5. The principle of “stylistic correspondence” to the
urban environment - the study of the surrounding
buildings and the stylistics of the existing facades
for the organic inclusion of the MCRF building
into the interior of the street. For newly designed
districts - creating a quality image based on exist­
ing urban traditions and design codes of historic
trade buildings.
4 DISCUSSION
The formulated principles were tested in practice in
the process of experimental design together with
undergraduate students of the Department of Archi­
tectural Design in the course of diploma design:
1) The building of a multifunctional shopping complex
with a farmer’s market (Intersection of Arsenalnaya
and Mineralnaya streets in the concept of transform­
ing the territory of the Novy Arsenal plant on the
Vyborg side of St. Petersburg) (Figure 4).
The object is a connecting element between scien­
tific and technological objects and the residential
and recreational function in the neighboring territor­
ies. The architectural appearance of the projected
market building reflects its functional division and
facilitates integration into the historical architectural
131
Figure 4. Building of a multifunctional shopping complex
with a farmers’ market. Master student: Vorontsova M.V.
Consultant: Supranovich V.M.
environment. Concrete, plaster and metal were used
in the cladding of the facades to create a hinged lat­
tice for the upper floors of the building (Suprano­
vich et al., 2019).
The shape of the building plan follows the direc­
tion and bend of Mineralnaya Street. (Figure 4)
The block of shopping and entertainment premises
covers the farmer’s market area, allowing the
market block to be allocated and, at the same time,
fully integrated into the space-planning structure
of the complex (Supranovich et al., 2019). The
entire volume of the building is permeated by
a walk-through gallery connecting the intersection
of Arsenalnaya and Mineralnaya streets with
a pedestrian direction to the residential buildings
of the scientific and technological center. The gal­
lery is a central public space with the possibility of
holding various events (Supranovich et al., 2019).
2) Shopping and entertainment complex with
a market in the city of Kronstadt. The complex is
a shopping arcade of elongated shape, located in
the center of a pedestrian boulevard with
a transport interchange at several levels (Figure
5). The boulevard connects the Kronstadt high­
way with the rowing channel embankment. The
main block is the market. It is located at the level
of the boulevard and is its continuation. Stained-
glass glazing is provided on the facade.
The second block, overlooking residential areas,
houses food courts on two floors. One level
below there are parking lots and a supermarket
with utility rooms. The roof of the building is
flat, exploited. There is a restaurant on the roof
with access to the terrace. Parts of the building
are interconnected by a system of pedestrian
bridges, with the help of which you can get into
any area of the building, going up to the level of
the boulevard and going out to the square in front
of the complex on the embankment of the rowing
canal. (Figure 5).

Figure 5. Shopping and entertainment complex with
a market in the city of Kronstadt. Master student: Maikov
R.M. Consultant: Devyatova J.A.
5 CONCLUSION
In the context of the transformation of the territories
of St. Petersburg and the creation of a polycentric
system of the city, the issue of organizing
a comfortable and high-quality urban environment is
fundamental and should include not only urban plan­
ning traditions, but also the mandatory inclusion of
new multifunctional buildings, taking into account
existing traditions.
This will make it possible to create a developed
infrastructure not only of the road transport network
and a system of pedestrian spaces, but also of various
public complexes to ensure high-quality life, includ­
ing multifunctional complexes with retail facilities
(markets) as the main (anchor) or additional function
of the building. The given examples of project pro­
posals prove that these structures are becoming
accent elements in the structure of the building, par­
ticipate in the formation of urban public spaces. The
studied methods make it possible to present possible
options for urban planning, planning, functional and
style solutions of multifunctional complexes of mar­
kets, their integration into the context of the urban
environment of St. Petersburg.
132
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trian “House on the Embankment” (as exemplified by
St. Petersburg Grey Belt). In Contemporary Problems of
Architecture and Construction: Proceedings of the 12th
International Conference on Contemporary Problems of
Architecture and Construction (ICCPAC 2020),
25–26 November 2020, Saint Petersburg, Russia (p.
14). Rotterdam: Balkema
Ellard, K. 2016. Habitat: How architecture affects our
behavior and well-being. Moscow: Alpina Publisher.
Gelfond, A. L. 2013. Architectural design of public spaces.
N. Novgorod: NNGASU
Gelfond, A. L. 2016. The architectural design of public
buildings.Moscow: INFRA-M
Great Soviet Encyclopedia. 1975. Article 1346. Prokhorov
A.M. (eds.). Moscow: Sovetskaya enciklopediya, 22: 453.
Kurbatov, Yu. I. 2017. Conditions for the formation of a
full-fledged configuration of the architectural form. Bul­
letin of Civil Engineers, (4): 23–25.
Lavrov, L. P. (2015). Saint Petersburg: the fate of
a pedestrian in a regular city. Bulletin of the Saint
Petersburg University. Art History, (1): 184–203
Lavrov, L. P., & Perov, F. V. 2015. From shopping centers to
public centers. Bulletin of Civil Engineers, (5): 46–54.
Lavrov, L. P., Molotkova, E. G., & Perov, F. V. (2020). The
“Genetic Code” of the St. Petersburg Residential Environ­
ment (for the 300th anniversary of the Russian regular city
blocks). Academia. Architecture and Construction, (2):
100–106
Monroe, D. 2021. St. Petersburg in the reign of Catherine
the Great. The most intentional city. Saint Petersburg:
Tsentrpoligraf
Pasinkova, Yu. A., & Yankovskaya, Yu. S. 2015. Typology
of urban planning placement of public catering facilities.
Academic Bulletin of UralNIIproekt RAASN, (4): 78–80
Sementsov, S. V., & Wozniak, E. R. 2017. The composite
structure of the facades of buildings of the XVIII cen­
tury and its reflection in the architectural and urban
environment of St. Petersburg. Bulletin of Civil Engin­
eers, (4): 55–60.
Supranovich, V. M., Kirikova, A. I.& Vorontsova, M. V.
2019. The concept of transforming the territory of the
New Arsenal plant with the formation of a scientific and
business cluster. In the interregional scientific and prac­
tical conference within the framework of the IX Interre­
gional Creative Forum “Architectural seasons in
SPbGASU”: 46–47.
Vorontsova M. V.& Supranovich V. M. 2018. Food markets of
St. Petersburg in the second half of the twentieth century
and their current state. Architecture Series, 1: 112–117.
Zainullina, A. M. 2017. Typology of modern architectural solu­
tions of markets. Proceedings of the Kazan State University
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Zhelnina, A. 2011. “Here as a museum”: shopping center
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 Reconstruction and Restoration of Architectural Heritage 2021 – Sementsov, Leontyev & Huerta (Eds)
© 2021 Taylor & Francis Group, London, ISBN 978-0-367-68296-5

Sustainable aspects of facadism practice in Yerevan

E.G. Vardanyan
National University of Architecture and Construction of Armenia, Yerevan, Republic of Armenia

ABSTRACT: Urban fabric of cities’ changes faster and becomes more complicated because of issues con­
nected with urban density, traffic, resources, waste, heritage conservation, use and new developments. Facad­
ism came as a solution in the hands of architects and authorities to protect culture and history and give
a chance for new developments. While sustainability became tool for different specialists and authorities to
reduce the negative impact on natural environment and create healthier neighborhood for people. This article
studies the sustainable aspects of the facadism. With the use of case study approach, several projects with
facadism approach were discussed. The general connections of facadism and sustainability were outlined.
The qualitative analyzes of the cases shows that in case of balanced approach from all stakeholders facad­
ism and sustainability principles can be combined and satisfy all stakeholders.

1 INTRODUCTION Charter in 1964, Nara Document in 1994, ICOMOS

The Second World War affected the world not only
politically but also economically and socially, bring­
ing many issues that were not distinct before. The
industrialization led to rapid urbanization, which will
get faster in upcoming decades. Growing population
needs and war consequences affected on the urban
fabric in many cities of Europe. Cities were facing
destruction because of bombings during the war and
new construction to accommodate new facilities.
During the postwar developments facadism became
a widespread approach as it was a compromise
between preservation and development. However, this
was not a new approach. Richards (1994) mentions
many well-known and honored architects, who used
this approach, including Palladio and Wren.
There is no certain definition for facadism, but the
most common is by Richards (1994), which says that
“facadism is the emphasis on the façade of
a preserved building front while demolishing and
replacing the reminder behind it”.
In the times when destruction and urban develop­
ment happens every day, facadism is a tool in the
hand of architects and city authorities to find the bal­
ance in between conservation and new developments.
After the Second World War, in European coun­
tries, particularly in the UK, Belgium, France, Spain
and Italy facadism was a widely used approach,
while in more eastern European countries the eco­
nomic power did not allow mass destruction and
façade retention in many cities. (Rodwell, 2013)
There are many internationally accepted charters
and documents on restoration and conservation.
Starting from Charter of Athens in 1931, Venice
Charter in 2008 and etc.
Because of the developments in Brussels influ­
enced by facadism the term brusselization appeared as
a sign of wide use of the facadism concept in the city
were European Commission and NATO headquarters
were situated. (Kyriazi, 2019, State, 2004, p. 51–52,).
Many architects, theorists find that facadism is
against restoration and preservation, as it pierces the
entirety of the buildings. Which means that the façade
must be in harmony with the interior (Bargery, 2005).
Others think that facadism is preventing todays archi­
tects to be creative and form something new while
some others will argue that genius loci of the place is
being lost.
Facadism supporters find it as tool for the balance
between urban development and conservation, which
city authorities like to use because it satisfies all stake­
holders (Roman, 2002/2003). As James Stirling
described, it is a “compromise thinking”. In some
extent facadism is protection and preservation, too, as
the external existence remains the same for the major­
ity of society. If the stakeholders are in favor of devel­
opment by using facadism, it can perceive as
preservation. Usually people, particularly tourists do
not enter every building, but they walk in the streets
and the image of the city is created from the external
appearances of the buildings.
While facadism became spread from Europe to
USA and Australia, many countries had different
issues and approaches. Relatively, developed coun­
tries were able to develop national regulations to
force developers to preserve buildings entirely or
by keeping the facades maintain the streetscape the
same, while developing countries had difficulties

DOI: 10.1201/9781003136804-27

133
and urban fabric had some significant changes. Like
in most post socialist countries, economy markets
were changed and previously state-owned buildings
became privet and states were not able to protect
many buildings properly. For example, in Budapest,
many buildings were demolished for better exploit­
ation or for underground parking lots. Those build­
ings, maybe did not have significant value but they
were part of the city’s 19-th century streetscape.
However, there are many buildings in Budapest that
are examples of facadism. Those are mostly hotels
as tourists like to stay in city center, in historic
sites, to feel the atmosphere, but inside they want
21st century facilities and comfort. (Roman, 2002/
2003).
Neither the tourist cannot stay with the facilities
and comfort level of 19th century buildings nor the
residents cannot live in the cities that are not devel­
oping or adapting. Leaving historical buildings and
not using for a period leads to its deterioration. The
abandonment is associated with the ugliness and
depressing notion of the unwanted buildings of soci­
ety (Cheung, 2015).
For city authorities and residents, it is equally
important to keep the cities’ authenticity and create
development paths, so the society and economy will
develop throughout the city, keeping it inhabited.
Cities need to be changed and adapted to the needs
of its inhabitants. Here, authorities must be able to
have balanced decisions, so the city, the society and
the developers will win.
In some cases when authorities are not able to
affect on new developments, many buildings are
being demolished, when many other preservation
approaches, including facadism, could be a far better
solution. However, sometimes facadism can be
applied not properly. Whether applying facadism or
not, architects and other involved professionals,
must work inclusively to find the best solution and
balance between preservation, its level and new
developments.
2 METHODOLOGY
This article focuses on facadism examples in Yere­
van, from the view of sustainability. There are
number of projects, were facadism approach was
applied, either the façade was retained, rebuilt or
even moved to another location. Interestingly, one of
the buildings is also certified by Building Research
Establishment Environmental Assessment Method
(BREEAM).
To analyze and understand how facadism matches
the sustainable architecture and development, par­
ticularly in Yerevan, the case study method was
chosen to find out and analyze the problems, pos­
sible developments. The article will not discuss the
acceptability of facadism or the arguments against
the practice, but its implementation problems, par­
ticularly on issues in the city of Yerevan.
134
As the concept of facadism and sustainability
both are complex issues and must be analyzed on
specific cases, this method fits the most to examine
the projects in complex environment of real-life,
where different boundaries meet. (Yin, 1984, p. 23).
Thus, the subject matter project cases will be
examined by the BREEAM categories in relation
with architectural principles, such as genius loci and
images.
3 GROUNDS FOR FACADISM IN YEREVAN
The capital of Armenia, Yerevan, founded 782 BC,
was destroyed many times because of continuous
wars and earthquakes. There are the ruins of the Ere­
buni fortress, Shengavit Settlement’s archeological
site and other monuments, however it is not possible
to see the continuous history of city. During the
Soviet Union period, the city was reconstructed com­
pletely. The architect Alexander Tamanyan, devel­
oped the masterplan of the city, based on the main
existing streets and tried to keep the buildings on
them. In downtown many 19th century buildings
were standing making typical authentic streetscapes.
After the independence from Soviet Union, Arme­
nia struggled because of war, earthquake conse­
quences and economic blockade. Urban development
was almost stopped on a large scale. Developments
were small, and sometimes unorganized.
Claimed as Public Benefit Law, mass destruction
of historical city center was started in 2000s. Total
345.000 m2 area was taken from its owners, includ­
ing buildings that were listed as state protected
mountains (Government of Armenia, 2002). Half of
the area is already full of new high-rise buildings,
meanwhile some old ragged buildings pop up in-
between them.
Some large-scale projects were planned, including
The Northern Avenue, 33-rd District, Kond District,
Glendale Hills, Old Yerevan and its bounding streets
of Aram and Buzand. From this projects Glendale
Hills and Northern avenue are full of 21st century
high rise buildings with all comfort facilities. Kond
and 33rd are still in the planning or bidding process.
This faced and still faces strong resistance from the
society. There were many protests in favor of preser­
vation of historical buildings, including the ones that
had tight connections with the past of the city. How­
ever, many of these buildings were destroyed for new
developments. Old Yerevan is a project that uses
facadism method in his wider terms to create new
commercial and cultural walkable street. Architect
collected many facades of the buildings that were
demolished in the neighboring city center area, having
the aim to recreate the image and the atmosphere of
19th century Yerevan. Only first phase of the project
started, which will be discussed later in this article.
The destructions and new project plans, left many
buildings derelict, which lead to their demolition and
new developments throughout downtown. Luckily,
there were some buildings that were demolished or
decayed beyond the facades and facades were kept and
used for new developments, to which we will address.
4 KAMAR BUSINESS CENTER
Kamar Business Center is new development in
downtown Yerevan, on Shahumyan’s Square, which
is bounded with a park, statue and 2 standing build­
ings, another one is being planned in place of previ­
ous Sevan Hotel (Figure 1). The area is
governmental and business heart of the city, right on
Shahumyan Square it is the 4th Governmental build­
ing, right next to it Central Bank of Armenia is situ­
ated. This area of the city always was central and
played important role in its development.
Previously in the place of the Kamar business
center there were two bank buildings: Agricultural
Bank and Yerevan branch of Tbilisi’s Commercial
Bank. The Agriculture bank was designed by Niko­
ghayos Buniatyan and was constructed in 1929. The
building of Tbilisi’s Commercial Bank building was
designed by Georgian-Armenian architect Michael
Ohanjanyan in 1920. Both buildings are covered with
black Amasia tufa stone in neo-classic style (Figure 2).
In 2010 property Development Company
announced a competition for development project in
the area which included both buildings. Project archi­
tects were Rouben and Michael Hasratyans. After
having several public auditions, the project launched.
By the project the two historical buildings were
destructed, only the facades were retained (Figure 3).
With this building becomes the biggest project in
Figure 1. Location of Kamar business center.
Figure 2. On the left, former Agriculture Bank, on the
right, The Commercial Bank.
135
Figure 3. Front façade of Kamar business center.
Armenia to be realized with the facades of the histor­
ical buildings.
Kamar Business center’s building is the first busi­
ness center in the region certified by BREEAM and
has “Very Good” mark with 56% points achieved.
Thanks to the green technologies, the building con­
serves 90.000 kW energy annually.
Being in the heart of the city, Kamar has excellent
connections to public transport, including buses and
metro stations, which makes it more accessible
because of parking issues in city center. However, the
building has underground parking for 100 cars. The
parking lots are equipped for electrical vehicles and
bicycles.
The Business center is a 11-storey building, 2 of
which are underground parking levels. Total surface
of the building is 22.400 m2 of which 17.600 are
office spaces. It has 9 elevators and 8 staircases pro­
viding vertical connections between different levels.
On the ground level, beyond the Commercial
Bank façade, currently the headquarter of Ameria-
Bank, one of the biggest Armenian banks, is housed.
On the left side, behind the Agricultural Bank façade
there is a modern lunch area, with similarities to
a food market. Main entrance is organized in the
central part of the building, with a 21m high ceiling
atrium. On the upper levels, there are office areas for
tenants, and only nearly 1000 m2 is available for
rent, the rest is occupied.
Facades of former buildings were kept not only in
the front, but also on the sides (Figure 4). The facades
Figure 4. Front façade of Kamar business center.
were treated, windows were changed. Some details, many juridical cases in different courts, including
including doors were kept and processed. Beyond the European Court (Figure 5).
retained facades, the new building is covered by The original project was designed to be 3-4 floor
4000 m2 white marble from Artsakh and rises up in on the ground with underground levels for parking.
contrast with black and dark gray tufa stones. The However, something was changed and in place of
rhytmic openings on the new building are racing in 3-4 floor buildings, nowadays we see 5 floors on
with the rhytm and style of the old facades. The big façade of former 2 story building, which not only is
arch with 19m height adds monumentality and not respecting the history, but creates domination on
esthethic expression to the building and emphsaises the façade, showing nothing than illusion. Illusion
the idea of connecting three different periods: first goes deep into this project. The original stones were
republic, soviet, and then independence again. lost or damaged, so new stones are being used gener­
The three buildings create not only connection ally. Even more falsification is done by using brick
with the past, but also different volumes. The new shaped tufa stones in place of brick. However, as the
building is pushed back enough, so the historical project is not finished yet, assessment of this project
facades are separated. Interestingly, the former build­ is not proper.
ing which was in-between the two old buildings is Another example of facadism in Yerevan is the
also retained but in the atrium in the back of the big building of luxury hotel “The Alexander” (Figure 6).
arch. Interior designers designed each floor similar It is right on Abovyan street, were many historical
to a part of Yerevan’s historic styles. In the atrium buildings stand. In a short period, it became well
on the external walls there are green walls with 16m known in the city as many famous people, celebri­
height and 145 m2 area. ties and politicians stayed there.
On the North-western corner, a café terrace is The original 3 story building was demolished,
formed, looking to the Central bank and Shahumyan from which only façade retained. Right on the
Square, in front of main entrance, on the west side, façade, additional 8 levels are added. The architect
a plaza is created, providing open access to business tried to play with the colors and stones to distinguish
center and express bank services. A bicycle parking the original façade, so he used pink tufa and yellow­
is also located near the entrance. ish felsite. This is much discussed in professional
Openings on the old facades remined the same, on
the new building there are rhythmic openings and
some that are similar to the old ones. Glazing sur­
rounds that continuing openings on the main facade
and totally covers the southern and norther facades
on the sides. Glazing on the southern façade are
equipped with sun louvers. With this much of open­
ings and being in downtown, the noise within the
building is 10-15 decibels lower then permissible
levels.
All the decorations and ornamentations of the old
facades were kept. This is not only in exterior, but in
interior too. Truly, the destructed interior of Agricul­
tural bank, was rich and esthetic, which would be
worthy to be kept. Unfortunately, it did not meet the
modern comfort and facility requirements. There are
32 authentic blacksmith’s bannisters from the main
staircase of the Commercial bank. All were used for
the same functions as previously. The biggest and
emphasized new decoration is the tree of life on the
main entrance.

5 OTHER EXAMPLES OF FACADISM Figure 5. Perspectives of old Yerevan project.

In recent years, there were several buildings built by

implementing facadism. This contains successful
and accepted projects by public and not so. This
includes hotels, offices and multipurpose projects
like Old Yerevan.
After years of legal problems, and right violations
Old Yerevan project launched partly (Transparency
International, 2012). The project already faced
strong public resistance, which resulted protests and Figure 6. The building of the Alexander hotel.

136

Figure 7. The building of AGBU Yerevan center. The pre­
served façade on the top and backyard with PV shaders.
society, as the façade is subjugated by the new struc­
ture beyond it.
The building was incomplete for about 10 years,
till the new owner of the building started the con­
struction works. Having that big empty building in
downtown was not playing any social, economic or
cultural role, but spread negativity and apathy. For
the development owners invested 53.9 million USD,
creating first luxury high price segment hotel in the
city, which has 160 employees.
The new building of Armenian General Benevo­
lent Union (AGBU) in Yerevan is another example
of facadism (Figure 7). The project started in 2010
and the building was opened in 2015. The original
building was the City Council from late 19th century,
which façade was reconstructed in front of modern
bearing structure. The original building was located
on Khorenatsi street, nowadays it could be right near
to Kamar business center. The building was already
reconstructed by Nikoghayos Buniatyan in 1926, the
third floor and right wing were added to the building.
In that form and place building was standing till
2000, when suddenly the building was demolished.
The stones of the facade were preserved to be used
somewhere else, where they would fit on a new
building.
Currently the building is located near other build­
ings that were reconstructed by “moving” from other
parts of the downtown and were destructed in early
2000s.
The architects had the idea to keep the streetscape
the same as in the last century. They added 2 add­
itional floors on the building to provide all the facil­
ities for AGBU needs. The addition is covered with
glazing, which goes down in the center of the
façade. This is described as 21st century’s piercing
into the history. The glass façade disappears in the
horizon and gives the preserved façade a dominating
role.
In the backyard building is equipped with PV
solar panels, which also are used as sun shaders on
the glazing. The panels generate enough energy for
elevator to operate.
6 FACADISM AND SUSTAINABILTY
The new developments are aimed to create modern
facilities and comfort environment for people to live,
work, study or relax. Sustainable development is
137
defined as a way of development that meets the
needs of the present without compromising the abil­
ity of future generations to meet their own needs
(United Nations, 1987). This means to protect the
environment, nature, limit the consumption of
resources. As an addition to this we can add the ties
to the history and culture too.
In cases of Yerevan or Budapest, were in the stage
of market transformation many disorders happened
in urban context and authorities were out of control
to inspect developments.
Facadism as solution provides new developments,
modern facilities, seismic safety, economic trans­
formation, social transformation, cultural and histor­
ical value. While if not using facadism, many
buildings would disappear not just by interior, but
with the exterior, too.
While accepting decisions on to preserve or not, it
is important to study the cultural and economic
values of the existing building and suggested
a project with facadism approach. Surely, there are
buildings, that have national or even international
importance, which cannot be destroyed or preserved
partly. This kind of buildings include museums, pal­
aces, fortresses or structures that represent the mas­
tered engineering minds of historic periods.
BREEAM assesses the project’s sustainability
based on energy, health and wellbeing, innovation,
land use, materials, management, pollution, trans­
port, waste and water categories.
Kamar Business center is both manifestation of
facadism and is certified by BREEAM. Having to
face the limitations of facadism, the building not
only gains the possible advantages of facadism,
but also achieves high sustainability level. Kamar
brings back the genius loci of the place as
important financial point, because of façade reten­
tions, it shows esthetic ethnic architecture, which
represents social and cultural value too. From the
economic aspect, it gave new development to the
city, a building with modern facilities, high safety
and seismic standards. It also conserves energy
and takes care of occupants’ health, minimizing
the noise of the downtown.
7 CONCLUSION
Analyzing the above-mentioned practices, we can
conclude that sustainable buildings can be not only
new developments, but the existing historical build­
ings can also become culturally, economically and
socially sustainable too.
In the case of using facadism to have more sus­
tainable buildings and environment:
– There is opportunity to keep historical and cul­
tural value of buildings and urban fabric which
would be lost without facadism;
– New economic and social developments perspec­
tives are outlined;
– Buildings meet safety and seismic standards of
21st century;
– High cost and consumable materials that are used
on facades are being saved, which also effects on
the project cost;
– Assists decision makers when giving
permissions;
– Keeps heritage while providing sustainable devel­
opment for future generations.
8 LIMITATIONS AND FUTURE RESEARCH
This article tried to give general notion about the
connection of facadism and sustainability. As much
as there will be more facadism manifestations in the
city, new research agendas will be pointed out.
Future research will go more deeply on specific
cases and will go deeper in comparison of the assess­
ment criteria and facadism.
REFERENCES
Bargery, R. 2005. The Ethics of Facadism. The Building
Conservation Directory. Tisbury: Cathedral Communi­
cations Limited
BREEAM, Retrieved 26.01.2021 from https://tools.breeam.
com/projects/explore/map.jsp
Richards, J. 1994. Facadism. Taylor & Francis e-Library.
Cheung, O.J. 2015. Beyond the front elevation:
a conceptual framework for re(thinking) facadism. In
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R.H. Crawford & A. Stephan (eds), Living and Learn­
ing: Research for a Better Built Environment: 49th
International Conference of the Architectural Science
Association 2015: 1041–1053. Melbourne: The Archi­
tectural Science Association and The University of
Melbourne.
Government of Armenia. 2002. Decision on Development
Projects Implementation in Central District of Yerevan.
Acceced on 26.01.2021. (Decision No. 1151.
01.08.2002)
Kyriazi, E. 2019. Facadism, Building Renovation and the
Boundaries of Authenticity. Aesthetic Investigations
2:184–195
Panorama.am. 2018.03.31. New hotel opened in Yerevan ­
https://bit.ly/2MAj8Xo
Revazova E., Adamyan E., Arsenyan S. 2018. Bridging the
Old and the New. Yerevan: Nushikyan Print.
Rodwell, D. 2003. Sustainability and the Holistic Approach
to the Conservation of Historic Cities. Journal of Archi­
tectural Conservation (1): 58–73
Shukhyan, R. 2017. Standing Witnesses of Old Yerevan:
Melik-Adamyan. Sputnik Armenia. Retrieved
26.01.2020 from https://sptnkne.ws/ewhR
State, Paul F. 2004. Historical dictionary of Brussels: His­
torical dictionaries of cities of the world. Lanham,
Maryland: Scarecrow Press.
Transparency International. 2012. Opinion on Corruption
Manifestations in development processes of central dis­
trict of Yerevan. Retrieved 26.01.2021 from https://trans
parency.am/hy/statements/view/194
United Nations. 1987. Our Common Future. Oxford:
Oxford University Press
Yin, R. K. 1984. Case study research: Design and methods.
Newbury Park: Sage.
 Reconstruction and Restoration of Architectural Heritage 2021 – Sementsov, Leontyev & Huerta (Eds)
© 2021 Taylor & Francis Group, London, ISBN 978-0-367-68296-5

Development of forms of Russian iconostases in the XVII-XVIII centuries

E.R. Vozniak, Е.N. Baulina & А.О. Fatkullina
Saint Petersburg State University of Architecture and Civil Engineering , Saint Petersburg , Russia

ABSTRACT: The iconostasis is one of the main elements of the architectural decoration of the interior of
an Orthodox church. In its heyday, the iconostasis was a solid wall of icons, located on the border of the
space of the altar and the main room of the temple. In this article, the iconostasis is considered an independent
architectural form. The study of iconostases of the XVII-XVIII centuries is of great importance since they
predate iconostases of a later time and are their fundamental structure. Sankt Petersburg’s Baroque iconostases
stand out because they combine Western and Russian traditions and significantly change the forms and struc­
ture of Russian traditional iconostases.

1 INTRODUCTION Smirnova (2013ab), A. G. Melnik (2016). The system­

The history of the Russian iconostasis has deep roots,
going back to the Byzantine church architecture when
the iconostasis was a low barrier between the altar and
the main room of the church with one row of sacred
images on or above the architrave, laid on the columns
of the barrier. Over time, the icons fill the space
between the columns of the barrier, the iconostasis
develops upwards with an increase in the number of
rows (ranks).
At the moment, there are a large number of types
of iconostases. Their volume solution and design
differ depending on the style and time of creation.
The existing research was limited to the time and ter­
ritorial limits, which did not allow to form of
a single typology of iconostases according to their
architectural and structural solutions. It is necessary
to develop a unified classification of the volume,
structural and architectural characteristics of the
iconostases, which allows us to consider their typo­
logical characteristics as a whole.
Special attention should be paid to the Baroque
iconostases, which have recently become the object
of research. The iconostases of the Peter the Great
Baroque stand out in the Baroque series, as they
combine Western and Russian traditions and direct
the further development of the architecture of the
iconostasis of the XVIII-XIX centuries.
2 MATERIALS AND METHODS
The analysis of the development of iconostases of the
XVIII – early XIX centuries is based on the works of
researchers: M. V. Nikolaev, S. B. Gorbatenko (1994),
T. Borisov, N. V. Maslova (2016), M. A. Smorzhevsky-
atization of the accumulated knowledge by the end of
the XX century was published in the collection “Icon­
ostasis. Origin-development-symbolism“under the gen­
eral editorship of A.M. Lidov.
Currently, research is continuing on Russian Bar­
oque iconostases. It is worth noting the thesis of
K. V. Posternak (2014) “Features of architectural and
decorative decoration of St. Petersburg baroque icon­
ostases of the mid-XVIII century (the 1740s-1760s)”,
which touches on historical information, draws paral­
lels to the appearance of certain elements not only of
Russian but also of foreign iconostases. T. V. Yuryeva
(2006) in her article “The Triumphal Arch as an
iconographic prototype of the Russian Orthodox icon­
ostasis” examines the relationship of the triumphal
arches with the iconostasis, their symbolism, and dec­
oration. Frequent stylistic changes are discussed in
T. F. Lazareva’s article “Provincial iconostases of the
XVIII-XIX centuries”.
Even though many scientific works on the history
of the development of iconostases have been written,
it is difficult to distinguish a general structure in
them, since almost all works are based on the consid­
eration of specific examples and do not give
a complete picture of the general stylistic trends, in
particular, the period of the Peter the Great Baroque.
The following research methods were used in the
work:
• classification method for determining the place of
the monument in the typological series of similar
works;
• a method of formal stylistic analysis used for styl­
istic analysis of various works of art;
• the method of historical reconstruction, which
involves identifying the influence of the personal

DOI: 10.1201/9781003136804-28

139
 qualities of the customer and the architect on the
development of certain forms of iconostasis (Pos­
ternak 2014).

3 RESULTS AND DISCUSSION

To understand the significance of Peter the Great’s

Baroque iconostases in the history of the develop­
ment of the Russian iconostasis, it is necessary to
trace the main stages of the development of church
art. Based on the analysis of previous studies, the
following stages of the development of the Russian
iconostasis can be distinguished: Figure 1. The classic five-tiered iconostasis, author’s drawing.
1. Tyabla iconostases-XI-XVIII centuries;
2. High iconostases-from the end of the XIV-XVIII In the middle of the XVII century, there were
centuries; changes in the decorative decoration of the iconostases.
3. “Flemsky carving” of the early Baroque - mid- Thanks to the Ukrainian and Belarusian carvers invited
XVII – mid-XVIII centuries; to Russia, Flemish the type of carving with the inclusion
4. Iconostases of the Baroque period - the first half in the composition of the iconostasis of elements of
of the XVIII century. architectural orders and magnificent slotted carving. In
addition, the number of rows of the iconostasis began to
As mentioned above, the first Ancient Russian increase to six or seven rows, which were sometimes
churches were built on the Byzantine model, both in divided into two, which increased the number of rows
terms of architectural forms and decoration. The to nine (an example is the nine-tiered iconostasis of the
altar barrier of the Greek model consisted of Trinity Church in Ostankino in Moscow). In the add­
a parapet, columns, and architrave standing on it. itional tiers were placed icons of the Passion of Christ
On the central axis of the iconostasis were the and the Passion of the Apostles, the theme of which ori­
royal gates, to the right and left of them-the deacon’s ginated from Ukrainian art. The Flemish type of icon­
doors. In ancient Russian churches, there were two ostasis can be called a prototype of the Baroque
types of barriers – solid, covering the entire eastern iconostasis and can be attributed to the early Baroque.
part of the temple, and shortened, covering only the In the Naryshkin Baroque, the Flemish type of
central altar opening (Rudchenko 1983). A cross iconostasis continued to develop: the iconostasis
was usually placed over the central opening. turned into a richly decorated gilded frame with
Initially, the icons were placed either on the archi­ icons decorated with carvings and columns. Icons are
trave itself or on top of it. Russian Russian iconosta­ no longer exclusively rectangular. Icons of various
ses were called tyabla (from the distorted Latin shapes and sizes appeared. The iconostases of the
tábula – board), and the structural basis of the Russian Naryshkin Baroque, placed in churches with a three-
iconostasis was also called tyabla, and the iconostases dimensional solution resembling a wooden octagon
were called tyabla. One-and two-tiered tyabla icon­ on a quad, occupied the entire vertical space, narrow­
ostases were widespread in the XI-first half of the ing upwards. As, for example, in the Church of the
XIV century and were further developed during the Intercession in Fili in Moscow (Figure 2).
formation of the high iconostasis. At the end of the
XIV century, a new type of three-row tyabla iconosta­
sis appeared in Russia, which had not been seen
before. By the end of the XV century, the fourth row
of the iconostasis became the prophetic one, and in
the second half of the XVI century, the fifth row
appeared for the first time - the ancestral one. And by
the XVII century, the five-row layout of the iconosta­
sis became a classic for most Russian churches
(Figure 1). The design of the iconostasis has also
changed: from tyabla it becomes a frame, where the
icons are not installed side by side with each other,
but each in its own frame. It was the appearance of
the frame structure that made it possible to later
retreat from the planar shape of the iconostasis, when
the beam-tyabla ends were embedded in the walls. Figure 2. The iconostasis of the Naryshkin Baroque: a) the
scheme of the seven-tiered iconostasis (author’s drawing),
Up to this point, the altar barrier of the Russian
b) the iconostasis of the Church of the Intercession in Fili,
church develops as a planar composition. Moscow (Posternak 2014).

140
 The Stroganov and Golitsyn Baroque iconostases
had equal rows in width, but they were also very high,
multi-row, and complexly decorated. By the beginning
of the XVIII century, the iconostases reached their
maximum size. The frame structure and rich decor
turned the iconostasis into an architectural object.
The reign of Peter the Great, focused on the influence
of Western European culture, made significant changes
in the architectural design of the iconostases. However,
this applies primarily to St. Petersburg and partly to
Moscow. In the provinces, the church decoration was
still dominated by the features of the XVII century for
a very long time. As a rule, the design of the interiors of
churches was entrusted to foreign architects. Under their
leadership, large-scale compositions were created, which
had no analogues in Russia yet. Nevertheless, there were
relatively few Baroque iconostases in Russia during this
period. Flemish-type iconostases were erected in much Figure 3. N. Gerbel. Design solutions for the iconostasis of
greater numbers (Rudchenko 1983). St. Isaac’s Church in St. Petersburg, 1719-1723 (Posternak
The iconostasis of the first wooden Peter and Paul 2012).
Cathedral, later moved to the St. Matthew’s Church,
can be attributed to the new style. Designed in the
spirit of “Flemish rest”, it has several distinctive fea­
tures of the new direction in the Russian Baroque:
there are no full-fledged upper tiers; the curved fantasy
composition of the upper part. In 1875, the iconostasis
was completely redone: it was made anew “according
to the same size and pattern” (Posternak 2012).
Most likely, one of the prototypes of the iconosta­
ses of the Peter the Great Baroque was the triumphal
arch, due to its symbolic purpose, another prototype
was the European images of altar compositions, rep­
resenting “high altar structures in which painting is
combined with sculpture, and sculptural decor
begins to prevail. Russian iconostasis tradition,
which is widely spread throughout the Western
world, is directly related to the Russian iconostasis
tradition, when Western art in the XVII century Figure 4. T. Schwertfeger. The project of the iconostasis of
begins to exert an intense influence on Russian art the Cathedral of the Alexander Nevsky Monastery, 1720`
(Posternak 2012).
culture” (Yurieva 2006, 2016) through the architec­
ture and decoration of the Catholic and Uniate
churches of Ukraine and Belarus and the Catholic in the planar iconostases of earlier times. Even further
churches of the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth. in this regard, the authors of the iconostasis of the Pan­
Unfortunately, few surviving examples of the teleimon Church of the Menshikov Palace in Oranien­
iconostasis of the Peter the Great Baroque and their baum have advanced (Figure 5). This iconostasis,
drawings have survived to us. Among them, we can created in the workshop of I. Zarudny on the model of
note four versions of the iconostasis project, com­ Western Baroque altars based on the scheme of the tri­
piled by N. Gerbel for the Church of St. Isaac of umphal arch, is characterized by a three-dimensional
Dalmatia, where the iconostasis includes round solution of complex plastic. It was inscribed in the
sculptures of angels and saints, and the absence of octagonal interior of the temple ` (Posternak 2012).
local icons is also noticeable (Figure 3). Another creation of I. Zarudny is the iconostasis
In some variants, the central image becomes the of the Transfiguration Church in Tallinn. The icon­
dominant, if not the only image. The role of other ostasis was built for a church with two naves adja­
icon images is taken by sculptural baroque decoration. cent to each other, symmetrical about the central
Another example of Peter the Great’s Baroque icon­ axis with the same size and shape as the royal gate.
ostasis of the triumphal arch type is the designs of the The royal gate of each nave was a half-rotunda.
iconostasis of the Trinity Cathedral of the Alexander A unique creation is the iconostasis of the Peter
Nevsky Monastery by T. Schwertfeger (Figure 4), the and Paul Cathedral, which is attributed to the author­
material of the iconostasis is also new here: marble. ship of I. Zarudny. The main element of the icon­
These examples demonstrate a freer development of ostasis was the royal gate in the form of a rotunda,
the three-dimensional solution of the iconostasis than crowned with a dome, which completely opens the
141
Figure 5. The iconostasis is based on the type of the tri­
umphal arch of the Peter the Great Baroque: a-the iconosta­ Figure 6. The iconostasis of the Peter and Paul Cathedral
sis diagram (author’s drawing), b-the iconostasis of the in St. Petersburg, 1720 (Posternak 2012).
Panteleimon Church of the A.D. Menshikov Palace in Ora­
nienbaum, 1720s (Posternak 2013). in the Baroque style. In the middle of the XVIII cen­
tury, the iconostases represent a synthesis of the trad­
space of the altar to the worshippers (Posternak itional form in the form of a high solid flat wall, with
2012). The iconostasis is richly decorated with an increase in the importance of the icon about the
sculptural and carved decoration, has a complex decor, and the experience of the Peter the Great
three-dimensional and architectural structure, com­ Baroque.
plex outlines in the plan, and actually represents A typical example is the construction of the icon­
a complex architectural structure (Figure 6). ostasis of the house church in the Tsarskoye Selo
V. Kurbatov expresses doubt about the authorship Palace. Originally f. Rastrelli designed an open
of I. Zarudny (Boguslavsky 2011). Research shows single-row iconostasis, modeled on the triumphal
that the complex design of the iconostasis of the Peter arch (Figure 7).
and Paul Cathedral is a creative synthesis of several
people: Peter I, D. Trezzini, I. Zarudny, and others.
Ukrainian and Swiss architects used the works of
Catholic religious architecture, only D. Trezzini did it
directly, and I. Zarudny was influenced by the archi­
tecture of Eastern Poland (Lazareva 2009, Andreeva
2016, Nikolaeva 2008). Among the Uniates of the
Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth, open iconostases
were widespread in the early-mid-18th century. Pos­
ternak rightly notes that it is impossible to talk about
the influence of the decisions of the Uniate iconostasis
on iconostases in Russia, especially given the
extremely negative attitude towards the Uniates of
Peter I (Posternak 2012). On the other hand, it is also
not necessary to attribute the creation of the Peter and
Paul iconostasis only to D. Trezzini, since the pre­
served drawing of the iconostasis from D. Trezzini’s
workshop differs significantly from the executed ver­
sion both in form and style.
In the middle of the XVIII century, the iconosta­
ses returned to a more traditional form. Already in
the reign of Anna Ioannovna, the iconostasis of the
Sampsonievsky Cathedral in St. Petersburg was
solved by a solid planar structure with the upper
edge along the outline of the vault, while its active
decoration is preserved through the use of three-
dimensional solutions of columns, a loosened entab­
lature, cartouches, and round sculpture.
The period of the reign of Elizabeth Petrovna, the Figure 7. F. Rastrelli. The project of the iconostasis of the
pious tsarina, cements the return in architecture and Church of the Resurrection of Christ of the Great Catherine
Palace in Tsarskoye Selo, 1747 (Posternak 2013).
decoration of churches to the Russian traditions, but

142
 The implemented version is radically different
from the design version and refers us to the high
iconostasis of the late XVII century.
The iconostasis of the church of the Tsarskoye
Selo Palace can be called an exemplary example of
the Elizabethan Baroque: the arrangement of icons
in accordance with the horizontal and vertical divi­
sions of the iconostasis, the primacy of icons over
relatively modest carvings and sculptural decoration
return us to the traditional high iconostases of the
pre-Petrine era. The visual and color fusion of the
temple walls and the iconostasis wall becomes new.
Figure 8. Iconostasis of the Church of the Resurrection of
Christ of the Great Catherine Palace in Tsarskoye Selo
(Posternak 2013).
4 CONCLUSION
The appearance of the Baroque iconostasis is pre­
ceded by a century of the preparatory period. The
development of Russian iconostasis forms in the
XVII-XVIII centuries went through the following
stages:
1. The beginning – the second third of the XVII
century. These are five-row frame iconostases,
including the “Flemish” type of the early Bar­
oque period;
2. The end of the XVII century is characterized by
high five-six or more rows of frame iconostases;
in the style of the Golitsyn and Stroganov Bar­
oque, the rows of the iconostasis have equal
width, in the style of the Naryshkin Baroque and
143
the iconostasis acquires a pyramidal shape and
the upper rows are already lower;
3. The first quarter of the XVIII century is the icon­
ostasis of the Petrovsky Baroque;
4. The middle of the XVIII century is the iconosta­
sis of the Elizabethan Baroque.
Peter’s Baroque is a transitional period that com­
bines Western and Russian traditions.
The iconostasis of the Peter the Great Baroque is
characterized by:
• decorative carved and sculptural decoration is of
dominant importance;
• icons play a secondary role;
• using a round sculpture;
• the icon row system is practically absent;
• development of the three-dimensional spatial
structure of the iconostasis with a complex plastic
plan;
• the appearance of a new type of architectural
iconostasis – the triumphal arch.
The iconostasis of the Elizabethan Baroque is
characterized by:
• return to the more traditional (inline) form of the
iconostasis;
• preservation of the frame structure as the basis of
the iconostasis;
• increasing the icon value;
• the return of the high iconostasis;
• return to the system of dividing into icon rows.
Thus, we can conclude that the synthesis of the
Russian classical five-row iconostasis and the archi­
tectural iconostasis of the Petrovsky Baroque formed
the basis of the best examples of Baroque iconostases
of the time of Elizabeth Petrovna. The iconostasis
continues the architectural design of the interior. The
order and carved frames become an integral part of
the iconostasis design of Baroque churches. Reliefs
and wooden gilded sculptures are widely distributed.
The iconostasis of a flat decorated structure
becomes an architectural object inside the temple.
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St. Petersburg Peter and Paul Cathedral in the light of
the religious life of Domenico Trezzini. Bulletin of the
South Ural State University. Social Sciences and
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Boguslavsky G. 2011. 100 essays about St. Petersburg. The
northern capital through the eyes of a Muscovite.
Moscow: Tsentrpoligraf.
Gorbatenko S. B. 1994. The iconostasis of the Panteleimon
Church of the Grand Palace in Oranienbaum. Saint-
Petersburg. Monuments of history and culture of
St. Petersburg: 139–154.
Lazareva T. F. 2009. Provincial iconostases of the
XVIII-XIX centuries. Izvestiya volgogradskogo gosu­
darstvennogo pedagogicheskogo universiteta 8 (42):
102–105.
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 Reconstruction and Restoration of Architectural Heritage 2021 – Sementsov, Leontyev & Huerta (Eds)
© 2021 Taylor & Francis Group, London, ISBN 978-0-367-68296-5

Reconstruction of the Shengli Theater in Nanjing: A case of facadism

Han Yikuan
School of Architecture and Urban Planning, Chongqing University, Chongqing, China
Key Laboratory of New Technology for Construction of Cities in Mountain Area, China

Zhou Qi
School of Architecture, Southeast University, Nanjing, China

ABSTRACT: The Shengli Theater was open in 1930s, demolished in 2004, and replaced by a new commer­
cial center at its original site in 2012 when the reconstruction plan was also on agenda. In this article, a kind
of facadism practice in reconstruction of this art deco style theater is presented. In this project, challenges
such as the lack of authenticity and technical difficulty are overcome eventually; suggestion of rebuilding
theater’s street façade was accepted rather than reconstructing a part of theater’s volume. GRC plates, alumi­
num alloy plates, and steel components are the main materials of curtain wall and canopy. Curtain wall
system was hung on reinforced concrete beams of commercial center, while steel frame structure canopy was
supported by reinforced concrete columns of commercial center and 4 new steel columns on both sides. By
these techniques, this reconstruction project remodels the historic environment, brings back the sense of
place, and preserves the public’s memory of modern Nanjing to some extent.

Keywords: reconstruction, facadism, authenticity, detail construction, structural design

1 INTRODUCTION 2009; Darley 2015). However, advocates claim that

The Shengli Theater is an important modern building
in Nanjing, but it was demolished to make place for
city’s redevelopment. After 8 years, reconstruction
plan was proposed with the awakening consciousness
of conservation. Although the historical files were
found, it still faced the lack of authenticity and tech­
nical problems. Inspired by contemporary conservation
ideal and Chinese cultural tradition, the reconstruction
plan pursued sense of place and value recovery rather
than authenticity. Finally, new materials and construc­
tion techniques were adopted to reconstruct the
theater’s street façade.
This reconstruction can be classified as the so-
called facadism which strikes a compromise between
development and conservation by repurposing the
inner space and preserving the character of the street-
scape (Richards 1994; Milburn 2009). It is popular in
cities which face the antagonism between develop­
ment and conservation (AGDOEE 2004). The con­
cern for facadism firstly comes from the media, most
of reports criticize profit-seeking developers and
inaction government departments. Such opposition is
also held by conventional protectionists, they often
accuse it of turning historic buildings into character­
less fakes (Earl 1997; Gratz and Mintz 1998; Semes
facadism is beneficial for townscape and built urban
form, they even trace facadism to the tradition from
renaissance to postmodernism (Richards 1994; Schu­
macher 2010). This article never authenticates the
Shengli Theater’s rebuilt façade as real heritage, it is
just considered as an imitation of historic style which
can arouse the memory and sense of modern place.
A big difference between this reconstruction and
common facadism case is that it is not to construct
new building behind the old façade, but rebuild old
style façade on the new commercial center. Obvi­
ously, it is a compensation rather than destruction.
In the following contents, section 2 introduces the
general background of the Shengli Theater; Section 3
illustrates the challenges and solutions of reconstruc­
tion; Construction techniques were revealed in section
4; The main contents of the paper were summarized
and the specialty of this case was shown in section 5.
2 HISTORICAL BACKGROUND
Historic buildings that give a certain identity to the
city are always the most important elements in the
public image (Lynch 1960), conservation of these
buildings would reveal the image of city (Feiden

DOI: 10.1201/9781003136804-29

145
1982). Although it used to be several dynasties’ cap­
ital city, remains of ancient architecture are very
limited in Nanjing. In contrast, a lot of modern archi­
tectural heritages including monumental, administra­
tive, cultural, educational, commercial, residential,
industrial buildings were constructed during 1927­
1949, the time when it was positioned as the capital
city for Republic of China (Liu 1992; Lai, Wu, and
Xu 2016; Zhou 2018). The Shengli Theater was one
of the important modern buildings in the central
business district of Nanjing.
The Shengli Theater was designed by Li Jinpei in
1934, and built by Feixinji construction company in
1936. With the cost of 437,000 Yuan in construction,
1,700 seats in hall, multiple shows such as film,
drama, opera and even symphony, it was the most
advanced and fashionable entertainment place in
Nanjing (Li 1936). Graduated from Pratt Institute
MIT, Columbia Beaux-Art Institute and once hired
by YMCA Bui1ding Bureau to work in China, Li
Jinpei, an American born Chinese architect, was
famous for his Chinese Renaissance style design
(Cody 2001; Lee 1944). However, he selected the
most fashionable art deco style for this theater, for
instance, the street facade is dominated by vertical
lines, and supplemented by horizontal streamline
canopy. The structure of this four-story building was
a combination of reinforced concrete and steel frame
(used for the hall’s roof). In addition to a 1,700-seat
hall, there were also auxiliary facilities such as
lounge, living room and bar dressing room, equip­
ment here was the most luxurious in Nanjing at
1930s, projector, radio, sound absorber board and
the air conditioner, were all imported from the USA
(Li 1936). When night came, the hidden lights
between the walls and 20 meters high vertical lamp­
posts illuminated the entire facade with brilliant
lights, creating a fantasy world of entertainment for
people in the capital city. To commemorate the vic­
tory of People’s Liberation Army, it was renamed as
the Shengli Theater from the Xindu Theater in 1950.
This theater was the best place for citizens to watch
revolutionary films and foreign classics before 1980s
(Xu 2013).
In most Chinese big cities, heritage buildings are
vulnerable to development and modernization
(Rizky 2017), new constructions threaten historic
urban areas, historical buildings have to tolerate irre­
versible damages (Niya 2015). As for Nanjing,
modern buildings in Xinjiekou area were mostly
demolished and replaced by new commercial cen­
ters, high-rise hotels, and offices from 1980s. It is
not until the year of 2006 that the modern buildings
were included in the scope of heritage conservation
for their value to be officially recognized. The Shen­
gli Theater also experienced such dramatic damage
and reconstruction.
The market share of the Shengli Theater went
downhill in the 1990s, there were only 900 seats
left, some spaces were replaced by canteen, cafe,
games hall and karaoke bar. Eventually, it was
146
demolished in 2004, and a luxury commercial
center named Deji plaza was built here in 2012
(Mao 2014; Shen 2014). There was no way to
stop the demolition of the Shengli Theater despite
the opposition of medias, academics, and the
public. Things turned around until more and
more local governments in China realized that
heritage conservation can create economic and
social benefits for local communities, including
jobs, incomes, positive image of cities, positive
local identity (Ebbe, Licciardi, and Baeumler
2011). Nanjing municipal government also began
to implement the conservation of modern build­
ings through legislation in 2006, taking them as
important tourism resources and cultural brands.
Many modern buildings entered the list of cul­
tural relics conservation (Nanjing Planning
Bureau 2006; Nanjing Municipal Government
2006), and the call for reconstruction of the
Shengli Theater became increasingly louder. After
consultation between the government and owner
of Deji plaza, it was decided to reconstruct part
of Shengli Theater at its original site as
a compensation for the previous demolition.
3 CHALLENGES AND CHANCES
The drawings and photos by Li Jinpei Architects
were found in the old journal of THE CHINESE
ARCHITECT (1936), the photos before demolition
were also available, all these archives provided
a solid literature basis for reconstruction. However,
original building materials were treated as construc­
tion waste when it was demolished, which made the
project lack of material authenticity. In addition, the
structural relationship between reconstruction work
and the existing commercial center was also a big
challenge.
3.1 Ethics of reconstruction
In conventional conservation charters, all recon­
struction work should however be ruled out
a priori. Only anastylosis, that is to say, the
reassembling of existing but dismembered parts
can be permitted (ICOMOS 1964). In Chinese
law, where immovable cultural relics are totally
damaged, the ruins shall be protected and the
damaged relics may not be rebuilt on the original
site (National People’s Congress 2015). In the
case that the original building had been demol­
ished and no building materials were left, the
reconstruction lack the material basis of authenti­
city obviously. However, contemporary heritage
conservation has shifted from an extreme
emphasis on authenticity and integrity to the pro­
tection of meaning, function, and value (Vinas
2005). Traditional Chinese culture also tolerates
the reconstruction and reinterpretation of classical
artwork and architecture.
 In Chinese art tradition, ancient painters
tended to be keen on copying famous masters’
works. Although they pursued the similarity in
composition and content, they often made break­
throughs in details so as to leave their own
traces. A typical case is the painting Along the
River During the Qingming Festival, since the
painter Zhang Zeduan (1085-1145) in Song dyn­
asty created this painting, there were more than
50 facsimile copies produced, among them the
most famous two were the copies by Qiuying
(1494-1552) in Ming dynasty and Chen Mei (18
century) in Qing dynasty. The overall compos­
ition and content were similar between the latter
two versions and the original work, but the place
depicted was transferred from Kaifeng in Song
dynasty to Suzhou in Ming and Qing dynasties,
some details, such as costumes and architectural
features, were also different from the original
one (Wu 1997). In terms of architecture, palaces
in Forbidden City experienced several times of
destruction, reconstruction, and extension from
1420, so it is with the Confucian temple in
Qufu, Shandong province, it had been recon­
structed and extended 37 times from Ming dyn­
asty (Chen 1990). It is the sense of place rather
than authenticity did the traditional Chinese was
concerned with (Salah Ouf 2001). It is for such
cultural reason that the latest Chinese protection
law added, where under special circumstances it
is necessary to have relics reconstructed, it must
be approved by higher government (National
People’s Congress 2015).
For the reconstruction of the Shengli Theater, it
should not be considered as the restoration of his­
toric building, trying to regain the original materials,
details, spaces, etc. It should be regarded as the new
interpretation of history and the compensation for
previous wrong decision. Therefore, similar frag­
ments which can arouse the sense of place are
adequate in the project.
3.2 Structure and function
dealing with the relationship between two structural
systems was obviously a top priority. If recon­
structed building was inserted into a completed com­
mercial complex, should the structural system of the
reconstructed one be related to the current structural
system of the existing one? How to ensure two
buildings’ structural safety?
From structural engineer’s view, to minimize
the structural connection between two buildings,
restore the foyer of the theater and rebuild a self-
load-bearing block was relatively simple and
feasible. However, considering about the continu­
ity of the street interface and the integrity of the
Deji plaza’s inner pedestrian flow, this individual
block was not a good choice whether it protruded
from the street or extended to the interior. After
consultation between the owner of Deji plaza,
147
local government, and architect, it was decided
only to rebuild the Shengli Theater’s street
facade and attach it to the structure of the exist­
ing building. For the public, the most significant
part of the building was street facade, which
could be perceived by all, while the interior of
the building was only used by fewer people. In
cities such as Toronto, Sydney, and Tokyo, many
historical buildings were protected by facadism
(Milburn 2009). The reconstruction of the Shengli
Theater was the first attempt in Nanjing to embed
the historical facade into the modern glass com­
mercial building, creating a new commercial
landscape and restoring the historic image at the
same time.
Figure 1. The overall view of the Shengli Theatre’s recon­
structed facade.
4 CONSTRUCTION METHODS
4.1 Materials and details
When it was decided to be only an image imitation,
new lightweight materials, instead of original bricks
and concrete were adopted in the reconstruction.
Glass fiber reinforced concrete (GRC), aluminum
alloy plates, and steel components were the main
materials in this project.
Original materials of Shengli Theater in 1936 were
reinforced concrete, brick, and glass. Its facade was
made up of red brick wall, general plaster, and glass
windows; its reinforced concrete canopy was sup­
ported by reinforced concrete columns (Li 1936). The
aim of reconstruction was only to get a similar façade,
it was not necessary to use original materials, struc­
tures, and details, on the contrary, it was the best
choice to make full use of existing commercial center’s
structure and carry out minimal and reversible inter­
ventions on it. The final decision was to reconstruct
the facade as a curtain wall to the existing reinforced
concrete structure of Deji plaza, while the canopy sec­
tion was supported by steel columns. GRC, a material
with good tensile strength and flexural strength, as
well as good toughness, various textures, and colors
(Castañeda 2018) was selected as the main material.
With alkali resistant glass fiber as reinforcement mater­
ial and cement mortar as matrix material, this fiber
cement composite material can fully simulate the
Shengli Theater’s original façade.
Red and white GRC plates were used as main
materials, lines on the middle part were covered
with fuchsia nano ceramic coating, which had the
advantages of energy conservation, environment
friendly and non-toxic, comparing with common
fluorocarbon coating (PTFE). In addition, in order
to minimize impact on inside look, navy grey
Aluminum veneer back plates were used behind
the facade.
The canopy adopted profile steel as structure
material, its facade adopted white GRC plates
with metal lines, above the profile steel were
light steel keels, color steel plates, rock wool
insulation and aluminum alloy plates. The ceil­ Figure 4. The sections.
ing was light steel keels covered with honey­
comb aluminum plates.

Figure 5. The detail of the façade.

Figure 2. The facade of the reconstructed Shengli Theatre.

Figure 6. The detail of the canopy.

4.2 Structural design

The focus of structural design was how the
canopy and curtain wall relate to the main struc­
ture of the commercial center. The canopy was
20.18m in length, 3.96m in width, three types of
steel beams formed a steel frame structure, which
was enhanced by 20mm hot-dip galvanized steel
Figure 3. The plan. bars between the beams and supported by the

148
commercial center’s reinforced concrete structural
columns, as well as 4 new steel columns on both
sides. Each steel column was fixed on the con­
crete floor at the top of the basement by 6
column anchor bolts and strengthened by 8 stiff­
ening plates. The chemical anchor bolts were
welded with steel bars in the concrete and then
the upper foundation was poured. Top part of
steel columns was welded with the steel frame
canopy through joint plates and reinforced with
10mm thick stiffening plates.
The curtain wall above the canopy adopted vertical Figure 9. The joint of new steel column and the Deji
square steel columns which were welded with rect­ Plaza’s basement.
angular steel beams and cantilever beams. Each
column was anchored on 3 layers of commercial cen­
ter’s reinforced concrete beams with 30 chemical bolts
and was reinforced by 8mm thick stiffening plates. In
this way, the whole facade of the Shengli Theater was
hung on the reinforced concrete structure of the Deji
plaza.
After the structural design, the structural
strength of the canopy, curtain wall system, foun­
dation column feet and each node (such as weld­
ing, chemical bolts, etc.) of the Shengli Theater
were measured in detail, all the results meet the
requirements of ultimate bearing capacity and
normal use limit state.

Figure 10. Structural design of curtain wall above the

canopy.

Figure 7. The structure of the canopy.

Figure 11. The joint of curtain wall and the Deji Plaza’s
concrete beam.

5 CONCLUSION

As one of the most advanced and fashionable

theaters in modern Nanjing, the Shengli Theater’s
Figure 8. The joint of the canopy structure and the Deji significance was self-evident, but it had to give way
Plaza’s reinforced concrete column. to a new commercial center when confronted with

149
rapid large-scale urban redevelopment. With its
destruction, all the emotional and cultural values
vanished away before the government recognized
and prepared to protect it. Faced up with such cir­
cumstance, only street façade, rather than the whole
volume, was chosen to be built, new materials and
structures were adopted to interpret the history in
a contemporary way. it remodeled the historic envir­
onments, brought back the sense of place, and pre­
served the public’s memory of modern Nanjing to
some extent.
It is noted that this reconstruction was only
a compensation under specific historical conditions.
It should not be advocated to demolish the existing
historic building, and then reconstruct a fake one,
because the comprehensive value of reconstruction
is much less than that of preservation.
ACKNOWLEDGEMENT
We would like to express our gratitude to Ji Qiu and
Chen Yiqian in our studio for their previous basic
research and design. Also, many thanks to engineer
Yuan Jingjing, Fang Lixin, and Professor Sun Xun
for their structural design and calculation.
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constructions: The transformation of historical spaces and areas
 Reconstruction and Restoration of Architectural Heritage 2021 – Sementsov, Leontyev & Huerta (Eds)
© 2021 Taylor & Francis Group, London, ISBN 978-0-367-68296-5

Urban planning reconstruction of railway station districts historical

development
E.A. Akhmedova, A.N. Teryagova, V.A. Shabanov & I.V. Kuznetsov
Academy of Architecture and Civil Engineering of Samara State Technical University, Samara, Russia

ABSTRACT: The station area, being the first location of the city where people who come to this city get,
should have a comfortable, safe, and aesthetic architectural environment. The object of the study is the railway
station areas of the largest cities, the subject is the process of urban reconstruction of historical buildings in
such areas. Within the framework of the article, it was important to identify the main modern trends in the
renewal of the urban environment and, at the same time, the preservation and inclusion of architectural monu­
ments in the polyphonic post-industrial collage of urban space near railway stations and to determine the degree
of their compliance with the requirements of architectural diversity and informativeness. To achieve this goal,
we analyzed the European and Russian, including regional, experience of implementing historical and architec­
tural renovation techniques in the urban environment of railway station territories. The most detailed consider­
ation is given to the urban development situation of the station district of the city of Samara (Russia), the
development of the historical center of which has the status of a historical settlement of regional significance.

1 INTRODUCTION preserved, and even strengthened. This can be

The paradigm of managing the development of the
urban environment today is understood in the unity
of the processes of preservation and renewal.
The development of railway transport and the con­
struction of railway stations on the outskirts of large
cities during the formation of the industrial era in the
nineteenth century. marked the beginning of the for­
mation of station areas, which were considered as the
most important elements of the urban planning
system of the city, its “entrance gate”, or in the
modern sound – portal (Akhmedova 2007).
A significant amount of structures and engineering
infrastructure of the track economy (locomotive
depots, buildings and structures of water supply facil­
ities, steam locomotive and car repair enterprises,
etc.) was created during the next century, turning the
station areas into the most dynamically developing
areas of the urban environment with the integration of
a variety of public, industrial and housing functions.
As the subsequent analysis of the evolution of the
architectural and spatial environment and the engineer­
ing and technological infrastructure of the station areas
shows, this continuous chain of updates is more or less
characteristic of all major cities in the world. At the
present stage of the reorganization of railway stations
into large multifunctional transport hubs, the scale of
renovation and urban reconstruction of the station
areas is significantly expanding, while the architectural
and socio-cultural identity of the station area should be
achieved by a reasonable combination of the historical
and the modern in the architectural environment.
The experience of advanced countries is extremely
relevant for Russia’s largest cities. The topic of urban
reconstruction for the effective functioning of urban
areas, including near railway stations, is of interest to
many specialists from different fields of knowledge. In
his research, the topic of urban environment renova­
tion, as well as its historical and architectural potential
and informativeness, including and near railway sta­
tions, affected Alexey Barkovsky, Nikolay Zhurin,
Gulnara Kamalova, Mikhail Kanunnikov, Nina Lekar­
eva, Anastasia Medvedeva, Andrey Murunov, Alexan­
dra Teryagova, Anatoly Sinelnik, and others. This
topic is also revealed in a number of studies by foreign
urbanists, such as Roberta Gratz, Jane Jacobs, and
others.
2 MATERIALS AND METHODS
To solve the tasks set and achieve the goal of the
study, the authors resorted to such scientific methods
as comparative historical and urban planning ana­
lysis and sociological research. Within the frame­
work of the presented study, a questionnaire survey
of experts with different professional and role com­
petencies was conducted in 2020-2021. The results
of the survey helped in a more detailed study of the
topic raised. As for substantiating materials,

DOI: 10.1201/9781003136804-30

153
fragments of research (Babylonskaya 2017), which
were conducted by the authors of the article as part
of the creative team in 2017-2019, were used.
according to the justification for assigning the status
of a historical settlement to the historical building of
the city of Samara (SP Samara).
2.1 The European experience of urban
reconstruction
The famous American urbanist great Jane Jacobs,
the author of the book “The Life and Death of Great
American Cities”, believes that a large city needs
a combination of new buildings with old ones,
including architectural monuments. She believes:
“New ideas need old buildings in the immediate
vicinity. Otherwise, they are too immersed in the
general environment with its generalized lures, too
limited economically, and therefore functionally, to
be lively, interesting, and convenient. Blooming
diversity anywhere in a big city suggests a mix of
high -, middle -, low -, and zero-income businesses”
(Jacobs 2019).
The urban environment is formed in the form of
a system of artistic images (Orloa et al. 2018), which
are created in the context of functional, architectural-
spatial, semantic, and socio-cultural aspects. These
images form visual information about the identity of
the urban space, its historical and architectural
potential (Akhmedova 2015).
The analysis of the world experience of
approaches to the organization of the architectural
and urban planning environment, considering the
preservation of architectural heritage objects and his­
torically valuable city-forming objects near railway
stations, can help to avoid mistakes in the formation
of a diverse and identical urban environment,
a memorable image field of the city, as well as to
create more aesthetic, effective and universal urban
spaces. (Akhmedova & Kuznetsov, 2020).
Zurich (Switzerland)
On the left bank of the Limmat River, there are
vast territories occupied by the railway right-of-way.
It cuts through the city and ends on the banks of the
river with the historic building of the main railway
station in Zurich. The railway station is located in
a cramped historical environment, not far from the
Swiss National Museum, which is a historical site
that was reconstructed and expanded with a new
wing in the first half of the 2010s.
The railway is the southern border of the indus­
trial district of Zurich, which is bounded in the north
by the Limmat River. A small part of this area is
known as the Escher Wyss quarter, in the place of
which for almost one and a half hundred years until
the middle of the 20th century. The machine-
building plant was located. After its closure in
the second half of the XX century. this area of the
city began to be actively built up with public and
residential buildings, among which there are several
large hotels, as well as a tecnopark, office and
154
business centers, sports complexes, theaters, super­
markets, etc. It is important to note that a significant
part of the new functions is located in historical sites
(Akhmedova & Kuznetsov, 2020).
The railway station district of Zurich is character­
ized by a harmonious combination of buildings of
different periods of development, contrasting in
architecture and functional content. At the same
time, they are united by a high-quality design of the
urban environment.
Vienna (Austria)
The main part of the railway in Basel is located in
the structure of a dense historical urban develop­
ment. There are two main railway stations in the
city.
One of them, the Basel Badischer Bahnhof, is
located on the right bank of the Rhine, in the so-
called Lesser Basel. The area around it is interesting
for the objects located not just in pedestrian proximity
to the railway, but directly adjacent to the right-of­
way of the railway. Quite close to the train station,
there is a historic building - the covered market
Markthalle Basel, whose building was erected in
1929-1930 and underwent significant renovation and
expansion in 2006-2012. Not far from it are located
newer buildings of the second half of the 20th cen­
tury, as well as the beginning of the 2000s: conference
center “Viaduktstrasse” and the tower of the Bank for
International Settlements (BIS), architectural objects
Peter Merian Haus and Jacob Burckhardt Haus (archi­
tect Hans Zwimpfer). All of them are on the same
side of the railway.
On the other side, there are also buildings of inter­
est. These are several buildings by the famous archi­
tects Jacques Herzog and Pierre de Meuron, among
which it is worth noting the signal post of the Central
Signal Box railway.
The Bahnhof Basel SBB station forecourt is also
an excellent example of a polyphonic combination
of historical and modern architectural objects of high
artistic and aesthetic quality, mixed functional use,
and universal design of open spaces in the urban
environment.
Bern (Switzerland)
The Bern railway runs through the center of the
city. Its railway station, the second largest in Swit­
zerland after Zurich, is located in the historic center
and is itself a historical site. Nearby it there are such
monuments as the University of Bern, the Church of
the Holy Spirit, Bern Cathedral, as well as the Fed­
eral Palace at Bundesplatz square.
As in other previously considered Swiss Tsar
cities (Zurich and Basel), the urban development of
Bern comes very close to the railway right-of-way.
The typology of this development is quite diverse.
Along with public buildings, there is also a lot of
housing. In some places, civil buildings are separ­
ated from the railway by industrial buildings and
research facilities, such as, for example, a complex
of university buildings and a waste processing center
(Akhmedova & Kuznetsov 2020).
 The analysis of the existing architectural environ­
ment of the railway station district of Bern also
shows the diversity and mixing of functions, the
polystilism of the historical architecture of buildings
and complexes, the inclusion of modern architectural
objects in historical buildings by means of universal
design of the urban environment.

2.2 Russian experience of urban reconstruction

(on the example of Samara)
Similar techniques of the domestic experience of
urban reconstruction in railway station areas can be
Figure 1. Project of protection zones, borders, and pro­
observed on the examples of the capital’s railway
tected panoramas of the architectural heritage of the histor­
stations in Moscow, St. Petersburg, as well as Kazan ical settlement of Samara; image source: the scheme of the
and some other cities. Railway station districts in the authors, made by them as part of the creative team of the
regional centers of Russia were also formed in the Project of protection zones of SP Samara (sc. supervisor
near historical period (in the second half of the XIX T. V. Babilonskaya).
century) on the periphery of urban development that
had developed at that time. In many Volga regional
capitals, station forecourts were formed very small
built during this period according to the designs of
by the standards of the time and framed by modest
Pyotr Shcherbachev, the son of the architect Alexan­
buildings that were built in the 1920s and 1930s.
der Shcherbachev (Figure 2).
(during the beginning of active industrialization) was
The new monograph of Samara architects exam­
replaced by architectural objects in the style of con­
ines in detail the stages of the formation of the
structivism and Stalinist classics: the so-called prole­
Samara development in the period of the 1920s­
tarian classicism. The peculiarity of architectural
1940s (Samogorov et al. 2018).
solutions in this period is accompanied by the urban
Modern architectural objects are built into the
reconstruction of the station forecourts.
urban planning ensemble of the station square: the
Nizhny Novgorod and Samara, which are among
building of the information center of the Kuibyshev
the five largest cities with millions of people in
Railway and, most importantly, the newest building
Russia, clearly demonstrate the described problem:
of the railway station in the modern style “slick­
in both cities, the pedestrian part in front of the train
tech” – a high-tech version with a large number of
station is very small, and most of the station square
glass surfaces. Architect Yuri Khramov started work­
is occupied by a parking lot.
ing on the project in 1984, as a result, the building
The urban planning situation in the Privokzalny
was built by 2000 and received the Gold Medal of
district of Samara has historically developed in the
the All-Russian Architectural Festival “Architecture”
form of a system of three city squares located quite
for its successful implementation. The modern land­
close to the Privokzalnaya Komsomolskaya Square.
scaping of the station square combines all the archi­
Around it, in close walking distance, are the market
tectural structures into a single postmodern collage.
Nikitinskaya Square; Ilyinskaya Square, the former
Building of the administration of the Samara-
Red Army Square; Krymskaya Square, the former
Zlatoust (Kuibyshev) railway (SZR)
Moisey Uritsky Square. Moving on foot along three
The construction of this large-scale administrative
different streets from the station square to three other
building was started in 1925 by the architect Pyotr
squares, guests of the city note that the station
Shcherbachev, and by 1927 it was built (Figure 3).
square is entirely within the boundaries of the histor­
The development and implementation of the project
ical settlement. Ilyinskaya Square is also part of the
not only laid the foundations for the formation of the
borders of the historical settlement, and Nikitinskaya
Square and Krymskaya Square are adjacent to these
borders. These borders and the regional status of the
historic settlement were approved in December 2019.
By the decree of the Government of the Samara
region. Architectural and urban-planning ensembles
of historical buildings of different periods were
formed on both sides of the streets connecting the
three squares with the forecourt (Figure 1).
Komsomolskaya (formerly Nikolaevskaya, Vokzal­
naya) Square Figure 2. Protected internal modern panorama of the city.
As an urban planning ensemble, the station square Komsomolskaya Square Ensemble: a-photography, the
began to form in the second half of the 1920s. The 1930s, b-photography, 1950s-1960s; image sources:
main monumental representative buildings were authors ‘photography, from open sources.

155

Figure 3. General view of Komsomolskaya (Privokzal­
naya) Square in Samara (Russia): in the photo on the left –
the building of the Department of the Northwestern Rail­
way, in the photo on the right-the railway station; on the
right-the situational scheme; image sources: photo of the
authors, the scheme from open sources.
station district but also symbolized the beginning of
a new period in the city’s urban history. As the
authors of the monograph point out, the ar-chitect
developed three options: the first was in the Russian
style, the second was in the spirit of the Ital-ian
Renaissance, and the third was in the modernized
classics (Samogorov et al. 2018). The latter was
accepted by the railway administration for imple­
mentation. The administration building of the North-
West Railway has an extended facade, which is dec­
orated with bas-reliefs on industrial themes, as well
as symbols of the Soviet state. The spherical domes
at the corners of the building in their “Asian” way
metaphorically remind of the role of Samara in the
implementation of relations between the East and the
West (Samogorov et al. 2018). In 1946, Peter
Shcherbachev carried out a partial reconstruction of
the building.
The building of the polyclinic of the Samara-
Zlatoust (Kuibyshev) railway
In 1934, the decision of the presidium of the
Samara City Council on the construction of
a polyclinic of the SZR was made, 4 years later, in
1938, a competition was held to design the facade of
a three-story clinic building (Ivanov 1999). The first
prize was awarded to the project of the architect
Pyotr Shcherbachev, which was also approved for
implementation. The architecture of the building was
based on a combination of constructivist techniques
and classical elements. The plastic was reinforced by
two triangular bay windows and the cubic volume of
the entrance block. Square niches and pilasters were
used in the decoration of the facade. Currently, the
building is reconstructed, as it seems, not quite
successfully.
Corner residential building of the Kuibyshev
railway
The residential building of the Kuibyshev Rail­
way was built in 1935 according to the project of
Pyotr Shcherbachev at the intersection of
156
Krasnoarmeyskaya (former Peschanaya, Alekseevs­
kaya) and Agibalov (former Lenskaya, Vokzalnaya)
streets, has 4 floors and is partially involved in the
formation of the appearance of the station square.
The building is a good example of post­
constructivism or proletarian classics. The active
solution of the corner is fixed by the portico with the
entrance to the store.
Moving along Sportivnaya Street to Nikitinskaya
Square, we have the opportunity to get acquainted
with the main esplanade, laid out in the master plan
of 1937, along which the objects of historical devel­
opment are located.
Konstantinovskaya almshouse
The Konstantinovskaya almshouse was founded
on March 10, 1872 (Figure 4). The building was
built by the efforts and money of the Samara mer­
chant of the 1st guild Ivan Konstantinov (Bass at al.
2019). Konstantinov merchant was thanked by the
Emperor, and hospice received its name. According
to various sources, in different years there lived from
50 to 150 people. The almshouse was located next to
the huge old All-Holy Cemetery. Subsequently, the
Kuibyshevkabel factory was built on the site of the
graves, and now a huge building of the new Gudok
shopping center has grown there, which is no more
than 5 minutes away from the station square.
Modern use of the building of the Konstantinovs­
kaya almshouse-Samara State College of Transport
and Communications. The building is an example of
provincial eclecticism.
Other valuable buildings in the direction of Niki­
tinskaya Square on Sportivnaya Street
In the same direction, behind Nikitinskaya
Square, there are objects of historical development:
the Kazan Mother of God Church-school at the dio­
cesan almshouse named after Emperor Alexander
III, the house of merchant Alexey Kozhevnikov, the
assembly point (architect Peter Shcherbachev, 1929).
Closer to the station square are the residential
buildings of the village of Railwaymen on Uritsky
Street, houses 2, 4, 6, and 8 (the workshop of archi­
tect Abram Kanevsky), built in the 1930s-1933s.
They were later built in the neoclassical style. On
Nikitinskaya Square there is also a covered market,
built using large-span structures obtained by reprisal,
in the late 1940s. Around it is residential buildings
Figure 4. Konstantinovskaya Almshouse in Samara
(Russia): on the left-general view, 2020; on the right-photo,
1910; image sources: photo of the authors, from open
sources.
on Nikitinskaya Square in the spirit of neoclassical
architecture.
Along Sportivnaya Street there is a valuable
architectural object of domestic modernism-the
TSUM Samara complex. The process of studying
the objects of Soviet modernism and including them
in the lists of objects is successfully going on all
over the country, of course, and in Samara.
Ilyinskaya (Krasnoarmeyskaya) Square
Communist Institute of Journalism. The Commun­
ist Institute of Journalism was built in 1938-1939 by
the Leningrad architect Noah Trotsky. Being one of
the brightest representatives of the architecture of
constructivism, Trotsky no less masterfully designed
ensembles of the “Stalinist Empire”. Among his pro­
jects of administrative, industrial, and residential
complexes are internationally appreciated first prize
and the gold medal at the Paris Exhibition of 1937
for the building of the Leningrad meat processing
plant. Later in 1947. The building of the Institute of
Journalism was reconstructed and completed for the
institute “Giprovostokneft” according to the project
of Ivan Thessaloniki. The building is a U-shaped
structure – a remarkable example of the architecture
of the Stalinist classics (Bass et al. 2019). In the
1970s. the 10-storey high-rise dominant of the
administrative building of the Giprovostokneft Insti­
tute, designed by the architect Galina Morgun
(Samogorov et al. 2015), fits into the magnificent
and solemn ensemble of Krasnoarmeyskaya Square.
The laconic vertical glass plate of the building with
blind ends, which is visually torn off from the
ground by a transparent first floor, became one of the
best embodiments of the style of the collective in the
then Kuibyshev. The ensemble completed the begin­
ning of the formation of Krasnoarmeyskaya Square
as a “gateway to the city” (Samogorov et al. 2015).
Residential building of officers. The famous offi­
cer’s “House with a Star” is a massive U-shaped
200-apartment building with an expressive three-
dimensional composition, forms the north-western
part of Krasnoarmeyskaya Square. The author of this
building is the brightest architect of his time, Ivan
Thessaloniki. With this building, in 1946, he re­
formed Krasnoarmeyskaya Square in the style of
Soviet neoclassicism – the post-war Stalinist clas­
sics. The corner of the building is accentuated by
a 6-story tower with a spire. The upper floor of the
tower is decorated with a belt of rosettes, flat pilas­
ters with capitals, and round medallions with stars
above the windows (Bass et al. 2019).
The ensemble of Krasnoarmeyskaya Square is
conceived by the authors as a kind of propylaea for
visitors from the railway station along Krasnoar­
meyskaya Street, leading to the city center. The com­
plex of Ilyinskaya Square is completed with the
Chebyshev House-an an apartment house in the red­
brick style “neoryuss” and brings modern tourists
and visitors to the Lenin Memorial complex (the
regional historical museum named after Peter
Alabin) and the citywide center of Samara.
157
Krymskaya Square (formerly Uritsky Square).
Heading along Krasnoarmeyskaya Street to
Krymskaya Square, visitors and tourists can observe
the ensemble of public and residential medium-rise
post-constructivist buildings of the 1940s and 1950s
(residential buildings, library No 3, specialized trust
of transport construction “Samaratransstroy”). Traf­
fic on this route also includes two modern high-
budget facilities: the shopping and entertainment
complex “Gudok” (Figure 5) and the newest facility
of the federal government and the Sixth Court of
Cassation of General Jurisdiction in a modern slick-
tech style, which opened only in 2019.
Former Pokrovskaya Square
We have the opportunity to enjoy the ensemble of
historical buildings, moving from Komsomolskaya
Square along Leo Tolstoy Street (formerly Kuznets­
kaya, Moskatelnaya) to the Dynamo stadium (for­
merly Pokrovskaya Square), which is the pre­
revolutionary first main axis of passenger transfer
and cargo transshipment from the railway station to
the river port on the Volga bank since 1888. The his­
torical architectural complex of the distillery, which
was reconstructed in 2005, is located in the immedi­
ate vicinity of the railway station. designed by the
team of architects of the workshop of Mikhail Mak­
ridin (Gold Medal of the festival “Architecture”
2007), the complex of the Red Cross hospital, the
House of merchant Nikolai Dunaev (modern use is
the House of the builder). The 15-minute walking
tour ends with a wonderful cultural heritage object ­
the building of the Railway Workers ‘Club, which is
an architectural monument of federal significance.
The beautiful Art Nouveau building was built in
1903 by architect Filaret Zasukhin and reconstructed
in the 1990s. designed by architects Sergey Mishin
and Mikhail Makridin) is one of the best historical
public buildings in Samara.
Post-industrial collage (Danilova 2014) - these are
new and newest buildings in the structure of the sta­
tion district and represent the style of modernism
and postmodernism in the station district of Samara
are represented, as already mentioned, by the com­
plexes of the railway station, the information and
computing center of the Kuibyshev Railway, the
shopping and entertainment complex “Gudok” and
the building of the Sixth Cassation Court of General
Figure 5. Gudok Shopping and Entertainment Complex in
Samara (Russia): on the left – a general view, 2019, on the
right-a situational diagram; image sources: photos of the
authors, a diagram from open sources.
Jurisdiction. This is a regional Samara example of
the organic development of the environment of the
station district in the unity of the processes of con­
servation and renewal.
3 RESULTS
Within the framework of the article, the authors ana­
lyze in detail urban development, which is valuable
for history, culture, architecture and urban develop­
ment, and, based on this work, try to outline the main
directions of solutions to one of the key issues of
modern architectural and urban planning science. The
question is, under what external and internal conditions
does a compromise between the preservation and
urban planning renewal (and subsequently - sustainable
development) of the historical and architectural
environment become possible in the conditions of the
existing development of near-station urban areas,
which often directly border on the historical center of
the city and have interrelated vectors of development.
4 DISCUSSION
The interviewed experts almost unanimously agreed
that architectural objects and elements of the urban
environment act as identifiers of the urban environ­
ment. Moreover, along with the previous identifiers
represented by the architectural heritage, new ones
appear in the form of modern architecture. The het­
erogeneity and diversity of the historical architec­
tural environment and value ideas about it leads to
the search for a new socially-oriented approach, in
which the urban planning structure of the city identi­
fies historical buildings with the status of a historical
settlement, the regimes of protected zones of which
allow us to reasonably remove contradictions
between the ongoing processes of renewal and pres­
ervation of historical and architectural heritage and
outline ways to resolve them in the future.
5 CONCLUSIONS
As a result of the study, information was obtained on
approaches to urban planning reconstruction of rail­
way station areas from the standpoint of identifying,
preserving, and reproducing the identity of the his­
torical and architectural environment of railway sta­
tion areas and managing its development within the
boundaries of a historical settlement, taking into
158
account the requirements of modern design and the
requirements for preserving the historical and cul­
tural architectural environment as a tourist and cul­
tural potential of the city, the supporting framework
for its sustainable development.
ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
The authors express their gratitude to the experts
who took part in the survey and gave valuable
advice in the careful study of this issue: Vsevolod
Shabanov, Tatyana Babilonskaya, Pavel Krupin,
Anton Zagrebelny, Anna Adonina, Victoria Leonova,
Yulia Yershova.
REFERENCES
Akhmedova E. & Kuznetsov I. 2020. Urban planning fea­
tures of the formation of the planning structure of the
station areas of the largest cities (international
experience). In Bulletin of the Privolzhsky Territorial
Branch of the Russian Academy of Architecture and
Construction Sciences: 67–76.
Akhmedova E. A. 2007. Aesthetics of architecture and
design. Samara: SSUABCE.
Akhmedova L. S. 2015. Visual information and communi­
cation field of the city of Samara. In Traditions and
innovations in construction and architecture. Urban
planning: 18–20.
Babylonskaya T. V. 2017. Architectural and historical
environment of the Samara Volga region: formation,
state, the concept of sustainable development. Nizhny
Novgorod: NNGASU.
Bass N. I. Kucher N. G., Travkin E. E. & Bass E. A. 2019.
The second breath of the city. The historical and archi­
tectural heritage of Samara, updated in recent years as
part of the preparation of the Samara province for the
meeting of the guests of the 2018 FIFA World Cup.
Samara: ACC-PRESS.
Danilova E. V. 2014. The development of the theory of
architecture in the era of postmodernism. Privolzhsky
Scientific Journal, (1), 85–88.
Ivanov M. O. 1999. Creativity of the Samara architects
Alexander and Peter Shcherbachev.
Jacobs J. 2016. The death and life of great American cities.
New York: Vintage books.
Orlova N. A., Orlov, D. N., & Grumeza, O. D. (2018). The
potential of the Samara railway station as a center of
tourist services. In Traditions and innovations in con­
struction and architecture. Urban planning: 328–332.
Samogorov V. A., Sinelnik A. K. & Pastushenko V. L.
2018. Architectural guide. Samara. 1920–1940. Yekat­
erinburg: TATLIN.
Samogorov V.A., Pastushenko V.L., Fedorov O.A. 2015.
Space Kuibyshev. Yekaterinburg: TATLIN.
 Reconstruction and Restoration of Architectural Heritage 2021 – Sementsov, Leontyev & Huerta (Eds)
© 2021 Taylor & Francis Group, London, ISBN 978-0-367-68296-5

Adaptation and protection of the private residence in an urban structure:

St. Petersburg
D.M. Bobrova
Saint Petersburg State University of Architecture and Civil Engineering, Saint Petersburg, Russia

ABSTRACT: The article is devoted to the problem of adaptation and protection of private residence in the
urban structure of St. Petersburg. The private residence is a residential building designed for single-family
living. This type of building is distinguished by a variety of architectural and planning solutions, artistic
details of facades, and interiors, corresponding to the fashion trends of its time. The architectural image of the
building always reflects the personality of the customer, his tastes, and social status in society. To date, more
than 200 private residences have been preserved in the city of St. Petersburg, some of which are being des­
troyed and do not function. The task of designers and restorers of our time is to preserve and adapt these
objects, “give them a second life”, considering the peculiarity of this type of building, otherwise, the city may
lose many cultural heritage objects with their unique architectural images and forms.

1 INTRODUCTION St. Petersburg an inherent visual connection and

The structure of the city of St. Petersburg is
a unique, well-thought-out planning structure.
Unlike many cities, it developed according to
a strictly planned plan, creating a system of streets,
avenues, houses, and courtyards. This feature of the
development creates a unique architectural appear­
ance, which is peculiar only to our city.
The study of the characteristics of urban develop­
ment and individual architectural objects of Saint-
Petersburg dedicated a lot of work (Ozhegov 1987,
Punin 1990, Victorov 2005, Kirikov 2006, Demen­
tieva 2005, 2006 Kirikov, Sementsov 2006ab, 2007ab,
2013, Ginsberg & Speshilova 2009, Lisowski 2009,
Sementsov & Vozniak 2017, Kobzeva & Baulina
2019). However, many topics still remain poorly stud­
ied, including the issues of architectural features and
spatial planning structure of certain types of objects or
specific objects, including private residences.
In the current structure of streets and houses, you
can find palaces and apartment buildings, factories and
parks, as well as such a type of housing as a private
residence. The private residence is a building designed
for single-family living, which distinguishes this type
of building from others. Private residence projects
were developed based on the wishes and “sense of
beauty” of their future owner. It is this specificity that
makes each private residence unique. Each object is
distinguished by its architectural design, has rich
details and forms that do not repeat from building to
building, which gives the architecture of the city of
diversity.
To date, more than 200 private residences have
been preserved on the territory of the city of
St. Petersburg. Some of them have found a new life,
others are in disrepair and do not function. The preser­
vation of these objects of cultural heritage is an urgent
problem since initially the planning structure and func­
tional purpose was aimed at comfortable living for one
family. Currently, finding a new function and preserv­
ing the items of protection, and most importantly the
authentic appearance of the monument, is quite
a difficult problem.
2 MATERIALS AND METHODS
One of the features of private residence buildings is
their location in the structure of urban development.
They can be found both in densely formed cellular per­
imeter firewall buildings of blocks and on a separate
site, in a complex of industrial facilities, etc. It is also
important to note another feature of private residences,
which is that initially, the space-planning structure
assumed a residential mono-function. These features
of buildings entail an urgent problem of adaptation: the
introduction of a new function, considering their
space-planning structure. Today, when studying the
problem of finding a new function, it is increasingly
possible to find accommodation in private residences
of embassies, small hotels, private schools, boarding
schools, personal offices for companies.

DOI: 10.1201/9781003136804-31

159
 The problem of adapting private residences primar­
ily affects the protection of the authentic appearance of
the building and its interiors. For the adopted design
decisions to be aimed at the revival of the monument,
it is necessary to conduct a historical and cultural
examination for each object, which will give
a complete picture of the history of the building, its
problems, and objects of protection. This question can
be considered on the example of private residence
Polezhaev, located at the address: 8 Bakunin Street,
St. Petersburg. After studying its history, you can ana­
lyze the problems that arise with this object when
changing its functional purpose.
Built in the second half of the XIX century, the
building has architectural and artistic value as one of
the major works of the St. Petersburg architect
F. L. Miller. Despite the fact that the project was not
fully implemented (the third floor was built only in
the volume adjacent to the courtyard), the structure
is compositionally finished and is of considerable
interest as an object, in the formation of the architec­
tural and artistic appearance of which elements of
the Neo-Greek style are used, more common in
Moscow and rarely found in St. Petersburg.
3 RESULTS
The site on which the object is located on the terri­
tory of the “Peski” district is a historical part of the
area in the eastern part of St. Petersburg, in the zone
of modern Soviet (formerly Rozhdestvensky) streets.
Polezhaev brothers and their families lived in the
Rozhdestvenskaya part of St. Petersburg from the 50s
of the XIX century. They owned a house on 29 Mal­
ookhtinsky Prospekt. In the 1870s, Polezhaevs pur­
chased a plot near their home (14-16 Malookhtensky
Prospekt). Several one-story wooden stables were
built on its territory. In 1872, his older brother Dmitry
Mikhailovich died, and the yard on 14-16 Kalashnikov
(earlier Malookhtinsky) Avenue is listed for the “com­
merce adviser” Nikolai Mikhailovich Polezhaev, who
in 1877 receives a permit for the construction of
a three-story stone building on the basements designed
by architect Miller Ferdinand Loginovich (Figure 1).
Simultaneously with the private residence, a one-
story stone service building, a stone glacier,
Figure 1. The plan of the yard of N. M. Polezhaev. 1877
Central State Historical Archive of St. Petersburg f.513.
inv.102. cas. 9066: 46–49.
160
a wooden garbage pit, and two wooden one-story
sheds are being built. Private residences of
N. M. Polezhaev was built with some deviations
from the original drawings: the third floor is not
fully realized (only in the part facing the courtyard),
there are no balusters on the roof, balconies at cut
corners, there are no semicircular openings on the
front facade along Novgorodskaya Street, meander
belts are stretched along the lines of the front
facades, and are not interrupted by smooth friezes.
The built house marked the corner of Kalashni­
kovsky Prospekt and Novgorodskaya Street. Until the
revolution, Nikolai Mikhailovich’s son, Mikhail Niko­
laevich, a prominent merchant and public figure lived
there with his family: a trustee of the Polezhaev Broth­
ers firm, a member of the Exchange Committee at the
St. Petersburg Stock Exchange, a member of the Rail­
way Affairs Council under the Minister of Railways,
and a vowel of the City Duma. In 1913, by order of
M. N. Polezhaev, civil engineer I. I. Yakovlev devel­
oped a project for an apartment house built in 1915 on
the corner of Starorusskaya and Novgorodskaya
Streets. The fate of M. N. Polezhaeva and his wife
Alexandra Nikolaevna after 1917 is unknown.
The building, which belonged to families Pole­
zhaev, was transferred to the city. According to the
reference book “All of Petrograd” (Ozhegov 1987)
from 1923 until 1930, in the house of
N. M. Polezhaev at 8 Bakunin Avenue (earlier
Kalashnikovsky), there was the 108th unified labor
school of the 1st and 2nd stages of the Volodarsky
district, transformed in 1931 into the 108th factory
seven-year school, and then, in 1933, into a school
with full status-the 108th factory ten-year school.
In 1934, the house was transferred to the 8th
elementary school, which in 1939 was converted
into a secondary school and stayed here until the 40s
of the XX century.
In 1947, a men’s school No 160 was opened here.
In 1960, the gymnasium was transformed into
a boarding school No 51 with in-depth study of the
English language, and in 1983 into a boarding
school No 51 for orphans and children left without
parental care, and in 1989 into an orphanage-a
school for children with mental retardation.
In 2003, the school was renamed the State Educa­
tional Institution for Orphans and children left with­
out parental care, special (correctional) boarding
school for children with disabilities (type VII) No 51
of St. Petersburg. In 2015, the school was disbanded,
and the building on 8 Bakunin Avenue was trans­
ferred to the boarding school “Formula of Success”,
a structural unit of the State Budget Educational
Institution “Presidential Physical and Mathematical
Lyceum No 239”.
4 DISCUSSION
Based on the identified archival design drawings,
drawings of capital repair projects, and plans of the
design and inventory bureau of St. Petersburg for
different years, a comparative analysis was con­
ducted, which allowed us to establish the history of
the perestroika of the private residence of
N. M. Polezhaev.
During its operation, the layout of the premises
within the boundaries of the capital walls has
changed slightly, in most rooms the architectural and
artistic decor of the interiors has been lost, stoves
and fireplaces have been dismantled. Significant
changes have been made to the third floor of the
building. According to the existing plans, the third
floor of the building was not built completely, as it
was provided for by the project: the rooms facing the
courtyard and the rooms in the northern part of the Figure 3. View of the entrance group. Wooden three-part
vestibule, 2019.
building were erected.
The latter were re-equipped between 1982 and
In the rooms of the second floor, elements of the
1991: the capital internal walls were dismantled, the
original architectural and artistic decoration have
window openings facing the western front and north­
been preserved: padugas, central and corner rosettes,
ern end facades were laid.
corner fireplaces, plaster panels on the walls,
Based on the results of the analysis of the changes
a ceiling decorated with a profiled cornice with den­
in the building, it can be concluded that the main
tils, a meander belt, and plant ornaments, square
changes occurred in the internal layout and structures.
caissons on the edges and an oval caisson in the
The facades of the building, as a whole, have pre­
center, wall wooden panels with oak cutting with
served their historical design with minor losses
profiled panels and a belt decorated with vertical
(Figure 2).
grooves; the coffered plaster ceiling with a cutting
On the southern courtyard facade, at the ground
under an oak with geometrical division and use of
floor level, there is an entrance to the building,
decorative elements in the form of “kettlebells” and
which is accessed by a reinforced concrete staircase.
plant ornaments.
The internal layout of the private residence has
During the redevelopment and changes in the
been changed due to the dismantling or transfer of
function of the building, the architectural appearance
capital (in the third-floor level) and non-capital parti­
was violated, decors and fragments of interiors were
tions. The historical interior decoration of the build­
lost, and today we have partially lost the authentic
ing is preserved only in the rooms of the main
appearance of private residences.
entrance, on the stairwells, and part of the rooms of
the second floor, located in the south-western
volume of the building. In the rooms of the main
5 CONCLUSION
entrance (from Bakunin Street) there is a three-part
wooden vestibule, the walls of the lobby are decor­
1. Private residence is a residential building
ated with plaster panels, the ceilings are decorated
designed for single-family living. This type of
with stucco mirrors, and rosettes with plant orna­
building is distinguished by a variety of architec­
ments, a frieze with dentils.
tural and planning solutions, artistic details of
facades, and interiors, corresponding to the fash­
ion trends of its time. The architectural image of
the building always reflects the personality of the
customer, his tastes, and social status in society;
2. To date, more than 200 private residences have
been preserved in the city of St. Petersburg, some
of which are being destroyed and do not
function;
3. When studying the history of cultural heritage
sites, it is often possible to find that the buildings
were transferred to the city after 1917. The func­
tion of a single-family dwelling house could not
exist in the new system of political understanding
of the living conditions and the value of a person.
Many private residences were redeveloped into
communal apartments, schools, this led to the
fact that the decorative items of facades and inter­
Figure 2. View of the pit attached to the courtyard of the
iors, valuable elements, fireplaces were lost;
private residence, 2019.

161
4. The facade appearance of the buildings has been
preserved in most cases. The question of today is
to preserve private residences as an integral part
of the urban development structure. This problem
is solved only through the selection of a new
function, which is a complex task that requires
studying the spatial planning structure of
monuments;
5. The task of designers and restorers of our time is
to preserve and adapt these objects and “give
them a second life”, considering the peculiarity
of this type of building, otherwise, the city may
lose many cultural heritage objects with their
unique architectural images and forms.
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objects in the conditions of megapolis development on
the example of St. Petersburg. In The modern develop­
ment in a historical environment: the experience of
St. Petersburg and New York. Proceedings of the Inter­
national conference, St. Petersburg, March 14–16,
2005: 9–11.
Ginsberg L. A. & Speshilova E. S. 2009. The history of the
development of housing architecture from the Neolithic
to the Renaissance. Yekaterinburg: Ural State Technical
University.
Kirikov B. M. 2006. The architecture of St. Petersburg of
the late XIX-early XX century: Eclecticism. Modern.
Neoclassicism. St. Petersburg: Kolo.
Kobzeva O. I. & Baulina E. N. 2019. Private residences of
St. Petersburg on historically developed industrial territor­
ies. Protection issues. In the collection of materials of the
IX Creative Forum “Architectural seasons in SPbGASU”,
St. Petersburg, April 15–19, 2019: 130–131.
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Lisovsky V. G. 2009. Saint-Petersburg. Essays on the
architectural history of the city. St. Petersburg: Kolo.
Ozhegov S. S. 1987. Typical and repeated construction in
Russia in the XVIII-XIX centuries. Moscow: Stroyizdat.
Punin A. L. 1990. The architecture of St. Petersburg in the
middle of the XIX century. Lenizdat. Leningrad.
Sementsov S. V. & Wozniak E. R. 2017. The composite
structure of the facades of buildings of the XVIII cen­
tury and its reflection in the architectural and urban
environment of St. Petersburg. Bulletin of Civil Engin­
eers 4 (63): 55–60.
Sementsov S. V. 2006a. Stages of formation of the spatial
environment of St. Petersburg. Part 1. Historical devel­
opment of neighborhoods and their regulation. Bulletin
of Civil Engineers 2 (7): 15–20.
Sementsov S. V. 2006b. Stages of formation of the spatial
environment of St. Petersburg. Part 2. Historical devel­
opment of land plots (systems of division and develop­
ment of land plots) and their regulation. Bulletin of Civil
Engineers 3(8): 21–26.
Sementsov S. V. 2007a. The urban planning component of
the residential function of St. Petersburg and the
St. Petersburg agglomeration. 1703-2006. Bulletin of the
Saint Petersburg University 3 (2): 63–70.
Sementsov S. V. 2007b. Urban development of
St. Petersburg in the 1703-2000s. Saint Petersburg:
SPBGASU.
Sementsov S. V. 2013. Formation of the principles of pro­
tection of the architectural and urban heritage of
St. Petersburg based on the laws of its three-century
urban development. Bulletin of the Saint Petersburg
University 2 (15): 190–211.
Viktorov A. P. 2005. The general plan of St. Petersburg.
Urban planning policy and preservation of historical
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 Reconstruction and Restoration of Architectural Heritage 2021 – Sementsov, Leontyev & Huerta (Eds)
© 2021 Taylor & Francis Group, London, ISBN 978-0-367-68296-5

Renovation of historical booths and shops in St. Petersburg

A.V. Bredikhina
Saint Petersburg State University of Architecture and Civil Engineering, Saint Petersburg, Russia

ABSTRACT: The article considers various types of historical stores in St. Petersburg. The main periods of
development of these buildings are investigated, their differences from other types of commercial buildings
(department stores, markets) are indicated. Prototypes of the first small stores were installed. The classifica­
tion of historical stores in several areas has been developed: specialization, volume-planning organization,
and style directions. The domestic and foreign experience of adaptation is considered. Examples of the most
interesting and diverse solutions for the modern use of historical stores are given. The main problems of the
modern existence of stores and ways to solve them are identified. Conclusions are drawn about the wide pos­
sibilities of current use of such buildings. The main approaches to the renovation of stores have been devel­
oped, considering the object of preservation (the interior of the store, its specialization, the facade, the nature
of the design of the windows, their various combinations, the complex formation of the appearance of the
shopping street). N recommendations for selecting a modern function, depending on the type of object. The
historical and cultural value of historical stores of various types and the need to preserve them are proved.

1 INTRODUCTION appeared at the beginning of the XVIII century and

From the point of view of urban planning and archi­
tecture, shops are important units that shape the
appearance of the city. They carry both architectural
and historical value. The interiors of small shops are
particularly susceptible to lose, most of which can be
restored only thanks to archival photographs. Another
important aspect is to recreate the design of the display
cases and signage, as on the one hand, it creates
a uniform environment, and on the other hand, it
forms the very image of the historical city with its
unique “spirit of the place”. From the point of view of
history, by preserving and recreating large stores and
small shops, we thus guarantee historical continuity.
2 MATERIALS AND METHODS
History. A store is a retail business located in
a stationary building equipped for the sale of goods
and the provision of services. It can occupy both the
entire building and its part, mainly the first floors.
The area of the store usually includes a sales hall,
utility rooms, administrative and household premises,
and a warehouse. The word was originally borrowed
by European languages from Arabic, where mahzān
meant “warehouse” (Shaposhnikov 2010). According
to the instructions of the Emperor of Russia Peter
I on the preparation of the “Charter of the Sea”, and
then in the “Charter” itself, the word “store”
meant the storage of ammunition, weapons or food).
The time of the appearance of stores in Russia can
be considered the period in which the concept of
a store as a shopping object was finally established.
This period belongs to the second half of the XVIII
century. (Nozdrina 2009). Since 1797, it was allowed
to have shops and shops at residential buildings
(Bespyatykh 1997). Initially, the word “shop” denoted
places where you could buy luxury goods, in other
cases, retail outlets were referred to by the more famil­
iar word “shop”. In the 19th century, the word “shop”
finally changed its meaning, replacing the word “shop”
(Sikorova 2012).
A great contribution to the study of pre­
revolutionary stores in Russia was made by the Can­
didate of Architecture A.V. Surovenkov and the
Doctor of Architecture S. M. Shumilkin.
In the Middle Ages, trade was conducted in small
shops conducted from the outside through the
window of the Wasistas, where a temporary counter
was arranged. These windows were closed with
sashes or bars. In Europe, since the 18th century,
with the cheapening of glass prices, glazed windows
have become fashionable, and trade has moved
inside the building (Holleran 2012). Even at the end
of the XVIII century. glass began to be used by the
Dutch, and then the fashion gradually spread to other
countries. The display cases consisted of small panes
connected by bindings (Coleman 2006). In the
1840s. The technology of glass production was

DOI: 10.1201/9781003136804-32

163
improved, which made it possible to produce sheets
up to 1x2 m in size, one of the first new technology
was used by the stores in London — Aspris and
Benson (Coleman 2006).
In the Russian Empire in the middle of the XIX
century, shops on the first floors were also actively
developing. The new ones were built with already
laid retail premises on the first floors. Despite the
widespread use of storefronts, many small shops
continued to trade through Wasistas.
In addition to small shops, from the second half
of the XIX century, buildings of trading companies
began to appear, in which, in addition to the store,
office premises and management boards and some­
times production were located. This primarily con­
cerned the representative offices of large foreign
companies.
The store has significant differences from depart­
ment stores and markets. They consist in the area,
the product range, and the way the seller and the
buyer interact. Compared to a department store, the
store has a much smaller retail space and a narrower
specialization of goods. The market, in terms of
architecture, is also much larger than the store. But
since the market building can be either a hall or
a block, a separate market shop (shopping row) can
be considered as a separate store.
3 RESULTS AND DISCUSSION
Classification. You can classify stores in several
areas: specialization, space-planning organization,
and their style directions.
According to the nature of the products offered,
stores are divided into food, household goods,
books, shoes, clothing stores, and many others. At
the same time, the nature of the design of the show­
case is of great importance. The showcase not only
welcomes guests and attracts visitors, but also pro­
vides primary information about the store, product,
etc. In this regard, Yeliseyevsky gastronomic store
stands out, the design of the windows of which has
always been given special attention (Kirikov 2011).
According to the volume-planning organization,
stores can be divided into three types: a detached
building that is fully owned by the company, store­
fronts on the first floors of residential buildings, and
a store as a unit of a blocked building.
Separately, you can select stores that have their
own small production (for example, bakeries, pastry
shops, and, in some cases, even small breweries).
Shops on the first floors since the end of the XIX
century have become the most common type of
retail outlet. The construction of a large company
store was affordable only for large trading houses, in
such buildings the store occupied only one or two
floors, all the rest was reserved for warehouses,
offices, production, and floors belonging to the
board. In fact, it was a representative office of the
company in the city and the company did not put up
164
more than one such building. Small shops could be
organized on the first floor of almost any house, and
if earlier this required the reconstruction of the
facade, then towards the end of the XIX century.
retail premises were already laid out in the projects
by the architects themselves. Shops in the shopping
malls occupied a favorable position geographically,
but they were inferior to new stores in terms of com­
fort (traditionally small areas and narrow, elongated
shop premises) and opportunities to display goods
from the street (Kulisher 2003).
Speaking about the style directions of stores, we
can distinguish three main ones - eclecticism, mod­
ernism, and neoclassicism (Dautov 2019). The clas­
sicism characteristic of the buildings of shopping
malls and living rooms of courtyards, on the scale of
a single shop, turned into eclecticism, as window
openings for window displays were expanded on the
first floors (Wozniak 2017; Sementsov 2007). The
same applied to other buildings in classicism, the
first floors of which were rebuilt for shops. The Art
Nouveau style helped to truly unlock the potential of
the store trade. Its architectural language, which
tends to use a large amount of glass and metal, made
it possible to demonstrate the product as much as
possible, attracting visitors to the store (Osmankina
2014). Neoclassical forms of commercial buildings
largely adopted the ideological component of mod­
ernity, but simplified it, making it less decorative
(Kirikov 2011).
Problems. In modern realities, many historical
stores have partially or completely lost their exist­
ence. In some cases, their unique appearance and
interior are lost, in others, old stores are replaced by
modern retail chains or enterprises with a different
function. In general, the following main problems
can be identified:
• Complete loss of historic stores. Some historic
stores are disappearing without a trace. This hap­
pens for many reasons, in particular, because they
are crushed by larger and more modern stores or
because of the ruin of the enterprise of which
they were branded stores.
• “Rough” reconstruction. It is associated with the
change in the size of the window and door open­
ings on the first floor, the dismantling of historical
decorative elements, the replacement of historical
materials with modern ones, as a result of which
the building loses its uniformity and harmonious
appearance. Often, the internal areas of the prem­
ises are affected to increase the area of the rented
store.
• Aggressive advertising. The problem of almost
all cities in Russia. Due to the lack of regulations
on the uniformity of the design of signs and
restrictions on their size, a sharp dissonance of
the perception of the shopping street is created. It
“breaks up” into pieces of different shapes,
colors, and sizes, and interferes with the focus of
the visitor’s attention. At the same time, the
 building, subject to this approach, is completely
lost among this diversity, is hidden behind huge
signs, and partially loses its significance in shap­
ing the appearance of the historical city.
• Irrationally selected function of historical stores.
It usually entails the problems and consequences
described above.
Renovation approaches and their examples. Des­
pite a large current of unsuccessful examples of the
modern use of retail buildings, there are many suc­
cessfully implemented approaches to the preserva­
tion of historical stores in Russia and the world. The
object of preservation or restoration can be the inter­
ior of the store, its specialization, the facade, the
nature of the design of the windows, their various
combinations, as well as the complex formation of
the appearance of the entire shopping street.
In terms of preserving historical interiors, it is
worth highlighting such objects in St. Petersburg as
the house of the Mertens company, the house of the
Singer company, and the house of the Yeliseyev mer­
chants. In the case of the Mertens house, an
approach to combining the old and the new was
implemented. Now it houses the flagship store of the
company “ZARA”, as well as offices for rent. The
interior of the first floor of the store has been pre­
served as much as possible, however, by modern
requirements, escalators for visitors, video surveil­
lance cameras, and loudspeaker speakers have been
installed. The same applies to the lobby of the busi­
ness center located here. The building has an eleva­
tor installed since the establishment of the store.
The interior of the shop of the Yeliseyev mer­
chants managed to preserve its luxurious decoration.
Initially, the store was planned by the merchant of
the I Guild, G. G. Eliseev, as an elite deli (Kirikov
2011). This format of the grocery store was unchar­
acteristic for Russia and became a real curiosity for
St. Petersburg. High demands were placed on the
store’s employees and each of them received special
training before starting work. In Soviet times, the
store was called “Deli No 1 “Central”. Today, the
grocery store continues its work in the hall of the
grocery store, under the brand name “Shop of the
Merchants of Eliseev”, preserving and maintaining
historical traditions. Its value also lies in the fact that
the store is an example of the most complete preser­
vation of both the appearance and interior and spe­
cialization, which also applies to the Moscow branch
of the store.
In addition to preserving and recreating the inter­
iors of large stores, an equally important direction is
to recreate the interiors of small shops on the first
floors, the original interiors of which are almost not
preserved, but there are iconographic sources based
on which such restoration is possible.
In Kharkiv, the interior of the confectionery store
“Vedmedik”, previously owned by the Trading
House “Georges Borman”, has been preserved. Cor­
nelissen & Son, an artist’s goods store, has been
165
operating in London since 1855. This popular tourist
destination attracts with its unique flavor. The store
carefully preserved the interior, furnishings, includ­
ing furniture, and decoration of the facade of the
store.
An interesting direction is to recreate the special­
ization of the store and the revival of historical
brands in one form or another. For example, the
Bure watch salon on Nevsky Prospekt has not
changed its specialization since its foundation. The
size of the store itself, the nature of the signs, and
the interior changed, but the specialization, even in
Soviet times, was always associated with the clock.
Some brands have changed their names, such as
“Einem” turned into “Red October”. Others have
completely disappeared without a trace, among them
cognac “Shustov”, piano “Brothers Diederichs”, etc.
In both cases, it is possible to recreate a store with
a similar specialization, and you can either recreate
the name or use a new one. In cases where the brand
continues to exist, the re-creation of such a store is
particularly valuable, as it implements the historical
continuity and allows you to preserve the intangible
values of the historical city. As a rule, such stores
are particularly popular with tourists, which can be
seen in the successful example of European
countries.
In Paris, such shops as the chocolate boutique
“Debauve et Gallais” (since 1817), the wine shop in
“Legrand Filles et Fils” (since 1800), the umbrella
shop “Antoine” (since 1885) are very famous; in
Florence, the bookstore “Libreria Antiquaria Gon­
nelli” (with ser. 19th century), the pharmacy Santa
Maria Novella (since 1612, located in the church of
Santa Maria del Fiore); in London-the grocery store
“Berry Bros. & Rudd” (since 1698), hat shop
“Lock & Co.” (since 1676).
Recreating the historical design of the store’s
facade creates the very image of a historic city with
its own unique identity. In European cities, the
design of entire shopping streets is preserved. These
are popular tourist places where people come not
only for shopping but also to get to know the city
better. The approach may consist of the historical
stylization of signs and shop windows, or inexact
restoration based on iconographic sources. The
advantage is, first of all, the preservation of the uni­
formity of the street, the problem of “aggressive”
advertising is solved, a recognizable image of the
city is formed. The implementation of this approach
is illustrated by Rybinsk, where they decided to style
all advertising signs in the historical center. The
approach can be implemented locally, it can be one
or more city streets or even a small fragment of it.
Another option is to install minimalist signage
with size restrictions. It is the most common solu­
tion, partially implemented on Nevsky Prospekt in
St. Petersburg.
An interesting solution to the facade was pro­
posed by the MVDRV studio in Amsterdam, the pro­
ject is called “Crystal House”. The first floor of the
building is laid out of transparent brick, which grad­
ually turns into ordinary brickwork. During the
work, the house on PC Hooftstraat Street was com­
pletely demolished and a new one was erected. The
facade design of the building is made in compliance
with the characteristic historical forms so that it har­
moniously fits into the existing environment, and the
glass first floor looks like a bright accent that attracts
attention.
This approach can be used when you need to fill
in the gaps of historical streets, or when restoring
lost parts of buildings. For stores, it is especially
relevant, since the entire first floor is practically
used as a huge showcase. In general, such
a solution can be implemented not only in glass,
but also in any other material, and it is not neces­
sary to affect the floor completely. The point will be
to build new buildings that do not contradict the
established historical forms on the one hand, and
the use of atypical materials will emphasize that
this is a modern building, thereby implementing
two principles of analytical restoration according to
E. V. Mikhailovsky and one of the provisions of the
Venice Charter of 1964:
“4. When carrying out restorations, the structural
elements and decorative details that are newly intro­
duced into the building are highlighted to clearly
distinguish the ancient, authentic parts from them.
5. Additions or additions to the building for
reasons of its use are carried out in the style of
modern restoration. “ (Mikhailovsky, 1971).
“Article 12. The elements intended to replace the
missing fragments must fit harmoniously into the
whole and at the same time be so different from the
original ones that the restoration does not falsify the
historical and artistic documentation of the monu­
ment” (Venice Charter, 1964).
For stand-alone large stores, the most rational
solution is to introduce new features. More often it
becomes an office function or a function of public
catering. These functions are the most common
since many large stores were characterized by the
location of offices for employees. “Singer” and
“Mertens” in St. Petersburg have been turned into
business centers, with offices leased to various com­
panies, schools, etc. The need for such functions is
dictated by the central location of the objects and the
functional area of the city.
Some buildings can be turned into museums, as
happened with the St. Petersburg pharmacy of
Dr. Pel, which is used as a museum of pharmacology.
But such a solution is not always possible to imple­
ment, and it is rather the exception than the rule.
The premises on the first floors are often occupied
by cafes and restaurants, which are also popular
objects along with shops.
When adapting retail premises for modern stores,
it is important to ensure their compliance with sani­
tary and hygienic requirements and technical equip­
ment requirements. This may apply to the
installation of bathrooms, escalators/elevators (for
166
stores located on several floors), video surveillance
cameras, fire alarms, lighting, and other things.
Shops that are part of shopping malls can be con­
sidered as separate units. As a rule, it is not always
possible to restore an entire building, but the tenant
needs to put his store in order. The renovations car­
ried out in the 19th century and concerning the
expansion of window openings for more modern
storefronts, made these shops suitable for modern
advertising requirements. When adapting individual
benches, it is possible to expand the space by demol­
ishing partitions or, on the contrary, installing new
lightweight ones. The main thing is to maintain the
uniformity of the design of the exterior and the used
glazing, at least within one line, to exclude the possi­
bility of the tenant installing window and door fill­
ings that do not correspond to the general style,
installing their own canopies or dismantling canopies
installed earlier according to historical analogs,
using roughly distinguished signs and painting
facades in colors that do not correspond to the color
solution of the building. The solution may be the
development of a building passport, which will spe­
cify all possible restrictions with standard solutions
for the design of the facade.
The small size of the shops may suit stores with
small limited production. This can be, for example,
handmade products, designer goods with a limited
edition, bookstores with a narrow specialization,
souvenir products, and much more. Such a format of
trade is now gaining high momentum, as people are
increasingly abandoning the mass market in favor of
exclusive items released in small quantities. This
approach has several positive aspects, in particular,
increasing the level of competition, the variety of
products offered, targeting a diverse range of con­
sumers, and supporting local producers and small
forms of trade.
4 CONCLUSIONS
Based on the above, we can see that there are many
different approaches to the renovation of stores.
They can be used both individually and in a complex
way. The shops of shopping malls and Gostiny Dvor
can be considered as separate shops, in this case,
they can be treated the same way as the shops on the
first floors, but considering the preservation of uni­
formity of the street facades of the building as
a whole. There are 7 approaches in total.
1. Complete or partial preservation/reconstruction
of the interior of the store, considering modern
sanitary and hygienic requirements, fire safety
requirements, and modern equipment. In the case
of a partial approach, it is possible to preserve the
interiors in separate rooms, on some floors.
2. Recreating a store’s specialization or creating
a store with a similar specialization, recreating
historical brands.
3. Solutions for the design of the store facade.
Reconstruction of the historical design of the store
facade or installation of minimalist signs with size
restrictions (a more common option), restoration
of lost stucco, various decor, installation of win­
dows and storefronts with historical glazing,
reconstruction of historical entrance doors, etc.
4. Formation of the historical shopping street. It
consists of recreating the historical design of
signs and shop windows or their stylization. In
this way, an entire shopping street, a fragment of
it, or several streets located nearby can be solved.
5. Selecting a new function or saving a historical
one. The shopping function can be supplemented
with the functions of public catering (cafes, res­
taurants, coffee shops, etc.). In particular cases, it
is possible to use the museum function, it can be
combined with the historical trade function.
6. When filling in gaps or restoring lost parts of
a building, it is possible to erect them using new
materials that differ in appearance and texture,
but fit into the historical context.
7. Possible internal redevelopment of the store.
REFERENCES
Bespyatykh, Yu. N. 1997. St. Petersburg of Anna Ioan­
novna in foreign descriptions: Introduction. Texts. Com­
ments. St. Petersburg: BLITZ.
Coleman P. 2006. Shopping Environments: Evolution,
Planning and Design. Oxford: Architectural Press.
Dautov E. N. 2019. The place and role of commercial inter­
iors in the development of Russian interior design in the
167
late XIX-early XX century. Bulletin of Science and Edu­
cation 2-1 (56): 97–100.
Holleran C. 2012. Shopping in Ancient Rome: The Retail
Trade in the Late Republic and the Principate. Oxford:
OUP Oxford.
ICOMOS. 1965. The Venice Charter for the Conservation
and Restoration of Monuments and Sites (the Venice
charter 1964). In IInd International Congress of Archi­
tects and Technicians of Historic Monuments, Venice.
Kirikov B. M. 2011. The architecture of St. Petersburg Art
Nouveau. Public buildings. St. Petersburg: Kolo.
Kulisher I. M. 2004. History of economic life in Western
Europe. Chelyabinsk: Sotsium.
Mikhailovsky E. V. 1971. Restoration of architectural
monuments (development of theoretical concepts).
Moscow: Publishing House of Literature on
Construction.
Osmankina, G. Yu. 2014. The value of a design line in the
Art Nouveau style. Omsk Scientific Bulletin 4(131):
190–193.
Peter I. 1720. The Charter of the sea is about every­
thing that concerns the good management of the
fleet at sea. Saint-Petersburg: Saint-Petersburg Print­
ing House.
Sementsov S. V. 2007. Urban planning and compositional
qualities of the development of St. Petersburg in the
XVIII-early XXI centuries. Industrial and civil engin­
eering 9: 37–38.
Shaposhnikov A. K. 2010. Etymological dictionary of the
modern Russian language. Moscow: Flinta.
Sikorova, I. 2012. Up-to-date vocabulary in the field of
store and service names. Plzeň: University of West
Bohemia.
Vozniak E. R. 2017. Methodology for studying the detail­
ing of facades of historical buildings based on the
theory of architectural forms. Modern science-intensive
technologies (1): 22–26.
 Reconstruction and Restoration of Architectural Heritage 2021 – Sementsov, Leontyev & Huerta (Eds)
© 2021 Taylor & Francis Group, London, ISBN 978-0-367-68296-5

‘Santa Croce’ chapel in Bergamo: Old restorations and new layouts

A. Cardaci & G. Mirabella Roberti
Department of Engineering and Applied Science, University of Bergamo, Bergamo, Italy

A. Versaci
Faculty of Engineering and Architecture, University of Enna ‘Kore’, Enna, Italy

ABSTRACT: The Church of Santa Croce (Holy Cross), a small Romanesque chapel with a quadrilobate plan
located in the historical center of Bergamo Alta (Upper Town), is part of a centuries-old context, which has
recently unveiled important archaeological remains. Probably upraised in 1561, further modified in the 18th cen­
tury and incorporated into residential buildings, the temple and its surrounding became an integral part of the
famous recovery plan conceived by Luigi Angelini in the 30s of the 20th century. The interventions gave back the
church to the city, freeing it from the additions that prevented its complete understanding and allowed to open the
monument to the public enjoyment. However, in the early 2000 years, new investigations completely overturned
the area, transforming it in an almost inaccessible and isolated place. Recently, a project intends to give new life
to the site, inserting it within a museum path that will allow improving its accessibility and usability.

1 INTRODUCTION physiology and fervent admirer of its landscape,

The town of Bergamo has one of the best-preserved
and most valuable historical centers of Italy. The inter­
ventions carried out in the Upper Town during fifty
years going from the beginning of the 20th century to
1963 have positively marked its destiny, directing the
old city towards a harmonious and respectful renewal
that can be appreciated in its current face.
The work that was undertaken by numerous techni­
cians and administrators of that time and, in particu­
lar, by the engineer Luigi Angelini, is a significant
episode in the history of the city.
Moreover, it represents an important step in the
evolution of the urban and architectural safeguard­
ing. Although it came in second in the competition
launched in 1926 for the ‘Bergamo Alta’ urban plan­
ning, the project presented by Luigi Angelini was
finally approved in February 1935 (Figure 1).
Conceived in “that feverish climate of reworking
of historic cities”, it testifies, however, those new
sensibilities towards urban aesthetics which, already
promoted by Camillo Sitte, Charles Buls and Jospeh
Stübben, were also growing in Italy.
By avoiding every unnecessary radical demolition,
the architect implements that theory of ‘diradamento’
of old centers which were asserted since 1913 by Gus­
tavo Giovannoni. To this end, he proposes interven­
tions aimed at “avoiding solutions of too vast
transformation”, with the aim of “keeping the character
of the ancient city intact as much as possible” (Angel­
ini, 1929). A great connoisseur of Bergamo’s building
Angelini studies solutions based on both the assump­
tions of simplicity and respect of typical minor archi­
tecture. In this process, both the historical research and
the personal awareness of the site obtained through
repeated inspections play a key role. A meticulous
survey, the still-life drawings, the careful graphic resti­
tution and the critical evaluation govern the long and
complex process of design.
The idea that the old town, both through the recov­
ery of its roots, traditions and essence, and by means
of the restoration of its buildings, would be addressed
towards a sustainable and lucky future, is so clearly
followed that many observers, such as Le Corbusier
and the other participants to the CIAM 7, which takes
place in Bergamo on July 1949, were strongly
impressed. In this framework, one of the most inter­
esting interventions is probably that related to the
‘Tempietto di Santa Croce’. A project that, expresses
a conception of restoration as a tool for reading the
history and putting it to service of a contemporary
enhancement of the entire urban context. Not limited
to the mere isolation of the monument it suggests
solutions based on fluidity, sharing, permeability.
A very modern approach, which in reality was
only partially actuated, probably for reasons of
security or ownership; and later completely ignored
by the archaeological work carried out from 2000,
which have shattered the area, turning it into an
almost inaccessible and isolated place.
Only recently, the project of the new museum
space of the Aula Picta introduces new opportunities

DOI: 10.1201/9781003136804-33

168
Figure 1. Luigi Angelini’s recovery plan: details of the provisions for S-E corner of Santa Maria Maggiore.

of valorization for the whole area and also for the
chapel of Santa Croce. It foresees the creation of
new paths that aim, by decongesting the urban node
of Piazza Vecchia, to reconnect this crucial place to
others, all rich in history, culture and ordinary life.
2 THE CHAPEL OF SANTA CROCE
The small Romanesque chapel of Santa Croce stands
in a courtyard between the Bishop’s Palace and the
south-western corner of Santa Maria Maggiore church
(Figure 2-3); that is, in that rich centuries-old architec­
tural context (Piva 1990), which has also recently
revealed important archaeological remains (Fortunati
2006).
The church shows a particular quadrilobate plan
that may find some pertinent similarities in baptismal
buildings of the region. It appears built in rough
sandstone ashlars, and divided in two main levels
without internal communication - surmounted by
a lantern. At the outside, in the upper level, decor­
ated by thin pilasters connected by series of three
small hanging arches, two splayed single-lancet win­
dows are opened (as well as, most likely, a portal on
the west side). The lower level, on the other hand,
has no pilasters and shows a door (in direct relation­
ship with the Curia building at the medieval ground
level) and two rectangular windows. This level is
now visible thanks to archaeological excavations
recently carried out (Fortunati & Vitali 2000; Ghir­
oldi 2007).
If the foundations of the church reach the remains
of some buildings from the Roman age there are no
more certain indications on the late antique and early
medieval phases This space was crossed by the wall
of an aqueduct, which fed the fountain of Antescho­
lis near the southern entrance of the basilica.

Figure 2. The chapel located in the upper town of Bergamo in the courtyard of the Bishop’s Palace, close to the cathedral.

169

Figure 3. Angelini’s drawings with the parts to be demol­
ished marked in yellow.
Therefore, the church of Santa Croce was built in
the center of the free area, literally straddling the aque­
duct, which is incorporated and visible on the lower
floor of the chapel. A homogeneous and consistent
layer of post-medieval rubble was then accumulated
throughout the area, which completely hid the lower
floor of the church. The intervention was carried out,
in all likelihood, to adapt the footpath levels of the
courtyard to those imposed by the modifications of the
nearby basilica, as it did for a portion of the medieval
rooms of the adjacent episcopal palace (Calzana &
Caccia 2008).
Due to the erection of modern buildings, the
church was almost hidden and, in its global configur­
ation, remained unknown to the classical studies on
Roman Architecture, such as those carried out by
Fernand De Dartein and Arthur Kingsley Porter.
The assignment at the beginning of the 11th cen­
tury appears reasonable, although other elements
suggest dating it to the second half of the 11th cen­
tury: for example, the use of the hanging arches that
decorate the eaves, which are not testified in early
medieval buildings (Piva 2012).
3 RESTORATIONS BY ANGELINI
Probably upraised in 1561 and modified in the roof in
the 18th century and then incorporated into residential
170
buildings, the chapel and the surrounding area become
an integral part of Luigi Angelini’s recovery plan for
the Upper Town (Angelini 1940, 1963). He foresees,
first of all, the demolition of a small house (Figure 3,
letter A) located south of the Basilica of Santa Maria
Maggiore and in front of Santa Croce, as well as that
of a service room (Figure 3, letter B) of ecclesiastical
property. Works started in November 1937; the bishop
Adriano Bernareggi, in charge of the Mensa vescovile,
to which belong the buildings, also took care of the
demolition of the small edifice interposed between the
chapel and the Bishop’s palace (Figure 3, letter C).
This demolition, together with the first plaster’s
removals in the lower part, revealed the presence of
two single-light windows to the east and south.
The arrangement of the adjacent area is completed
in 1938 with the construction of a fanshaped stair­
case connecting the southern square of Santa Maria
Maggiore and the highest one in front of the temple,
(Figure 3, letter A). Finally, a new stone tile flooring
of the whole area surrounding the ‘Tempietto of
Santa Croce’ was made by the Municipality.
During Angelini’s restorations, the walkway of the
courtyard was lowered by about 70 cm and the
tiburio by 92 cm, due to the recognition of a previous
eaves line, brought to light by the plaster’s ablation.
The roofs were completely redone in Moltrasio stone,
in place of the common terracotta tiles. The ‘coarse
dimensions’ of the square openings are changed,
reducing their width with rough stone shoulders,
according to the general character of the building.
The interventions cleared the church from the
inappropriate additions that prevented its complete
reading and understanding. Santa Croce, a monument
that tells the millennial history of Christianity in Ber­
gamo, was then made visible and usable again, at
least potentially. The secret garden of the Curia, des­
pite the new openings on the square of Santa Maria
Maggiore and on the alley of San Salvatore, remains
an almost private space. The gates that surround it, if
on the one hand allow seeing the chapel, even if from
very limited perspectives and restricted observation
points, still make it difficult to walk around it as per­
haps Angelini had initially imagined (Figure 5-6).
Figure 4. The chapel of Santa Croce today.

Figure 5. The chapel before and after Angelini’s
intervention.
Figure 6. The fountain ‘Antescholis’ before and after
Angelini’s intervention.
Through his recovery plan of 1935, thanks to the
creation of small passages, Angelini envisaged to
make the heart of the city permeable, open to the
enjoyment of the inhabitants and tourists. With
regard to Santa Croce, in particular, we can imagine
that he had thought the entire area as a space always
accessible, as it appears from a more careful examin­
ation of his preliminary study of 1928. Plans and
sketches show that he had initially planned, in add­
ition to the widening of the entrance in Via
S. Salvatore, to create a narrow stairway next to the
medieval arched fountain near to S. Maria.
A public passage aimed to allow the access to the
chapel’s courtyard and connected through a new pas­
sage to the steps leading to Piazza Duomo (Angelini,
1928, p. 17). A project forced to be revised later,
which however expressed that idea of the ‘right to the
historic city’ that would later succeed world-wide.
4 EXCAVATIONS AND CURRENT LAYOUT
The needs of safeguarding the frescoes in the Aula
Picta, threatened by moisture problems at the
171
ground-level structures of the Bishop’s Palace, were
the occasion to carry out new studies on Santa Croce
chapel. The urgency “to free and ventilate the lower
part of the masonry itself of the bishop’s hall, creat­
ing an interspace between it and the adjacent land”
(Fortunati & Vitali, 2000) has first required an arch­
aeological study. Approved in September 1999, it
provided for the removal of the paved surface of the
courtyard and the opening of two essays in adher­
ence to the small building.
Angelini was aware of the existence of an under­
ground environment below the floor surface of the
chapel (of a composite plan, with a trilobate part
leaning against a straight and regular face), as well
as of that of a connecting room with the Palazzo Ves­
covile (even if he decided to not survey them) but
the nature of the walls, their finish on the external
side, their relationship with any adjacent complexes
hidden because buried, was unknown.
The first excavations involved the area between the
church and the palace with the removal of the landfill
accumulated over the centuries; the findings have high­
lighted the dutiful need to continue excavations also
on the eastern side of the courtyard (Calzana et. al.
2000). The desire to investigate the origin of the
church and to repropose it in its original version
affected the activities and, in the following years, all
the land around it was excavated up to the sterile
layers, also removing all the evidences of the late
Medieval Age.
Ten years of works have allowed uncovering the
remains of another building with a central plan with
lobes, in the shape and dimensions similar to Santa
Croce and probably demolished to allow the con­
struction of the Basilica of Santa Maria Maggiore.
The discovery has led to imagine that the two build­
ings were two baptisteries linked to the period
before the conversion to Catholicism of the Arian
Lombards when both Christian communities lived
together within the city (Caccia & Calzana 2008).
During the last conservation interventions thanks to
the funds provided by the Fondazione Cariplo, the
University of Bergamo carried out new studies and
metric-material surveys aimed at the historical-
stratigraphic analysis of the church. The study of the
building’s proportions has highlighted the idea of
a single building organism in which the relationship
between plan and elevation is regulated by exact
ratios, as demonstrated by the graphic analysis based
on a rigorous and accurate survey conducted with
active sensors (Figure 7-8) (Cardaci & Innocenti,
2020). A thesis confirmed by the stratigraphic investi­
gation and on the study carried out on mortars and
stones (Figure 9).
At the end of the archaeological campaign, new
actions aimed at protecting the archaeological evidence
brought to light and the maintenance of the temple
were undertaken. In particular, the original layout was
restored with the closure of the modern age breaches
and the reconstruction of parts of the external masonry,
with stones of shape and colour similar to medieval
Figure 7. 3D laser scanning survey: General plan of the
chapel with the surrounding area.

ones. Besides, cleaning was car-ried out with reintegra­

tion of the gaps and the grouting-sealing of the mortar
joints. The roofs were cleaned with biocides and water
repellent treatments with subsequent replacement of
the degraded slate slabs.
A more substantial intervention was instead con­
ducted inside the chapel with the removal of make-up
and the reconstruction of the moldings and cornices
and the cleaning, consolidation and reintegration of Figure 8. 3D laser scanning survey: N-S cross section.
both the plaster surfaces and the decorations and
frescoes.
Less attention was paid, however, to the external
space which remains almost unfinished, very diffi­ garden. A gate, usually closed, does not allow visit­
cult to access and half covered with gravel. Some ing or enjoying the area.
narrow metal structures - a walkway and a small A situation that could be solved in the future thanks
staircase - allow to observe the excavation from to the project for the exhibition space of the Aula
above and give access to the church from a small Picta, which foresees the valorization of Santa Croce,

Figure 9. Stratigraphic analysis: Left, N-W front; right, upper and lower level plans.

172
together with the creation of a museum in the base­
ment of the Bishop’s Palace. A choice of openness to
the city; a vision of the architectural and urban heri­
tage as an element of cultural and spiritual growth.
5 CONCLUSIONS
Since long ago, the access to cultural heritage is con­
sidered a fundamental right, as stated by many inter­
national documents. Even recently, the Council of
Europe’s ‘Framework’ Convention on the Value of
Cultural Heritage for Society, known as the Faro Con­
vention (Council of Europe 2005), has reaffirmed that
the knowledge and use of cultural heritage are part of
the individual’s rights. As Gian Paolo Treccani wrote:
“Art (…) cannot be that in itself, but exists only if
‘belongs’, namely is used by humankind (…). Every
obstacle that stands between humankind and art, that
somehow prevents the use or restricts the relationship
field or the ‘area of experience’ (…), is the negation
of art itself and the principles governing a correct
practice of safeguard” (Treccani 1998; 2017). To
assure the complete attendance of an architectural
work of value and equally significant for the commu­
nity, such as the Tempietto of Santa Croce, is, there­
fore, a duty that must be pursued.
Luigi Angelini had already understood, as a great
precursor as he was, the essential need to ensure
accessibility to architectural heritage as a way to
guarantee both their survival and that frequentation
of beauty that allows inner development.
The pandemic has delayed the start of the construc­
tion site scheduled for the beginning of 2020. The
works were envisaged in two phases, the first relating
to the arrangement of the interior spaces of the Curia
palace with new access from Piazza Duomo and
Piazza Vecchia, the second with the recovery of the
areas around the temple, perhaps, even with the cre­
ation of new wills designed to accommodate exhib­
itions and conference rooms. Yet, there is no certainty
of this because only the arrangement of the first lot of
the works was presented, little and nothing is known
of the subsequent phase.
The hope remains that the temple will be finally
given back to the city and made visible in a more
suitable way.
ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
The stratigraphic analysis of the monument was
made by Dr. Dario Gallina, in the framework of
173
a research on the ‘Tempietto of Santa Croce’ carried
out by the University of Bergamo, under the supervi­
sion of prof. G. Mirabella Roberti.
REFERENCES
AA. VV. 1997. Bergamo e il suo territorio. Milano: Edi­
zioni Cariplo.
Angelini L. 1929. Studio di Piano Regolatore di Bergamo
Alta, 1928. Bergamo: Istituto italiano d’arti grafiche.
Angelini L. 1940. Scoperte e restauri di edifici medievali in
Bergamo alta. Palladio. Rivista di Storia dell’Architet­
tura 4(1): 35–43.
Angelini L. 1963. I lavori compiuti per il Piano di risana­
mento di Bergamo Alta, 1936-1943, 1950-1960. Ber­
gamo: Stamperia Conti.
Calzana P. & Caccia B. 2008. Attorno a Santa Croce. La
Rivista di Bergamo 54(1): 29–34.
Cardaci A. & Innocenti S. 2020. Dal faro per il mare al
pozzo per il cielo: la chiesa di Santa Croce a Bergamo
nella memoria di Santa Maria della Grotta a Messina.
Connettere: un disegno per annodare e tessere. Milano:
Franco Angeli, pp. 1902–1923.
Council of Europe. 2005. Framework Convention on the
Value of Cultural Heritage for Society. Faro Convention
27/10/2005: CETS No. 199.
Fortunati M. & Vitali M. 2000. Bergamo, Cappella di Santa
Croce. Le strutture ipogee tra età romana e Medioevo.
Notiziario 1999–2000 per i Beni Archeologici della
Lombardia. Milano: Soprintendenza per i Beni Archeo­
logici della Lombardia, pp. 199–202.
Fortunati M. (ed.) 2006. Medioevo a Bergamo. Archeologia
e antropologia raccontano le genti bergamasche. Truc­
cazzano: Arti grafiche Bianca & Volta.
Giovannoni G. 1913. Il “diradamento edilizio” dei vecchi
centri: il quartiere della Rinascenza in Roma. Nuova
Antologia (XLVIII, 997), pp. 53–76.
Ghiroldi A. 2007. La Cappella di Santa Croce in Bergamo.
In: M. Fortunati, R. Poggiani Keller (eds.). Storia eco­
nomica e sociale di Bergamo. I primi millenni: dalla
preistoria al Medioevo. Bergamo: Fondazione per la
Storia Economica e Sociale di Bergamo, pp. 534–538.
Piva P. 1990. Le cattedrali lombarde: ricerche sulle “catte­
drali doppie” da Sant’Ambrogio all’età romanica. Quis­
tello: Edizioni Ceschi.
Piva P. 2012. La chiesa dei Santi Nazzaro e Celso
a Paluda (Leno): una testimonianza di edilizia cultuale
fra altomedioevo e “premier art roman”. Brixia Sacra.
Memorie Storiche della Diocesi di Brescia (III) XVII,
pp.109–126.
Treccani G. P. 1998. Barriere architettoniche e tutela del
costruito. TeMa (1), pp. 9–13; in Treccani G. P. 2017.
Per una definizione non univoca del concetto di conser­
vazione: scritti di Gian Paolo Treccani. Brescia: Brixia
University press.
Zanella V. (ed.) 1997. Idee per la città. Ernesto Suardo
ingegnere. Milano: Skira Editore.
 Reconstruction and Restoration of Architectural Heritage 2021 – Sementsov, Leontyev & Huerta (Eds)
© 2021 Taylor & Francis Group, London, ISBN 978-0-367-68296-5

Assessment of value and reconstruction of architectural monuments

O.O. Chainikova
Saint Petersburg State University of Architecture and Civil Engineering, Saint Petersburg, Russia

ABSTRACT: The article considers the most famous examples of the reconstruction of ancient monuments
in Russia and abroad and analyzes the value of the reconstruction. The main characteristics of the society’s
perception of recreated cultural heritage objects are revealed. The article presents the previous experience of
evaluating the reconstruction of monuments, identifies critical comments, inconsistencies of views, and indi­
cators of the value of different generations. The main conclusions of the article can serve as a guide in the
preparation of materials that justify the reconstruction of architectural monuments. The differentiation and
characterization of the identified value of reconstruction will allow the authors of the projects to work out the
evidence base in various ways, considering different groups of «appraisers».

1 INTRODUCTION to restoration (Kuznetsova 2014). He sees the reason

The problem of reconstruction of architectural heritage
monuments and subsequent evaluation of the result is
one of the most pressing issues in modern restoration
practice. Reconstruction in practice is reduced to the
complete or partial restoration of a lost architectural
monument. The postulates of the Venice Charter expli­
citly prohibit re-creation, which leads to an ambiguous
attitude in this matter among representatives of the
professional scientific community under the Conven­
tion on the Protection of the World Cultural and Nat­
ural Heritage, which was adopted on November 16,
1972, by the General Conference of the United
Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organiza­
tion. At the same time, architectural monuments are
constantly being recreated in the world.
Indicators, criteria for the value of objects of
reconstruction in the regulatory, scientific, educa­
tional, methodological, and other literature are
absent. Each epoch of historical development leaves
traces of its activities, the results of taste changes
and preferences, evidence of recognition of the value
of the existence of other cultures, or hatred based on
national or religious debates, which inevitably affect
the architectural heritage.
So, for example, in the late XVIII – early XIX cen­
turies, dilapidated buildings were simply replaced with
new ones, preserving the style, shape, and function of
the previous buildings, but sometimes they were given
a new function or significantly «improved». This
method was called the «substitution method» (Vicente
et al. 2018). E. V. Mikhailovsky evaluates the activities
of this period as «exercises» of architects in the design
of «Gothic» and «Romanesque» buildings against the
background of a complete lack of a scientific approach
for this in the inherent value of each period of its cri­
teria: so, until the XIX century, they restored, first of
all, monuments of memorial significance, while the
public significance was not considered at all. In the
period of Romanticism in the XIX century, the artistic
significance of the monument was restored, which
defined the period – «artistic restorations» (Piazzoni
2020). A contemporary of these restorations, J. Ruskin,
in his assessment of the work, categorically rejected
such restoration «as the most complete type of destruc­
tion that a building can undergo» (Ruskin 2007).
The views and judgments of the subsequent stages
of restoration were significantly transformed and,
assessing the predecessors-restorers of the Romantic
era, E. V. Mikhailovsky speaks of the «great harm
done to architectural monuments», of «turning them
into works of architecture of the new time», which
arouse the audience only curiosity, but not admiration
and scientific interest (Vicente et al. 2018, Ruskin
2007, Kuznetsova 2014, Piazzoni 2020).
Summing up the above, it is worth noting that the
trends of the time, even such as «the rise of patriot­
ism, the desire to preserve cultural values», caught
the restorers by surprise and gave rise to «diverse
directions of creative thoughts» among scientists,
eminent representatives of the architectural sphere,
sometimes setting the tone, if not determining the
direction (Griffen 2012)6, 8].
Thus, mistakes in choosing the method or nature
of actions on the monument are a historical phenom­
enon. One way or another, the architectural heritage
was evaluated by subsequent generations, and not
always it was the assessment of professionals and
connoisseurs. Any action on the monument will
undoubtedly be evaluated, mistakes will be found and

DOI: 10.1201/9781003136804-34

174
conclusions will be drawn, which are prerequisites
for the emergence of a different approach and nature
of actions in the conditions of instability of material
and humanitarian changes. So, the «substitution
method» was replaced by the «empirical» one, aimed
at maintaining, preserving, and strengthening the
monument. The «compilation method» has com­
pletely departed from the principles of restoration,
causing sometimes irreparable damage to monu­
ments – carrying out superstructures, introducing new
elements (Vicente 2018, Griffen 2012, Riaubienė
2012, Farrelly & Crowson 2014).
Arjo Klamer, Doctor of Economics at the Eras­
mus University of Rotterdam in the Netherlands, in
Figure 2. Parthenon, Acropolis, Athens, Greece, 2017 (photo
his article «The value of cultural Heritage» speaks
by the author).
very characteristically about «connoisseurs»: «When
faced with a windmill, one Dutchman will see an
obstacle to progress that can be removed for little
money, and another will see the legacy of Dutch cul­
ture that must be preserved at all costs. This is the
hallmark of modern life. Perspectives diverge,
values diverge. The value of cultural heritage in the
eyes of the beholder» (Klamer 2013).
The article analyzes various approaches to the
reconstruction and evaluation of the activities of dif­
ferent groups of society.
Figure 3. Royal City Palace, Potsdam, Germany, 2018. a,
b-facades of the palace (photo by the author).
2 MATERIALS AND METHODS

A large number of ancient monuments have been
recreated in the world. Classic examples of re­
creation are the practical restorations from the end of
the XVIII – beginning of the XIX centuries in
Europe, which were mostly reduced to a new model.
A new wave of reconstruction occurred in the post­
war years when the suburbs of St. Petersburg were
revived in the post-war years. The Royal Castle in
Warsaw was created in the 1980s. At present, there
is also an active activity: the Dresden Frauenkirche
was created from the ruins by the method of «anasty­
losis» (Figure 1), as well as the ancient buildings of
the Acropolis (Figure 2). The Royal Palace in Pots­
dam was recreated only in its external appearance
(Figure 3), the Berlin City Palace is still being recre­
ated today in new materials with a change in appear­
ance and adaptation to modern use.
How to treat this within the strict prohibition of the
Venice Charter of 1964? The activity is evaluated not
only by professional and scientific restorers but also the
opinion of other groups of the population is important.
Practice shows that there will continue to be a lot
of recreations. Each subsequent re-creation will be
evaluated, and evaluated differently. It is necessary
to determine how and who will evaluate to consider
the opinions and interests of all interested parties as
much as possible. The method of identifying and
defining social groups for assessing the activity of
recreation is based on the study of Babylonskaya
T. V., who distinguishes three mains» pictures «of
value judgments: scientific, philistine, and pragmatic
(Babylonskaya 2017). Based on the proposed very
characteristic series of paintings of value, we will
consider it in the context of recreating architectural
monuments. We will determine the main characteris­
tics, indicators of value, and limits of what is accept­
able when recreating architectural monuments.

3 RESULTS

As a result of the conducted research and analysis,

Figure 1. Dresden Frauenkirche, Germany: a) ruins of 1965,
b) 2018. (photo by the author).
175
three characteristic patterns of the contemporary per­
ception of recreation have been identified and identi­
fied. The results of the analysis of the conducted
study are schematically shown in Table 1.
The assessment of the scientific community of the
value of the object of reconstruction is characterized
Table 1. Value perception of the reconstruction of architectural heritage.

Society Group Scientific Pragmatic Philistine

Group Scientific research, Commercial structures; The main part of the population is society.
composition Professional Urban planners.
community;
The executive branch
(legislators).
Evaluation Regulatory framework; Economic benefits; Compliance with real reality;
apparatus Traditional practices; Tourism development; Demand;
Object ids; Investment attractiveness. Relevance.
Value criteria.
Indicators of the Historical and cultural Representativeness, Compliance with the actual reality in the cur­
value of the object significance; Current significance, rele­ rent historical and architectural environment.
Architectural; vance (functional purpose),
Functional value; Value (federal, regional,
The spiritual local).
component.
«Tools» of The balance of the Demand; Level of development;
evaluation material and the Economic benefits; Mentality;
spiritual; Lack of professional affiliation;
Level of culture; Lack of personal experience;
Mentality; Lack of a sense of style.
The value of tradition.

ambiguously. There are a categorical rejection and
outright criticism of the activity. At the same time,
there are examples of the implementation of incred­
ibly bold projects, which often completely contradict
the current legislative norms
The scientific picture is based on the «external»
and «internal» indicators of the value of the object of
reconstruction. The «external» indicators include
current aspects of the regulatory framework, the
system, and approach in the region, similar objects,
regional factors, sufficiency, and validity of mater­
ials. «Internal» indicators are indicators of the value
of the object itself: its function, sacred significance,
social significance, urban planning significance, and
so on. Thus, the balance of material and spiritual
values, which determines the level of culture in
a society, its mentality, and the value of traditions, is
the main difference between the scientific assess­
ment of activities, as UNESCO representatives also
claim: «Any actions about architectural structures,
whether it is about their assessment, protection or
restoration, must consider the unity and balance of
spiritual and material factors» (Piazzoni 2020,
Ruskin 2007). Thus, the Operational Guide for the
Implementation of the UNESCO World Heritage
Convention explains the list of criteria used to justify
the inclusion of an object in the list of World Heri­
tage Sites. These criteria are applied by the scientific
professional community and are regularly reviewed
by the Committee to reflect the evolution of the con­
cept of World Heritage itself, thereby identifying and
recognizing the labile nature of the value indicators,
the criteria of value.
Scientific restoration in the world of modern res­
toration practice is based on the postulates of the
Venice Charter. At the same time, today in the pro­
fessional community of restorers there are both crit­
ics and adherents of these ideas, which is clearly
demonstrated by the witnesses of the past years who
were revived from the ashes according to the Con­
vention on the Protection of the World Cultural and
Natural Heritage (Ruskin 2007, Piazzoni 2020). The
modern reconstruction of the Dresden Frauenkirche
and the ancient monuments of the Acropolis by the
method of «anastylosis» using the method of «sig­
naling» is scientifically justified and recognized as
a classical restoration. The reconstruction of the
Acropolis objects has almost a century of testing
these principles and approaches in practice. The
work is currently being carried out considering the
experience and practice of previous restorers who
recreated the monument.
Indicators (criteria) of the value of the object of
reconstruction in the scientific picture are several
evaluative characteristics, both of the object itself
and its role in the environment, society, and culture.
The main identifier of the value of the object of
reconstruction is its urban planning, historical and
cultural, architectural significance, relevance, and
relevance of its reconstruction. Relevance, as a rule,
lies in the functional purpose of the object, as well
as its spiritual component. The secondary ones
include memorial significance, artistic and aesthetic
value, educational, scientific and restoration, and
other valuable characteristics (Griffen 2012, Khalaf
2017, 2019, The World Heritage Committee 2019).

176
 The scientific picture of the value of the object of
reconstruction is the most complete and justified.
Scientific evaluation is a mandatory, the only pos­
sible condition for justifying the possibility or inad­
missibility of re-creation.
It is important to consider the historical experi­
ence of «scientific restorations» and their assessment
over time.
In the modern scientific community, including
professional restorers, some events are evaluated by
colleagues-contemporaries. At the same time, as
a rule, each of the parties has both a scientific justifi­
cation and a list of exculpatory criteria. Recreated
objects are unique by definition, and any action with
them goes into an interdisciplinary study with the
obligatory formation of a scientific justification for
permissible actions. At the same time, it is important
to know and consider the experience of previous
eras and the pictures of the values of contemporaries,
the regulatory and legal field in which the activity
existed.
The practical point of view in modern activity is
most often reduced to the assessment of the process
of reconstruction and its result by commercial struc­
tures within the framework of urban planning activ­
ities. The main criteria are indicators of economic
benefits, tourist and investment attractiveness of the
recreated object. The main identifiers of the value of
the object of reconstruction are its representative­
ness, its actual significance in the current historical
and architectural environment, its relevance (func­
tional purpose), its significance (federal, regional,
local). Thus, the Parthenon of Athens, recreated
today by the scientific approach and the require­
ments of the Venice Charter of 1964, has always
attracted tourists, but modern recreation increases its
representativeness and contributes to the quality of
the viewer’s perception.
In the practical picture, objects of religious sig­
nificance are an exception in the assessment of
reconstruction. The evaluation of the reconstruction
of objects of religious significance is usually carried
out by the leadership of the clergy, benefactors,
donors, and investors (often private). The private
assessment of the reconstruction by donors-investors
is on the verge of practical and philistine pictures of
value.
The philistine picture of the value of recreation
opens up the understanding and representation of
what is happening by the main, most of the popu­
lation. This assessment does not necessarily imply
an exclusively negative assessment. At the same
time, a positive assessment implies the presence of
professional knowledge and experience in this
matter, which already refers more to scientific or
practical (pragmatic) pictures. The plot of the phil­
istine picture, as a rule, is banal: «like-dislike».
The assessment is based on the level of develop­
ment of the environment, the mentality of the
region, the relevance and relevance of recreation.
The traditions of the region, architectural and
177
restoration experience, and practice also largely
determine the picture of value in terms of evaluat­
ing the reconstruction with the usual methods and
approaches. Indicators of the value of the object of
reconstruction are basically weak, primitive, mostly
subjective parameters that do not go beyond the
boundaries of the object of reconstruction itself.
J. Ruskin identified and formulated these features:
«The masses are not prepared to participate in
a dialogue on politics and culture, as well as on
architecture. The taste of the nouveau riche sug­
gests that bridging the cultural gap between wealth
and education takes several generations»…. «a per­
son’s judgments can be distorted by passion or
limited by ignorance» (Ruskin 2007).
Practical reconstruction allows the layman to
understand most clearly what the structures were
before the loss and destruction. The applied method
of «anastylosis» and the method of «signaling» at
the same time complement the picture of historical
reality, emphasize the boundaries of implementation
in the monument and the value of authenticity.
The addition of historical reality is also achieved
by the methods of modern technologies in the field
of 3D modeling (Rumyantsev et al. 2011, Akinsheva
et al. 2015, Ushakova 2020).
4 DISCUSSION
Scientific, practical, and public (philistine) pictures
of the value perception of the reconstruction of
architectural monuments revealed the value indica­
tors and characteristics of the object of reconstruc­
tion. It is the personalized assessment of the activity
that allows us to identify a whole range of value
indicators that scientifically justify the possibility or
inadmissibility of re-creation. The world restoration
practice of recreating, including UNESCO World
Heritage sites, proves the need of society to preserve
the heritage. Based on this, it can be argued about
the importance of the identified indicators of the
value of reconstruction from the point of view of all
«looking» groups of society.
5 CONCLUSION
As a result of the study, it was found that monuments
are recreated all over the world. The activity is in
demand by all population groups, national cultures,
and faiths.
Objects of antiquity have always been valued and
recreated as an asset passed on to the next generations.
The restoration works carried out, their quality, pro­
fessionalism, and scientific justification are subject to
evaluation by both contemporaries and descendants.
The conducted research presents a comprehensive
approach to substantiating the possibility of recreat­
ing architectural monuments. The norms of the cur­
rent legislation regulate the conduct of prey-project
surveys, the preparation of the scientific and tech­
nical base of justifications. These materials often
have to be subjected to public hearings, with the
presentation of the material from the point of view
of scientific, practical, and public (philistine) pic­
tures of value.
The capabilities of modern technologies in the
field of 3D modeling are indispensable assistants in
the justification. As a result of 3D modeling, models,
sketches, or projections of the object being recreated
are created in full size, demonstrating, in fact, the
«result» of the recreation, which is subject to evalu­
ation by all groups of «evaluators». 3D modeling
materials allow you to make a scientifically based
decision on the possibility or inadmissibility of
recreating the monument in the current historical and
architectural environment as accurately as possible,
completely realistic and clearly.
The problem of professional interpretation requires
a solution in the form of developing methods and
recommendations for working with recreated monu­
ments. The developed methods and recommendations
should be based on scientifically based criteria for
assessing the value of recreation. The list of defined
criteria of value will allow documenting the features,
value indicators, and significant characteristics of the
object of reconstruction that are subject to protection.
This is especially true if the lost object is not included
in the register of cultural heritage objects, does not
have an approved subject of protection.
REFERENCES
Akinsheva N. A., Nakhk M. V. & Zakharova G. B. 2015.
Technologies of virtual historical reconstruction on the
example of objects of old Yekaterinburg. In Modern
trends in urban systems: 162–164.
Babylonskaya T. V. 2017. Architectural and historical
environment of the Samara Volga region: formation,
178
state, concept of sustainable development. Nizhny Nov­
gorod: NNGASU
Farrelly L. & Crowson N. 2014. Representational tech­
niques for architecture. London: Bloomsbury Publishing.
Griffen L. A. 2012. Theoretical foundations of monument
studies. Kyiv: Center for Monument Studies of the
National Academy of Sciences of Ukraine and UOOPIK.
Khalaf R. W. 2017. A viewpoint on the reconstruction of
destroyed UNESCO Cultural World Heritage Sites. Inter­
national Journal of Heritage Studies 23(3): 261–274.
Khalaf R. W. 2019. World Heritage policy on reconstruction:
from exceptional case to conservation treatment. Inter­
national Journal of Cultural Policy 25(7): 871–885.
Klamer A. 2013. The values of cultural heritage. In Hand­
book on the economics of cultural heritage. Chelten­
ham: Edward Elgar Publishing.
Kuznetsova H. S. 2014. Range of Values of Architectural
Monument. Observatory of Culture (1): 62–70.
Piazzoni F. 2020. Whatrs Wrong with Fakes? Heritage
Reconstructions, Authenticity, and Democracy in
Post-Disaster Recoveries. International Journal of Cul­
tural Property 27: 239–258.
Riaubienė E. 2012. Use of architectural heritage: chal­
lenges of preservation and adaptation. Architecture and
Urban Planning 6, 25–30.
Rumyantsev M. V., Smolin A. A., Baryshev R. A.,
Rudov I. N., & Pikov N. O. 2011. Virtual reconstruction
of historical and cultural heritage objects. Applied Com­
puter Science 6 (36): 62–77.
Ruskin D. 2007. Seven lights of architecture. Saint Peters­
burg: Azbuka-klastika.
The World Heritage Committee. 2019. Operational Guide­
linesfor theImplementation of theWorld Heritage Con­
vention. Paris: UNESCO World Heritage Centre.
Ushakova O. B. 2020. Virtual reconstruction as a way to
study and preserve the architectural heritage. The pro­
ject “Documentation of the lost”. In BIM-modeling in
construction and architecture problems: 295–303.
Vicente R., Lagomarsino S., Ferreira T. M., Cattari S., &
da Silva J. M. 2018. Cultural heritage monuments and
historical buildings: conservation works and structural
retrofitting. In Strengthening and retrofitting of existing
structures: 25–57. Springer, Singapore.
 Reconstruction and Restoration of Architectural Heritage 2021 – Sementsov, Leontyev & Huerta (Eds)
© 2021 Taylor & Francis Group, London, ISBN 978-0-367-68296-5

Architectural and engineering solutions to combat humidity in historic

buildings
A. Cheban
Moscow Architectural Institute, Moscow, Russia

ABSTRACT: New innovative technologies in construction allow for better restoration and reconstruction of
historical buildings, preserving not only the unique interiors but also the building itself as a whole.

1 INTRODUCTION
Today, the problem of preserving historical buildings
is very acute, not only in Russia but also around the
world. Excessive humidity in the internal air and in
the external and internal enclosing structures is
a great danger for buildings, as it affects the safety
and durability of not only the building but also its
interiors (Figure 1).
Studying the historical experience of dealing with
excess moisture in the building, it should be noted:
- the buildings were built on high ground, which
made it possible to reduce the flooding of the foun­
dations by surface and groundwater in the spring
and autumn period;
- buildings were built with pitched roofs with the
device of gutters made of wood or clay for collect­
ing rain and meltwater “< … > drill to the gutter
that drains rainwater from the roof; intermediate
ones are made solid so that the water flowing
down the roof into the gutter does not flow through
the inter-column gaps and does not flood the pass­
ers-by, and the heads against the columns throw
out, as if spewing it, a stream of water from the
mouth” (Vitruvius P. M. 1936).
Starting in the second half of the 19th century,
architects began to describe ways to deal with excess
moisture in buildings.
Architect Vasily Ivanovich Sobolshchikov in 1872
in the magazine Architect (Sobolshchikov 1872)
describes his experience in designing an internal
drain in a residential building in St. Petersburg
(Cheban, A. N. 2018) (Figure 2).
Architect Salko Alexey Mikhailovich in his books
describes the structure of the internal and external
drainage system of rain and meltwater not only from
the roof of buildings but also from the surrounding
area.
Architect Shchusev Alexey Viktorovich pays
great attention to the design and installation of gut­
ters in their facilities.

Figure 1. Holland Park, London, United Kingdom, Jan­ Figure 2. Section of a house with a drain device (Sobolsh­
uary 2021 (photo by the author). chikov V. 1872.).

DOI: 10.1201/9781003136804-35

179
Figure 3. 18 Leinster Terrace, Bayswater, London W2 3
ET, January, 2021 (photo by the author).

In 1933, Doctor of Technical Sciences Fokin Kon­

stantin Fedorovich published the work “Construction
Figure 4. Holland Park, London, United Kingdom, Jan­
heat engineering of building enclosing parts”, which
uary 2021 (photo by the author).
describes in detail the heat engineering properties of
building materials. In the second part of the book,
Konstantin Fedorovich describes in detail the humidity
regime in buildings, the causes of excess moisture, and
its influence on the thermal regime of the building
(Fokin 2006).
Causes of excess moisture in the building:
1. Ground and surface water (Figure 3).
Historical buildings until the end of the XIX cen­
tury were built without drainage systems and
waterproofing, which is why today they suffer
from excess moisture. Groundwater from the
ground, as a result of capillary suction, rises along
with the external and internal enclosing structures
to a height of 2-2.5 m.
2. Precipitation:
- no external drainage system (Figure 4);
- non-working condition of the external drain
system (Figure 5). Figure 5. The existing building, London, United Kingdom,
3. Condensation of moisture on the external and May 2019 (photo by the author).
internal surfaces. The water-saturated air comes
into contact with the cold enclosing surface, which
causes condensation to form. The formation of
condensation on the internal and external enclosing people, and also affects the safety of the interior
structures is associated with the lack of heating and interior details;
and ventilation systems in historical buildings. - the safety and durability of the building, i.e. due to
the excess moisture in the enclosing external and
The deterioration of the humidity regime in his­ internal structures, reduce the frost resistance of
torical buildings (Figure 6) affects the: the building material, which leads to the formation
- increased heat loss, through external enclosing of micro and macro cracks.
structures;
- deterioration of sanitary and hygienic requirements
in the building, that is, the development of mold, 2 MATERIALS AND METHODS
fungus, and other biological processes –
“unhealthy” building; To preserve the historic buildings, it is necessary to
- poor indoor air quality, i.e. the indoor air becomes develop a comprehensive approach, which will be
humid, which leads to irreversible diseases in based on the joint work of architects and engineers.

180

Figure 6. Saratov, Russia, February 2018 (photo by the
author).
When starting to develop a design solution for the
restoration of a historic building, it is necessary to:
1. Perform a study of the climatic parameters of the
outdoor air of the area: - solar activity during
the day and year;
- wind direction and speed;
- annual precipitation;
- territorial location of the object;
- vegetation cover of the soil.
2. Conduct a comprehensive visual and instrumental
examination of the object (Cheban 2017a). The
survey allows you to visually determine the cur­
rent state of the historical building, the instru­
mental survey allows you to identify problems in
the external enclosing structures.
3. Complete survey of the territory, which includes:
- terrain analysis;
- analysis of existing external engineering
networks;
- soil analysis;
- vegetation analysis.
All of the above influences the development of
a design solution that will ensure a favorable heat
and humidity regime in the historical building using
modern technologies.
3 RESULTS
The result of the joint work of architects and engin­
eers is an architectural and engineering design solu­
tion, which describes in detail the methods of
combating humidity in historical buildings:
1. To exclude the influence of ground and surface
water, it is necessary to design:
- wall drainage along the perimeter of the build­
ing to divert groundwater from the foundation
of the building;
- storm sewers for collecting excess surface water
and diverting it to the city drain;
181
- perform internal or external waterproofing.
2. To combat atmospheric precipitation, it is neces­
sary to organize the collection of rainwater from
the roof and discharge it directly into the storm
sewer system. The collection of atmospheric
water from the roof eliminates the wetting of
internal and external enclosing structures.
3. The process of moisture condensation is directly
related to the heat and humidity mode of oper­
ation of the building. To reduce the amount of
moisture in the indoor air, it is necessary to
choose the right engineering equipment that
allows you to maintain the optimal parameters of
the indoor air.Engineering systems that maintain
optimal indoor air parameters:
- heating system;
- ventilation system;
- air conditioning system;
- air purification system.
4. In order to ensure the safety of the historic build­
ing during its further operation, it is necessary to
design complete automation of engineering sys­
tems. That is, it is necessary to install an “intelli­
gent system for managing the life of the
building” (Cheban 2016) as a whole.“Intelligent
life management system” will allow you to con­
trol the building:
- microclimate (heat and humidity mode);
- indoor and outdoor lighting;
- general building security;
- multimedia systems;
- condition of internal and external enclosing
structures.
When developing design solutions, it is neces­
sary to remember that each historical building is
unique and the use of standard solutions is not
always possible. Therefore, it is necessary to
develop not only the installation of engineering
equipment in the project but also the method of
conducting installation work, that is, the project of
organizing construction.
4 DISCUSSION
Do not forget that historical buildings, which include
Christian churches, mosques, palaces, manors, and
other buildings consume a large amount of heat and
energy resources and cannot always cover the cost
them.
To reduce utility costs and optimize heat and
energy consumption, without violating the comfort­
able conditions in historical buildings, you can use
foreign experience (Cheban 2017b).
When restoring Christian churches in England
and Scotland, renewable energy sources (photovol­
taic collectors, solar collectors, heat pumps, biofuel
boiler equipment, wind generators) are widely used
(Cheban, A. N. 2017b).
 For the Russian climate, the use of only renew­
able energy sources is impractical. For all systems to
work without interruptions and at the same time
reduce costs, the joint use of traditional and renew­
able energy sources is necessary.
Full automation of engineering processes will
optimize heat and energy consumption in historical
buildings, and an intelligent building life manage­
ment system will allow you to control the heat and
humidity regime.
The final touch to reduce costs can be the use of
water-saving technologies in historic buildings:
- first of all, water-saving technologies include the
installation of non-contact sensor fittings in toilets
(mixer, dispenser for liquid soap, water drain);
- in the second place, the use of water
resources only for cooking, namely, the instal­
lation of a tank on the territory with add­
itional cleaning to collect rain and meltwater,
followed by its use for technical needs (water­
ing the lawn, shrubs, and trees, washing side­
walks and roads).
A comprehensive approach to the restoration of his­
toric buildings allows you to reduce utility costs, opti­
mize heat and energy consumption and create
a comfortable environment inside the historic building.
5 CONCLUSION
Summing up the results of the restoration of histor­
ical buildings it is necessary:
- conduct a survey of the building based on which to
determine methods for solving the problem of
excess moisture in the internal air and the enclosing
external and internal structures;
- provide a comprehensive approach to restoration
work by architects and engineers;
- install the necessary engineering systems to main­
tain the heat and humidity regime in the premises
of the building;
182
- provide an intelligent system for managing the life of
the building, which will reduce not only utility costs
but also the cost of annual repairs of the building;
- to optimize utility costs and heat and energy con­
sumption, it is possible to use water-saving tech­
nologies and joint use of traditional and renewable
energy sources.
All of the above architectural and engineering
solutions will preserve the historic buildings.
REFERENCES
Cheban A. N. 2016. Urban rainstorms. Design features.
Plumbing 5 (5): 22–27.
Cheban A. N. 2017. Renewable energy sources in buildings
of iconic architecture. Foreign experience. AVOC: Venti­
lation, heating, air conditioning, heat supply and Con­
struction Thermophysics (2): 20–25.
Cheban A. N. 2018. The past and present of the internal
drainage system in Russia. Plumbing 2(2): 60–64.
Cheban A. N., & Vyalitsin, S. R. 2018. Thermal imaging
survey of Orthodox churches. AVOC: Ventilation, heat­
ing, air conditioning, heat supply and construction ther­
mophysics (7): 72–88.
Cheban, A. N. 2017. Organization of the rainwater drainage
system on the example of the Cathedral of Saints Cyril
and Methodius in Burgas. Plumbing 5 (5): 50–55.
Cheban, A. N. 2019. Systems of intelligent management of
buildings of Orthodox churches. Architecture and
Modern Information Technologies 4 (49): 281–292.
Fokin K. F. 2006. Construction heat engineering of enclos­
ing parts of buildings. Moscow: AVOC PRESS.
Sobolshchikov V. 1872. Drainpipes in the walls of the
building. The Architect magazine (11): 184–186.
Tabunshchikov Yu. A. 2009. “Green buildings” -whether
the architect and engineer need new knowledge. AVOC:
Ventilation, heating, air conditioning, heat supply and
Construction Thermophysics (7): 4–8.
Tabunshchikov Yu. A. 2016. Smart, carbon-free cities and
zero-energy buildings. AVOC: Ventilation, heating, air
conditioning, heat supply and Construction Thermophy­
sics (8): 4–9.
Vitruvius P. M. 1936. Ten books about architecture.
Moscow: All-Russian Academy of Architecture.
 Reconstruction and Restoration of Architectural Heritage 2021 – Sementsov, Leontyev & Huerta (Eds)
© 2021 Taylor & Francis Group, London, ISBN 978-0-367-68296-5

Environmental awareness of future specialists

E.Yu. Chernyakevich
Saint Petersburg State University of Architecture and Civil Engineering, Saint Petersburg, Russia

ABSTRACT: A student of a technical university should not only have deep knowledge in their professional
field but also be environmentally aware, not indifferent to the natural environment. When solving their profes­
sional tasks, future specialists should remember that the development of production is also measured by
a number of moral and spiritual criteria, the reasonableness of people who want to ensure the longevity and pres­
ervation of nature, using deliberate measures to improve the quality of the environment. The article actualizes the
need for the formation of eco-oriented behavior of young people and notes the importance of introducing an
environmental component into the university’s teaching disciplines. The conducted empirical study analyzes the
level of environmental knowledge, awareness of young students on environmental issues, and determines the
type of additional environmental installation. The results of the study of the relationship between personal values
and environmental behavior of students of the architectural and construction university are presented.

1 INTRODUCTION environment, raising the level of environmental

For many years, it is an active human activity that
has led to global environmental changes that have
a negative impact on human health, which also con­
tributed to the emergence of natural and man-made
disasters. A complex environmental situation requires
a rapid rethinking of human behavior. If in the near
future we do not pay attention to the ecological state
of the environment, do not apply drastic measures to
improve it, then the way of life of a significant part
of the population will be seriously undermined. In
the context of accelerating environmental change,
there is an urgent need for habitat conservation and
improvement (Beller et al. 2020). Undoubtedly, the
need to change the behavior of people in relation to
the environment, increase their knowledge in the
field of ecology and culture is the most important
condition for getting out of this critical situation.
The authors note that personal characteristics
largely influence ecological behavior, which is real­
ized with the help of effective constructs of eco­
logical consciousness (Miloradova & Ishkov 2015).
Ecological consciousness, as well as ecological
behavior, is usually considered a component of the
ecological culture of a person and society. Ecological
culture is manifested in the skillful use of a person’s
own environmental knowledge, skills, and abilities
in all spheres of life, and ecological behavior is a set
of actions and actions related to the human impact
on the environment and the use of its resources
(Panov 2013). As noted above, overcoming the
environmental crisis is unthinkable without changing
people’s worldview, changing their attitude to the
awareness and implementing environmental behav­
ior in life. In turn, environmental education and its
philosophical basis depend on the actual features of
the country’s development (Zakharova, Liga & Ser­
geev 2015). At the same time, the Russian ecological
consciousness is internally contradictory, it combines
the features of the anthropocentric and ecocentric
paradigms. In addition, environmental behavior is
influenced by factors that determine a person’s atti­
tude to the environment: cognitive, affective, and
situational. Cognitive factors reflect a person’s level
of awareness of nature, their knowledge of key
environmental theories (Ozkan-Pir & Karaduman
2017). The authors note an interesting fact that even
those who do not have broad environmental know­
ledge can participate in solving environmental prob­
lems since a significant amount of environmental
knowledge does not guarantee pro-ecological human
behavior (Ajzen et al. 2011, Gifford & Nilsson 2014,
Krishen et al. 2016). Affective factors include the
experience of emotions related to environmental
problems. People who prioritize altruistic values are
more likely to exhibit environmental behaviors than
people with individualistic or egocentric values
(Dermody et al. 2018). In addition to the orientation
to egocentric values, affective factors include the
orientation to biosphere values (the costs and bene­
fits of environmental actions are estimated from the
point of view of the well-being of ecosystems or the
biosphere). Direct contact with nature, participation
in environmental events, environmental clubs, obser­
vation of actions to destroy the natural environment,
government policies, parental influence, rewards,

DOI: 10.1201/9781003136804-36

183
fines, social norms, the media, etc. have an impact
on human-environmental behavior and are situ­
ational factors (Farrow et al. 2017, Kamaruddin,
et al. 2016, Tvedi et al. 2018).
It is often the student youth who first of all adopt
new models of behavior in society. Unfortunately,
young people are not inclined to acquire the eco­
logical experience of careful and selfless interaction
with nature. Often, the attitude to it is exclusively
pragmatic. However, it is safe to say that in the near
future, the environmental situation in Russia will
largely depend on the direct participation of young
people in the development of the country’s eco­
logical culture. The current situation demonstrates
the relevance of the analysis of the environmental
activity of young people. The goal of education is to
promote, at all levels of the education system, from
school to higher education, the education, and devel­
opment of environmental literacy of students
(Arba’at Hassan et al. 2010, Latifah et al. 2012). It is
known from research that the conditions created at
the university for students to participate in various
environmental initiatives determine their environ­
mental awareness, contribute to the development of
environmental culture, form a positive attitude to the
environment, and stability in the professional sphere
(Asafova 2015, Duman-Yuksel & Ozkazanc 2015,
Pane & Patriana 2016). It should be noted that sig­
nificant environmental pollution occurs as a result of
the work of construction industry enterprises, and
future employees of this industry need to be able to
find a reasonable balance between profit and nature
protection, to understand and maintain natural har­
mony with nature.
Theoretical analysis of the literature has shown
that the problem of young people’s attitude to nature
is considered quite often. At the same time,
a number of issues related to proactive environmen­
tal behavior remain unresolved. This problem caused
the relevance of our research.
2 MATERIALS AND METHODS
For the empirical study, we selected a sample of
engineering students (58 people), whose average age
was 19 years. Features of personal values were
evaluated by the test of M. Rokich’s “Value orienta­
tions”. For the study of environmental behavior, the
AESOP test of V. A. Yasvin, S. D. Deryabo, as well
as the author’s questionnaire were used. We made an
assumption about the relationship of individual value
orientations with the manifestation of environmental
behavior. Important for the study is the position that
the ratio of individual values can be a condition for
harmonization with the environment. The basis of
morality, moral principles are personal values, which
can be used to judge what goals a person’s behavior
is aimed at (Bayram 2012, Gärling et al. 2003, Sla­
voljub 2015). When processing the data, the analysis
of descriptive statistics (average values, standard
184
deviations) was used. For the structural analysis of
the obtained results, the r-Pearson correlation ana­
lysis was used. The Student’s t-test was used to
determine statistically significant differences. Com­
puter data processing is performed using MS Excel,
Statistica 12.0 programs.
3 RESULTS AND DISCUSSION
The results of the study showed that almost all
respondents (97%) believe that the environmental
situation in Russia is in a bad state and that it is the
life activity of people that is the main factor of bad
ecology. 80% are sure that without the introduction
of certain measures to combat bad ecology in our
country, the state of nature will only worsen. Most of
the students say that they are constantly interested in
environmental issues (61%). Most often, the majority
of students named the people themselves as respon­
sible for the environment (56%), followed by the
government (32%), then special services (7%) and
5% could not answer this question. Among the main
causes of pollution are the irresponsibility of people
(33%), production (25%), the inability to dispose of
garbage (19%), the availability of transport (16%)
and corruption (7%). Absolutely all respondents
believe that bad ecology affects people’s health, but
not everyone feels its impact. So, 39% notice such
problems as difficulty breathing, exacerbation of
chronic diseases, deterioration of skin quality. Young
people consider the activation of environmental
measures to be a way out of this situation. For
example, 71% of respondents have already partici­
pated in environmental actions (planting trees, clean­
ing parks, etc.). 45% express a desire to participate
and help nature, but not all respondents are ready to
personally participate in such events (26%), 29%, in
turn, refrained from answering. Young people say
that they feel responsible for the harm caused to
nature (79%). They tell how they sort garbage (paper,
plastic, glass, etc.), 50% of respondents emphasize
that they correctly dispose of hazardous waste in the
designated collection points. 97% of students deny
the fact of throwing garbage in public places or past
the trash can, and 89% of respondents think about
the dangers of cellophane and plastic. However, only
17% are ready to completely abandon cellophane
bags and plastic packaging. In addition, 82% of
respondents are not inclined to give up their personal
car in the future. Only 69% of students are deter­
mined to change something in their lives to improve
the environment. We see that young people declare
environmental values, but at the same time, there are
some environmental contradictions. On the one hand,
they are ready for changes, on the other hand, only if
there are no significant changes in their lives, that is,
the usual order of things is not disturbed.
The study of the respondents ‘ecological attitude
showed that the main type of communication
between the respondents and nature is its perception
from the point of view of aesthetics and beauty
(43%). That is, the first place is occupied by an aes­
thetic ecological installation. The second place is
occupied by a pragmatic attitude to nature, which
consists in the desire to use the resources of nature
(31%). The third place is occupied by the cognitive
attitude, students consider it necessary to study
nature (27%), perhaps for a more rational use of it.
Unfortunately, taking care of nature and its protec­
tion is in the fourth position, and only 17% of
respondents show an ethical environmental attitude.
We noticed that students from different localities
participated in the study, so we decided to compare
the respondents ‘environmental attitudes. Statistic­
ally significant differences were found (Student’s
t-test) in the indicators of environmental attitudes in
groups of students from different cities. We have
classified cities with a population of more than
one million as large cities, while small cities are rep­
resented by localities with a population of less than
one hundred thousand people (Table 1).
We found that students from large cities treat
nature more pragmatically, perceiving it more as an
object of benefit, seeing in nature only the possibility
of obtaining benefits (fuel, building materials, food,
etc.) than students from small cities. Perhaps this
fact can be explained by the lack of contact with
nature with the possibility of feeling like a part of
nature, young people from large cities.
The study of the value orientations of young
people showed that the respondents put “health” in
the first place among the terminal values (Figure 1).
In principle, it is not typical for young people at this
age to think about health. Perhaps the high health
significance is due to the fact that our study was con­
ducted in 2020 during the covid-19 pandemic.
The following positions are occupied by “love”,
“having good and loyal friends”, “development”,
“self-confidence”.
Students of technical specialties do not attribute
the happiness of others, creativity, the beauty of
nature, and art to the goals that need to be pursued.
These values occupy the last positions in the hier­
archy of personal values of students.
Figure 1. Terminal value orientations of young people
based on the materials of Chernyakevich E. Yu., 2020.
The leading instrumental values are “honesty”,
“responsibility”, “good manners” (Figure 2). Then the
respondents note “education” and “cheerfulness”.
Among the instrumental values in the rejected
positions are such values as “irreconcilability to
shortcomings in oneself and others”, “high
demands”.
We see that students value specific personal and
ethical values and reject the values of self-
affirmation, the experience of beauty in nature and
art. We can say that the specificity of students ‘value
orientations is the priority of moral aspects – educa­
tion, responsibility, honesty. Also valuable are the
presence of good health, a happy family, the pres­
ence of good friends.
We have found a relationship between individual
values and environmental behavior. When studying
the interrelationships of individual values, environ­
mental behavior, and attitudes of young people
using correlation analysis, we found that pragmatic­
ally oriented young people in relation to nature
value self-confidence more (0.27, at p<0.05), do not
value diligence (-0.33, P < 0.05) and do not want to
show environmental behavior (in particular, prop­
erly dispose of garbage) (-0.27, P < 0.05) and vice
versa.

Table 1. Significant differences in environmental settings

based on the materials of Chernyakevich E. Yu., 2020.

Average values, standard deviations

Environmental Students from small Students from

installation towns big cities

Pragmatic 2.4 ± 1.0* 3.9 ± 2.2*

attitude

* - statistically significant differences between the environ­

mental attitudes of students from large and small cities, Figure 2. Instrumental value orientations of young people
with p < 0.05 – 0.001. based on the materials of Chernyakevich E. Yu., 2020.

185
 We can assume that we see a consumer attitude to
nature when the emphasis is on utility, profit. When
nature is perceived as a supplier of resources that
a person can completely dispose of. young people,
for whom the aesthetic component of communica­
tion with nature is important, value “active life”
(0.36, P≤0.05), “high demands” (0.29, at p≤0.05),
“efficiency in business” (0.30, at p≤0.05), do not put
“love” (-0.34, P≤0.05) and “happy family life”
(-0.36, P≤0.05) in the first places of importance. And
vice versa. Perhaps nature remains an attractive
object for them, but this object cannot act as
a partner of subject-subject interaction.
For respondents who are focused on the study of
nature, there is a focus on creativity (0.30, p ≤ 0.05)
and a decrease in such value as “high requests”
(-0.32, p ≤ 0.05). An interesting fact is that at the
same time, young people do not think about how
important it is to remove negative factors from a life
that negatively affect the environment (-0.33, p ≤
0.05). Perhaps, when perceiving nature as an object
of study, young people do not recognize the right to
its self-worth. Respondents with a strong ethical atti­
tude, a desire to protect nature, are more likely to
exhibit environmental behavior (0.30, at p<0.05) and
value the “development” of the individual (0.30, at
p<0.05). At the same time, such values as “honesty”
(-0.34, p ≤ 0.05) and “accuracy” (-0.39, p ≤ 0.05) are
not a priority for them and vice versa. We can say
that they see their development in the relationship
with nature when contacts between nature and man
are perceived as interaction.
4 CONCLUSIONS
As a result, I would like to emphasize the following:
students are concerned about the preservation of the
ecological balance, they are interested in environmental
issues. The main cause of pollution of nature is found
in the life of people. However, it does not fully make
all possible efforts to improve the environmental condi­
tions in its region. Perhaps young people do not have
specific knowledge, skills, and abilities about how and
how to effectively improve the ecological state of the
environment in the country. Nature is perceived by
them from the aesthetic and pragmatic side, causing
a desire to admire and use in the process of their life.
Students with different value systems exhibit different
environmental attitudes. Indeed, young people with
a focus on self-development and pronounced environ­
mental behavior are more interested in protecting the
environment, they are dominated by an ethical environ­
mental attitude.
In the program of Russian schools, there are sub­
jects, for example, “Social Studies”, “Natural Sci­
ence”, which contribute to the development of
environmental thinking. A focus on the development
of environmental education and ecological culture
186
must be maintained in the high school, which may
contribute to the change of passive environmental
installations on the realization that the well-being of
the surrounding world depends on personal responsi­
bility. Eco-nature-oriented efforts of future special­
ists will provide a real opportunity to solve many
issues related to the integration of environmental
issues into social reality.
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 Reconstruction and Restoration of Architectural Heritage 2021 – Sementsov, Leontyev & Huerta (Eds)
© 2021 Taylor & Francis Group, London, ISBN 978-0-367-68296-5

Reconstruction of cultural heritage site “Merchant Davydenko’s House”

I.N. Chechel, M.V. Perkova & I.P. Chechel
Belgorod Shukhov State Technological University, Belgorod, Russia

ABSTRACT: The problem of preserving cultural heritage in a post-industrial society is due to the preserva­
tion of the memory of the place, its history, and traditions. Preservation and restoration with the adaptation of
cultural heritage objects to a new function preserve the urban identity, makes the urban environment unique
and attractive for residents. Urban planning and spatial planning analysis of the cultural heritage object “Mer­
chant Davydenko’s House” was carried out with the aim of its reconstruction and adaptation for modern use.
Options for the reconstruction and adaptation of the cultural heritage object have been developed, considering
the investment attractiveness, which is justified by a comprehensive assessment for decision-making. The list
of criteria and questions for quantitative evaluation was clarified in the process of reconstruction of the cul­
tural heritage site. As a result of the quantitative analysis, an objective result was obtained that allows us to
evaluate the effectiveness of the developed proposals from the point of view of the population, authorities,
business, and other participants in urban development. The optimal conceptual project proposal has been iden­
tified. The proposed measures will help to preserve the object of cultural heritage, create new jobs, and imple­
ment cultural and social projects for various consumer groups.

1 INTRODUCTION L. I. Kolesnikova, V. Sobrovin, and V. V. Ovchinnikov

The relevance of the topic is determined by the need to
solve a complex of problems related to the reconstruc­
tion of cultural heritage objects of regional significance
with adaptation for modern use, considering invest­
ment attractiveness according to the Federal Law of
the Russian Federation of 25.06.2002 N 73-FZ “On
Cultural Heritage objects (historical and cultural monu­
ments) of the peoples of the Russian Federation”.
The problem of preserving cultural heritage in
a post-industrial society is due to the preservation of
the memory of the place, its history, and traditions for
the comprehensive development of human potential
(Perkova et al., 2018). A city is an object that “pro­
motes” values and life experiences through material
and abstract expressions in the context of diversity,
change, and conflict (Zancheti et al., 2007). Domestic
and foreign experience shows that reconstruction with
adaptation to modern functions contributes to the for­
mation of the identity of localities, the opening of new
jobs, socialization, and attraction of tourist flows (Per­
kova 2019).
V. V. Alekseev, M. S. Stieglitz, R. P. Podolsky,
I. V. Fedoseeva, Yu. I. Kazantsev, S. P. Kalita,
I. N. Yurkin, M. A. Granstrom, S. V. Sementsov,
A. A. Skokan, T. A. Slavina, V. I. Sheredega, and
others were engaged in the history, preservation,
and protection of cultural heritage in Russia and
the CIS countries. The research of A. E. Enin,
E. V. Kholodova, G. A. Chesnokov, M. V. Perkova,
is devoted to the analysis of the historical and cultural
environment of the Central Chernozem Region and the
protection of the cultural heritage of the Belgorod
region.
The article discusses the options for adapting
the object of cultural heritage, considering the
investment attractiveness. The decision options are
justified by a comprehensive assessment for deci­
sion-making.
The article discusses the options for adapting
the object of cultural heritage, considering the
investment attractiveness. The decision options
are justified by a comprehensive assessment for
decision-making.
The object of the study is the cultural heritage
object “House of Merchant Davydenko”, which is pro­
tected according to the order of the Department of
State Protection of Cultural heritage objects of the
region dated August 27, 2019, No 22-20/03/396 “On
the inclusion of the identified object of cultural heri­
tage “House of Merchant Davydenko”, the beginning
of the XX century, in the unified state register of cul­
tural heritage objects (historical and cultural monu­
ments) of the peoples of the Russian Federation, on the
approval of the boundaries of its territory and the sub­
ject of protection”.
The purpose of the study is to identify the optimal
options for reconstruction with adaptation to the
modern use of the object of cultural heritage, consid­
ering the investment attractiveness.

DOI: 10.1201/9781003136804-37

188
2 MATERIALS AND METHODS
To achieve this goal, we used integrated and envir­
onmental approaches, as well as retrospective ana­
lysis; comprehensive assessment of the territory;
cartographic and landscape-visual analysis. Quanti­
tative methods of complex assessment according to
the criteria were used to evaluate the developed
reconstruction options with adaptation to modern
use. The study uses archival sources and carto­
graphic materials, as well as existing regulatory and
advisory documents in the field of protection of the
cultural heritage of the Russian Federation. The
research is based on the analysis of the implemented
projects of foreign and domestic experience.
3 RESULTS AND DISCUSSION
Often, the historical centers of municipal districts
are today pointing of innovative growth and the
development of cultural and historical traditions
(Perkova & Zaikina 2016). In the administrative cen­
ters of the municipal districts of the Belgorod region,
there are objects of cultural heritage that can be con­
sidered from the standpoint of their “… correlations
with the concept of “cultural values” (Bulavsky &
Sementsov 2018). Such value imperatives “ … influ­
ence the decision on the adaptation of an architec­
tural monument for modern use (utilitarian­
functional, urban planning, historical and emotional
values)” (Sergeeva & Sementsov 2018).
The considered architectural monument of
regional significance is located in the district center
of the Borisovsky district in the urban-type settle­
ment of Borisovka on Ushakov Square, near the
bridge over the Vorskla River. The style of the old
three-story red brick building resembles Russian Art
Nouveau. Once it was the home of Dmitry Fedoro­
vich Davydenko, a Borisov merchant who had large
houses, shops, and warehouses all over the village.
According to the stories of the descendants of
Dmitry Fedorovich, Davydenko’s store was con­
sidered the largest in Borisovka and the most expen­
sive. It had 5 departments, including a jewelry
department, which employed 5 clerks. The account­
ing department was run by D. F. Davydenko’s grand­
mother. The store was surrounded by a large
enclosed courtyard with warehouses and a care­
taker’s house.
It is known that the Davydenko family was dis­
possessed, that is, deprived of all property during the
formation of the Soviet government. The merchant’s
property, including children’s clothing, was confis­
cated, and the family lived in a gatehouse. After the
revolution, the Davydenko house housed the post
office. From the 1930s to 2003, it was the Borisov
Orphanage No. 1. In the early 1970s, a dining room
was added to the historical part of the building, and
workshops, classrooms, and a gym were placed on
the ground floor (Figure 1). In 2003, the orphanage
189
Figure 1. “Merchant Davydenko’s house” in different time
periods. Compiled by Chechel I. N. & Kaidalov V. V.
was closed. Since 2017, the house of the merchant
Davydenko was leased. And at the end of August of
the same year, the building was recognized as an
object of cultural heritage and included in the state
register of architectural monuments of regional
significance.
In accordance with the subject of protection, the
conduct of economic activity on this object should
not contradict “… the requirements for ensuring the
preservation of the object of cultural heritage” and
allow for the “functioning of the object of cultural
heritage in modern conditions, considering its land­
scaping, outdoor lighting and “reconstruction of
engineering networks that ensure the operation of
the object of cultural heritage”. As a result of the
socio-functional adaptation of architectural monu­
ments of regional significance for modern use, not
only their historical value should be preserved, but
also a harmonious spatial environment should be
organized in the territories adjacent to them
(Sementsov 2018). Green spaces should be included
as important elements of urban planning (Wolch
et al. 2014). The principle of the genetic urban plan­
ning code, which manifests itself in a special system
of urban planning and compositional patterns,
should also be considered. It should be realized in
the spatial, architectural, stylistic morphological
parameters and patterns of development of the urban
environment (Sementsov 2013).
After field surveys, it was revealed that the cultural
heritage site is located in an area with mixed residen­
tial development. There are several general education
institutions in the district. As a result of the pre­
project analysis of the territory, it was revealed that
the object of reconstruction is located in the central
shopping area of the village (Ushakov Square). It
currently houses a cinema and a number of shopping
pavilions and shops, as well as a market. Historically,
this place was formed as the central shopping street
of the settlement, which explains Davydenko’s choice
of this site as a site for the construction of his trading
house. The section of the central part of the settle­
ment along Sovetskaya Street, where the object of
reconstruction is located, is pedestrian (Figure 2-3).
The development of the economy, social culture,
and technology, as well as the historical course of
these processes, show the interactive impact of various
factors on urban space and the environment (Milojevic
2015). It is necessary to integrate the planning, devel­
opment, and sustainability of the ecosystem into
a single process (Milojević 2018), as well as to create
comfortable functional spaces and aesthetic environ­
ments (Çelikyay, S., 2016). The development of ped­
estrian infrastructure is also important for improving
the quality of life of citizens (Jackson 2003).
Figure 2. Reference plan of the central part of the urban-
type settlement of Borisovka. Developed by Chechel
I. N. & Lysenko V. O.
Figure 3. a) Functional zoning scheme of the central part
of urban-type settlement Borisovka b) Transport and pedes­
trian scheme of the central part of urban-type settlement
Borisovka. Developed by Chechel I. N.& Lysenko V. O.
190
Considering the current trends in the formation of
a comfortable historical environment, two variants of
reconstruction with adaptation were developed. In the
first version, the project provides for the complete res­
toration of the building, the restoration of the lost
elements of the facade. It is proposed to replace the
existing engineering networks and communications
(wiring, plumbing, ventilation, interior lighting). It is
proposed to upgrade the building for office space for
rent, and to provide a winter garden on the third floor
(Figure 4-5). The outdoor lighting device is supposed
to be organized as a local illumination of the architec­
tural elements of the building.
Figure 4. Option 1. Reconstruction plan at the mark-3.200.
Developed by Chechel I. N. & Lysenko V. O.
Explication to the plan at the mark-3.200: 1-stairwell;
2-5-office space; 6-10-offices; 11-13 utility room; 14-17­
premises for rent.
Figure 5. Option 1. Facade of the reconstructed historical
building. Developed by Chechel I. N. & Lysenko V. O.
Figure 6. Option 2. Reconstruction plan at the level of
+ 0.000. Developed by Chechel I. N. & Kaidalov V. V.
Explication to the plan at + 0.000: 1-stairwell; 2-5-office
space; 6-10-offices; 11-utility room; 14-17-rooms for rent;
18-19-coworking.

Figure 7. Option 2. Facade of the reconstructed historical
building. Developed by Chechel I. N. & Kaidalov V. V.
Figure 8. Facade of the reconstructed historical building.
Developed by Chechel I. N. & Kaidalov V. V.
The authors also propose to use an important
stage of design: a comprehensive assessment of
options according to criteria, based on the technol­
ogy of integrated environmental assessment “Green
Print” (Duany 2009). The Green Print assessment
supports the development of local employment,
reduces the transport burden on the territory, pre­
serves local identity, and strengthens local commu­
nity ties through social and cultural functions
(Perkova & Zaikina 2016). The list of criteria and
questions for quantitative assessment were clarified
specifically for the process of reconstruction of the
cultural heritage site.
As a result of the quantitative analysis, an object­
ive result was obtained that allows us to evaluate the
effectiveness of the developed proposals from the
point of view of the population, authorities, business,
and other participants in urban development:
• The “resources” criterion is used to assess the
extent to which the surrounding area is used,
whether old-growth plantings are preserved,
whether the use of secondary raw materials is
Table 1. The final table of the comprehensive assessment by criteria. Comparison of options. Developed by Perkova
M. V.
Option no resources transport location society
1 58 82 86 50
2 70 82 86 73
191
expected, whether the construction resources of
cultural heritage objects are fully used?
• According to the criterion “Revival of historical
heritage”, the interest in the monument of the cul­
tural heritage of the industrial era among the
public, the media, the degree of awareness of
people about the identity of the place in question,
as well as “branding of the territory” as
a comprehensive, diversified approach with the
requirement for the main idea of the brand of the
territory is originality, uniqueness (Anholr 2006);
• According to the criterion “society”, the focus on
all age groups of society is assessed to ensure
their interaction to preserve and maintain cultural
memory, the realization of the needs of all types
of the population (recreation, leisure, education,
etc.) as a condition for self-identification and per­
sonal identity;
• The “business” criterion identifies the attractive­
ness of a place in terms of investment, the possibil­
ity of creating new business spaces, and creating
new jobs, including at the construction stage;
• According to the “transport” criterion, transport
and pedestrian accessibility, convenience of the
location of the object under consideration, as well
as options for the development of pedestrian and
bicycle infrastructure are evaluated;
• According to the criterion of “buildings”, the
effectiveness of the use of potential is evaluated:
whether the restoration (reconstruction) of the
lost parts/elements/of the cultural heritage object
involves; whether the existing planning structure
is fully used to adapt the object to the new func­
tion; whether the design solution makes the adja­
cent existing housing stock more sustainable and
efficient; whether the space-planning and struc­
tural potential of the object is effectively used for
the new function.
The answer to each question is evaluated on
a three-point system, the results are entered in the
table. Then the data obtained are summed up and
reduced to a percentage for each criterion, which
allows us to analyze how much a particular concep­
tual project proposal is focused on solving problems
for each of the criteria (Table 1).
After determining the rating of conceptual
design solutions, the optimal most effective in
terms of the investment attractiveness of the project
is identified.
business building historical heritage revival ecology
90 66 65 73
83 76 80 75
4 CONCLUSION
1. The resource potential of the cultural heritage
object has been studied. Two variants of recon­
struction with adaptation to new functions, con­
sidering the investment attractiveness of the
object, are proposed.
2. The technology of integrated environmental
assessment “Green Print” is adapted by the
authors for a comprehensive assessment of the
effectiveness of adaptation of cultural heritage
objects for modern use. The criteria and questions
for quantitative assessment have been clarified.
3. A comprehensive assessment of the effectiveness
of the developed project proposals according to
the criteria of the cultural heritage object “House
of Merchant Davydenko” in the urban-type settle­
ment of Borisovka in the Borisovsky district of
the Belgorod region was carried out. The optimal
conceptual design proposal is identified, consid­
ering the investment attractiveness of the object.
This will allow us to preserve the object of cultural
heritage, create new jobs, and implement cultural and
social projects for various consumer groups.
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 Reconstruction and Restoration of Architectural Heritage 2021 – Sementsov, Leontyev & Huerta (Eds)
© 2021 Taylor & Francis Group, London, ISBN 978-0-367-68296-5

Multicomponent underground space and improvement of projects for

reconstruction and restoration of monuments in Saint Petersburg
R. Dashko & G. Lokhmatikov
Saint Petersburg Mining University, Saint Petersburg, Russia

ABSTRACT: The article describes the basic provisions of the multicomponent underground space on the
example of Saint Petersburg, which is proposed to be used when conducting surveys of the state of under­
ground structures of architectural and historical monuments of the city, as well as when performing engineer­
ing surveys for drawing up projects for their reconstruction and restoration. The article provides an overview
of the sources of contamination of the underground environment in the historical period of the city’s existence
and the previous past. Special attention is paid to the influence of underground microorganisms on the state
and properties of sandy-clay soils, the composition and condition of underground waters, biochemical gas
generation, and, as a result, the formation of biocorrosion processes about ancient and modern building mater­
ials. The principles of improving the existing regulatory documents during engineering surveys for the prepar­
ation of projects for the reconstruction and restoration of cultural heritage objects are proposed. The complex
of engineering surveys offers a mandatory analysis of the possibility of filtration consolidation of soils, the
study of hydrogeological conditions and biochemical gas formation in situ, the assessment of microbiological
contamination of soils and groundwater by various methods. The obtained results should be used as a basis
for improving the reliability of the model of interaction of a binary system: an architectural and historical
monument and a multicomponent underground environment.

1 INTRODUCTION structures, the age of which is calculated for centur­

The preservation of architectural and historical
monuments in any country of the world is considered
as the main condition for the development of the
level of civilization and culture. There are numerous
documents of international law and national laws
regulating the activities of the State for the recon­
struction and restoration of monuments. As noted in
their article, A. G. Shashkin & V. A. Shashkin, pub­
lished in this collection: “The Russian legislation in
this area is fully harmonized with the international
one, which is based on the Venice Charter (Inter­
national Charter for the Conservation and Restor­
ation of Monuments and Attractions)”. This is an
analysis of the interactive interaction of the monu­
ment with its base, including considering the state of
the supporting underground structures, the age of
which is calculated in centuries (Shashkin & Ulitsky
2017; Shashkin et al. 2019). However, as our experi­
ence in the survey of architectural and historical
monuments and the development of recommenda­
tions for the preparation of projects for their recon­
struction and/or restoration shows, one of the most
vulnerable positions is the analysis of the interactive
interaction of the monument with its base, including
considering the state of the supporting underground
ies (Shashkin & Ulitsky 2017; Shashkin et al. 2019).
The existing state standards for the preservation
of cultural heritage objects (GOST R 55945-2014,
GOST R 55528-2013, GOST R 58169-2017, GOST
R 55567-2013, GOST R 56198-2014) basically
repeat the same errors and uncertainties that exist in
the regulatory documents for the construction of
civil and industrial buildings. Studies conducted to
study the influence of the time of functioning of
architectural and historical monuments, or ancient
buildings and the state of their structures, the preser­
vation of the external appearance and internal inter­
ior, do not apply to underground space (Shashkin
et al. 2019).
At the same time, experimental work carried out
on several architectural and historical monuments in
Saint Petersburg indicates the need for detailed con­
sideration and analysis of the underground environ­
ment at the base of cultural heritage objects as
a multicomponent system, the negative transform­
ation of which over time can be one of the main fac­
tors that reduce their mechanical safety (Shashkin &
Ulitsky, 2017, Dashko & Alekseev 2016). At the
same time, the issue of its provision remains the
least developed, as noted in the previously men­
tioned article by A. G. Shashkin & V. A. Shashkin.

DOI: 10.1201/9781003136804-38

193
2 MATERIALS AND METHODS
Features of the formation of a multicomponent
underground space of a megalopolis. The cultural
and natural landscape of the historical center of
Saint Petersburg, with an area of about 40 km2, was
the first in the country to be included in the list of
UNESCO World Heritage Sites in 1990. The fea­
tures of the underground environment of the histor­
ical city center are determined by its island position
in the Neva River delta at low absolute levels, which
often do not exceed 4 m and form the specifics of
the engineering-geological and geotechnical struc­
ture, hydrogeological conditions, high swampiness
of the territory, microbial infestation of soils and
underground waters, biochemical gas formation,
which negatively affects the soils, their stress-strain
state and underground structures. It should be noted
that the nature of the aggressiveness of underground
waters and soils to building materials significantly
goes beyond the narrow limits that are limited by the
current regulatory documents on the protection of
structures from corrosion. Biocorrosion of building
materials, which is studied in detail in many devel­
oped countries (Warscheid et al. 1991, Beata 2020),
in recent documents (SP 28.13330.2017, GOST
31384-2017) is incomplete and does not explain the
features of the vital activity of microorganisms in
the underground environment.
A fundamentally important feature of the section
of the island part of the city is its widespread swam­
piness, which should be discussed in more detail.
According to cartographic sources of the late 17th
century, it was established that more than 75% of the
territory of the historical center of the city was
swampy, and the thickness of swamp deposits could
reach 7-8 m or more. Such sites were located, for
example, in the area of Gostiny Dvor, Technological
Square, the regional part of Alexander Nevsky
Square, and others. According to the rules of engin­
eering preparation of the territory for construction,
which existed in the 18th and 19th centuries, swamp
deposits with a thickness of less than 2 m were
removed, followed by raising the ground level with
the help of bulk soils. Such formations, depending
on the historical period of the city’s development,
were either well-sorted river sands (the era of Anna
Ioanovna and Catherine II), but more often deposits
extracted during the cleaning of channels and from
the pits during construction were used. According to
the rules of engineering preparation of the territory
for construction, which existed in the 18th and 19th
centuries, swamp deposits with a thickness of less
than 2 m were removed, followed by raising the
ground level with the help of bulk soils. Such forma­
tions, depending on the historical period of the city’s
development, were either well-sorted river sands
(the era of Anna Ioanovna and Catherine II), but
more often deposits extracted during the cleaning of
channels and from the pits during construction were
used.
194
The historical aspect of groundwater contamin­
ation. It is necessary to note the importance of study­
ing the contamination of underground water and the
ground layer due to the functioning of engineering
networks during the more than 300-year history of
the city. Within the historical center, groundwater is
considered highly polluted. The historical aspect of
groundwater contamination is associated with the
absence or imperfection of the city sewer system, the
laying of which was carried out at a shallow depth
and was confined to the aeration zone. Studies car­
ried out in the 19th century showed a high level of
contamination of the upper stratum by leaks from
drainage systems. In the second half of the 19th cen­
tury, the famous architect Leontius Benois wrote that
workers refuse to perform excavation work because
of the toxic smell of ammonia that permeates the
soil. According to a study by the commission of Pro­
fessor Dragendorf, published in 1865 in the Archives
of Forensic Medicine (Dragendorf 1965), ground­
water was enriched with nitrogen compounds, sulfur,
organic compounds characteristic of sewer drains,
after small floods. The reason was the rise of the
groundwater level, which led to the leaching of con­
taminants from the aeration zone. It is known that
sewage wastewater enriches ground water and soil
with microorganisms, since 1 ml of wastewater con­
tains 107-108 cells of microorganisms, and 90% of
microorganisms are useful forms, the rest are patho­
genic. Groundwater is enriched with both aerobic
and anaerobic forms of microorganisms (bacteria,
actinomycetes, micromycetes) (Dashko et al. 2014).
The first regional sewer collector was laid in Saint
Petersburg on Vasilievsky Island only in 1935. In the
60s of the last centuries, the laying of drainage sys­
tems at a depth of 10-25 m in moraine sediments
(average depth of laying) began. In the 80s, the con­
struction of deep tunnel reservoirs in the upper
Kotlin clays of the upper Vendian began and con­
tinues, which are considered the safest in terms of
their functioning. urrently, the state of water and soil
in the historical center has changed little, since
according to the State Unitary Enterprise “Vodokanal
of Saint Petersburg” more than 4400 km of shallow
sewers have leaks, also, there is the contamination of
underground water and soil with wear and corrosion
of collectors of the medium depth of laying.
It should also be considered that near the old
churches and cathedrals in Saint Petersburg there
have always been cemeteries. Most of them were
liquidated, for example, the cemetery next to
St. Andrew’s Cathedral on Vasilievsky Island or the
Spaso-Preobrazhensky Cemetery, located along the
modern Babushkina Street (until 1918 on Kladbish­
chenskaya Street). However, some such cemeteries
have survived: Smolenskoye on Vasilievsky Island,
surrounding the church of the same name, Kino­
veyevskoye on the right bank of the Neva River near
the restored Church of the Holy Trinity, or three
cemeteries at the Alexander Nevsky Lavra. In turn,
cemeteries additionally introduce organic compounds
and microbiota into the underground environment, Table 2. Changes in the content of microbial protein
and this influence can be traced to a depth of 50­ (MP) in the base of St. Isaac’s Cathedral.
70 m. In groundwaters, the total content of organic
matter and its easily oxidizable compounds (COD Lithology Geol. index MP, mcg/g
and permanganate oxidability, respectively), as well
as biological oxygen consumption (BOD5), which Medium-grained sand m,lHlt 39
for groundwaters in the area near the Cathedral of Fine-grained sands 70
the Holy Trinity were: 259 mgO2/dm3 (COD), 48 Loam lgIIIbl 135
mgO2/dm3 (permanganate oxidability) and 35 mgO2 Clays 511
/dm3 (BOD5) (Dashko&Gorskaya 2016). The value Sandy loam gIIIos 56
of BOD5 characterizes the presence of only aerobic Loam 85
forms of microorganisms. Loam lgII-III 210
Clays 294
Sandy clays V2kt2 186
3 RESULTS Clays 690

As a result of our research, we were able to trace the

change in the composition of groundwater at the
base of St. Isaac’s Cathedral over 55 years (Table 1). associated with a significant increase in the calcium
In 1954, the JSC “Trust of GWES” research in the content, which is caused by the progressive leaching
survey of the state of the cathedral’s structures, of the elements of the foundation structures-the
which was conducted by employees of the Saint “Putilov” limestone slabs and mortar. An increase in
Petersburg Polytechnic University of Peter the Great the content of chlorides, an organic component (per­
(then the Leningrad Polytechnic Institute) under the manganate oxidability, C, BOD5) indicates leaks in
supervision of Corresponding Member, Professor the drainage system located along the contour of the
V. A. Florin. In 2009, at the initiative of Professor cathedral. It is also worth noting that the highest
R. E. Dashko, a study of the changes in the compo­ values of the chemical composition of water are
nents of the underground environment at the base of noted in the well located in the south-eastern part of
the cathedral was organized. The works were the temple, near which in 2005 there was
approved by N. V. Burov, who at that time was the a breakthrough of the sewer collector of the regional
director of the state museum-monument “St. Isaac’s network. In the field, the redox potential (Eh) of
Cathedral”. The survey was also carried out by the groundwater was also measured at -109 mV. The for­
JSC “Trust of GWES”. mation of regenerative (anaerobic) conditions is
For five decades, there has been a significant associated with the presence of organic components
change in the chemical composition of water and of natural and man-made genesis (peat and frozen
acid-base conditions. The increase in pH is soils, sewage) (Dashko & Salnikov, 2017).
According to the determination of the value of the
microbial mass (by microbial protein) of the soils at
the base of the cathedral, performed by the method
Table 1. Changes in the chemical composition of ground­ of M. Bradford, a change in the microbial infestation
water during 55 years at the base of St. Isaac’s Cathedral. of the thickness was found in the section (Table 2).
The decrease in the microbial mass content in
Maximum water indicators
by year
moraine loams is caused by the gas formation in this
thickness. Since the biochemical generation of gases
Defined indicators, units is a process that requires energy-microorganisms con­
of measurement 1954 2009
sume proteins as a nutrient and energy substrate. The
K++Na+, mg/dm3 370.0 816.0 strength of the soils according to the results of labora­
Ca2+, mg/dm3 84.0 560.1 tory studies (triaxial compression according to the
Mg2+, mg/dm3 77.8 55.3 unconsolidated-un-drained scheme) decreased to 40­
NH4+, mg/dm3 not defined 72.0 50% compared to the indicators obtained in 1954.
Fetot, mg/dm3 0.4 367.5
HCO3-, mg/dm3 707.6 1572
SO42-, mg/dm3 200.8 81.4 4 DISCUSSION
Cl-, mg/dm3 384.5 1418.0
PO*, mgО2/dm3 26.1 415.2 The main sources of microorganisms in the under­
Mineralization., mg/dm3 1465.6 4733.0 ground environment. High microbial infestation of
рН** 7.8 9.28 the soil was observed on the left bank of the Neva
Eh** not defined -108.0 River in the vicinity of Smolny Cathedral, where one
of the largest Russian settlements (Spasskoye settle­
Note: * PO – permanganate oxidability ment) was located since the 15th century within the
** - the measurements were carried out in situ. area that received the name “Sands” in the 18th

195
century. Groundwater was examined for the content
of microbial protein by the Lowry method, but its
value exceeded the upper threshold of sensitivity of
the method. Also, a 16S rRNA metagenomic ana­
lysis was performed in this area, which made it pos­
sible to identify the main groups of bacteria (phyla)
in the water samples, of which more than 28% were
hydrogen-forming bacteria that generate poorly sol­
uble molecular hydrogen.
High microbial infestation of the soil was
observed on the left bank of the Neva River in the
vicinity of Smolny Cathedral, where one of the lar­
gest Russian settlements (Spasskoye settlement) was
located since the 15th century within the area that
received the name “Sands” in the 18th century.
Groundwater was examined for the content of micro­
bial protein by the Lowry method, but its value
exceeded the upper threshold of sensitivity of the
method. In addition, a 16S rRNA metagenomic ana­
lysis was performed in this area, which made it pos­
sible to identify the main groups of bacteria (phyla)
in the water samples, of which more than 28% were
hydrogen-forming bacteria that generate poorly sol­
uble molecular hydrogen.
The sources of microbiota entering the under­
ground space of the city were divided by
R. E. Dashko into natural and natural-man-made,
each of which, in turn, into regional and local. The
first group of regional sources of micro-organisms
includes: swamps, including buried ones, soils with
organic residues in the upper part of the section,
underground water of increased mineralization (> 1
g/dm3) from a pressure aquifer protected from pollu­
tion; local deposits include: inter-sea Mikulinsky
deposits with bituminous organic matter (up to 22%)
and rich microbiocenosis, generating gases (CH4,
N2, CO2); pressure uncontaminated waters of the
Lomonosov aquifer (mineralization > 1 g/dm3), as
well as pressure uncontaminated waters of the Poly­
ustrovsky aquifer (mineralization < 1 g/dm3).
Among the natural and man-made sources of
regional income, there is polluted groundwater with
a rich microbiota, buried household waste of the
18th-early 20th centuries under man-made deposits,
leaks from drainage systems with different depths of
laying; local ones should include: cemeteries (liquid­
ated and active), alluvial sands - bottom sediments
of the Neva Bay, modern household waste, freshly
laid concrete of enclosing structures and bored piles,
liquidated network of watercourses, reservoirs, and
canals in the 18th and 20th centuries. Microorgan­
isms in sandy-clay soils form biofilms around dis­
persed particles. This leads to a significant reduction
in the internal friction angle, up to the transition of
deposits into quasi-plastic differences. Also, the fil­
tration coefficient is significantly reduced, primarily
in water-saturated sands.
Biochemical gas generation and its consequences.
Special attention should be paid to the biochemical
gas formation. In the underground environment of
Saint Petersburg, low-soluble gases are mainly fixed:
196
methane (CH4), nitrogen (N2), and hydrogen (H2);
medium–soluble–carbon dioxide (CO2); highly sol­
uble hydrogen sulfide (H2S) and very highly soluble
ammonia (NH3). The division of gases by solubility
determines the nature of their effect on the compo­
nents of the underground space. The accumulation of
micro-bubbles of poorly soluble gases (methane,
nitrogen, hydrogen) in the pores of sandy-clay soils
forms a gas-dynamic pressure that changes the
stress-strain state (VAT) of the soil layer, which
affects the uneven development of deformations and
contributes to the decompression of dispersed soils.
In addition, the gas stream carries microorganisms in
the underground environment and their secondary
settlement. The presence of molecular hydrogen in
the soil additionally leads to the development of
such a corrosive process as “hydrogenation”, which
increases the brittleness of steel structures, including
reinforced concrete reinforcement. The generation of
soluble gases, in turn, leads to an increase in the
aggressiveness of underground water in relation to
various structural materials, creates conditions that
prevent the hardening of binders. Thus, carbon diox­
ide in groundwater initiates the development of
carbon dioxide aggressiveness, and can also serve as
a marker of the development of the microbiota
below the aeration zone, since this gas is a product
of bacterial respiration.
Studies of the section of the historical center
showed that everywhere up to a depth of 20-25
meters, hydrogen sulfide contamination is traced,
due to the activity of sulfate-reducing bacteria
(Dashko et al., 2014). Its interaction with dissolved
forms of iron oxide Fe2+ leads to the formation of
powdered hydrotroillite (FeS⋅nH2O). The permanent
production of this gas in an underground water-
saturated environment forms a high degree of its
aggressiveness in relation to ancient and modern
structural materials – lime, hydraulic lime, lime­
stone, as well as concrete.
It is also worth noting that the ammonium ion has
a powerful dispersing effect, which leads to an
increase in the content of the clay fraction in the
soil, increasing their sorption capacity. The high clay
content of the soil hinders the development of filtra­
tion consolidation in the soil (Dashko 2015). Gas
saturation of clay soils also counteracts this process,
since, at the degree of saturation of Sr ≤ 0.95, pore
pressure does not occur and deformations occur due
to the creep of the clay soil skeleton.
The increase in the aggressiveness of the under­
ground environment due to the biochemical gener­
ation of gases is not the only way to develop
microbiological corrosion of structural materials. In
general, bacteria, actin - and micromycetes, of vari­
ous species and genera can participate in their
destruction. As a rule, the described microbiota in
the process of its vital activity produces aggressive
substances (in addition to gases-these are acids,
rarely alkalis), creating an environment in which
building materials are less stable. It is worth noting
that biocorrosion is a process in which the participat­
ing agents often cooperatively inhibit each other’s
activity, depending on the current environmental
conditions-physicochemical and acid-base, as well
as the amount of nutrient and energy substrate
(Dashko et al. 2014). For example, in an aerobic
environment, thionic and nitrate bacteria that secrete
sulfuric and nitric acids develop, in an anaerobic
environment - when organic matter (OM) is decom­
posed by a rich biocenosis, organic acids and gases
are formed according to the following scheme (Mee­
goda et al., 2018):
The above-described processes in the under­
ground space of the historical center of Saint Peters­
burg should be the basis for the choice of building
materials. So, for example, the quality of water used
for mixing concrete according to GOST 23732-2011
should meet the following indicators: only traces of
petroleum products are allowed, acid-based environ­
mental conditions (pH) should be in the range from
4 to 12.5, permanganate oxidability should not
exceed 15 mgO2/dm3, it is also forbidden to use
water that smells of hydrogen sulfide during acidifi­
cation, etc. It is quite clear that in underground
waters with similar indicators, there is a slowdown
in the hardening of concrete when it is used as
underground load-bearing structures.
The use of the principles of multicomponent
underground space in engineering surveys. First of
all, it is necessary to assess whether filtration con­
solidation has occurred at the base of the surveyed
monument. Depending on the presence or absence of
basements, it is necessary to drill a well or a group
of wells to the expected depth of the core of the
structure (from basements or in their absence, the
use of inclined drilling is recommended).
The second group of wells (well) must be passed out
of the zone of influence of the VAT change at the
base of the monument. Drilling should be accompan­
ied at certain depths (bearing layer and below) by
a sampling of disturbed and undisturbed soil to
assess their physical condition, strength, and deform-
ability, followed by a comparative analysis of
changes in the parameters of physical properties to
determine the nature of soil transformation, includ­
ing their compaction or decompression. The deter­
mination of mechanical properties should only be
carried out according to an unconsolidated-
undrained test scheme. The results of such studies
provide a theoretical basis for modeling the stability
of the monument-base system.
When conducting hydrogeological studies, it is
necessary to perform field and laboratory work. As
part of the fieldwork, measurements of Eh and pH,
as well as unstable components such as hydrogen
197
sulfide, sulfate ion, and ammonium ion should be
carried out. All in situ studies are performed using
selective electrodes.
Laboratory analysis of groundwater samples
should be carried out according to an extended
scheme with the mandatory determination of organic
compounds (permanganate oxidability, COD, BOD5,
petroleum products), and also, silicic acid and alumi­
num, it is necessary to separately determine sodium
and potassium ions. During drilling and water sam­
pling, the release of slightly soluble gases should be
monitored. Studies of the gas component of the
underground environment should be conducted in
the field using portable gas analyzers (methane,
nitrogen, hydrogen).
Additional laboratory studies of their sedimenta­
tion volume are required when the sand of different
granulometric compositions is deposited at the base
of the monument, which makes it possible to assess
the ability of the sediments to exhibit quicksand
properties.
The microbial infestation of soils and under­
ground waters should be assessed by direct and
indirect methods, considering the values of Eh
(anaerobic or aerobic conditions) and pH (acid-base
conditions) (Lugauskas et al., 1987, Vlasov et al.
2001, Lengeler et al. 2005, Dashkov et al. 2014).
Also, it is mandatory to perform genomic analysis
of 16S rRNA, which makes it possible to assess the
predominant forms of microorganisms in under­
ground waters and soils (Langeler et al. 2005).
The analysis of the results of such studies will
allow us to justify the direction of biocorrosion pro­
cesses and the choice of building materials that are
stable in the underground aggressive environment of
a particular architectural and historical monument.
5 CONCLUSION
Reconstruction and restoration of cultural heritage
objects in Saint Petersburg should be carried out
based on an analysis of the underground space of its
historical part, which is characterized by a high level
of complexity of engineering-geological and geotech­
nical conditions. The complexity of the conditions is
based on the multicomponent nature of the under­
ground space, in the context of which weak water ­
and gas-saturated sandy-clay soils predominate, the
multi-story development of aquifers, characterized by
a high degree of contamination due to swamp waters,
leaks from drainage systems, liquidated and operating
cemeteries, ancient burials of household waste, etc.
Soils and underground waters are enriched with
microorganisms, the negative activity of which can be
traced in the following positions: reduction of the
strength of sandy-clay soils, the transformation of
sands into quicksand, biochemical gas generation,
active biocorrosion due to metabolites of bacteria,
actin-and micromycetes. The influence of various bio­
chemical gases on the change in VAT and their
aggressiveness towards building materials is analyzed
based on the consideration of the interacting system
monument – multicomponent underground space. It is
proposed to improve the system of engineering sur­
veys for drawing up projects for reconstruction and
restoration and ensuring the mechanical safety of his­
torical heritage objects.
REFERENCES
Dashko R. E. 2000. Microbiota in the geological environ­
ment: its role and consequences. Proceedings of the
annual session of the Scientific Council of the Russian
Academy of Sciences on Problems of Geoecology,
Engineering Geology and Hydrogeology “Sergeyev
Readings (2): 72–77.
Dashko R. E. 2015. Engineering-geological analysis and
evaluation of water-saturated clay rocks as the founda­
tion of structures. Saint Petersburg: Georekonstruction.
Dashko R. E., & Gorskaya, V. A. 2016. Engineering-
geological and hydrogeological justification of the
reconstruction and restoration of the Church of the Holy
Trinity in Saint Petersburg. Engineering Geology (4):
30–36.
Dashko R. E., & Salnikov, P. M. 2018. Main principles of
an integral monitoring for St. Isaac’s Cathedral in Saint-
Petersburg. In Topical Issues of Rational Use of Natural
Resources: Proceedings of the International Forum-
Contest of Young Researchers, April 18–20, 2018, Saint
Petersburg, Russia: 17–22.
Dashko R. E., Vlasov D.Yu., & Shidlovskaya A.V. 2014.
Geotechnics and underground microbiota. Saint Peters­
burg: Georeconstruction.
Dashko R., & Ya K. 2015. Underground space of
saint-petersburg as a multicomponent system: Engineer­
ing geological and geotechnical aspects of its
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development. International Multidisciplinary Scientific
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Management, SGEM 2(1): 827–83.
Dragendorf G. 1865. Study of the water of the Saint Peters­
burg canals. Archive of Forensic Medicine and Public
Hygiene. Saint Petersburg: 52–69.
Langeler J., Drews G., Schlegel G. (eds.). 2005. Modern
microbiology. Prokaryotes. Moscow: Mir.
Meegoda J. N., Li, B., Patel, K., & Wang, L. B. 2018.
A review of the processes, parameters, and optimization
of anaerobic digestion. International journal of environ­
mental research and public health 15(10): 2224–2240.
Mikulskene, A. I., & Shlyauzhene, D. Yu. 1987. Catalog of
micromycetes-biodestructors of polymer materials.
Moscow: Nauka.
Shashkin A. G., & Ulitsky V. M. 2017. Ensuring the mech­
anical safety of cultural heritage sites. Herald. Architect.
21st century (2): 104–111.
Shashkin A. G., Shashkin K. G., & Dashko R. E. 2019.
Analysis of causes of deformations in historic buildings
on weak clay soils. In Geotechnics Fundamentals and
Applications in Construction: New Materials, Struc­
tures, Technologies and Calculations–Proceedings of
the International Conference on Geotechnics Funda­
mentals and Applications in Construction: New Mater­
ials, Structures, Technologies and Calculations, GFAC:
329–334.
Vlasov D.Yu., Zelenskaya M. S., Gorbushina A. A., &
Bogomolova E. V. 2001. Review of research methods
for fungi that damage monuments of architecture and
art. In the Collection of Proceedings of the
St. Petersburg State University BiNII “Actual Problems
of Mycology” (47): 88–100.
Warscheid T., Oelting M., & Krumbein W. E. 1991. Phy­
sico-chemical aspects of biodeterioration processes on
rocks with special regard to organic pollutants. Inter­
national Biodeterioration 28 (1-4): 37–48.
 Reconstruction and Restoration of Architectural Heritage 2021 – Sementsov, Leontyev & Huerta (Eds)
© 2021 Taylor & Francis Group, London, ISBN 978-0-367-68296-5

Principles of integrated development in blocks reconstruction of the

historical center of Saint Petersburg
N.M. Drizhapolova & V.M. Supranovich
Saint Petersburg State University of Architecture and Civil Engineering, Saint Petersburg, Russia

ABSTRACT: Currently, the existing investment programs provide for the reconstruction of the historical center
of the city at the house level, including in the aspects of technical and technological solutions. It does not take
into account the urban planning component of this process, the requirement of the complexity of the development
of the transformed urban environment, including providing it with modern objects of service infrastructure, trans­
port, engineering, landscaping, etc. The purpose of the study is to develop requirements for ensuring
a comprehensive transformation of the urban environment of the center, taking into account the continuity and
current trends in the development of the city. At the same time, the study is limited to the consideration of resi­
dential development in the central planning zone of Saint Petersburg. The article does not consider aspects related
to property-legal, organizational-bureaucratic, investment and other issues related to the resettlement of citizens
and the recognition of their housing as dilapidated or dilapidated. The stated integrated approach to the recon­
struction of the residential environment of the central part of the city has been tested by experimental design.
Proposals are presented to clarify the legal and historical and cultural documentation governing the development.

1 INTRODUCTION
The principle of integrated development of territories
is now becoming particularly relevant all over the
world (Ershova, 2017). Most of the world’s largest
cities have already exhausted the possibility of
expanding in breadth and are looking for internal
reserves for their development. As the development of
“inconvenient” and undeveloped territories, zones of
“gray belts”, random gaps, options for the reconstruc­
tion of existing neighborhoods (including city centers)
are developed, taking into account modern trends and
new sanitary, economic, technological and other regu­
latory requirements. In this regard, it becomes neces­
sary to provide the old buildings with modern service
infrastructure (kindergartens, schools, clinics, trade,
cultural, and social service facilities (Drizhapolova,
2017). In Russia, this issue is now particularly rele­
vant. The period of “perestroika” and the change of
the economic structure of the late twentieth and early
twenty-first centuries was characterized by blind pur­
suit of the economic, market component of the new
development. As a result, a huge number of so-called
“human settlements” have appeared - very densely
built-up residential areas that are not provided with
service infrastructure, intended only for “overnight
stays” - “sleeping areas”. By eliminating the service
infrastructure and minimizing socio-cultural, aesthetic,
environmental, and other requirements, it was possible
to “squeeze” the greatest profit (and square meters)
from land plots. This also affected the city centers,
including Saint Petersburg, where the so-called “com­
paction development” flourished, which involved the
construction of mainly housing and business facilities.
This construction of “parasite” on the existing sup­
ports the housing infrastructure (already crowded). At
the same time, the social demand for service institu­
tions (especially children’s ones) was off the scale.
Not only public, but even private preschool institu­
tions were sorely lacking. All existing gaps and
“forced free” land plots (including those reserved in
the Soviet period for service facilities) were urgently
exhausted and brought a good income (but not to the
city). The issue of the complexity of the development
of territories has been repeatedly discussed by experts
at the government level (Ershova et al., 2020). Exist­
ing investment programs for the development of the
city, including the federal target program “Preservation
and development of the historical center of Moscow
Saint Petersburg” suggest a reconstruction of the
house (mainly overhaul networks and structures,
dilapidated and public housing), not solving the urban
component of the problem – the complexity construc­
tion (ensemble) in the result of the transformation.
2 MATERIALS AND METHODS
In connection with the above-mentioned problem,
Federal Law of the Russian Federation No. 494 of

DOI: 10.1201/9781003136804-39

199
30.12.2020 amended the Town-Planning Code of the
Russian Federation accordingly (Urban Planning
Code). The Regional Law “On Urban Development
in Saint Petersburg” (as amended on 29.07.2020) is
also supplemented by the article “Integrated devel­
opment of territories in Saint Petersburg” (intro­
duced by the Law of Saint Petersburg of 06.06.2018
No. 277-54, the law on urban development in Saint
Petersburg). Chapter 10 of the Urban Planning Code
of the Russian Federation “Integrated development
of the territory” defines the following goals of the
proposed changes:
– ensuring balanced and sustainable development
by improving the quality of the urban environ­
ment and improving its appearance;
– improving the living conditions of citizens;
– development of transport, social, engineering
infrastructure, improvement of the territory, an
increase of territorial accessibility of such
infrastructures;
– improving the efficiency of the use of territories;
– creating conditions for the renewal of territories
(including by attracting extra-budgetary sources
of funding).
Hypothesis. Many experts believe that the above-
mentioned goals are intended mainly for peripheral
new development and are not feasible in the center of
Saint Petersburg, where dense historical development
has already developed, formed at different times
according to various (other) urban planning standards
and rules. However, note that in accordance with the
Civil code of the Russian Federation “complex devel­
opment of the territory is carried out in accordance
with the provisions of the Code civil, housing, land
law and legislation on the protection of cultural heri­
tage” (Civil code). Therefore, this should also apply to
the center of Saint Petersburg (Drizhapolova, 2017).
This article explores the question of how feasible
these goals are in the center of Saint Petersburg and
what needs to be done to achieve this goal. At the
same time, given the variety of topics related to this
problem, the subject of the study is limited. Only
residential development in the central planning area
of Saint Petersburg is considered, where “a signifi­
cant part of the land in each of the central blocks
was used for residential development” (Munro,
2016). The article does not consider aspects related
to property-legal, organizational-bureaucratic,
investment, and other issues, including the resettle­
ment of citizens and the recognition of their housing
as dilapidated or dilapidated.
To solve this problem, the following studies were
conducted.
1. The study of the historical experience of the
development of Saint Petersburg showed:
A. The city was historically formed in a complex
way.
“The system of ensembles of the center of
Saint Petersburg was created for more than
200
100 years and the principles of its construction
had no analogs in the previous world urban
planning practice” (Baranov, 1964). The pecu­
liarity of the city’s urban structure and archi­
tectural appearance is largely due to the choice
of its location – in the Neva River Delta
(Semendov et al., 2017).“The city was histor­
ically formed (since 1703) along the banks of
the Neva River as a system of gradually
increasing residential and public formations on
separate gradually developed territories… The
location of the public center changed, which
was invariably tied to the embankments of
water spaces” (Drizhapolova etc. 2020). The
center of Saint Petersburg included several
separate urban areas that formed a “city of
their own” (Lavrov and Perov, 2016). These
areas remained relatively independent of each
other because they were located on islands
that at certain times of the year could be
almost completely cut off from the outside
world due to floating ice or demolished
bridges (Munro, 2016). Each of the central
blocks had its own infrastructure: a market,
food warehouses, shops, and parishes (Munro,
2016). By the beginning of the twentieth cen­
tury, a “multi-node urban center was formed
as a single spatial ensemble around the Main
Space of the Neva” (Sementsov et al.
2017).”This grandiose urban-ensemble find
was polished and refined until the middle of
the twentieth century” (Sementsov et al.,
2017).
B. The development of the city has always been
regulated, which also led to its complexity
(Lavrov and Molotkova, 2020). “Peter I per­
sonally supervised the construction of the city,
and later this huge construction project was
headed by a special government “Commission
of Buildings” (Munro 2016). Strict building
regulations were developed and approved, and
a consistent urban planning policy was imple­
mented (Lavrov et al., 2020b).
“In the Soviet period, centralized regulation
also made it possible to comprehensively build
up the city, thanks to a single user of land and
investment resources (the state) (Drizhapolova
at al. 2020). This made it possible to conduct
research and develop strategic concepts for the
integrated development of the city and its indi­
vidual parts before the start of a specific devel­
opment. Between the General plan of the city
and documents on building a separate site fol­
lowed several stages of refinement of docu­
ments that define specific parameters and
purpose of the object “details” on the basis of
the research conducted at public expense and in
the interests of the city.” (Drizhapolova etc.
2020). At the present stage, the construction
is mainly financed by a private investor and if
it is conducted, it is “in its favor”, without
 taking into account the complexity and ensem­
ble of the development.
2. Field surveys revealed the uneven preservation
and maintenance of the proper condition of the
building, as well as a noticeable contrast between
the front part of it and the courtyard buildings,
and the inner-block spaces.
In Soviet times, reconstruction and restoration
work was carried out regularly and consistently
to maintain the “viable” state of the city center on
the basis of specially targeted investment pro­
grams. There were special research and design
institutes dealing with this problem. In the con­
version period of Russia in the 90s, this activity
almost stopped. Later, thanks to the investment
programs implemented for the 300th anniversary
of Saint Petersburg (2003), most of the central
part of the city underwent reconstruction, restor­
ation, and repair. But this concerned mainly (due
to lack of funds) the front buildings and even just
the front facades, with the exception of some,
particularly significant ensembles. As a result, the
residential buildings continued to deteriorate and
deteriorate. Figure 1 shows a view of one of the
residential buildings on Sadovaya Street from the
front facade (Figure 1a) and from the courtyard
(Figure 1b). The situation was aggravated by hap­
hazard and urgent land use, which does not take
into account the urban component.
3. Urban analysis of the existing regulatory frame­
work and the historical-cultural constraints from
the perspective of the integrated development of
the center of Saint Petersburg showed that imple­
ment the idea of the complexity of building full
compliance with existing rules and regulations
and the requirements of the historical and cultural
limitations it is almost impossible. The scale of
the spaces and the density of development in the
city center do not allow the implementation of
a “micro-district” system, in which all services
are located “inside” the planning unit. The
system of blocks formed in the center has
a closed structure with the output of the service
function on the outer perimeter (Lavrov et al
2020a). In addition, the accepted service radii,
site sizes, and parameters of the service infra­
structure objects “do not fit” into the scale of the
small spaces of the center’s development. For
Figure 1. View of residential buildings on Sadovaya
Street: a- front facade; b-courtyard façade.
201
example, one of the kindergartens in Kolomna as
a walking area for children is forced to use part
of the citywide square for a block from the object
itself. It is necessary to improve the regulatory
framework in relation to the city center.
4. A study of the planning features of various parts
of the center of Saint Petersburg showed that the
center is heterogeneous and it is impossible to
approach it with a “single measure” (Granstrom
and Zolotoreva, 2014). In addition, each center is
different from other and has its own charisma,
even within it there are different zones (Lavrov
2015): development of embankments, buildings
characteristic of Saint Petersburg through the
courtyard, building in certain spots of a gray
zone, the background building around large
ensembles, squares, green areas, pedestrian
streets, etc. The development “in the center of the
center” and the development on its outskirts are
seriously different (Lavrov et al. 2018).
5. The analysis of the demographic composition of
the population of the city center revealed its dif­
ference from the citywide and peripheral. Even
the social priorities of the residents of the city
center differ from the peripheral ones. So in the
center, there are many specialized children’s and
social institutions. Residents of the periphery
prefer to receive some services in the center.
6. Verification of the possibility of implementing
a complex development in one of the central dis­
tricts of the city (Admiralteiskiy) through experi­
mental design confirmed the need to implement
the task.
3 RESULTS
The conducted research has shown the following:
1. The historical development of Saint Petersburg
(now the city center) has always been complex
on the basis of an ensemble multi-node structure
due to the peculiarities of the topography of the
Neva River delta. The city was gradually formed
as a system of separate self-sufficient parts,
united by bridges, crossings into a single ensem­
ble with numerous public water spaces and green
areas. This system has been refined and supple­
mented in different periods of the city’s develop­
ment, but mostly it has remained comprehensive,
with the exception of some periods. Special
damage was inflicted during the “perestroika” of
the late twentieth and early twenty-first centuries.
2. The development of the city has always been
regulated with varying degrees of detail.
3. The existing urban regulatory and historical-
cultural constraints (from the perspective of the
integrated development center of Saint Peters­
burg) in addition to RMP (regional standards for
urban design - find the name for sure) and other
applicable town planning regulations (the code of
 rules of Urban development, Urban and rural
planning and development, etc.) should be sup­
plemented with documents specifying the stand­
ards (including urban planning) in relation to the
city center. There should be a wider and more
diverse range of service facilities and their avail­
ability radii, taking into account the features and
scale of the existing historical development.
4. When the reconstruction of the city center should
take into account the variety of different regions
and their individual parts are given this
“charisma”.
5. The population of the town center must be taken
into account when calculating the provision of
public social and cultural facilities and norms of
specific indicators.
4 DISCUSSION
Administratively, there are 4 districts in Saint Peters­
burg that form the Central Planning Zone: Admiral­
teiskiy, Tsentralny, Vasileostrovsky, and Petrogradsky.
For the implementation of the Program of reconstruc­
tion of the blocks of the historical center of Saint
Petersburg, 2 sites were selected in the Admiralteiskiy
(in Northern Kolomna) and in the Central (Konyush­
ennaya) districts. The above-described “Buildings
Commission” planned to transform the city’s develop­
ment “piece by piece and cover district by the district
with its proposals” (Munro, 2016), so its first project
was dedicated to the Admiralty Side section located
in the city center. The problem of forming a complex
modern development during reconstruction was also
tested in part of the territory of the Admiralteiskiy
district (adjacent to the Obvodny Canal) during
experimental design by students of the master’s pro­
gram of SPbGASU in the framework of final qualifi­
cation works in 2017, as an example of joint work to
create a single urban planning concept in Figure 2
consisting of separate interconnected projects (Supra­
novich et al. 2017).
Figure 2. An example of the concept of integrated develop­
ment during the reconstruction of the territory of the
Admiralteiskiy district adjacent to the Obvodny Canal
(from Moskovsky Ave. to the Gulf of Finland).
202
The work took into account all the above-described
requirements for construction. “One of the main condi­
tions of this work was the maximum preservation,
reconstruction, and consideration of the features of the
existing building, the search for the memory of the
place. This area is a “buffer” between the historical
center of the city and its gray belt. It was agreed to
consider building on two sides of the Obvodny canal,
as is a fabric environment, the promenade ensemble in
the context of new functions (social, business, or resi­
dential) channel. Taking into account the provisions of
the General Plan of Saint Petersburg, it is proposed to
form a polycentric structure of development on the spe­
cified territory, taking into account its historical compo­
nent” (Drizhapolova 2017) (Figure 3).
The project experiment provides for the presence
of a single pedestrian street-a stand-in for the trans­
port embankment, “introducing” public spaces into
the fabric of the residential environment. “All the
“polycentres” are surrounded by a sufficient amount
of residential development, connected by bicycle and
pedestrian routes and streets, as well as green areas. It
is planned to place large residential complexes on the
former industrial territories on both sides of the
Bypass Canal with the required service infrastructure.
Proposals are presented for the placement of a large
number of public and business facilities, including at
the city level” (Drizhapolova 2017).
Figure 3. The scheme of the functional organization of the
development, taking into account the polycentricity of the
service.
Figure 4. Scheme of transport and pedestrian services for
the development.
5 CONCLUSION
The city was originally formed on the principle of
a multi-node ensemble system (assuming the complex­
ity of the development of each individual node). The
development has always been regulated with varying
degrees of detail in accordance with the demands of its
time. The damage to this system caused by the times
of “perestroika” is fixable. At present, it is possible and
necessary to implement the principle of integrated
development in the reconstruction of the blocks of the
historical center of the city. The following aspects
should be taken into account:
• It is necessary to clarify the parameters of service
infrastructure objects, especially preschool and
school institutions, adding a wide range of objects
to their diversity for more flexible implementation
in existing buildings (including expanding the pos­
sibility of using built-in and attached small objects).
• As town-planning regulations in addition to the
object’s parameters include the level of accessibility
required to specify the radii of accessibility, espe­
cially to children’s institutions for older students
and clinics, using separately in justified cases, large
radii (taking into account not only the foot, but
transport-walking, whereas, good public transport
after the introduction of dedicated lanes for him).
• To calculate the security building supporting
infrastructure and regulations specific indicators
need to reflect the demographic composition of
the population of the city center, which differs
from the wide and peripheral, which is to conduct
a detailed study on the basis of the latest census.
• Should be managed economically a complement
regulatory missing types (stimulating their imple­
mentation) in comparison with objects, much
higher than the demand for them (applying eco­
nomic disincentives) on the basis of research
needs in the service objects with the features of
the centre and the Federal needs.
• It is necessary to develop new types of service
facilities and their networks, taking into account
current trends, linked to the city center.
• It is necessary to develop preliminary Concepts
for the integrated development of individual parts
of the center of Saint Petersburg in order to iden­
tify and preserve historical architectural and plan­
ning features, taking into account modern trends
(since the center is heterogeneous). Only on the
basis of such Concepts should targeted invest­
ment programs for the reconstruction of the his­
torical center of the city be formed.
• Legislative clarifications of the historical and cul­
tural restrictions that apply in the city center are
required in order to provide a more flexible
approach that allows for real transformations in
accordance with modern trends.
The materials of the article can be useful for prac­
ticing architects and students, urban planning, and
203
historical and cultural structures. The implementa­
tion of these studies will ensure the reconstruction
and modern sustainable development of the urban
environment of the historical center while preserving
the special charisma of Saint Petersburg.
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alty district, within the boundaries of Staro-Peterhof,
Narva Avenues, Paper Street, and the embankment
of the Obvodny Canal. In the VII Interregional Cre­
ative Forum “Architectural seasons in SPbGASU”:
42–43.
 Reconstruction and Restoration of Architectural Heritage 2021 – Sementsov, Leontyev & Huerta (Eds)
© 2021 Taylor & Francis Group, London, ISBN 978-0-367-68296-5

Deformation criteria for ensuring mechanical safety of historical brick

buildings during reconstruction
N.A. Evseev, K.G. Shashkin, V.A. Vasenin & V.A. Shashkin
Georekonstruction Project Institute, Saint Petersburg, Russia

ABSTRACT: In accordance with the requirements of domestic standards, when reconstructing historical
buildings or adapting cultural heritage objects with load-bearing walls made of brickwork for modern use, it
is necessary to limit the amount of additional deformation of the ground base of the building. For
St. Petersburg, this issue is particularly important due to the complex engineering and geological conditions.
The values of the maximum deformation of the base are set by the norms depending on the category of the
technical condition of the brick building, without reference to any of its structural features. The article ana­
lyzes the methodological advantages and disadvantages of this approach. For stone buildings-monuments, it is
recommended to introduce an additional criterion for ensuring mechanical safety – the maximum additional
width of the crack opening. Based on this criterion, for each monument by reverse calculation, it is possible to
clarify the eigenvalues of the maximum additional deformations of the base and assess the need to strengthen
the stone structures from the calculated sediments. An example of such a calculation is given for the object of
cultural heritage “Barracks of the Pavlovsky Regiment” in St. Petersburg.

1 INTRODUCTION As you know, the risk can be expressed as

When reconstructing historical buildings, adapting cul­
tural heritage objects for modern use, and any con­
struction impacts on the existing urban environment, it
is necessary, first of all, to proceed from the need to
ensure the safety of existing buildings. It is this prin­
ciple that determines the design decisions and the
choice of construction technologies, especially geo­
technologies. Each variant of the design solution
involves certain static effects (for example, loading the
base with the weight of a new building; during recon­
struction, an increase in the load on the floors, on the
foundations; Each construction site is inevitably asso­
ciated with technological impacts (during the vibration
loading of the sheet pile, during the pressing of piles
and the installation of “displacement” piles, during the
excessive extraction of soil during the manufacture of
piles under the protection of the casing pipe, during
the sinking of the “wall in the ground”, etc.). Each of
these impacts carries a risk for the preservation of his­
torical buildings. Therefore, to protect it, it is necessary
to limit external influences to a certain permissible
level.
2 MATERIALS AND METHODS
Normative geotechnical criteria for the preservation
of the monument during reconstruction.
follows:
where Prob(F) – probability of occurrence of
some unfavorable (dangerous) event, а Prob(C) –
the probability of occurrence of negative conse­
quences caused by this event.
In its physical sense, the risk takes place only in
the case of the intersection of these two probabilities,
which, mathematically, is displayed as their product.
The complex engineering and geological conditions
characteristic of the historical center of St. Petersburg,
the presence of dense buildings of the XVIII-XIX
centuries, which has undergone significant uneven
precipitation over the centuries of its existence, can
be considered as very unfavorable initial data, which
cause a high probability of damage or even destruc­
tion of this building with any modern construction
intervention. So, the probability is Prob(F) should be
recognized as very high. However, the resulting level
of risk can be brought to an acceptable value if the
probability of Prob(C) occurrence of negative conse­
quences caused by construction activities in the city
center is reduced to the possible minimum.
To achieve this goal, St. Petersburg geotechni­
cians proposed a simple heuristic criterion for ensur­
ing the safety of buildings (Ulitsky V. M. and

DOI: 10.1201/9781003136804-40

204
Shashkin A. G. 1999) – the amount of additional opening of existing crack systems and new crack for­
deformations of the building during reconstruction mation (Figure 1).
should not exceed the maximum permissible value: “Classical” sedimentary cracks in brick walls, as
a rule, correspond well to the nature of the distribu­
tion of the main tensile stresses. This is easy to see if
you imagine the building in the form of a design
scheme “cross beams-walls on a deformable half-
space” (see Figure 2). In this case, the cracks are nat­
where Siad – the amount of additional deformation urally concentrated in the areas of weakening of the
(absolute precipitation, the relative difference in pre­ “beam-wall”. Sloping cracks in the inter-window
cipitation, roll) of the preserved structures of the recon­ belts extending from the corners of the window
struction object and/or neighboring buildings due to openings are clearly visible and are ubiquitous on
the impact of i factors associated with static loading the facades of historical buildings (Figure 1).
(unloading) of the base, with changes in the under­ Without calling into question the need to limit the
ground water regime, with the technology of work; draft of the building, it should still be recognized
S°ad – the predicted increase in incomplete deform­ that we resort to a significant simplification, using
ations due to past impacts (for the case of an unstable
state of the base).
Values Sadu they must consider the actual
deformed state of the structure and correspond to
such additional deformations of the structure, the
implementation of which will not lead to further
damage to its structures, including the formation and
opening of cracks. This criterion was introduced in
the St. Petersburg geotechnical standards according
to TSN 50-302-2004, and then in the federal Code of
Rules 22.13330 and still defines the methodology of
design and construction in an urbanized area.
Since the possibility of performing joint calcu­
lations of the foundation and structure on
a conventional personal computer appeared only
two decades ago (which was largely facilitated by
the authors of this article), the norms in the first
approximation suggested using the tables of max­
imum permissible values of additional deform­
ations given in them. This turned out to be
a simple and easily controlled technique, which
became so popular that over time, the tabular
values of the maximum additional deformations
began to be perceived by engineers as fundamen­
tal physical constants. However, you need to Figure 1. Example of an emergency condition of a brick
understand that table values, in fact, are a kind of wall: falling out of masonry bricks, inclined cracks of sedi­
conditional boundary, suitable only “for the first mentary origin (29A, Telezhnaya str., Saint Petersburg).
approximation», that the value of Sad u should be
determined by a joint calculation of the building
and the foundation.
At the present time, when computer technology
and computer programs have received significant
development, and their application has entered the
daily practice of design, it seems quite appropriate to
move away from simplified approaches to determin­
ing permissible construction impacts, and, possibly, to
improve the criterion for calculating deformations (2).
Disadvantages of the normative approach to the
calculation of monument structures
It is obvious that in the case of a heavy and rigid Figure 2. Isofield of additional principal stresses σ1,
wall structural scheme of a historical monument made exceeding the tensile strength of the masonry, kPa in two
of brickwork without reinforcement, which is practic­ schemes with the same uneven precipitation (cracks
ally unable to perceive tensile stresses, additional develop in the direction perpendicular to these zones).
Large areas of potential cracking are observed in a building
uneven deformations of the base will lead to the
with greater rigidity.

205
a certain universal value of the maximum deform­
ation effect (corresponding to the category of tech­
nical condition) for buildings of the different spatial
configuration of the wall system in the plan, with dif­
ferent wall thickness and height, i.e., in general, sys­
tems of different rigidity. After all, as is known, in
the general case of calculating a building interacting
with a deformable medium, the distribution of forces
in the elements of the building scheme will depend
on its rigidity (Shaskin, 2018). The greater the rigid­
ity of a statically undetectable system, the greater the
additional internal forces that will occur in it when
the supports are unevenly drained.
Thus, the main problem of the simplified
approach proposed by the norms for limiting the
limiting deformations is that it does not allow to
guarantee unambiguously that the calculation is per­
formed “in reserve”, since, as mentioned above, with
the same deformations of the base in a system with
greater rigidity, greater additional stresses will occur
than in a more pliable one (Figure 2).
Given the current level of development of com­
puter technology, the use of uniform simplified cri­
teria for all types of historical buildings made of
brickwork should now be considered an anachron­
ism, which allows an unscrupulous engineer to avoid
the complex analysis of the deformation effect from
the base on the building within the framework of the
law. Considering the accumulated experience of
engineering reconstruction of monuments, the
authors can argue that it is unacceptable and even
dangerous to ignore such a calculated analysis for
a historical building or monument, which often has
a valuable finish.
3 RESULTS AND DISCUSSION
The proposed deformation criterion is an additional
crack opening width
Based on the stated facts, the authors made
a logical conclusion that the universal value of the
impact on monuments cannot be an unambiguous
criterion for the safety of monuments. To assess the
safety of monuments, criteria (or a system of cri­
teria) should be applied that consider all the param­
eters of the building under consideration, namely,
internal forces and deformations of the structural
scheme (stress-strain state of the system), which are
not so easy to track and control. But there is an inte­
gral parameter that can be very significant for histor­
ical buildings with brick walls, rubble foundations
and ceilings on beams or in the form of brick vaults.
The usual parameter that has a direct impact on
the assignment of the building condition category is
the crack opening width. So, according to TSN 50­
302-2004, when opening cracks up to 0.5 mm,
a building with a corresponding defect should be
classified as the 1st category of technical condition,
with cracks opening up to 3 mm-to the 2nd, and over
3 mm – to the 3rd category. Thus, the width of crack
206
opening reflects the technical condition of a brick
building, and the increment of crack opening for
such buildings can serve as a very important deform­
ation criterion:
The additional crack opening width of a brick his­
toric building (Wcrc ad) must not exceed the max­
imum permissible value (Wcrc ad u):
The calculated value of Wcrc ad must also be used
to perform regulatory verification calculations of the
load-bearing capacity of the stone structures of the
building (4):
where NI – estimated force;
Nf – the actual load-bearing capacity of the struc­
ture, considering the defects present in it, determined
by the formula (5):
where Nc – design load-bearing capacity of struc­
tures, determined in accordance with SP 15.13330
without considering reducing factors;
kmc – the coefficient of the technical condition of
structures, considering the decrease in the load-bearing
capacity of stone structures (for example, according to
SP 427.1325800) in the presence of cracks.
Thus, the calculated value of Wcrc ad should be
used to determine the zones of necessary reinforce­
ment of stone structures in case of non-fulfillment of
the calculation conditions for the I group of limit
states (4) and the II group of limit states (3).
Previously, based on the existing regulatory
requirements for the calculation of stone structures,
Wcrc ad u can be adopted from 0 mm for load-bearing
pillars and piers to 1.5 mm in the inter-window belts,
plinth, gable.
An important advantage of criterion (3) is the
ease of monitoring its compliance at the facility
using different types of crack gauges. An important
advantage of criterion (3) is the ease of monitoring
its compliance at the facility using different types of
crack gauges.
Knowing the Wcrc adu u reverse calculation for
a building, it is possible to estimate the maximum
permissible impact from the deformation of the base,
which does not require strengthening of the building
structures. This value is necessary for geotechnicians
as a task for the development of geotechnical solu­
tions for reconstruction.
It is important to emphasize that the introduction of
a new additional deformation criterion – the maximum
additional crack opening width (Wcrc ad u) does not
contradict the current one – the maximum value of add­ When calculating the building, the main interest
itional precipitation (Sad u) and in no case cancels it. was the results of the additional impact on the struc­
Method for calculating the additional crack ture of the monument from the likely additional pre­
opening width. The method of calculating the cipitation caused by the chosen technology of the
additional crack opening width should involve design of the enclosure of underground volumes, and
three-dimensional numerical modeling of the confirmation of their safety for the building.
building using special nonlinear models of the The projected isolines of additional building sedi­
foundation soil and brickwork. It should be noted ments from reconstruction are shown in Figure 5.
that the spatial nonlinear calculation of the “build­ Figure 6 Shows the isolines of the maximum
ing-base” system in the XXI century in real values of additional deformations (ε1 ) in the direc­
design is quite a non-trivial task. For the brick­ tion of the action of the main stresses (σ1 ).
work of a historic building, reliable modeling of Let us consider a characteristic area of crack for­
the work is also complicated by the need to con­ mation in the inter-window belt: with its length of
sider accumulated defects. This still makes it dif­ about 2.5 m and e1=0.0003. When one crack is
ficult to use such calculations in design, and they opened in this area (see Figure 3), the calculated
remain primarily a tool for scientific research increment in (4) will be:
(Evseev & Vasenin 2019). Also, it is possible to
trust the results of complex nonlinear calculations,
contrary to the statements of software developers
and user engineers, only after conducting
a complex procedure for verifying the applied
physical models of materials, the program itself,
and the calculation scheme (Evseev 2017).
Therefore, a common technique in engineering
practice is a simplified approach, which consists of
using a quasi-linear model of the material to describe
the operation of building structures (Gubanov et al.
2019). The quasi-linear approach is based on the use
of an elastic model of the work of the brickwork
material, with a decrease in the value of its elastic
modulus due to cracking.
With this approach, the additional crack open­
ing on the building site can be estimated approxi­ Figure 3. Scheme of the additional opening of one or two
mately, based on the calculated values of cracks in the inter-window belt.
additional deformations (ε1 ), in the direction of
the main stresses (σ1):

Where Wcrc ad = additional crack opening

width, m; ε1 = deformation, d.un.; L = length of the
crack formation area, m; ncrc = number of cracks in
the crack formation area, pcs.
As the experience of calculations accumulated at
the Georekonstruction Institute shows, this approach
has proven itself well: the calculated zones of max­ Figure 4. General view of the design scheme “building-base”.
imum tensile stresses (i.e., the predicted places of
crack development) always coincide quite well with
the observed pattern of crack formation. This is quite
natural and is explained by the fact that such
a comparison is based on an obvious causal relation­
ship between uneven precipitation of buildings and
the development of defects in brickwork.
Calculated analysis of the cultural heritage
object. Let’s consider an example of using the pro­
posed criterion to assess the safety of a monument
that is being adapted for modern use (Figure 4). The
project involves the construction of single-level
underground rooms in the courtyards of the building.
Figure 5. Isofield additional sediment, m.

207

Figure 6. Additional deformations e1 in the direction of
the main stresses σ1: a-view of the calculated model of the
building as a whole, b-fragment.
Wcrc ad = (0.0003·2.5m)/1=0.75mm.
For two cracks in this area (Figure 3), their calcu­
lated increment will be:
Wcrc ad = (0.0003·2.5m)/2 = 0.375 mm.
Additional crack opening in the inter-window
belts by a value of 0.75 mm or less can be con­
sidered safe for the technical condition of the object.
As noted above, despite the obvious simplification
of this engineering approach, it corresponds well to
the results of the survey of buildings and allows you
to move from the analysis of the stress-strain state of
building structures, which is difficult to control (con­
trol can only be carried out in the form of a duplicate
calculation) to the criteria familiar when assessing
the category of technical condition of a brick build­
ing, namely, the width of cracks in the load-bearing
walls (which can even be visually controlled).
4 CONCLUSION
The requirements of modern standards to limit the
additional sediment of buildings-monuments
clearly do not correspond to the current level of
development of construction science. Simplifica­
tions involving the adoption of tabular values for
assigning the maximum value of additional
deformations (Sad u) for all monuments made of
208
brickwork do not allow us to unambiguously guar­
antee that the calculation is made “in reserve”
since with the same deformations of the base in
a system with greater rigidity, greater additional
stresses will occur than in a more pliable one. The
authors propose to assign the permissible values of
additional deformations, based on the joint calcula­
tion of the building and the base, from a detailed
analysis of the stress-strain state of the building.
Considering the elastic-brittle work of the brick
wall material, an important deformation safety cri­
terion can be the maximum additional crack open­
ing width (Wcrc ad u), which must be regulated by
the norms. Based on the value of Wcrc ad u, it is
possible to estimate the inherent safety values of
the maximum permissible impacts, including the
deformations of the base, and to evaluate the need
to strengthen stone structures from the calculated
sediments by reverse calculation for various build­
ings. The introduction of a new additional deform­
ation criterion (Wcrc ad u) does not conflict with
the current one (Sad u) and does not cancel it.
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© 2021 Taylor & Francis Group, London, ISBN 978-0-367-68296-5

Design of effective structural health monitoring platform for Paderno

d’Adda Bridge (1889)
R. Ferrari & E. Rizzi
Department of Engineering and Applied Sciences, University of Bergamo, Italy

M.S. Brioschi
Department of Management, Information and Production Engineering, University of Bergamo, Italy

V. Dertimanis
Department of Civil, Environmental and Geomatic Engineering, ETH Zurich, Switzerland

ABSTRACT: This paper aims to outline the fundamental steps for the design of an efficient platform for
Structural Health Monitoring (SHM), which shall serve as a methodological reference for an enlightened and
conscious monitoring and conservation of the “state of health” of structures characterized by a significant his­
torical and architectural value. Reference application structure is constituted by the Paderno d’Adda bridge, an
impressive railway iron arch bridge built in Italy in 1889, which is still in service. The paper describes the
fundamental steps for the establishment of an efficient SHM platform for the bridge, considering a multiplicity
of targets, including: assessment of the current structural condition; development of consistent modeling
approaches for the structural behaviour; model updating based on measuring; fatigue prediction and predictive
approaches for life-cycle management. The outcome of this work shall display a rather broad impact, extend­
ing to efficient management of architectural masterpieces, in terms of their effective, long-lasting preservation.

1 INTRODUCTION certainly be ranked among these special structures

In several characteristic structures spread around the
world, design originality and architectural distinctive­
ness are matched by an equally impressive historical
significance. These valuable constructions take part of
cultural heritage and shall be preserved over time, with
a legacy to be passed over to future generations. Some
of them, especially infrastructural ones, are currently
in precarious conditions, as they are nearing the end of
their structural life cycle. Therefore, their safety may
no longer be guaranteed, without appropriate
interventions.
In such cases, the discussion on a prompt and
effective action for preservation and restoration,
through the adoption of modern and effective strat­
egies and models of maintenance, should quickly be
addressed. For these valuable structures, in fact, the
scenarios markedly related to the re-establishment
and/or maintenance of their safety standards (and
therefore of structural health) are deeply connected
with preservation and management aspects. This
requires practical research initiatives at an advanced
level and renewed training skills in the field.
The Paderno d’Adda bridge (1889) (Figures 1-2),
also known as San Michele bridge, a marvellous rail­
way iron arch bridge located in northern Italy, shall
(see Ferrari et al. 2020 and references quoted therein).
It is perhaps one of the most successful examples of
Italian engineering of the nineteenth century, as well
as an architectural masterpiece at the international
level (in a sense, similarly to co-aged, truly celebrated,
Tour Eiffel). Today, the bridge, more than 130 years
after its construction, still represents a railway and
road connection of a crucial importance in the local
territory, connecting the two banks of the Adda river
between the provinces of Lecco and Bergamo, North-
East from Milano. Its considerable historical and
architectural value and strategic location explain the
fact that the bridge has recently undergone extraordin­
ary maintenance works by the owner (Rete Ferroviaria
Italiana, RFI), from 15 September 2018 to 14 Septem­
ber 2020, and then reopened, first to vehicular traffic
in alternated one-way and lately to train-crossing at
a controlled speed. Now, the bridge shall need
a permanent monitoring platform apt to ensure safety
and to minimize down-time and maintenance costs.
This paper aims to outline the fundamental steps
for the establishment of an efficient platform for the
Structural Health Monitoring (SHM) of the bridge.
Such a goal is by no means trivial, since the platform
shall be able to oversee the bridge in a full awareness
of both intrinsic value and current health condition.

DOI: 10.1201/9781003136804-41

210

Figure 1. View of the Paderno d’Adda bridge (1889) from
downstream (Calusco bank). Pre-intervention state.
From the practical point of view, it should make
available scientifically reliable indicators to owners
and/or managers, useful to guide and programming
Figure 2. Upstream view of the Paderno d’Adda bridge (1889) during maintenance works performed by the owner (RFI)
between 15 September 2018 and 14 September 2020. Courtesy of RFI.
211
the management and maintenance actions, according
to the principles of ensuring a continuing structural
safety and optimizing the costs of intervention.
The SHM platform envisages advanced methods
for the monitoring and assessment of the residual
lifetime prediction by processing the information
contained in monitoring data that are collected from
a sensor array, strategically located onto the bridge.
The design of such a monitoring platform has to
focus a main attention on addressing a challenging
and very important problem, from a cost-effective
maintenance point of view, of predicting the fatigue
accumulation and residual lifetime of the bridge at
unmeasured hotspot locations of the structure, based
on operational (output-only) vibration measurements
at a limited number of measured locations. The prob­
lem arises due to the difficulties of accessing hot-
spots and the need to assess the structural conditions
of the bridge during a continuing service operation.
The monumentality, the historical-architectural value
and the strategic importance, together with the com­
plexity and the longevity of the structure, shall make
the Paderno d’Adda bridge a rather unique example
of its kind in Italy (and one of the very few in
Europe, Kloos & Seyedashrafi 2017). As such, they
make it a specific case study of a rather high level,
useful for the development of an innovative design
of the monitoring strategies and procedures to be
adopted, and which can then be generalised and
applied to other similar structures, markedly in the
same infrastructural field (railways).
This work aims to contribute to this, by providing
a possible methodological approach on how to deal
with the difficult problem of safeguarding strategic
structures with a high cultural value, and which must
therefore be preserved, in order to ensure their safe
and sustainable longevity. A further but no less
important aim of this work is to raise awareness on
the Paderno d’Adda bridge as a marvellous, admir­
able artefact of human ingenuity and an impressive
testimony to the scientific and technological progress
achieved by the end of 19th-century.
The paper is organized as follows. Section 2
shortly introduces the Paderno d’Adda bridge. Then,
Section 3 describes the planning process of the SHM
platform, as organized in two macro-phases: the first
inherent to the constitution of an efficient procedure
of monitoring of the structural health of the bridge;
the second inherent to the management of the
acquired information, for planning inspection and
maintenance. In the discussion, the structural health
of the bridge is intended as the condition that shall
exclude the presence of dangerous structural
damage. In particular, four procedural steps are
therefore identified, specifically aimed at the identifi­
cation of structural damage, and two further steps
finally complete the design of the platform. These
steps are here represented by Tasks, and described in
detail in Section 4. Section 5 is dedicated to the
conclusions.
2 THE PADERNO D’ADDA BRIDGE
2.1 Description of the construction
The Paderno d’Adda bridge, also known as San
Michele bridge, certainly represents one of the great­
est monuments of 19th-century Italian iron engineer­
ing. It constitutes an important testimony to the
progress achieved by the iron industry at the service
of civil and railway engineering at the end of the
19th-century. The bridge provides a rail and road
connection between the provinces of Lecco and Ber­
gamo, between Paderno d’Adda and Calusco
d’Adda, crossing the Adda river at about 85 m above
flood level.
The structure was built between 1887 and 1889
by the Società Nazionale delle Officine di Savigliano
(Cuneo), one of the most active construction com­
panies of the time, under the technical direction of
Swiss engineer Jules Röthlisberger (1851-1911), the
man to whom the design of the bridge is generally
attributed to.
The bridge consists of a continuous box girder,
266 m long, supported by nine piers, four of which
are supported by an impressive arch with a 150 m span
and a 37.5 m chord. The upper girder hosts inside
the railway, while the road lies on the upper level. It
consists of two main reticular beams, connected by
an orthotropic plate on the top, by transverse elem­
ents and St. Andrew’s crosses at the bottom. The
large arch, a significant characteristic feature of the
bridge, is made up of two pairs of parabolic arches
inclined at about 8.6° with respect to the vertical
212
plane, each of which is made up of two twin second­
ary arches 1 m apart, made up of ribs with a T sec­
tion and an iron reticular system constituted of
vertical bars alternating with differently inclined
bars. The two pairs of arches are connected by
means of a double bracing system, on the intrados
and extrados of the arches, and rest on large masonry
abutments inclined at 45° to the horizontal (SNOS
1889, Nascè et al. 1984).
The Paderno d’Adda bridge represents one of the
first major structures studied and designed through
the application of analytic-graphic methods of struc­
tural analysis developed during the 19th-century, spe­
cifically through the so-called Theory of the Ellipse
of Elasticity, originally conceived by Swiss engin­
eer and professor Karl Culmann (1821-1881) and
then systematically applied by his pupil Wilhelm
Ritter (1847-1906). It reveals to be a very elegant
and effective method of analysis for the study of
the elastic flexural response of a structure, based on
an intrinsic discretization of the continuous elastic
problem and implemented by standard notions of
mass geometry (Belluzzi 1942, Ferrari & Rizzi
2008).
The Paderno d’Adda bridge, together with four
other large European arch bridges from the 19th­
century, is a candidate for inclusion in the UNESCO
World Heritage List (Kloos & Seyedashrafi 2017).
3 DESCRIPTION OF THE SHM PLATFORM
SHM expands over four interrelated areas that take
on the following typical operations (Zakic et al.
1991, Farrar & Worden 2009, Wenzel 2013, Moham­
madpour et al. 2014, Simoen et al. 2014):
– Detection (SHM Level I)
– Localization (SHM Level II)
– Characterization (SHM Level III)
– Prognosis (SHM Level IV)
The aim of SHM Level I is to determine whether
the monitored structure is subjected to damage. If
damage exists, SHM Levels II, III and IV are dedi­
cated to locating it, identifying its type and extent,
and predicting its evolution, respectively.
These operations are “masked” by a number of
uncertainties that, referring to the specific bridge
structure, may pertain to:
– Environmental conditions: the annual environ­
mental cycles inevitably affect the structural com­
ponents of the bridge.
– Boundary conditions: the actual behaviour of all
connections and joints (especially the riveted
ones) is amenable to local, unpredictable effects,
diverging, thus, from the idealized behaviour that
may be adopted in competent numerical models.
– Material properties: due to existing deterioration
and long-time usage, the material properties of
the bridge (e.g. densities, modulus of elasticity,
 etc.) are expected to diverge from the nominal
values.
The envisaged SHM platform is expected to
address Levels I–IV SHM on the Paderno d’Adda
bridge, considering all sources of uncertainty, as
well as the actual loading conditions. In particular,
the current structural health and residual lifetime
predictions of the bridge should be determined by
using the information contained in monitoring data
that are collected from a sensor array strategically
located on the structure. The information will be
valuable for optimizing inspection and intervention
strategies based on the actual behaviour of the struc­
ture, in this way reducing the life-cycle maintenance
cost.
The design of such a platform is herein
approached in two macro-phases:
– the first focusing on the monitoring of structural
health;
– the second dealing with purely maintenance
aspects, based on data available from monitoring.
In the first macro-phase, possible structural deg­
radation of the bridge is quantified by assessing cur­
rent conditions and identifying the location and
severity of potential damage through dedicated com­
putational methods, capable of combining informa­
tion from sensor measurements, optimally deployed
along the structure, with the theoretical information
built into a properly updated computational mechan­
ics model of the bridge (Ferrari et al. 2018). In par­
ticular, appropriate methods are developed for
predicting the fatigue accumulation at hotspot loca­
tions of the bridge, using response measurements
collected at a limited number of measured locations.
Information about any diagnosed state of deterior­
ation (damage) will then be used to update the pre­
dictions of the residual lifetime of the bridge
(following Tasks 1–4).
In the second macro-phase, the prediction of
fatigue accumulation at hotspots is linked to a study
on the mobility around the area where the bridge is
located. The study is planned to be conducted also in
a predictive form, through an estimate of the level of
demand for use of the infrastructure (Task 5). Based
on this information, it will be possible to define
a dynamic maintenance plan of the structure (Task
6), and thus guarantee an effective and optimised
management of the bridge.
In order to create a homogeneous platform
endowed with a single interface, the two macro-
phases might then be managed according to a modern
“Building Information Modeling (BIM)” philosophy,
here declined as a virtual representation of the struc­
ture, through the digitalization of its physical and
functional characteristics, including the aspects ascrib­
able to the so-called Facility Management (FM). This
may virtually be considered as a further third macro-
phase of the monitoring platform design. The BIM
approach uses a parametric model that contains all
213
the information regarding the entire life cycle of the
structure, from the design phase to the executive one,
up to its possible decommissioning. The BIM phil­
osophy makes it possible to devise a dynamic, inter­
disciplinary, shared and constantly evolving computer
model, capable of providing specific information
about the structure. By including in the latter those
related to the health condition of the main structural
elements, the BIM approach may in fact be able to
allow pursuing the above-mentioned ambitious aims.
Since the structure under study is characterised by
a particular historical value, the BIM modeling will
have to preserve and enhance not only the functional­
ity and the structural integrity of the system to which
it is addressed, but also its historical-cultural identity,
so that the original meaning of the construction shall
not be lost in time. From this point of view, the BIM
philosophy is planned to be declined according to
a Heritage concept, as the digital model must also be
enriched with information inherent to the historical
value of the bridge.
4 OUTLINE OF THE ENVISAGED SHM
PLATFORM
4.1 Physical-based modeling (Task 1)
As delineated above, a properly updated computa­
tional mechanics model for the Paderno d’Adda
bridge would allow to elaborate all the prediction
phases concerning maintenance planning and residual
lifetime evaluation of the viaduct. A FEM model of
the structure has been developed at the University of
Bergamo since the first studies started on the bridge
by the authors (see Ferrari & Rizzi 2008), and
refined over time (Ferrari et al. 2020). The FEM
model of the bridge was initially implemented within
ABAQUS®, by assembling a 3D truss-frame with
beam elements, in this way appropriately resembling
the real 3D design geometry of the viaduct. As the
FEM model consists of roughly 5,300 beam finite
elements and more than 13,000 degrees of freedom,
this task shall involve specific computational reduc­
tion techniques (Model Order Reduction, MOR), for
an appropriate numerical representation of the
bridge, able to increase the spatial resolution and to
reduce the computational complexity. In particular,
a substructuring technique may be adopted. As the
available FEM model is already assembled from sub-
models, the substructuring of the bridge can be ini­
tialized at that level. If further resolution is
necessary, each submodel can then be further decom­
posed into parts. Thus, most of the tasks that are
described in the following can initially be investi­
gated locally, e.g. in each composing substructure.
4.2 Measurement system design (Task 2)
This task is devoted to define an optimal sensor
placement/configuration to be installed onto the
structure, to verify and update the physical modeling
of Task 1 and support the procedure of following
Tasks 3–5. The system design shall be calibrated in
view of the knowledge reached up today in the field
of Condition Monitoring. Appropriate information-
based methodologies (Fisher information, entropy,
etc.) are herein adopted for sensor type, density and
topology optimization, in order to maximize the
amount of useful information provided by the sens­
ing network system for enhancing damage detect­
ability. The updating procedure of the basic bridge
model is performed by using recent numerical opti­
mization algorithms. Non-physical but data-driven
models (such as ARMA, ARX or NARX) may also
be used as surrogates, to accelerate the optimization
process.
4.3 Damage identification of structures using
monitoring data (Task 3)
This task focuses on the development of methodolo­
gies for continually tracing the health of a structure
and rapidly predicting, identifying and locating the
onset of structural damage. This would be achieved
by analysing the time evolution of specific measur­
able structural characteristics on the bridge, such as
vibrational modal characteristics and their statistical
elaborations (Pioldi et al. 2017, Ravizza et al. 2018).
For damage identification purposes, these features
shall be combined with appropriate supervised learn­
ing algorithms, in order to associate the measured
data from the bridge, with specific, healthy or dam­
aged, class labels. Typical such algorithms include
neural networks and genetic algorithms. Appropriate
relationships among the above mentioned specific
measurable structural characteristics and sources of
uncertainty, as presented and described in Section 3,
should also be established. Such a relationship can
be described as a typical linear regression, the
weights of which can be estimated using both simu­
lation and measurement data. Its scope is that it shall
allow normalizing any data variability due to uncer­
tainty, so that any other change may safely be attrib­
uted to damage.
4.4 Predictions of fatigue damage accumulation
in structures using vibration measurements
(Task 4)
A deterioration problem of a particular interest for
the Paderno d’Adda bridge is potential fatigue. The
fatigue assessment may be realised by applying pro­
cedures that are described in normative references
and Standards, making it possible to determine
appropriate strain response estimators. This task
attempts to estimate them at unmeasured hotspot
locations, for finally determining useful fatigue
damage accumulation maps, based on monitoring
data. In particular, strain-time history characteristics
at unmeasured hotspot locations are estimated, first
by combining output-only vibration measurements
214
collected from the measurement system herein intro­
duced in Task 2, with the information build into the
available computational model of the structure.
Then, the full strain response time histories or the
probabilistic characteristics (e.g. power spectral
densities) of the dynamic strains/stresses at all hot-
spot (unmeasured) locations are estimated during an
actual system operation. The estimated quantities
can be determined on an hourly, daily, monthly or
annual basis, thus providing fatigue damage accumu­
lation maps that can be related to the operational
load on the bridge. These fatigue maps will reflect
the actual damage in the structure, consistent with its
own operational history and its integration with load
forecasts drawn up based on the planned mobility
studies for the infrastructure (Task 5) will allow to
improve predictions of the residual fatigue lifetime
and reliability of the viaduct.
4.5 Estimate of local mobility demand for the
infrastructure (Task 5)
The main objective of this task is to develop fore­
casts on the future level of infrastructure usage, dis­
tinguishing between railway-, road- and light-
mobility components. A careful study of the mobility
of the area in which the bridge is located is carried
out at this stage by estimating the level of demand
for the future usage of the infrastructure. The results
obtained from such a study will be employed for
purposes both related to the evaluation of the
residual lifetime of the viaduct (Task 4) and to the
optimization processes of maintenance planning (fol­
lowing Task 6).
4.6 Maintenance planning (Task 6)
Based on the expected loading conditions, the
numerical (FEM) model of the bridge is expected to
be able to simulate the structural response in terms
of stress/strain characteristics, thus allowing a timely
planning of the necessary maintenance activities,
according to the principle of containing the overall
cost expected for the entire life cycle of the structure.
In particular, it is planned to identify safety threshold
values for the monitored structural characteristics. In
the event that they are exceeded, a prompt inspection
and first-level maintenance activity will be activated,
to avoid deterioration of the infrastructure such as to
subsequently entail more extensive maintenance
interventions, in terms of costs and intervention
times, with limitations to the use of the viaduct and
significant damage to users.
Based on the studies conducted in Task 5, the
“optimal” maintenance actions thus determined can
finally be included in the expenditure forecasts, up to
a time horizon defined by the estimates of Task 4,
allowing owners and/or managers to operate
a correct financial planning of the interventions.
Over time, the information collected on the actual
structural health condition of the bridge related to
the current local mobility demand for the infrastruc­
ture will make it possible to confirm or correct in
a timely manner the planning of the interventions,
thus allowing a consistent dynamic maintenance
plan of the infrastructure.
5 CONCLUSIONS
This work outlined the fundamental steps for stating
an efficient SHM platform of the Paderno d’Adda
bridge (1889), a true masterpiece of the Italian iron
industry of the late 19th-century, which should soon
be elected as a candidate for inclusion in the
UNESCO list.
The fact that the bridge is still in use, raises the
difficult problem of how to preserve it over time to
a higher level, given the need to ensure structural
safety under a continuing service operation, without
any risk to the community. In such a case, non-trivial
monitoring strategies have to be put in place, consti­
tuting an ambitious scientific target.
This paper describes six basic steps (herein called
tasks) to be followed, in order to set up an efficient
structural monitoring platform for the bridge, capable
of both ensuring the safety of the structure and provid­
ing quantifiable data that can be used by operators/
owners, who are faced with strategic decisions to be
made about the infrastructure. The envisaged proced­
ure is expected to display an impact on the develop­
ment of cost-effective and efficient maintenance
strategies for structures/infrastructures of the same
relevance as that of the iconic Paderno d’Adda bridge.
ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
This study has been developed at the University of
Bergamo. Public financial support by ministerial
research funds (MIUR) “Fondi di Ricerca d’Ateneo
ex 60%” at UniBG is gratefully acknowledged.
RFI owner is thanked for interaction and accessi­
bility to the bridge.
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Ferrari, R. & Rizzi, E. 2008. On the theory of the ellipse of
elasticity as a natural discretisation method in the
design of Paderno d’Adda Bridge (Italy). Chapter 66 in
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 Reconstruction and Restoration of Architectural Heritage 2021 – Sementsov, Leontyev & Huerta (Eds)
© 2021 Taylor & Francis Group, London, ISBN 978-0-367-68296-5

The problem of value and uniqueness of the architectural appearance of

cultural heritage objects in adaptation of buildings for people with disabilities
T.S. Fridman
Saint Petersburg State University of Architecture and Civil Engineering, Saint Petersburg, Russia

ABSTRACT: A living environment accessible to the disabled is a normal environment that is equipped to meet
the needs of visitors with disabilities. The existing mechanism for creating an accessible environment simply
forces the introduction of accessibility technologies by law and regulation, often not guided by the principle of
universality and aesthetic integrity of the historical urban environment. When creating devices for low-mobility
groups of the population to create an accessible historical environment, it is necessary to consider the main factors
for its adaptation and develop basic approaches and principles when working with cultural heritage objects.

1 INTRODUCTION library, as well as any other places and materials or

Accessibility is a feature of the environment that
allows you to comfortably and easily reach any place
where services are provided. The historical environ­
ment has many difficulties in developing and carrying
out adaptation work. It represents the fabric of the city
that has been forming over the years and for the most
part, must be very carefully preserved. But the current
demands and needs of society contradict the state
policy in the field of preserving cultural heritage and
creating an accessible environment for low-mobility
groups of the population according to the Convention
for the Protection of Human Rights and Fundamental
Freedoms.
Most of the historic buildings were not originally
designed to accommodate people with disabilities
and special needs. However, people with disabilities
should, whenever possible, perceive sites, landscapes,
buildings, and spaces in the same way as other users.
Ensuring access, outside and inside, for people with
disabilities in a way that preserves the character of his­
toric property is a challenge that requires creativity and
collaboration between the State, architects, and society.
Many of us can take it for granted that we are
moving in the physical world. Curbs, thresholds, stairs,
sidewalk bars, obstacles, narrow passageways - these
are the obstacles that we walk, walk around, or over­
come many times a day. We rarely think about signs,
loudspeaker announcements, traffic lights, and other
sources that guide us or give us the information we
need.
However, for those of us who have physical diffi­
culties, a curb or a few steps can be big obstacles.
A lawyer can be just as effective in a wheelchair
if she has access to the courtroom and the law
equipment that she needs to do her job well accord­
ing to the Convention on the Rights of Persons with
Disabilities, which was adopted by the UN General
Assembly Resolution No 61/106 of 13.12.2006.
In other words, physical features that people without
physical disabilities take for granted can create serious
problems for people with different abilities, mainly
because their needs were not considered when devel­
oping these features. This lack of attention can also be
extended to the way people with disabilities are treated
when they are looking for work, education, or services.
2 MATERIALS AND METHODS
Considering historical architecture and its changes
gave a large number of reconstructive events, it can
be compared to a multi-level architectural “tem­
plate”. The “template” in this context, as a rule, was
not a complete architectural image, but only an
external shell ready for further development and
transformation. Many historical buildings that have
received the status of monuments over the years, for
the most part, when examined in detail, have the
status of a “template” and in their essence must be
adapted in every possible way to the needs of the
population for their modern effective use according
to the Federal Law of the Russian Federation of
03.05.2012 N 46-FL “About ratification of the Con­
vention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities”.
Architecture forms a space in which any person,
regardless of the group, should feel comfortable.
Over time, and as a result of changing human needs,
the environment around us, the architecture, has
undergone many changes.

DOI: 10.1201/9781003136804-42

216
 Changes in the historical environment are mainly
aimed at improving the quality of the environment
and its compliance with the modern realities of life.
At the same time, the architects, for the most part,
tried to minimize the introduction into the historical
environment and ensure maximum preservation of
the cultural and aesthetic qualities of the recon­
structed objects.
It is important to note that now the reconstruction
mainly solves not only the problem of improving the
quality of the object but also solves important social
problems, one of which is ensuring equal rights and
freedoms for all groups of the population. With each
stage of the development of society and its needs,
the monument underwent various changes.
Today, we face several unique challenges that
need to be addressed to ensure accessibility in his­
toric buildings according to SNiP 35-01-2001.
When adapting monuments for people with dis­
abilities, the late introduction into the historical
environment is often quite a serious problem. The
addition of new buildings, stairs, and the construc­
tion of additional floors lead in most cases to the
delimitation of the space of the monument and its
division not only by functional zones but by levels
according to the Decree of the Government of the
Russian Federation of 06.08.2015 No. 805 “About
modification of rules of recognition of the person as
the disabled person”.
Each subsequent layer was late about the previous
one, which makes it difficult to return to the original
appearance and functional scheme of the original
historical object since they have already become an
integral part of the historical environment.
Despite this, it is worth noting that the late layers
have two contradictory qualities.
First, despite the past time of operation, they are
alien elements about the prevailing architecture.
Secondly, and on the other hand, the fidelity
and the main criterion of the value of late imple­
mentations in the environment should and can be
characterized by its functional suitability and pro­
viding all the necessary needs at the time of the
reconstruction measures and during the long-term
operation of the updated monument, especially
since they are made in traditional architectural
and structural forms according to the Resolution
of the Government of the Russian Federation of
17.06.2015 No. 599 “On the Procedure and Terms
of Development by Federal Executive Authorities,
Executive Authorities of the Subjects of the Rus­
sian Federation, Self-Government Bodies of meas­
ures to increase the values of accessibility
indicators for disabled people of objects and
services”.
It is worth noting that with this in mind, it can be
argued that the optimal appearance of an architec­
tural monument and the historical environment as
a whole is a synthesis of its original appearance and
later implementations, justified by the needs of soci­
ety and improving the quality of the environment.
217
Today, the adaptation of monuments for people
with disabilities is an important social problem of
society. To create an accessible environment for all
groups of the population, it is necessary to make sig­
nificant changes in the planning structure and the
appearance of most monuments.
New forms and constructive tools in the historical
environment reflect the dynamics of the city’s devel­
opment. The urban historical environment, for the
most part, is paradoxical by combining completely
different techniques in creating new forms, seemingly
incompatible according to traditional architectural
canons according to the Federal Law of the Russian
Federation of 24.11.1995 No. 181-FZ “On social pro­
tection of disabled people in the Russian Federation”.
Now, it is obvious that the construction of histor­
ical cities and the interior space of architectural
monuments is multi-layered. It also depends on
modern interpretations of classic styles in modern
architecture and on the development of structures,
building materials, and the ideals of society. For the
most part, the dominant array of historical buildings
of the city dictates the direction of movement in the
development of further architectural solutions and
new inclusions in the existing environment (Davy­
dova & Radchenko 2015).
Analyzing modern foreign experience, we can iden­
tify several examples that use methods and tools for
adapting the environment possible for further use in
the historical environment of the city (Blattner et al.
2015).
Monica Ponce de Leon, dean of the School of
Architecture and Urban Planning at the University of
Michigan, advocated the principles of “universal
design”, requiring that everything from products to the
artificial environment is used as much as possible by
everyone, regardless of their age, ability or status in
life.
When designing the new booths for the Fleet
Library at the Rhode Island School of Design, Ponce
de Leon’s firm made sure that no two structures were
the same. The various widths, heights, and available
functions allow anyone to use the booths discreetly.
As the degree of disability ranges from physical
limitations to cognitive and developmental problems,
architects are constantly looking for new design
techniques that help improve access to the artificial
environment. And, as the following projects demon­
strate, these innovations go beyond the necessary
wheelchair-accessible ramp (Castell, L. 2008).
3 RESULTS AND DISCUSSION
Analyzing the modern Russian and foreign experi­
ence, we can identify several techniques and tools
that can be reworked and successfully applied as
a principle in the adaptation of cultural heritage
objects (Friedman 2017b).
One of these principles is the principle of individu­
alization, the creation of an accessible environment
through the use of devices for low-mobility groups of
the population, designed considering the architectural
and artistic characteristics of the historical building
and having an individual design (Table 1):
Consideration of devices for people with dis-
abilities, used in creating an accessible
environment for an architectural monument, as
an architectural element, can minimize the
damage caused by such reconstructive measures
to the historically established environment and
the value characteristics of the monument (Fried-
man 2017a).

Table 1. Principles of individualization of the historical environment of buildings.

The principle of individualization.

The main provisions of the principle:

The principle of individualization is the use of tools for people with limited mobility in the context of the architectural and
artistic features of the historical environment of each particular building and the development of devices for people with
disabilities.
On the example of the Bolshoi Drama Theater of Tovstonogov:
1. the use of devices for creating an accessible environment, devel­
oped according to individual design solutions, in accordance with
the features of the building interiors;
2. consideration of the implemented devices as a new architectural
element.

Example of organizing an accessible environment

218
Table 2. Architectural elements of buildings for people with limited mobility.

Architectural elements of the Devices for people with limited

environment mobility Mobility Group

Plinth 1. Entrance ramp 1. Wheelchair users

2. Horizontal hoists at the entrance 2. Disabled people with disorders of the
to the building musculoskeletal system
3. Vertical lifts at the entrance to the 3. Women with strollers
building
Fences 1. Ramps 1. Wheelchair users
2. Lifts 2. Disabled people with musculoskeletal
3. Elevators disorders
4. Stairs 3. Women with strollers
5. Horizontal travel lifts 4. Visually Impaired
6. Vertical travel lifts
7. Support handrails in the corridors
Doors and windows 1. Doors with automatic opening 1. Wheelchair users
2. Fire doors 2. Disabled people with disorders of the
3. Doors on the escape route musculoskeletal system
4. Elevator doors 3. Women with strollers
4. Visually Impaired
5. The elderly
The character and style of the historical 1. Ramps 1. Wheelchair users
decoration of the building 2. Vertical travel lifts 2. Disabled people with musculoskeletal
3. Horizontal travel lifts disorders
4. Handrails 3. Women with strollers
5. Doors 4. Visually Impaired
6. Elevators 5. Hearing-impaired persons with
7. Tactile and contrasting markings disabilities
8. On-site information 6. The elderly

The introduction of new architectural elements can
be developed by the choice of an architectural proto­
type in the reconstructed environment of the monu­
ment, addressing the techniques and motives of the
historical style. Naturally, in such cases, there should
first of all be an integral connection between the func­
tion and the style solution of the new architectural
element.
Often, historical buildings already have a great
potential for their competent inclusion in the accessible
environment of the city. Some historically designed
parts can be reinterpreted and interpreted as adapta­
tions for people with disabilities with only minor
changes and, accordingly, minimal introduction into
the historical environment (Friedman, T. S. 2018c).
Interpretation in the heritage sector has many
uses, and several definitions are used to describe it.
At the heart, however, is the transfer of information
from the institution to the visitor. Interpretation is
how we convey this information. This is often asso­
ciated with an object, artifact, sample, or work of art.
The best interpretation is to attract as many visitors
as possible to the historical object and convey infor­
mation about it in a meaningful and relevant way,
rather than just information on the wall.
The interpretation of carriage ramps as a historical
device for low-mobility groups of the population can
carry not only historical information, but also inform
visitors of the accessible environment available in it
(Friedman 2018a). In St. Petersburg, carriage ramps
are beginning to be actively designed and built in the
buildings of manors and palaces of the late 18th cen­
tury in connection with the spread of carriage trans­
port, the growing standard of living, and the laying of
new roads. By the end of the 19th century, the number
of carriages began to increase and, accordingly, for the
most part, carriage ramps became an integral part of
the design of the homes of well-to-do citizens.
During the study of several architectural monu­
ments, problem areas for the movement of low-
mobility groups of the population and the main stylistic
features of cultural heritage objects and the historical
environment as a whole, as well as devices for low-
mobility groups of the population used to create an
accessible environment, the following architectural
elements were identified (Table 2).
4 CONCLUSION
It is important to note that when working with the
historical environment and adapting it for people with
disabilities, it is necessary to consider various factors
that affect both the adaptable monuments themselves
and the inclusion of low-mobility groups in a society
with equal rights and opportunities (Friedman 2018b).

219
 In particular, I would like to emphasize that when
developing design solutions for the adaptation of the
historical environment for people with disabilities,
we should not forget about the analysis of the feasi­
bility of the proposed adaptation measures by the
value characteristics of the object, the current state
of the monument, as well as the economic efficiency
of the proposed solutions. These are the first steps in
the development of basic principles for the adapta­
tion of the historical environment for people with
disabilities, which in the future will allow the use
and development of existing objects of historical and
cultural heritage in the modern life of society.
REFERENCES
Blattner A., Vasilev Y., & Harriehausen-Mühlbauer B.
2015. Mobile indoor navigation assistance for mobility
impaired people. Procedia Manufacturing 3: 51–58.
Castell L. 2008. Adapting building design to access by
individuals with intellectual disability. Construction
Economics and Building 8(1): 11–22.
220
Davydova E. M., & Radchenko V. Yu. 2015. Social topics
in design as a means of forming an active life position
of students. Privolzhsky Scientific Bulletin 11 (51):
107–111.
Friedman T. S. 2017a. Modern trends in the adaptation of
architectural monuments for people with disabilities.
Perspectives of Science (5): 29–31.
Friedman T. S. 2017b. The impact of legislation on creating
an accessible environment for people with limited
mobility. Science and business: ways of development 11
(77): 40–44.
Friedman T. S. 2018a. Adaptations for the adaptation of
historical buildings for people with limited mobility as
an architectural detail. Perspectives of Science (3):
55–58.
Friedman T. S. 2018b. Creating an adaptive environment
for people with limited mobility in historical buildings
of higher educational institutions. In Architecture-
Construction-Transport: 146–148.
Friedman T. S. 2018c. The problem of accessibility of his­
torical buildings for people with limited mobility. “Rea­
sonable accommodation”, a matter of terminology.
Science and Business: Ways of Development 4 (82):
47–50.
 Reconstruction and Restoration of Architectural Heritage 2021 – Sementsov, Leontyev & Huerta (Eds)
© 2021 Taylor & Francis Group, London, ISBN 978-0-367-68296-5

Russian experience in the use of laser scanning in restoration and

reconstruction of cultural heritage objects
E.P. Iakhina
Saint Petersburg State University of Architecture and Civil Engineering, Saint Petersburg, Russia

ABSTRACT: A broad analysis of Russian laser scanning projects in the field of architecture, implemented
mainly in Moscow and St. Petersburg, was carried out, identifying the year of construction of the objects, the
purpose and year of the project, its duration, volume, type, and result of the work performed, as well as the
challenges faced by scanning specialists. In conclusion, conclusions are drawn about the use of this technol­
ogy in Russia since the 2000s, about the time when the first laser scanners appeared on the market, and the
prospects for its further development in the country are formulated.

1 INTRODUCTION initiative, which was called the “Conservation Project”.

Modern technology of laser scanning (3D-scanning)
plays a crucial role in the preservation of cultural
heritage sites of regional and federal significance,
identified architectural monuments, as well as build­
ings with a relatively poor life history, which never­
theless require periodic inspection and updating.
Foreign experience in the application of laser scan­
ning technology in architecture has proved its excep­
tional importance in the reconstruction and restoration
of monuments and structures of historical and cultural
significance. Since the early 2000s, the international
CyArk project has been continuously scanning histor­
ical sites and sites, most of which are located in
Europe, North America, and the Middle East. And
although ground-based scanners adapted for fixing
architectural and other objects appeared in the 1990s,
and their predecessors, electronic total stations, in the
early seventies, the growth in popularity of laser scan­
ning technology in the preservation of cultural heri­
tage is often associated with the early 2000s and the
work of the CyArk team, which closely cooperates
with manufacturers of laser scanning devices and sys­
tems (Epifanova 2019, Sisson 2019).
To date, there are no such large-scale non-profit ini­
tiatives in Russia. The aforementioned CyArk group
bypassed the Russian cultural heritage and imple­
mented only a few projects in the post-Soviet space: in
Belarus, Armenia, Uzbekistan, and Turkmenistan.
However, it would be wrong to talk about the lack of
interest in the preservation of architectural objects on
the part of the public. In October 2020, the All-
Russian Society for the Protection of Historical and
Cultural Monuments announced the decision to for­
malize the direction of conservation in a separate
Saving the architectural heritage of Russia”. Architec­
tural measurements, including those made by laser
scanning, will be part of the rescue measures of the
new project.
Russian researchers are increasingly talking about
the prospects of using laser scanning in relation to
architectural heritage monuments (Novik 2018,
Sederovich 2009, Usova, 2006, Shamarina 2016,
Gura 2012). And there is an objective justification
for this. Over the past 15-20 years, extensive restor­
ation projects have been approved and implemented
at the state and regional levels within the framework
of the federal target programs “Culture of Russia”
and “Preservation and Development of the Architec­
ture of Historical Cities”, as well as the subprograms
“Heritage”(St. Petersburg), “State Protection, Preser­
vation and Promotion of cultural heritage objects”
(Moscow). It is important to note that the Moscow
restoration program is the largest in the world. With­
out a doubt, all this creates favorable conditions for
the further development of laser scanning technology
in Russia, which is indispensable in solving the
problems of preserving monuments and objects of
historical value (Freydin 2007).
Despite the high demand for laser scanning in
architecture, at the moment there is practically no
aggregated data on the use of this technology in
Russia. On the one hand, this is because the architec­
tural sphere, although it demonstrates the most
clearly the possibilities of three-dimensional scan­
ning of surfaces, nevertheless does not occupy
a leading position in several other fields of science,
technology, and industry. According to the Global
Market Insights (GMI) report, which contains an
analysis of the global 3D scanning market, including

DOI: 10.1201/9781003136804-43

221
data from Russia, the use of the technology in archi­
tecture and design until 2024, with continued
growth, will still be inferior to its use in industrial
production, space and defense industries, and health­
care. At the same time, the demand in the Russian
market is called one of the drivers of the growth of
the laser scanning market in the world. On the other
hand, since laser scanning is mainly carried out by
commercial companies, technical information about
the project (the duration of fieldwork and data pro­
cessing, the result of the work, the equipment used,
etc.) often remains undisclosed. Meanwhile, the
authorities and the media are happy to report on
another successful project in the field of cultural
heritage preservation. Such information asymmetry
leads to a situation where only professional analyt­
ical centers can deeply evaluate the use of
technology.
2 MATERIALS AND METHODS
In the light of the above, the aim of this work was to
study the experience of using laser scanning technol­
ogy in the field of cultural heritage preservation on
the example of Russian restoration and reconstruc­
tion projects, mainly in Moscow and St. Petersburg.
For this purpose, data from open sources were
used: open data portals of government authorities
(the Unified State Register of Cultural Heritage
Objects (historical and cultural monuments) of the
peoples of the Russian Federation, “Objects of Cul­
tural Heritage of Moscow”, the List of Cultural Heri­
tage objects and identified cultural heritage objects
on the territory of St. Petersburg), the free encyclo­
pedia “Wikipedia” and the official websites of com­
panies that provide services for laser scanning of
architectural objects.
The main source of data was the sections of com­
panies ‘websites dedicated to completed projects.
This information is available on the pages of many
market participants, but only a few resources pro­
vided details of the work done, including the number
of scans made and the difficulties faced by employ­
ees at the field and desk stages.
In total, 10 companies from Moscow and
St. Petersburg were taken for analysis: Moscow-
NGKI (37%), Trimetari (9%), Soyuzgiprozem (4%),
Acropolis Geo (1%), Geodesy and Design (3%),
Jena Tool (1%); St. Petersburg — Photogrammetry
(32%), Kubarta (3%), Benta (6%), 3DScan (5%).
The core of the obtained data array (69%) was made
up of the undisputed leaders of the Russian laser
scanning market: NGKI and Photogrammetry, which
have been working since the advent of 3D scanners
in Russia (since the early 2000s).
The final table includes 155 projects described (if
relevant information is available) using 16 param­
eters: company (contractor), region, year of con­
struction, cultural heritage sites, project year, project
goal, field stage (days), data processing (days), total
222
project time (days), number of scans, area (m2), sub­
ject of work (what was scanned), type of work (laser
scanning or mixed type), equipment, result, difficul­
ties. The data of nine of them (company, region, cul­
tural heritage object, year of construction, year and
purpose of the project, subject, and type of work,
result) are present for more than half of the projects,
four more parameters (field stage and data process­
ing, total time, equipment) are filled in about a third
of the cases, and three (number of scans, area, diffi­
culty) are low (8-25%).
Processing of the received data was performed
using the Python programming language - using the
Pandas library. The visualizations were made using
Python graphics libraries and a specialized data visu­
alization program called Tableau.
3 RESULTS AND DISCUSSION
The majority of the studied projects were imple­
mented in Moscow and St. Petersburg (77%). And
this is not surprising, since the offices of two leading
companies in the industry are located in these cities.
In addition, it is for the preservation of the architec­
tural heritage of the capitals, business and cultural,
that more money is spent from the federal and
regional budgets. However, it would be a mistake to
assume that the activities of companies are closed at
their location. Large market participants receive
orders in other regions, and sometimes abroad (in
Egypt, Israel, the United Arab Emirates, etc.).
When analyzing the time of construction, and
therefore the age of the objects, it was revealed that
a significant part belongs to the period starting from
the beginning of the XVIII century. This is well
demonstrated by the scattered graph, which also
shows that there are several medieval monuments
among the restored ones (4%). Of course, these are
not all the ancient objects examined by laser scan­
ning over the past twenty years in Russia. But based
on the proportions of the distribution obtained based
on the available sample, it can be concluded that, in
general, such structures are less common than others
with modern technologies. The largest group is
buildings built in the XIX and XX centuries (73%).
In the vast majority of cases (93%), laser scanning
was performed on the territory of cultural heritage
sites: 53% of federal significance, 32% of regional
significance, and 8% of identified monuments.
A small part of the projects (7%) was not related to
the preservation of officially recognized cultural
heritage sites. However, the absence of a building in
the federal or regional register does not always indi­
cate that it has no cultural or historical value. For
example, two houses in the center of Moscow built
in the first third of the XX century could be con­
sidered architectural monuments of regional signifi­
cance. But for some reason, they are not on this list.
When evaluating the number of projects in differ­
ent years, it is important to remember that the earlier
the laser scanning of an architectural object was per­
formed, the less likely it is that open information
about it has been preserved. In this regard, the results
of the last decade are more indicative, reflecting an
uneven increase in the number of projects with
a drop in 2012, 2017, and 2020. At the same time,
the level of activity last year fell almost to the value
of 2012 (7 projects against 6). The maximum
number of works on laser scanning of cultural
objects was recorded in 2018 and 2019 (19 and 20,
respectively).
Two-thirds of the projects (68%) were related to
the restoration of the object, 23% — to its recon­
struction. A small proportion of projects (9%) had
other goals: video mapping, survey, modernization,
design, repair, communication design, landscaping,
creating a similar object, scientific research, etc.
It is easy to assume that the most frequent subject
of restoration work is the facades of buildings. For
almost a decade, from 2005 to 2013, the cultural
capital operated a special governor’s program
“Facades of St. Petersburg”, which will partly con­
tinue in 2021 as part of the regional initiative to
restore the front and courtyard facades of apartment
buildings that are objects of cultural heritage.
The analysis confirmed that the facades were
restored more often than other parts of the building
(46%). In about a quarter of cases (23%), laser scan­
ner measurements were carried out in the entire
building (the subject of work is not more precisely
defined), less often on the roof (11%) and attic (3%),
in the interior and interior (10% each). The lens of
the scanning devices also included interior details
and decor, stairs, paintings, frescoes, iconostasis,
windows and doors, the surrounding area, gazebos,
fountains, grottos, towers, metro tunnels, technical
rooms, equipment, engineering communications, etc.
Most often, laser scanning was performed on
German equipment, mainly from Leica (79%), less
often on Zoller & Fröhlich (13%). In the Leica
model range, the most popular was the Leica Scan
Station P20 3D scanner (30%), slightly less popular
on the Leica Scan Station P40 (24%). The Leica
R TC 360 and Leica BLK 360 were used together in
15% of the cases.
Approximately equal proportions of laser scan­
ning specialists used equipment from American
manufacturers FARO Technologies and Trimble
Navigation (32%). A small part of the projects was
accompanied by Callidus devices (2%), Surphaser
(1%), and Konica Minolta (1%).
Since a third of the projects (32%) used not only
laser scanning but also other methods, such as aerial
photography, total station measurements, photogram­
metry, then in the list of equipment used, you can
find unmanned aerial vehicles (drones), total stations
and an SLR camera. It should be noted that some
devices (Leica Scan Station P20, Leica Scan Station
P40, Luisa BLK 360, etc.) have a built-in camera,
which eliminates the need to use additional equip­
ment. However, in some projects, even if there is
223
a multifunctional device for fixing complex convex
surfaces, professional photographic equipment may
be required. For example, in the project to scan the
Golden Colossus fountain at VDNH, in addition to
the Leica Scan Station P20 scanner with a built-in
camera (20 scans were obtained), a camera was
used, which was used to take 5000 images.
The longest project (Badaevsky brewery in
Moscow) took 9.5 months (287 days), of which
three months specialists scanned the object and more
than six months processed the data. In this project,
5,500 scans were obtained, which is close to the
maximum value of 6,000 scans made during the
scanning work in the Moscow Metro.
The most ambitious project in terms of the area of
the scanned surface was the scanning of the facades
of the Main Headquarters of the Ground Forces in
Moscow. In total, the scanner recorded 85,000
square meters (Table 1).
The demand for laser scanning technology when
measuring architectural objects is primarily related to
the legislative requirements for scientific and design
documentation, which is necessary for restoration
work and reconstruction. It is not uncommon when the
main documentation on the object is lost or does not
correspond to the tasks set. In both cases, the necessary
documentation can be compiled based on the results of
the laser scan. Also, the actual requirement of today is
to include objects in the 3D real estate cadaster, which
consists of” digital doubles “of structures obtained
using laser scanning (Romanovich, 2020).
Almost half (49%) of the analyzed projects ended
up with the creation of measurement documentation,
which included floor plans, roof drawings, sections
and sections, drawings of interiors, facade elements,
etc. In 12% of cases, the customer required orthopho­
toplans and orthophotographs. Modern digital models
based on point clouds were in demand in the majority
of projects (57%). At the same time, for some, it was
enough to get a “raw” point cloud (19%) and inde­
pendently modify it, for others, ready-made three-
dimensional models were needed: point (41%) and
mesh (4%) models. In rare cases (4%), the laser meas­
urements obtained were integrated into the informa­
tion model (BIM model). Also, it should be noted that
along with three-dimensional models, in some cases,
the customer received TrueView panoramas and a 3D
tour.
Table 1. Minimum, maximum, and average values of
quantitative parameters.
Parameter min max mean
Total time (days) 2 287 30
Field stage (days) 1 97 7
Data processing (days) 1 190 25
Number of scans 16 6 000 1362
Area (m2) 300 85 000 16 596
 One of the most interesting sections of the ana­
lysis is devoted to the difficulties faced by specialists
in laser scanning and data processing. As it turned
out, every fifth project (19%) was associated with
adverse weather conditions. And since in the Russian
reality we are talking about the middle and northern
latitudes, most often the hostile force for surveyors
was the cold: they worked in severe frost (-20 C)
continuously for several hours, and sometimes in
rainy conditions.
Problematic situations in more than a quarter of
projects (27%) were associated with difficult access
to the object or its parts. For this reason, the domes
of two cathedrals (Sretensky in the Ryazan region
and Uspensky in the Ivanovo region) were photo­
graphed from the air using an unmanned aerial
vehicle. In the building of the State Central Museum
of Modern History of Russia, scanning was problem­
atic due to the narrow rooms, cluttered attics, and
basements. At the A. A. Theater Museum. Bakhrush­
ina scanning specialists managed to get into the attic
room only thanks to the lift.
A lot of difficulties in several projects were
caused by dense and tall trees that block the view,
and therefore force you to increase the total number
of scans. Other challenges during laser scanning of
objects were: dilapidated condition (14%), an abun­
dance of decor (14%), people in the building (11%),
nighttime shooting (5%), as well as the urgency of
the order, communication with architects-restorers,
traffic and bureaucratic delays (14% combined).
Perhaps the most unexpected complexity can be
considered the peculiarities of customs procedures
operating on the territory of Pulkovo-2 airport,
which belongs to the identified objects of cultural
heritage. Since some of the internal premises and
courtyards are located in the customs control zone,
the scanning specialists had to repeatedly cross the
state border every day in compliance with all the
formalities.
4 CONCLUSION
An analysis of the Russian experience in the applica­
tion of laser scanning technology in the field of cul­
tural heritage preservation has shown that since the
2000s, when the first 3D scanners appeared in the
country, there has been an uneven increase in
the number of projects in Moscow and St. Petersburg,
as well as in the Moscow and Leningrad regions. In
general terms, this corresponds to the global trend of
the laser scanning market, which, according to the
GMI forecast, will continue to move positively in the
next few years. At the same time, it is significant to
note that the number of identified projects for laser
scanning in architecture in 2020 in Russia was signifi­
cantly lower compared to previous years: this figure
fell to the level of 2012. However, it is not necessary
to absolutize this fact, since it is influenced by the
selective nature of the source data.
224
Russian companies actively use intelligent sys­
tems at the desk stage (data processing) to create
three-dimensional models (point and grid) and
information models (BIM). The region’s most
heavily affected by the new technology are
Moscow and St. Petersburg. At the same time,
most often the buildings of the XIX and XX cen­
turies were subject to restoration and reconstruc­
tion. In the vast majority of cases, the projects
used equipment from the German company Leica.
It should also be noted that when performing
laser scanning of architectural objects, surveyors
had to consider the peculiarities of the Russian
climate (severe frosts in winter), limited access to
some parts of the object (domes, attics, base­
ments), dilapidated condition of the premises,
crowded and large traffic, an abundance of decor
and a variety of surfaces.
Since the laser scanning technology has not
reached the last stage of its development, which is
accompanied by an increase in capabilities and at the
same time its reduction in cost (Rylsky 2020), con­
sidering the restoration plans at the regional and fed­
eral levels, it can be assumed that in the following
years it will expand the scope of application in the
architectural sphere, including by possibly reducing
the cost of equipment and projects in general.
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 Reconstruction and Restoration of Architectural Heritage 2021 – Sementsov, Leontyev & Huerta (Eds)
© 2021 Taylor & Francis Group, London, ISBN 978-0-367-68296-5

Restoration of the church of the Pious Countess Anna Kashinskaya in

St. Petersburg
O.M. Kormiltseva & A.G. Leontiev
Saint Petersburg State University of Architecture and Civil Engineering, Saint Petersburg, Russia

ABSTRACT: The article considers the restoration and restoration work on the architectural monument of
St. Petersburg – the church of the Pious Countess Anna Kashinskaya of the Vvedeno-Oyatsky Convent on
Bolshoy Sampsonievsky Prospekt in St. Petersburg. As a result of the work carried out, the building was
taken out of disrepair, which allowed it to be used for its original purpose and qualitatively improve the living
conditions of the nuns of the courtyard.

1 INTRODUCTION P. K. and Geldwein O. O. The porch of the main

The Pious Countess Church of Anna Kashinskaya
belongs to the Neo-Russian style. The problems of the
emergence and development of this architectural style
are discussed in detail in the monographs of Lisovsky
V. G. (2000) and Kirichenko E. I. (1997, 2016, 2020).
Kirikov B. M. (1983ab, 1992, 1993, 1994ab) in his
works refers to the description of specific works per­
formed in the neo-Russian style. For the first time, the
authors of the article present a detailed history of the
design and construction of this temple based on the
study of archival documents (Kormiltseva & Leontiev
2000). Belonozhkin A. E. in his monograph character­
ized the activity of Aplaksin A. P. as a leading archi­
tect of the neo-Russian style of the turn of the XIX-
early XX century (Belonozhkin 2013).
However, the issues of the restoration of the church
have not yet received coverage in the literature, so the
authors, based on the study of archival documents and
the analysis of modern materials, present the most
complete picture of the work performed.
History of construction and transformation. On
March 7, 1906, the St. Petersburg Ecclesiastical
Consistory authorized the construction of a church
on the site of the Sretensky Kashinsky Monastery
courtyard on Bolshoy Sampsonievsky Prospekt.
Diocesan architect A. P. Aplaksin completed the
project by interpreting the prototypes of the ancient
Novgorod-Pskov architecture in the composition of the
lapidary volumes. The motifs of Russian architecture
were also reflected in the modernized drawing of the
facades. Along with this, the architect included majol­
ica and murals, also transformed in the Art Nouveau
style, in the decorative and artistic design. For the dec­
oration of the drums of the temple and the bell tower,
majolica was performed in the workshop of Vaulin
entrance is also decorated in the style of pre-Petrine
architecture in the form of a traditional locker with
a double arch and a weight, with thickened columns,
a domed finish with the imperial crown, symbolizing
the dedication of the imperial family. A special feature
of the church was the arrangement of two side-chapels
in the first and second floors, facing the general church
volume, with an iconostasis in each of them.
On June 23, 1907, the church was laid. Two years
later, on December 18, 1909, the main side-chapel of
the church in the name of Anna Kashinskaya was
solemnly consecrated, the glorification of which was
restored in June of the same year
The construction of the church did not end there,
as the upper side-chapel in the name of St. Nicholas
the Wonderworker and St. Alexy Metropolitan of
Moscow was consecrated on October 17, 1911.
The internal layout is subordinated to the main task:
parish services should not disrupt the course of monas­
tic life. To this end, Aplaksin A. P. introduced an add­
itional volume of the connecting wing and a bypass
gallery on the second floor. The main altar and the
altar of the upper side-chapel are placed on the same
axis and are turned into a single volume of the church,
thus the architect provided for the use of the lower
altar for parish services, and the upper one only for
nuns.
This solution distinguished the temple from
others, putting it in several original religious build­
ings (Kormiltseva & Leontiev 2000).
After 1917, the church was closed, the building
housed various institutions. In 1994, the church was
returned to the diocese, it housed the courtyard of
the Vvedeno-Oyatsky convent, which began the res­
toration of the church. Currently, the architectural
decoration of the facades of the building has not

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226
been restored: the picturesque inserts were lost in the
Soviet era; the decorative majolica friezes of the
main drum and bell tower were dismantled at the
same time and transferred to the State Museum of
the History of St. Petersburg for storage.

2 MATERIALS AND METHODS

In 1995, the specialists of the open joint-stock com­

pany “Restoration Center” drew up a project of the
central dome with a head and a cross. Restoration
and restoration work began with the dismantling of
the late ceiling of the church hall, columns, and ele­
vator (in the altar part), built in Soviet times; parti­
tions in different parts of the building, and pumping
water in the basement.
By October of the following year, the restoration
of the heads on the drums of the church, the bell
tower, and the chapel was completed; at the same
time, the crosses were installed.
In September 1997, the institute “Lenproektres­
tavratsiya” was involved in the restoration of the
building by the nun Angelina (Vasilyeva), who man­
aged the farmstead. This organization continued the
field study of the object, archival research, and
development of restoration projects.
First of all, it was necessary to solve the
issues of emergency response in various parts of
the building. For this purpose, the “Emergency
Response Plan” was drawn up on November 17,
1997 (Leontiev 1997).
The survey and design work concerned only the
church building with the chapel. The two-storey cell
building, which previously belonged to the farm­
stead and was connected to the church by a passage
along the northern border of the land plot, was built
up to five floors in Soviet times and houses residen­
tial apartments that still exist today. At the same
time, the passage connecting the temple and the cell
building was completely destroyed (Figure 1).
In 1998, the design workshop under the direction
of A. G. Leontiev completed projects for the restor­
ation of the chapel and the carpentry of the altar. Pre­
viously, the chapel had an entrance from
Sampsonievsky Prospekt, which was laid with brick­
work in Soviet times, and to connect with the chapel
from the narthex room, a doorway was broken into
the chapel room, which was located a meter below
the floor of the temple. A staircase is arranged in the
broken one. When developing the project, it was
decided to save the late reception, to make the stair­
case in stone, and to open the bookmark of the
entrance to the chapel from the side of the avenue,
opening direct access from the street. As a result of
the analysis of iconographic materials, it was pos­
sible to restore the architectural solution of the door
to the chapel. CJSC “First Peterhof Restoration
Workshops”, headed by General Director Agalina
G. A., was involved in the work on restoration
issues. In September 1998, the door to the chapel
227
Figure 1. General view of the church from the north at the
junction of the destroyed passage to the cell building.
Photo 1996 Personal archive of A. G. Leontiev.
from the side of Bolshoy Sampsonievsky Prospekt
was installed.
In the room of the chapel, which had a second
light, restoration began: plasterwork, the device of
stone floors and stairs in the passage to the narthex
of the temple.
The manager of the courtyard, Nun Angelina,
organized repair and restoration work in the church ­
the installation of floor bases, primarily in the altar,
the installation of new wooden frames in the altar,
plastering the walls and slopes of window openings.
All works were carried out under the supervision of
the KGIOP. The original plaster layer was no longer
on the walls by that time, the surviving fragments
were irreversibly damaged by microflora and
destruction.
The old utility networks were damaged and
leaked directly into the basements, so one of the
urgent issues was the connection of the building to
the external water supply and sewerage networks. In
1999, LLC “GIDROKOR” performed a survey of
the basement of the building, which constantly
received ground water, as well as water from the
engineering communications located here – water
supply and heating.
In 2000, the design workshop of the institute
“Lenproektrestavratsiya” completed the architectural
section of the project for the restoration of the west­
ern part of the passage, which previously connected
the temple with the cell building. Given the circum­
stances that prevent the transfer of the cell building
to the community, it was decided to restore only the ceilings, roofs and finishing work on the facades and
part of the passage directly adjacent to the northern interiors of the restored part of the transition. Archi­
part of the temple, in historical elevations, based on tectural supervision was carried out by the chief
the study of iconography. architect of the project A. G. Leontiev.
In October 2000, the project, which includes gen­ Along with this, by the KGIOP program, the
eral drawings of floor plans, facades, and sections, facades of the church were restored: plaster layers
was completed and approved by the KGIOP. Draw­ were re-executed, plaster rods, arcature belts on the
ings of structures and elements of facades and inter­ bell tower, window frames were restored in places of
iors were to be developed at the next stage. loss. The building was completely restored to its his­
In July 2001, as part of the restoration work pro­ torical appearance, including a light beige color
gram of the KGIOP, Geoizol LLC began to imple­ scheme with white architectural details.
ment large-scale and, as it turned out, very complex Considering the specifics of the organization of
works on waterproofing the basements of the temple. services and the life of the monastery compound,
The work began with the removal of the late layers a metal fence was installed around the church and the
of floor coverings and a layer of soil for the con­ restored part of the transition to the cell building. At
struction of a powerful reinforced concrete slab. In the same time, passage and passage from Sampso­
addition to the foundation for the floors, this plate nievsky Prospekt to a residential building located in
was supposed to protect the premises from ground­ the depth of the land plot were provided. (Figure 2).
water and fasten the old walls. Due to this,
a strongbox of the building was obtained, which was
able to perceive the effects both from the ground 3 RESULTS
water itself, which had a significant pressure here
under the building and from the increased vibration During the development of scientific and design docu­
from the avenue, along which the active movement mentation for the restoration of the object, archival
of heavy vehicles and trams was carried out. Work materials were studied: drawings of Aplaksin A. P. in
on the installation of a waterproofing plate and tides the Russian State Historical Archive in the fund of the
at the walls of the basement began in late 2001.
In addition to the measures to protect the base­
ments from ground water, GIDROKOR LLC has
developed a project of wall drainage outside the per­
imeter of the building. The work was carried out
after the installation of the stove in the basement. At
the same time, the stormwater drainage system and
the external vertical waterproofing of the walls with
a blind area were installed outside. In the summer of
2001, parishioners and volunteers opened the base­
ment windows that had been laid in the Soviet
period.
By the end of 2002, the restoration of the main
porch and the pit on the side of the altar was com­
pleted according to the project of the Lenproektres­
tavratsiya Institute.
After the implementation of the entire complex of
engineering works to protect the basement of the
building from the ground and atmospheric water, the
heating system was reconstructed with re-routing in
the lower floor.
LLC Gidrokor in 2004 performed an engineering
survey of the walls and ceilings of the bell tower,
based on which he developed a project for its repair
with the design of the exit to the upper tier of the
bell tower (through the ceiling), which provided for
the elimination of the causes of atmospheric precipi­
tation in the rooms located below.
In 2006-2007, the Lenproektrestavratsiya Institute
completed the development of project documenta­
tion for the restoration of the western part of the
transition to the cell building.
In 2007-2008, Construction Company Dalpiter­
stroy LLC completed general construction work to Figure 2. The restored part of the transition to the cell
strengthen the foundations, build walls, install building. Photo 2008 Personal archive of A. G. Leontiev.

228
Holy Synod, photographs with images of the courtyard
in different periods of its existence, starting with the
construction (including photos from the newspaper of
the beginning of the XX century), data from the
survey of the building structures and field inspections,
especially in places of exposed brickwork, special
soundings in the floors and pits near the foundations,
as well as data on measurements of the building and
its individual fragments.
The study of the underground part and the hydro-
geological regime at the base was particularly difficult.
According to information from various maps that
recorded the situation on the site before the construc­
tion of the farmstead, it was found that under the
church building there is a silted bed of an ancient
stream that crosses the site in the direction from north­
west to south-east. This explained the heavy flooding
of the ground, the water level in the pits that were not
lowered by pumping, and the presence of water-
saturated dusty sands in the base under the building.
All these factors have made it very difficult to find
design solutions and special calculations of the slab in
the basement.
During the operation of the building, in the
absence of proper repairs, the condition of the roof­
ing significantly deteriorated. As a result, leaks were
formed, which were not eliminated for a long time,
which led to the destruction of both the plaster layers
of the facades and the destruction of bricks in the
walls and the rotting of the wooden roof structures.
The condition of the basement part of the build­
ing was aggravated by leaks of the engineering
networks passing here: water supply and heating.
The completion of the roofing works and the
restoration of the domes made it possible to organ­
ize the progressive drying of the building and its
structures, and the damaged sites became available
for detailed inspection.
memoir sources, the authors for the first time give
a comprehensive view of the history of construction,
degrading transformation, research, design, and imple­
mentation of restoration and restoration work for the
further use of the temple. Based on a compromise solu­
tion, due to the impossibility of full restoration due to
unresolved property issues, only part of the transition
from the temple to the cell building was restored
according to a specially developed project.
After the restoration of the church and the restor­
ation of part of the passage, the monastery compound
was able to make optimal use of all the premises and
improve the living conditions of the disciples.
The restoration of the temple allowed to bring the
building out of disrepair and return it to full use for
its original purpose.
After the completion of restoration works covering
the period 1995-2008, the church of Pious Countess
Anna Kashinskaya was one of the first temple build­
ings of the architect Aplaksin A. P. in St. Petersburg,
which underwent a large-scale comprehensive restor­
ation. The object of the cultural heritage of regional
significance and one of the significant architectural
dominants of Bolshoy Sampsonievsky Prospekt has
been restored to its historical appearance. The
methods and methods of restoration used in the pro­
cess of restoration and restoration work can be used
in the restoration of not only Neo-Russian style build­
ings but also other religious buildings. (Figure 3).

4 DISCUSSION

Due to the lack of funding, the following historically

existing elements of the church were not realized
during the last restoration: majolica bas-reliefs on the
facades of the main drum and bell tower and a two-
tiered iconostasis separated by an inter-floor overlap
of the gallery that passed in the altar part. The pas­
sage to the cell building of the courtyard in the north­
eastern part of the church was partially restored.
The obvious achievements include the restoration
of the facades of the temple with the restoration of
the plaster decoration and historical coloring, water­
proofing of the basement, and the installation of
a stormwater yard sewer.

5 CONCLUSION
Figure 3. General view of the church from Bolshoy Samp­
sonievsky Prospekt. Photo 2021 Personal archive of
As a result of studying the design materials of the A. G. Leontiev.
architect A. P. Aplaksin, iconographic materials, and
229
6 RECOMMENDATIONS
In the institute” Lenproektrestavratsiya“of the Architec­
tural and Restoration Research Design Workshop No.
4, under the leadership of the chief architect of the pro­
jects, A. G. Leontiev, in 2017, developed a plan of
emergency measures for the Church of St. Anna
Kashinskaya (53 Bolshoy Sampsonievsky Ave.) in
St. Petersburg, which includes:
1. Measures for drainage and protection of the
underground part of the building from flooding,
including surveys and waterproofing of the base­
ments of the building, finding the historical drain­
age and storm sewer and work on its cleaning and
necessary repairs, the construction of a blind area
around the building.
2. Inspection of the technical condition of the sup­
porting structures of the foundations and walls in
the place of the destroyed transition to the former
cell building, as well as the porch of the main
entrance to the temple, with the development of
design solutions for their repair.
3. Inspection and repair of the roof structures and the
roof around the drum of the temple to eliminate
leaks.
4. Survey with the development of a design solution
for the emergency section of the belfry walls at the
level of the 3rd - 4th tiers, where there are creeping
cracks due to the destruction of metal beams from
corrosion-connections of the intermediate floor,
with the preliminary installation of beacons on the
cracks.
5. Study the state of the temperature and humidity
regime of the air environment in the building to
normalize it.
6. Inspection of internal channels (smoke, ventilation,
and heat) with the development of design solutions
for their restoration and use for ventilation and
normalization of temperature and humidity condi­
tions in the building (especially the basement).
7. Inspection of the heating system of the temple
with the development of recommendations and
necessary design solutions.
8. Restoration of the original volume of the chapel (in
combination with drainage and waterproofing of
the walls of the building) with the opening of the
original doorway, removal of late floor layers, and
heating.
9. Restoration of joiner’s fillings of window and
door exterior openings with the disassembly of
late door openings.
230
The composition and order of work can be spe­
cified in the course of the study of the object and
depending on the terms of financing.
REFERENCES
Belonozhkin A. E. 2013. St. Petersburg Diocesan archi­
tect A. P. Aplaksin. St. Petersburg: Nevsky Mir. Faces
of Russia.
Kirichenko E. I. 1997. Russian style. The search for the
expression of national identity. Nationality and national­
ity. Traditions and nationality of folk art of the XVIII-
early XX century. Moscow: Galart.
Kirichenko E. I. 2016. Architect Vasily Kosyakov. Moscow:
BuksMArt.
Kirichenko E. I. 2020. Russian style. The search for the
expression of national identity. Nationality and national­
ity. Traditions and nationality of folk art of the XVIII-
early XX century. Moscow: BuksMArt.
Kirikov B. M. 1983a. A monument of the Russian style.
Leningrad Panorama 10: 33–35.
Kirikov B. M. 1983b. The semantics of the forms of the Rus­
sian style in the cult architecture of the late XIX century
(On the example of a new museum object-the Church of
the Resurrection in Leningrad). Scientific and atheistic
research in museums. In Proceedings of the State Museum
of the History of Religion and Atheism: 69–88.
Kirikov B. M. 1992. Russian style in the architecture of
Uglich and Kashin. In Monuments of history and culture
of the Upper Volga Region: reports of the III regional
Scientific Conference: 75–78.
Kirikov B. M. 1993. The Church of the Resurrection of
Christ. On the history of the Russian style in
St. Petersburg. Nevsky Archive. In Historical and Local
History Collection 1: 204–245. Moscow: Nevsky
Archive.
Kirikov B. M. 1994a. Monuments of the Russian style in
Uglich and Kashin. On the role of the St. Petersburg
school of architecture in the revival of national features of
the provincial architecture of the XIX century. In
St. Petersburg Readings. St. Petersburg and Russia: scien­
tific conference. St. Petersburg, April 13-15, 1994: 70–72.
Kirikov B. M. 1994b. The first examples of the New Rus­
sian style in St. Petersburg. St. Petersburg readings. In
St. Petersburg and Russia: scientific conference.
St. Petersburg, April 13-15, 1994: 98–102.
Kormiltseva O. M. & Leontiev A. G. 2000. The Church of
the Pious Countess of Anna Kashinskaya. Historical and
cultural monuments of St. Petersburg. In Research and
materials 5: 221–230. St. Petersburg: White and black.
Leontiev A. G. 1997. Plan of emergency measures for
the church of Anna Kashinskaya. B. Sampsonievsky
ave., 53. Manuscript. St. Petersburg: Personal archive
of A. G. Leontiev.
Lisovsky V. G. 2000. National style in the architecture of
Russia. St. Petersburg: Coincidence.
 Reconstruction and Restoration of Architectural Heritage 2021 – Sementsov, Leontyev & Huerta (Eds)
© 2021 Taylor & Francis Group, London, ISBN 978-0-367-68296-5

The preserving and reconstructing problem of a pre-regular urban structure

of a small city
N.O. Kudryavtseva & L.I. Kubetskaya
Central Research and Design Institute of the Ministry of Construction and Housing and Communal Services of the
Russian Federation, Moscow, Russia

ABSTRACT: The article is devoted to the analysis of the evolution of urban planning and compositional
structures of Totma from the early stages to the present. Special attention is paid to the preserved pre-regular
part of the city layout and and the arched arrangement of the temple ensembles, the stages of the structure
development in two directions of territory growth and composition are traced by the stages of evolution of the
XVII–XVIII centuries, XVIII-XIX centuries and XIX-XX centuries, the comparison of which allows us to
establish the genetic code of the development of the city of Totma. The article analyzes the features of the
Konchanskaya structure, which were found in the early stages, and which are characteristic of the cities of
Veliky Ustyug, Nizhny Novgorod, and others. It is proved that Totma, as a small town with the layout pre­
served before the regulation and the characteristic qualities of the architecture of temples and buildings, is
a single object of protection. A proposal is put forward to strictly regulate the methods of reconstruction and
repair of two-story wooden houses, log cabins, and to preserve the valuable historical typology of the build­
ing. It is proposed to raise the prestige of small towns as reference centers in the reconstruction of historical
settlement systems, to stimulate their economic activation by creating common inter-municipal and industrial
zones, reviving their historical and genetic relationships.

1 INTRODUCTION The study of the evolution of small towns was

The established universal stereotypes, which some­
times fix unjustified standards of the advantages of
regular planning, arbitrary principles of the arrange­
ment of ensembles, often led to the loss of the unique
qualities of the city, the distortion of its historical archi­
tectural and artistic appearance, and the transformation
of spatial and compositional systems. So, for example,
in connection with the implementation of the post-fire
regular plan of Veliky Ustyug, the ancient genetic part:
plaza or shopping capacity, which is the central organ­
izing core of the city and the focus of architectural
dominants, was almost eliminated. Simplified schemes
for constructing the composition system of ensembles
were imposed, the deep development of the compos­
ition to the plaza and monasteries was lost, the identity
and richness of the urban planning structure itself were
lost.
The prevention of such phenomena should be
facilitated by the scientific understanding of the evo­
lutionary processes of the formation of the urban
planning structure and the addition of the system of
ensembles, using the method described in this study.
The starting points of the analysis of the planning
structure of the Russian city formed the initial scien­
tific basis of this methodology.
a central focus in the works of G. Ya. Mokeev
(1980), who defended the typology of the layout of
the Old Russian city and identified the main generic
parts of the “city-trading quarter with a plaza in the
middle”. He also has extensive research on the cities
of Zaraysk, Pskov, Moscow, etc. The scientist
emphasized the special importance of the historical
zones of Moscow and the problem of protecting
their integrity. One of the valuable conclusions of A.
S. Schenkov’s research (1979) was the establishment
of the “zonal structure of the Russian city” and the
understanding of its connection “with temple ensem­
bles as a system of landmarks”.
Analytical constructions of the composition of
Moscow based on a large-scale reconstruction, based
on archival sources, inventories, were carried out by
Kudryavtsev M. P. (1980) He proposed a method of
generalization, generalization, which allows us to
present an idealized model of the image of the city,
its spiritual essence. The reconstruction of the build­
ing was most studied in terms of preserving the valu­
able morphology of the blocks (Makhrovskaya 1986,
Lavrov 2019). If the scientific predecessors only
concerned the concepts of the principles of building
the structure of the Russian city in mutual influence
with the basics of building the composition, limiting

DOI: 10.1201/9781003136804-45

231
their consideration to the state before the XVIII cen­
tury, then this study proves the need to protect the
integral ancient parts as a whole.
2 MATERIALS AND METHODS
The study is based on the example of studying the
urban structure of the city of Totma, as a small city,
which has mostly preserved the territories with
a pre-regular layout and the original foundations of
building a system of ensembles. The study shows the
evolutionary processes and reveals the significance
of the location of the ensembles due to the urban
structure. The main method of research was the
method of historical reconstruction (Kubetskaya,
2019). It includes the analysis of evolution, the iden­
tification of a genetic model based on the method of
historical reconstruction developed by the authors,
and the establishment of the geometric foundations
of composition construction. The origins of the
research methodology are laid in the works of
Makeev G. Ya. (1980), Schenkov A. S. (1980),
Kudryavtsev M. P. (1980). They are supplemented
by the author’s cross-sections: graph analytic con­
struction of the geometric foundations of the
arrangement of ensembles in the structure of the city,
topological analysis of the mutual location of genetic
parts, and the construction of a “historical and gen­
etic model” of the development of the city.
Within the framework of the research, works
devoted to the historical development of the cities of
Totma, Veliky Ustyug, etc. were used. (Kolesnikov
1958, Kuznetsov 1997; Teltevsky 1960; Kholmo­
gorov 1913, Chaikina 1997, Cherkasova 2014).
3 RESULTS
At the heart of the urban planning structure of the
city of Totma, the historical directions laid down at
the initial stages of formation are traced. Initially, the
city was located eleven versts higher up the Sukhona
River, located on the right bank, and did not receive
further development there (Kubetskaya 2011). The
new settlement was created by the salt industry and
appeared on the territory of Varnits on the Kovda
River. From it, there was a road to the crossing of
the Sukhona River. On the Red Hill, there was
a fortress at the ferry – this is the third beginning of
the city. Here, near the fortress, there were two
settlements, one to the north and the other to the
southwest, which later became the Green Fishing
Settlement during the implementation of the regular
plan. In the modern borders of the city and its struc­
ture, Salt Varnitsy was not included.
The development of the new territory was marked
by the construction of the Epiphany Cathedral with
a bell tower inside the Kremlin, the churches of the
Assumption Parish near the Dmitrovsky Stream
232
were also completed, St. George and St. Nicholas
Churches were built to the north on the site of the
modern square near the bank, and the Sretenskaya
Church was built on the Plaza (Torgovaya). In the
past, the ancient road that stretches from Warnitz to
the new location of Totma fixed the planning con­
nection in the north–south direction. But as the ana­
lysis of the existing early plan of the XVII century
showed, the road from Varnits ended in the ensemble
of churches of the Forerunner parish and passed to
the west of the current Belousovskaya Street. The
route of the current Belousovskaya (Proboynaya)
Street as the main road from the ferry to Varnitsa
was determined only in the regular plan by the XIX
century. The former road from Sablin end to Varnitsy
lost its significance and became secondary.
In the XVII century, an arc-shaped compositional
basis was already defined, the cores of which were
temples. It is always present in the view openings,
panoramas, especially when entering from the west
and south directions on the bridge over the Sukhona
River, from the right bank of the river. The spatial
voids and open spaces of the squares serve as
a reminder of the lost 5 parish churches and bell
towers, including the Plaza.
The basis of the spatial-compositional system was
formed in the XVII century. The regular layout was
later attached to the Posad and developed along the
Sukhona River. The entire pre-regular planning struc­
ture remained unchanged and was not transformed.
And in this preserved primeval structure, there is
a huge cultural and urban significance (Figure 1).
The morphology of the pro-regular layout is pre­
served on the former Predtechenskaya Square Sabli­
nom end, the territory near the Church of the
Nativity of Christ, the Plaza (Torgovaya Square),
and on the slopes from it to the Sukhona River.
The method of historical reconstruction allowed
us to identify: the genetic model of the city’s devel­
opment, traced from the early stages of its formation,
the advanced nature of the development of the com­
positional system (the system of temple ensembles),
and the original genetic code of the urban planning
structure of Totma. In the process of evolution, the
following patterns are clearly traced:
• the first stage of the XVII century, which records
the formation of a pro-regular layout (from the
Trinity Church to the Spaso-Sumorin Monastery),
is represented in the form of an east-west spiral;
• the next stage of the XVIII-XIX centuries – the
direction of development of the urban structure
from Krasnaya Gorka along the Sukhona River;
• the modern movement of the spiral of the XX­
XXI centuries-from the embankment of the
Sukhona River to the north-west, the birthplace
of the city of Varnitsa in the form of an arc south­
east-north (Kubetskaya 2019).
The dynamics of the overall course of develop­
ment indicate the stability of the “genetic code” in

Figure 1. Totma. Directions of urban development (“histor­
ical and genetic model”) in comparison of plans a. XVIII­
XIX centuries; b. XIX-XX centuries (Author: Kubetskaya
L.I., 2019).
the form of a concentric spiral direction in the devel­
opment of the city and the trends of compactness
inherent in the original structure. Three compos­
itional nodes: from Krasnaya Gorka to the Entrance
of the Jerusalem Church and the Spaso-Sumorin
Monastery persistently retain their organizing com­
positional role. Three ensembles on Krasnaya
Gorka: The Nativity of Christ and the Entrance to
Jerusalem Churches at the Sablin End, as well as the
Spaso-Sumorin Monastery, serve as the basis of
a system of places of interest, an integral part of
which is the unique ordinary building, which reflects
the uniqueness of the city of Totma (Figure 2)
(Kubetskaya 2019).
The study of the evolution of the urban structure
of Totma confirmed the general theoretical sequence
of the evolutionary process from a set (dispersed
233
structure) to grouped and connected structures
(Kubetskaya, 2017). This variety includes Varnitsa,
Krasnaya Gorka with the Kremlin, Spaso-Sumorin
Monastery, and Rybatskaya Sloboda. Using high­
ways and main roads, they were connected to the ori­
ginal structure, as can be seen on the plan of the
XVII century. By this period, the compositional
basis was formed in the form of an arc or spiral from
the Trinity Church in the south to the Spaso-Sumorin
Monastery. The entire temple ensemble was formed
in a pre-regular layout. By the 18th century, the com­
posite frame was enveloped by buildings, the perim­
eter of which repeated the curved outline of the
geometric basis of the composition. The subsequent
development in the XIX-XX centuries developed in
territorial terms. There were no dominant ensembles.
The morphological characteristics of the Predte­
chenskaya, Hristozhdestvenskaya, and Plaza (Torgo­
vaya) squares were determined at the stage before
the regular plan and preserved at subsequent stages.
The genetic code of development in the XIX-XX
centuries followed the metabolism, that is, the build­
up of such blocks along the Sukhona River. The
layout of the blocks was characterized by regularity.
Current trends indicate that there is an intensifica­
tion of the use of the territory in the area of the bus
station and Varnits and a new spiral of the genetic
code from the south-east to the north is planned.
4 DISCUSSION
The unique qualities of the town-planning structure
of Totma are not only in the fact that it contains frag­
ments formed by the XVII–XVIII centuries but also
in the preservation of the elements of the Konchans­
kaya structure, to which the Sablin End belongs,
a particularly valuable ancient zone. The Konchans­
kaya structure was characteristic of both Novgorod
the Great and Veliky Ustyug. The presence at the
Sablin end of the Entrance to the Jerusalem Church
and near the Nativity of Christ Church requires that
this area be given the status of a specially protected
area. Also, it requires strict regulation of the permis­
sion and approval of documentation for the repair
and reconstruction of the development of streets
adjacent to this zone. On the approaches to the
Entrance of the Jerusalem and the Nativity of Christ
churches, there is a typologically valuable building.
Roughly made repairs to house on Lenin Street 43
destroyed the architectural and artistic merits of the
historical building along the street front.
The administration is required to work with the
population, promoting the value of existing traditional
houses, the established aesthetic characteristics of the
historical environment, including the material of the
walls, the height of the houses, the configuration of
the roofs, which are inherent in the cultural and histor­
ical and urban heritage of Totma. This traditional aes­
thetic, supported by wooden log cabins, reinforces the
national identity of ancient Totma (Esaulov 2018).
Figure 2. The city of Totma. Historical and cultural reference plan and system of places of interest (Author: Kubetskaya
L. I. 2019).

5 CONCLUSION of dominants, the uniqueness of the typology of

development, and even the regional identity of
urban planning traditions. Consideration of these
1. The results of evolutionary historical and genetic
parameters should be reflected in the planning
studies of Totma allow us to build a historical
and development regulations in the project docu­
and genetic model of its urban structure. The
mentation (Kubetskaya 2018).
most ancient pre-regular part, formed by the
2. The kinship of the cultural traditions of the nearby
XVII–XVIII centuries, has been preserved. Each
Soligalich and Totma, the stability of historical and
genetic part has specific qualities of the planning
genetic relationships should be considered in the
organization, the principles of the arrangement joint development of urban planning policy.
234
 Successful measures would be taken to form
a common economic cluster, restore the previously
existing transport links between them, and develop
the meridional links of the settlement support
framework. This opens up new opportunities for
the restoration and development of historical settle­
ment systems and their economic activation.To
increase the role of small towns in the Spatial
Development Strategy of the Russian Federation, it
is necessary to create common economic bases,
clusters, and special economic zones of industrial
and industrial type. The structure-forming role of
historical and genetic relationships as the basis
of interconnected systems of populated places is
obvious. The main hubs are small towns: Totma,
Soligalich, Lyubim Chukhloma (Vologda-Yaroslavl
-Kostroma region).
3. The Central Research and Design Institute of the
Ministry of Construction and Housing and Com­
munal Services of the Russian Federation recom­
mends studying the early stages of the origin of
the settlement, when the mutual location of
ancient genetic zones, the main planning direc­
tions, genetic relationships, and the historical sys­
tems themselves are laid. It is necessary to
identify the historical-genetic structure, which in
many cases is a historical-genetic model. the pat­
terns of development follow the genetic code
inherent in the settlement. It serves as the basis
for establishing the boundaries of the city and the
regulations for new construction. Ignoring these
patterns will be accompanied by the loss of urban
planning traditions, integrity, and cultural values,
the bearer of which is a historical settlement.
After all, through the study of cities, the forma­
tion of historical memory and national identity is
also carried out (Bandarin 2013).
4. The study of the evolution of the urban structure
showed that in the origin and genesis of the city
sometimes the settlement plays an equal role –
such were Leontievskaya in Veliky Ustyug and
Rybatskaya in Totma.
5. The relationship between the location of the
temple dominant and the prerequisites laid down
by the urban planning structure itself is estab­
lished. This is an organic link between the
entrance of the Jerusalem Church and its winning
location at the Sabre End.
6. The peculiarity of the town-planning structure is
revealed, which is fixed by the presence of
“ends”, structural formations characteristic of the
Konchansky planning system, preserved since the
time of the pre-regular planning. These genetic
parts of the urban structure reflect the agrarian
nature of the Russian city. Sablinsky end with the
adjacent blocks should be declared a specially
protected area, in which strict regulations for the
modern use of the territory and restrictions on
new construction should apply.
7. In the three-dimensional solution of the building,
there is modularity, proportionality One-story
235
and two-story log houses are consonant with the
material of the walls and the internal measure
present in their proportions, commensurate with
the parameters of the log, the crown. Side by
side in the building of streets, they create an
ensemble. The log house today becomes an
exception in ordinary buildings, a unique archi­
tectural example. And the current situation indi­
cates a preference for siding. It is necessary to
establish a dialogue between the owners of
houses and the professional specialists of the
administrations, who should promote the value
of ordinary buildings and, in particular, log
cabins. Within a small town, the construction of
a dissonant new development is tantamount to
destroying the integrity of the unique historical
appearance of Totma.
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Heritage management in the era of urbanism. Kazan:
Fatherland.
Chaikina Yu. I. 1997. Staraya Totma: geographical names
and names of inhabitants. In Totma local history
almanac Vologda VSPU 2. Vologda: Rus
Cherkasova M. S. 2014. Ends on Ustyug in the Middle
Ages and Early Modern times. History and culture of
the Rostov land: 5–12.
Cherkasova M. S. 2019. On the inner-city division in Medi­
eval Russia: ends, magpies, thirds. The Late Medieval
City: Archaeology and History. In Proceedings of the
annual scientific historical and local history conference
“Kulikovo Field”: 68-82. Tula
Esaulov G. V. 2018. About identity in architecture and
urban planning. Academia. Architecture and Construc­
tion 4: 12–18.
Kholmogorov V. I. 1913. Materials for the study of the
Kostroma Diocese. Galich tithe with the suburbs of Soli­
galich and Unzheyu. Kostroma.
Kolesnikov P. A. 1958. The city of Totma in the XVII cen­
tury (on the question of the socio-economic history of
the Russian Pomeranian city). Moscow: Institute of His­
tory of the USSR Academy of Sciences.
Kubetskaya L. I. & Kudryavtseva N. O. 2019. The method
of historical reconstruction in the study of the evolution
of the urban structure of the settlement. Academia.
Architecture and Construction 4(1): 42–51.
Kubetskaya L. I. 2011. From the patterns of formation to
the development of the planning structure of the city of
Totma in the Vologda region. In The Collection of scien­
tific works of the RAASN: 64-75. Moscow-Orel-Kursk:
UNPK State University
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settlement. In Fundamental, exploratory, and applied
research of the RAASN on scientific support for the
development of architecture, urban planning, and the
construction industry of the Russian Federation in 2016.
Collection of scientific works of the RAASN 1: 348-357.
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Kubetskaya L. I. 2018. Historical and genetic patterns of
urban planning structure formation and value zoning of
the territory. In Sustainable development of territories.
The collection of reports of the international scientific
 and practical conference Moscow, May 16, 2018:
207–211. Moscow: MISI–MGSU Publishing House.
Kudryavtsev M. P. 1980. Method of studying the compos­
itions of Ancient Russian cities. Sources and methods of
research of monuments of urban planning and architec­
ture: 46–60 Moscow: Stroyizdat.
Kuznetsov A.V. 1997 Russian toponyms of the Totem
region (from the names of villages). In Local History
Almanac 2: 37-83, 182-192. Vologda: VPU, Rus Pub­
lishing House.
Lavrov L. P., Molotkova E. G.& Perov F. V. 2019. Morpho­
types of quarters of the historical center of St. ­
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Makhrovskaya A.V. 1986. Reconstruction of old residential
areas of large cities. (On the example of Leningrad).
Leningrad: Stroyizdat.
Mokeev G. Ya. 1980. Planning of ancient Russian cities
and methods of revealing its systems. Sources and
methods of research of monuments of urban planning
and architecture: 7–17. Moscow: Stroyizdat.
Schenkov A. S. 1979. The structure of the Russian city and
the system of urban planning landmarks: on the mater­
ials of cities of the XVI-XIX centuries. Moscow:
Moscow Architectural Institute.
Teltevsky P. A. 1960. Veliky Ustyug. Moscow: State Pub­
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 Reconstruction and Restoration of Architectural Heritage 2021 – Sementsov, Leontyev & Huerta (Eds)
© 2021 Taylor & Francis Group, London, ISBN 978-0-367-68296-5

Informative accessibility of transport hubs in a historical urban environment

I.V. Kuznetsov, A.N. Teryagova, E.A. Akhmedova & V.A. Shabanov
Academy of Architecture and Civil Engineering of Samara State Technical University, Samara, Russia

ABSTRACT: The railway station, being the first location of the city where people who come to this city
get, must have a high-quality information and navigation infrastructure. At the same time, this requirement is
a special case of the requirement within the framework of the concept of “Universal Design” about the infor­
mation content of the urban environment. One of the three main types of information (along with tactile and
acoustic) is visual, the most widely represented in the urban environment. The object of this study was the
railway station areas of the largest cities, the subject – their visual information and communication field.
Within the framework of the article, it was important to identify the characteristic problems and the main
modern trends in the design of information and navigation systems of urban space near railway stations and to
determine the degree of their compliance with the requirements of “Universal Design” on information content.
To achieve this goal, the European and Russian experience of implementing visual navigation systems in the
urban environment of railway station territories was analyzed, as well as some principles and techniques for
working with such systems near railway stations were proposed.

1 INTRODUCTION In the human mind, the urban environment is

The active form of the railway network around the
world in the 19th century, which accompanied the
industrial revolution and the beginning of the indus­
trial era, had a significant impact on the planning
structure of the city. A new element in the architec­
tural typology of buildings and structures, the railway
station took an important place in the public life of
the city and almost immediately formed a new pattern
of the urban environment-the station district (Akhme­
dova 2007). In cities, especially in large ones, the sta­
tion has become an “entrance portal” (a play on
words: a portal, as an architectural element that forms
the entrance to the building, and as a structural elem­
ent of the railway tunnel at the entrance and exit from
it), which welcomes people coming to the city. Kazi­
mir Malevich mentions this in his article “Architec­
ture as a slap in the face of concrete and iron”,
comparing the railway station with a door and
a tunnel (Malevich, 1918). The railway station and
the station square are the first urban location that
a guest of the city gets acquainted with and which, in
addition, often also has a great tourist potential
(Orlova et al. 2018), and therefore their environment
should be hospitable, friendly and as clear as possible.
The station not only became adjacent to the historical
urban development but also over time became an
object of historical, cultural, and architectural value in
the city, forming the identity of the station district.
And its three-dimensional solution often helps to
navigate in the urban environment (Kozina 2020).
formed in the form of a system of artistic images
(Orlova & Orlov 2018), which are created in the
context of functional, architectural-spatial, artistic-
semantic, and socio-cultural aspects (Akhmedova
2007).
These images, based on the systems of orienta­
tion, navigation, information, and communication,
form the information and communication field of the
city (Akhmedova 2009). The urban environment,
and especially one that is unfamiliar to a person, but
in which he needs to navigate due to circumstances
(which is the space of the station and the station
square) should give a person the opportunity to
calmly navigate in ways that are convenient for him.
The degree of comfort for the recipient will be deter­
mined by the presence or absence of certain compo­
nents of the surrounding information and
communication environment, their diversity, preva­
lence or scarcity, degree of universality, and so on.
To diversify the set of information tools, you can use
different types of information: visual, tactile, verbal
(acoustic). Its diversity helps to form a universal
environment of human activity (Akhmedova 2007).
The growing processes of globalization and inter-
cultural communication, as well as the trend of
humanization of the urban environment, make it
necessary to diversify the means of information and
navigation, which consists, in particular, in duplicat­
ing information written in the native language of citi­
zens, in international languages such as English,
German, French, Chinese, Russian, etc. This makes

DOI: 10.1201/9781003136804-46

237
life easier for foreigners who come to a foreign
country and do not speak the local language
(Kimura, 2006).
Modern technologies, which appeared with the
development of human thought in the field of tech­
nology, help to expand the set of information tools in
the city, which not so long ago was limited to printed
products: newspapers, magazines, signs, signs, pos­
ters, posters, announcements, etc. Developing tech­
nologies and the emergence of new ways of
informing can help people with different mobility
and environmental perception limitations when navi­
gating in urban space (McQuire 2014). Moreover,
this circle of people is not limited to people with dis­
abilities and the elderly. It also includes people who
are restricted in mobility for a short period of time.
Here we are talking about people whose attention is
limited (people in hoods or with headphones, etc.),
people with little experience or insufficient know­
ledge in a particular field (children, foreigners, etc.),
as well as people whose movement is constrained
(parents with baby strollers, people in winter clothes
or with umbrellas, travelers with oversized luggage,
etc.). The latter group also includes people who use
them so–called means of individual mobility (SIM
for short; these are scooters, roller skates, segways,
gyroscuters, monowheels, etc.), which are currently
gaining popularity in many cities around the world.
The qualitative level of the information content of
the urban environment is a response to one of the
most important requirements (along with accessibil­
ity, safety, and comfort) of the concept of “Universal
Design” (Medvedeva & Teryagova 2018). These
aspects determine the degree of importance of the
elements of the information and communication field
of the city, including near railway stations, and indi­
cate the relevance of the chosen research topic.
The purpose of the study: to identify the charac­
teristic problems in the field of the information con­
tent of the architectural environment associated with
railway stations, as well as the main modern trends
in the design of information and navigation systems
of urban space in the district of railway stations and
to determine the degree of their compliance with the
requirements of “Universal Design” on information
content.
To achieve the goal, it was necessary to solve the
following tasks:
• to analyze the experience of different countries in
the implementation of visual navigation systems
in the urban environment of railway station
territories;
• to identify the basic principles and techniques for
designing such systems, considering the require­
ments of “Universal Design” for information
content.
The object of the study is the railway station areas
of the largest cities, the subject is the visual informa­
tion and communication field of such areas. The
238
spatial boundaries of the study cover the vernacular
areas of the largest cities in the world, adjacent to
railway stations. The time boundaries cover the end
of the industrial era and the post-industrial era,
including the beginning of the twenty-first century.
2 MATERIALS AND METHODS
To solve the tasks set and achieve the goal of the
study, the authors resorted to such scientific methods
as comparative historical and urban planning ana­
lysis and sociological research, while the graph ana­
lytic method was used in the analysis of the urban
environment. Within the framework of the presented
research, a questionnaire survey of experts with dif­
ferent professional and role competencies was con­
ducted. The results of the survey helped to study the
topic in more detail and objectively.
3 LITERATURE REVIEW
3.1 Overall theoretical information
The topic of urban development and effective func­
tioning of urban areas, including near railway sta­
tions, is of interest to many specialists from different
fields of knowledge. Among others, they are given
their attention by urban planners, architects, and
designers-specialists in the field of “Universal
Design” and urban environment design.
In their research, Russian scientists Alexandra Ter­
yagova (2006), Elena Akhmedova (2007), Laura Akh­
medova (2009), Nina Lekareva (2015), Alexey
Barkovsky (2016), Angelina Maslova (2016), Anasta­
sia Medvedeva (2018), and others addressed the topic
of urban reconstruction of historical buildings and the
creation of a universal (accessible, safe, informative
and comfortable) urban environment, as well as the
formation of a universal urban framework and increas­
ing the level of the information content of the urban
environment.
The topic of “Universal Design” as such was stud­
ied by foreign researchers: Ronald L. Mace (1990),
Graeme J. Hardie (1990), Philipp Meuser (2012), etc.
And the interdisciplinary issues of the relationship
between “Universal Design” and the design of rail­
way transport facilities were addressed by foreign
researchers: Selwyn Goldsmith (1997), Ewa Maria
Kido (2006), Kazuo Kimura (2006), Corinne Tire
(2006), Mamoru Sekiguchi (2006), Yoshihiko Kawau­
chi (2009), Fuziah Ibrahim (2012), Fairuzzana
Ahmad Padzi (2012), Qian Rao (2014), Wenchen
Yang (2014), Lun Zhang (2014), Meng Zhang (2014),
Kartina Alauddin (2016), Haryati Mohd Isa (2016),
Mohd Hafizuddin Nawi (2016), Halmi Zanol (2016),
Kim Kullman (2017), Jonathan Paul Katz (2020), etc.
Conventionally, all the information found in the
city can be divided into navigation, commercial,
social, neutral, ideological (agitation, political), as
well as environmental (planning), due to the inform­
ative nature of the forms and volumes of objects sur­
rounding citizens (Figure 1). In relation to railway
stations, navigation, neutral and environmental infor­
mation is of the greatest interest.
An important component of the information and
communication field of the city is neutral informa­
tion (including works of art), as well as rational
architectural and planning solutions. The combin­
ation of these elements is able to create an environ­
ment that would be informative and convenient even
without the help of specialized navigation systems.
The information and navigation system should be
multi-level (at the urban planning level, at the archi­
tectural level, and at the level of object design), in
addition, it should include all known ways of inform­
ing consumers that differ in different features of per­
ception (visual, acoustic, tactile). The basis of any
information and navigation system, and especially at
railway stations and forecourts, is competent archi­
tectural planning. It is filled with stands with maps of
the city, information boards with train schedules, dir­
ection signs for trains and to the city, signs with the
numbers of platforms and tracks, and so on.
Among the seven principles of” Universal
Design”, proclaimed in 1997 by Ronald Lawrence
Mace, two directly relate to the informativeness of
the environment (Zhogoleva at al. 2018):
– simple and intuitive design (in relation to the archi­
tectural environment, this principle should be
understood as follows: any user of the architectural
environment should understand how to use it,
regardless of their knowledge, skills, physical and
mental characteristics, in addition, the rationality of
architectural and planning decisions should be
ensured, and the degree of importance of informa­
tion when placing it in space should be considered);
Figure 1. A theoretical model of information consumption
by citizens in the structure of the information and commu­
nication field of the city and within the framework of the
concept of “Universal Design”; image source: authors
diagram.
239
– easily perceived information (the movement of
any user in an open urban environment, inside
architectural objects, on transport (Kimura, 2006)
should be convenient, and the information that
makes it so should be conveyed to the recipient in
various ways: visually, tactically, verbally, its per­
ception should not be limited by external and
internal (personal) factors).
The analysis of the world experience of a careful
approach to the organization of the architectural and
urban environment near railway stations can help to
avoid mistakes in the formation of the information and
communication field of the city and create more effect­
ive and universal ones. Therefore, the best examples of
navigation systems of railway stations in the world
should be given due attention. This experience of
advanced countries is extremely relevant for the Rus­
sian largest cities at the stage of a reorganization of
railway stations into large multifunctional transport
hubs (or centers), considering the requirements of
“Universal Design”.
3.2 Western European experience
A well-thought-out visual navigation system is an
essential attribute of many modern complexes of
railway stations and station forecourts. Here they are
used as classic navigation elements that are familiar
to many: signs, placards, etc., as well as more rare
and new ones: media technologies (for example,
LED and liquid crystal information panels), super-
graphic (Kimura 2006). Rotterdam Central Station,
built-in 2014, is proof of this (Figure 2a). Simple,
but at the same time informative navigation system,
allows people to easily navigate in space. A large
sign at the entrance to the building, a super drift as
a reference point for paths and platforms, electronic
displays, and other elements of the information
environment guide people, help them navigate.
Figure 2. A) Example of a visual navigation system at Rot­
terdam Central Railway Station (Netherlands); image
source: dezeen.com. b) Visual information environment of
the Zurich Central Railway Station (Switzerland); image
source: issuu.com.
 The NOVA project (Figure 2b) was implemented
at Zurich Central Station in 2006. A parallelepiped
measuring 5x5x1 m, representing a set of 25 thou­
sand luminous spheres, was suspended from the ceil­
ing of the lobby. This “media cloud” has become
a bright symbol of the station and a meeting place
for citizens. The contrast is not only the color and
brightness but also the architectural style (the his­
toric station building was built in 1847). and recon­
structed in 1871, 1990, and 2014), as well as the
three-dimensional solution that stands out against the
background of the station’s interior, allowed the art
object to become a significant accent of the informa­
tion and communication field of the internal environ­
ment. And despite the fact that the object itself is not
an element of the navigation system, it serves as
a visual reference point for many people, including
those with visual impairments. In addition, its
undoubted advantage is that it is spatially and visu­
ally separated from the general mass of information,
which is mainly at the level of human growth. The
media parallelepiped was raised high enough, to the
ceiling, and could easily be viewed not only from
a distance but also from another floor, because it was
located above the multi-level space and escalators.
3.3 The experience of Moscow (Russia)
Kievsky Railway Station (ex. The Bryansk) in
Moscow, built in the first quarter of the XX century,
has been a monument of federal significance since
1960. It is surrounded mainly by public and business
buildings with business centers, hotels, shopping,
and entertainment centers. Dorogomilovsky Market
is located nearby. Large areas are occupied by
objects of engineering and technical infrastructure,
such as depots. In addition to the regions of Russia,
it provides rail links with Ukraine and Moldova. The
international status of this station obliges it to
comply with all international standards in the field of
“Universal Design”. In the run-up to the 2018 FIFA
World Cup, along with several other metropolitan
and regional stations, the Kievsky Railway Station
was adapted for people with mobility restrictions. In
addition to the Moscow and St. Petersburg railway
stations, the stations in Yekaterinburg, Samara, and
Saransk (Rep. Mordovia, Russia), Glazov (Udmurt
Republic, Russia), etc.
In the fall of 2019, the reconstruction of the fore­
court of the Kievsky Railway Station was completed,
during which a visual navigation system was made,
connecting a major transport hub, combining the
railway, metro, and ground public transport system,
with the city. Moreover, the navigation system was
implemented in 2 stages. The test system was made
for subsequent adjustments in accordance with the
behavior and preferences of citizens and involves
a subsequent stage with the implementation of
a permanent navigation system. The navigation
system includes information stands with city maps,
full houses at public transport stops, and road
240
markings. In addition, the information and communi­
cation field of the city is formed by commercial
signs on the facades of buildings, made in a single
approach (design code) to create and preserve the
individual appearance of historical facades.
3.4 Experience of Russian regions
A common problem of many Russian railway stations
is large parking lots on the station square. Of course,
the station should have a connection with the city’s
road transport system, but in fact, the complete
absence of pedestrian infrastructure, which is replaced
by cars, dramatically worsens the information content
of the urban environment near the station. The danger
to pedestrians posed by motor vehicles forces citizens
to focus on their safety, which reduces the effective­
ness of even a well-designed navigation system, let
alone ordinary people.
Some regional capitals of the Volga region, such
as Nizhny Novgorod and Samara, clearly demon­
strate the described problem: in both cities, the ped­
estrian part in front of the station is extremely small,
and most of the station square is occupied by
a parking lot.
In Nizhny Novgorod, the first railway station was
built in 1862. In 1894, the Imperial pavilion was
built by architect Dmitry Chichagov, the brother of
architect Mikhail Chichagov, who designed the
drama theater in Samara in 1851. Until 2010, the sta­
tion was called Moskovsky, and in 2017-2018 it was
reconstructed.
The first building of the railway station in Samara
was built in 1876 by the architect Nicholas de
Rochefort. Next to it, two-story ticket offices were
built according to the project of the architect and
writer Nikolai Garin-Mikhailovsky. At the station,
there was a railway station square, in 1912 renamed
to Nikolaevskaya, and in 1948 to Komsomolskaya.
The historic building existed only until 1996. Des­
pite the fact that it was an object of cultural heritage,
in 1995 “due to the fact that it was completely
unusable”, it lost this status. After that, the historic
building was gradually demolished, and in its place
was built a modern high-rise station building
designed by architect Yuri Khramov.
Urban navigation systems are very mediocre and
inefficient (Figure 3), which is further aggravated by
the abundance of noisy advertising background,
which makes it difficult for the user to read useful
information (Akhmedova 2015).
4 RESULTS AND DISCUSSION
As a result of the analysis of the world experience in
creating effective information and navigation systems
in railway station urban areas, it can be concluded
that for effective navigation, not only standard orien­
tation tools, such as pointers and map diagrams, but
also art objects, rational architectural and planning

Figure 3. The ratio of useful (horizontal orange shading)
and useless (vertical red shading) information in the visual
field of the station square in Samara (Russia); image
source: photos of the authors.
solutions, etc. can be used. And concise and accentu­
ated solutions can work more efficiently than infor­
mation-saturated visual navigation systems. These
theses are confirmed by expert opinion.
For a deeper dive into the topic under study,
a sociological survey was conducted as part of this
urban planning study. Experts took part in the
survey: practicing architects and urban planners, rep­
resentatives of the academic community, economists,
urban activists who are interested in the problems of
urban development and urban rail transport, as well
as residents of railway station urban areas.
The experts interviewed almost unanimously
agreed that the quality and efficiency of navigation
systems in the form in which they currently exist at
many railway stations and in the structure of the
urban development surrounding them leave much to
be desired. The excessive abundance of commercial
advertising, the so-called “white noise” (Kozina
2020), the abundance of audio garbage, inefficient
and uninformative visual navigation systems, and
irrational architectural and planning solutions that do
not meet the requirements of ergonomics make the
information and communication field of the city prac­
tically unsuitable for comfortable and efficient use.
5 CONCLUSION
As a result of the study, information was obtained on
the practice of implementing information and
241
navigation systems in the spaces of railway stations
and in the urban environment near them. The opin­
ions of experts on the development of the informa­
tion and communication field of the railway station
territories were also obtained and analyzed. The
importance of meeting the requirements of “Univer­
sal Design” (accessibility, safety, informativeness,
and comfort) was confirmed not only by the opinion
of the professional community but also by citizens –
users of the urban environment. Special attention
was paid to the requirement of the information con­
tent of the environment. However, it is important to
adhere to the “reasonable accommodation” clause.
The information system should be effective, but it
should not turn into information noise (visual, audi­
tory, or even tactile), which can have a much more
negative impact on a person’s orientation in space
than the complete absence of any navigation system.
ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
The authors of the article express their gratitude to
the respondents who took part in the expert survey:
Vsevolod Shabanov, Pavel Krupin, Anton Zagre­
belny, Yulia Yershova, as well as Anna Adonia, Vic­
toria Leonova, and Sofia Novikova for their valuable
advice.
REFERENCES
Akhmedova, L. S. 2009. Features of the transformation of
the visual information and communication field of the
city. Nizhny Novgorod: Nizhny Novgorod State Univer­
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 Reconstruction and Restoration of Architectural Heritage 2021 – Sementsov, Leontyev & Huerta (Eds)
© 2021 Taylor & Francis Group, London, ISBN 978-0-367-68296-5

Restoration of a cultural heritage identified object: Don

Monastery Necropolis
J.A. Loginova
Moscow Architectural Institute, Moscow, Russia

ABSTRACT: Donskoy Monastery is unique not only for Moscow, but also for the whole of Russia, thanks to
the historical noble necropolis of the XVIII−XX centuries preserved on its territory. The history of one of the
most famous monasteries in the country, the significance of its architectural and monumental monuments is
described in sufficient detail in numerous scientific publications. The article is devoted to the scientific restor­
ation of the necropolis monuments in our days. It describes the main restoration methods and specific types of
work that are consistently undertaken by restorers to save works of monumental art, using the example of the
artistic tombstones of the old Don cemetery. Many tombstones made by Ivan Vitali, Ivan Martos Fyodor Gor­
deev, Vasily Demut-Malinovsky and other outstanding masters gave Donskoy the glory of an open-air Museum.
The information presented in the article may be useful for architectural historians, necropolists, and restorers.

1 INTRODUCTION exhibits were moved to Vozdvizhenka Street, and

some of them were returned to the churches.
The history of the Moscow Donskoy monastery Today, almost half of the territory of the ancient
begins at the end of the XVI century. It was founded monastery – 2.5 hectares is occupied by the histor­
by Tsar Fyodor Ioannovich in 1592-1593 in memory ical noble necropolis of the XVIII – early XX cen­
of the liberation of the capital from the invasion of turies. This is the uniqueness of Donskoy Monastery
the Crimean Khan Kazy – Giray in 1591 and is dedi­ (Figure 1).
cated to the Don Icon of the Mother of God. Accord­ Burials were made here since the XVI century,
ing to legend, after the procession with this shrine, but the formation of the necropolis began in the
arranged during the battle, the khan fled, leaving his XVIII century, when the Empress Catherine II issued
wagon train. a decree prohibiting burials in the city because of the
The monastery was founded at the old Kaluga danger of the spread of the plague. Almost all the
road, on the site of the Russian camp of the march­ monastic churchyards in Moscow were destroyed,
ing church in the name of St. Sergius of Radonezh, and the nobles were forced to move their ancestral
where after the city walls and the camp was tombs to large monasteries outside the city limits
enclosed, the Don Icon of the Mother of God was (Artamonov 2006).
placed.
Destroyed and devastated during the Time of
Troubles, the monastery was restored by tsars
Mikhail Fedorovich and Alexey Mikhailovich and
became a place of royal pilgrimage (Artyushenko
et al. 2015).
In 1812, the monastery was again looted. Only
a small part of his valuables managed to be taken to
Vologda.
After the October Revolution, the monastery was
closed and turned into a museum repository: since
1934, the Museum of the Academy of Architecture
of the USSR, and since 1964, there was a branch of
the A.V. Shchusev Museum of Architecture (Zhite­
nev 2007).
After the return of the Don Monastery to the Rus­
sian Orthodox Church in the early 1990s, the museum Figure 1. Historical photo by Shchusev State Museum of
Architecture photo Library V-3009 photos.

DOI: 10.1201/9781003136804-47

242
 Here the princes Golitsyn, Dolgorukov and Volk­
onsky, the nobles Naryshkin and Glebov –Streshnev
found their last shelter, many outstanding representa­
tives of the clergy, politicians, military, art and cul­
tural figures are buried: historian Vasily
Klyuchevsky, architect Osip Bove, philosopher and
publicist Peter Chaadaev, rector of Moscow Univer­
sity Prince Sergei Trubetskoy, scientist, “father of
Russian aviation” Nikolai Zhukovsky, participants in
the military operations of 1812, the December upris­
ing, the Crimean 1853-1856, Russian-Turkish 1877­
1878, and the First World War. The cemetery quickly
became prestigious.
Alexander Pushkin often visited the Donskoy
Monastery, visiting the graves of his relatives, friends,
and acquaintances. The poet’s grandmother, uncle,
two aunts and two cousins are also buried here.
The poet’s grandfather, artillery Lieutenant Col­
onel Lev Alexandrovich Pushkin, is buried in the
Small (Old) Cathedral.
The historian A. G. Naletov established that the
gravestone of Pushkin’s grandfather was located in
the Sergievsky aisle of the Old Cathedral. According
to archival documents: “On the right side of this
chapel in the wall is a copper silver–plated plaque,
on the top of it is an all-seeing eye < … > Against
this inscription is buried the body of artillery Lieu­
tenant Colonel Lev Alexandrovich Pushkin, who
was born in 1723 on February 17, his namesake on
February 20, died in 1790 on October 25 in the after­
noon at 3 o’clock. His life was 67 years, 8 months,
and 8 days”.
And in 1830, when Vasily Lvovich Pushkin died,
Alexander Sergeevich took on the trouble and
expenses for the funeral of his beloved uncle, includ­
ing the cost of buying a plot in the Don necropolis –
600 rubles. Together with his brother, he prepared
funeral tickets for the burial: “Alexander Sergeye­
vich and Lev Sergeyevich Pushkin with heartfelt
sorrow announce the death of their uncle Vasily Lvo­
vich Pushkin, which followed this August 20 day at
2 o’clock in the afternoon; and humbly ask you to
come to the removal and funeral service of the body,
this August 23 day in the parish of the Holy Great-
Martyr Nikita, in Staraya Basmannaya at 10 o’clock
in the morning; and the burial of the body will be in
the Donskoy monastery.” Later, a gravestone in the
form of a column of gray granite, topped with an urn
of white marble, was installed on his grave (Artamo­
nov & Geychenko 2015).
On the territory of the cemetery are buried: rela­
tives of A. S. Griboyedov, mother of I. S. Turgenev,
grandmother of L. N. Tolstoy.
Family churches-tombs were built at the monas­
tery. In 1796-1798, a rotunda church was built over
the graves of the Zubov princes in the name of
St. Alexander Svirsky. In 1809, the descendants of
the Golitsyn family built the church of the Archangel
Michael. At the end of the XIX century, the church
of the Holy Cross was founded. St. John Chrysostom
with the tomb of the Pervushins in the pseudo-
243
Byzantine style. And in 1898, the family church of
John the Ladder was established.
The monastery necropolis contains more than
a hundred graves of church, political and state fig­
ures of Georgia.
On the site behind the apses of the Small Cathedral
is the Greek necropolis of the second floor. XVIII-
first floor. XIX centuries, where about 20 tombstones
of representatives of prominent Greek families who
lived in Moscow and other cities of the Russian
Empire have been preserved (Dombrovsky 2007).
The historical value of the monastery also lies in
the fact that during the existence of the Museum of
the Academy of Architecture here, not only frag­
ments of destroyed churches were brought from all
over the country, but also ancient tombstones: white
stone carved tombstones from the Andronikov Mon­
astery, the tombstone of boyar Fyodor Byakont
(father of St. Alexy, Metropolitan of Moscow), the
sarcophagus of Lieutenant General Count Alexander
Bruce. On the territory of the necropolis, fragments
of the Triumphal Gate, dismantled in 1934, were
kept as museum exhibits. Preserved plat bands from
the Church of the Assumption on Pokrovka, demol­
ished in the 1930s, and from the flooded church in
Kalyazin. For two decades, the high reliefs that were
knocked down from the Cathedral of Christ the
Saviour and built into the walls of the monastery
fence in the 1950s were kept in the necropolis.
The artistic and architectural image of the monas­
tery, including these sculptural compositions, is cap­
tured in the film directed by Eldar Ryazanov “Cruel
Romance”, based on the play by Alexander Ostrovsky
“Bespridannitsa” (Figures 2-3).
Unlike other Moscow necropolises, including
Novodevichy, the Don Cemetery did not undergo
reconstruction in the Soviet years.
In the 1930s, the artist Vasily Perov, the Decem­
brist Pyotr Svistunov and many other famous people
were reburied here from the “condemned” cemeteries.
In 2000, the remains of the writer Ivan Shmelev
and his wife were transferred to the Donskoy
Figure 2. A frame from the film by E. Ryazanov “Cruel
Romance” with the image of the high relief of the Cath­
edral of Christ the Saviour on the monastery fence.

Figure 3. A frame from the film by E. Ryazanov “Cruel
Romance”. The scene at the Donskoy cemetery.
Monastery. It also reburied: in 2005, General Anton
Denikin and the philosopher Ivan Ilyin, in 2007,
General Vladimir Kappel, in 2008, Alexander
Solzhenitsyn.
Today, the old Don cemetery is a kind of
museum: majestic monuments, columns, sarcophagi
and pyramids can tell about the history of Russia no
less than other exhibits. Many artistic tombstones
are made by outstanding masters: Ivan Vitali, Ivan
Martos, Fyodor Gordeev, Vasily Demut-Malinovsky,
and others. Most of the tombs are made in the Rus­
sian style (Golovin 1999).
In recent years, gradual repair and restoration
work has been carried out on the cathedrals, chapels,
towers and walls of the monastery.
2 MATERIALS AND METHODS
In 2018, the restoration of the identified objects of
cultural heritage are monuments and tombstones of
the Don necropolis began. In 2016, the development
of restoration projects began. The first to be restored
were 30 tombstones that were in poor condition.
Currently, 75 objects remain in operation, and
another 50 objects are planned to be restored.
The customer of the repair and restoration works
was the State Institution of the city Moscow “Mos­
restavratsiya”, chief architect of the restoration pro­
ject is Alexey Evgenyevich Zhdanov, general
contractor is LLC Restoration Workshop “Heritage”,
scientific and methodological guidance is Nina Gri­
goryevna Zaitseva, financing is the budget of
Moscow.
The preservation of stone sculptures made of
marble and limestone, sandstone and granite in the
conditions of outdoor exposure is of concern to
many specialists of the restoration community
around the world (Watt et al. 2009), and “more and
more often there are words that the’ term of stay ‘of
244
ancient marbles in the open air has already expired”
(Efremova et al. 2010).
Unfortunately, the natural elements also add to the
restorers’ problems. In the summer of 2016, great
damage was caused to the Don necropolis, fallen
trees damaged the tombstones of Apollo Maikov and
Alexander Spiridov. And on May 29, 2017,
a hurricane damaged several historical tombstones.
The next day, the specialists of the Moscow City
Heritage Department promptly went to the site to
examine the cultural heritage sites in detail and
assess the consequences of the disaster. The affected
objects were immediately included in the restoration
plan. The following items were damaged: the tomb­
stone of the first director of the Ramenskoye Paper
spinning and weaving factory and professor of the
Imperial Moscow Technical School Fyodor Dmi­
triev, a stele with a base – relief portrait of the artist
Vasily Perov, a stele with a pediment and a cross of
the merchant Ivan Gaidin, the tombstones of Prince
Yevgeny Volkonsky, Admiral Pyotr Ermashov, mili­
tary historian Nikolai Krovyakov, as well as Olga
Ratushinskaya, Elena Druzhinina, Vladimir Golov­
kin, a chapel made of the white stone-the grave of
the unknown and the fences adjacent to the affected
monuments. In the same year, projects for their res­
toration were developed and priority emergency
response work was carried out.
Among the objects of restoration were tombstones
of the XVIII−XIX centuries works of famous Rus­
sian sculptors I. P. Martos (the tombstone of
I. A. Alekseev, made in 1816, the tombstone of
A. P. Kozhukhova (Trubetskoy), made in the 1820s),
I. P. Vitali (the tombstone of S. P. Tutolmina and
I. V. Tutolmin, made in 1839), G. T. Zamaraev (the
tombstone of L. D. Davydov, made in the early XIX
century, tombstone of I. I. Kozlov, made at the end
of the XVIII century).
Restoration work carried out on artistic tomb­
stones is a complex and time-consuming process. To
restore the historical appearance of monuments, they
often have to be dismantled beforehand (Lepeshkina
et al. 2005).
The restoration of the tombstones of the last quar­
ter of the XVIII century deserves a more detailed
account.
The tombstone of the family burial of the Princes
Shcherbatov is a white stone pyramid-mausoleum over
the graves of P. N. Shcherbatov and his wife
A. S. Shcherbatova (Dolgoruky). This is a striking
example of a tombstone of the late XVIII century,
made in the form of an ancient pyramid. An analogue
of this pyramid is the tombstone of I. F. Glebov in the
Holy Dormition Monastery in Staritsa. The pyramid is
a structure with an internal room-a crypt, under the
floor of which there was a burial. The walls and arch
of the Shcherbatov pyramid are made in brick
masonry, lined with white stone blocks. Cornice, plinth
architectural details are made of profiled white stone
blocks. On the western facade of the pyramid, the coat
of arms of the Princes Shcherbatov and a stone plaque
with a commemorative inscription are made. The text
of the memorial inscription is preserved in fragments,
which does not allow you to read the inscription in
full. The doorway to the pyramid was laid with white
stone blocks, the doors were lost (Figure 4).
The base of the pyramid was hidden by a high
cultural layer, so the restoration project provided
for the lifting of the pyramid, considering the cur­
rent surface level. But in the process of restor­
ation work, the Scientific and Methodological
Council decided to keep the structure on historical
marks by performing a vertical layout of the adja­
cent area with the condition of a drainage system
(Vlasov et al. 2008). In the interior of the pyra­
mid, works were carried out to strengthen the
brickwork of the walls by injection, the finishing
of the walls and arches, and the brick floor lining
were restored. A double-leaf metal wrought-iron
door is recreated in the doorway. On the facades
of the pyramid, work was carried out to clear and
strengthen the masonry from various kinds of con­
tamination, structural strengthening of the stone
was performed, and lost blocks were restored.
During the repair and restoration work, additional
large-scale historical, archival and bibliographic
research was carried out in the archives of the city of
Moscow, which allowed us to find new materials
about previous repairs, early photographs and the full
text of the memorial inscription. This made it pos­
sible to make a scientific justification for the restor­
ation of the completion of the pyramid in the form of
a skufya from a single stone block. During the restor­
ation, the analysis and determination of the location
of the fragments of the memorial plaque, gluing them
together and replenishing the volume with the help of
a pre-alignment composition was carried out. In the
places of lacunae, the lost text was restored. Without
historical material, complete restoration of the text by
intuitive selection of erased words in the spelling and
style of writing of the XVIII century was impossible.
During the restoration work, the experts of the Scien­
tific and Methodological Council decided not to
Figure 4. Family burial of the Princes Shcherbatov. Condi­
tion before restoration. Archive of the Moscow City
Heritage.
245
install the original memorial plate in its former place,
but to replace it with an exact copy of limestone,
repeating the technique of execution and the memor­
ial inscription (Gulenko 2012). The original plaque
with the memorial inscription was transferred to the
Donskoy Monastery for safekeeping.
As a result of the restoration work, the historical
appearance of the monument was restored, and today
we can appreciate its beauty and proportions. While
preserving the historical slope and draught of the
structure, the foundation was opened and the comple­
tion was recreated, the internal volume was revealed,
the interior of the crypt was restored and the text of
the memorial inscription was restored (Figure 5).
The tombstone of I. I. Kozlov, made at the end of
the XVIII century, is also one of the early artistic
tombstones of the necropolis of the Donskoy Monas­
tery. It is a two-figure sculptural composition of
a mourner and a heraldic lion with a shield, located
under a canopy supported by stone columns. Metal
sections of the fence, installed between the pillars of
the canopy and the floor made of artificial stone were
made in the process of restoration work in the middle
of the XX century. Two sections of the fence from the
four existing ones are probably recycled and taken
from another monument. The girder beams and the
canopy arch are wooden structures, plastered on shin­
gles. The cornice is made of profiled white stone
blocks. The copper roof was made during the previous
repair and restoration works.
The restoration of the object was a work to pre­
serve the artistic appearance of the monument,
which it acquired after the restoration of the mid-XX
century.: work on leveling the sculptural compos­
ition; work on clearing the marble surface of various
contaminants, removing gypsum crusts, structural
strengthening of the stone; injection of cracks in the
plaster layer; bulkhead paving with the restoration of
lost tiles made of artificial stone, as well as the
removal of stone blocks of columns, stylobate and
the basement of the canopy. The metal sections of
the fence were restored.
Figure 5. Family burial of the Princes Shcherbatov. Condi­
tion after restoration. Archive of the Moscow City
Heritage.
3 RESULTS AND DISCUSSION
General types of work carried out on the restoration
of artistic tombstones:
1. Works on the construction or strengthening of
foundations (injection, cutting) and leveling of
monuments;
2. Works on the surface of monuments made of nat­
ural stone:
– Dry cleaning of the surface from dust and other
contaminants;
– Washing with water using non-ionic detergents
(surfactants);
– Combined cleaning of the surface of natural stone
with the use of compresses from bio-pollution,
biofouling and difficult-to-remove atmospheric
pollution;
– Combined cleaning of black organic layers
(crusts, gypsum crusts);
– Mechanical cleaning of old mastics, traces of
past restoration and repair work;
– Removal of paint and varnish residues from the
surface of the stone;
– Chemical cleaning of the inscription of the dedi­
catory inscription from the remains of the old
gilding;
– Biocidal surface treatment;
– Structural strengthening of the surface by
impregnation;
– Strengthening of cracks by injection;
– Replacement of chips and losses by mastication
(direct extension method);
– Gluing together elements and fragments of the
monument;
– Preservation of the destroyed and lost surface by
weathering with mastic;
– Reconstruction of lost fragments and elements of
the monument;
– Gilding of the text of dedicatory inscriptions and
elements of the monument;
– Cleaning and sealing of interblock joints with
a suture solution;
– Hydrophobization of the surface;
– Preservation of the polished granite surface by
waxing.
3. Work on the metal surface of monuments (copper
alloys):
– Dry cleaning of the surface from dust, soil and
other loose dirt;
– Washing with water using non-ionic detergents
(surfactants) to remove atmospheric pollutants;
using emulsions and compresses made of non­
ionic detergents (surfactants) with the addition of
solvents to remove persistent soot and dust
pollution;
– Combined cleaning of the surface from corro­
sion, copper oxides;
– Removal and stabilization of iron oxide stains in
the places where the steel injection molding fit­
tings come to the surface;
246
– Removal and stabilization of active corrosion foci;
– Sealing of through holes and sinks with self-
tapping screws and latches;
– Decorative surface finishing by patinating;
– Patina sealing (polishing the patina on the metal
surface);
– Surface preservation by waxing;
– Restoration of the docking joints.
4. Restoration of metal fences and vestibules:
– Dry cleaning of the metal surface from soil and
other loose dirt;
– Dismantling of the fence with preliminary mark­
ing in accordance with the marking scheme;
– Removal of paint and varnish coating (LCP) and
corrosion products;
– Anti-corrosion treatment of metal (intermediate
and final stabilization);
– Partial dismantling of the fence (dismantling of
ruined fragments and fragments of the fence with
losses);
– Restoration of the fence geometry (correction of
deformations by heat treatment);
– Production of ruined and lost elements from fer­
rous metal (by the method of artistic forging);
– Production of lost decorative elements by casting
into a mold;
– Manufacture of lost decorative elements made of
copper alloy (stamping, followed by minting);
– Restoration of the gate geometry (correction of
deformations by heat treatment);
– Elimination of destructive areas by forging
welding;
– Assembly of newly made fragments and elem­
ents of the monument with the production of fas­
teners (installation by welding, riveting with
mechanical surface treatment);
– Anti-corrosion treatment of the metal surface;
– Application of protective and decorative coating,
painting of the fence;
– Gilding of individual elements;
– Installation of the fence.
The restorers returned to many tombstones the
lost details – crosses, bas-reliefs, etc.
The approach to the restoration of monuments
was individual, considering the state of each of them
(Bulakh et al. 2005). The restoration work, which
lasted about a year, was carried out under the con­
stant supervision of Mosgornaslediya specialists.
Tombstones restored:
• Zinaida Butovskaya (Basilevich) (1826-1861);
• Vera Komnino-Varvatsi (died 1869);
• Dmitry Chertkov (1824-1872);
• Anna Panaeva (1808-1843);
• Ivan Alekseev (1750-1816);
• Anna Krupenina (1799-1865);
• Anna Trubetskoy (1793-1827);
• Ivan Tutolmin (1760-1839);
• Vasily Ogni-Doganovsky (1776-1838);
• Catherine Fire-Doganovskaya (1788-1855);
• Alexandra Maslova (1750-1814);
• Pavel Yakovlev (1772-1809);
• Maria Miller (1825-1871);
• Vasily Nebolsin (1744-1803);
• Lev Davydov (1743-1801);
• Olga Davydova (1836-1837);
• Ivan Kozlov (1716-1788);
• Tatiana Batyushkova (1827-1885);
• Sofia Filimonova (1888-1902);
• Mikhail Bogoslovsky (1826-1893);
• Ivan Protasov (1721-1778);
• family burial of the Glebov-Streshnev noble
family;
• the family burial of the Princes Shcherbatov;
• and others.
Currently, the restoration of the church in the
name of St. Nicholas is being completed. St. John
Chrysostom and the vic. Catherine – the family tomb
of the Pervushins and the burial place of the abbots
of the Don monastery. The work on the facades is
almost finished, except for the stairs to the upper
temple. According to the project developed by the
architect E. V. Katyshev (S. Boyarintsev), restored
interiors, including a marble iconostasis. On the
basis of iconographic materials and preserved frag­
ments of mosaic decor, the marble floors in the
upper church are being restored (Bozhutina 2020).
4 CONCLUSION
The restoration of monumental art objects on the terri­
tory of the necropolis of the Donskoy Monastery has
its own peculiarities. During the existence of the
necropolis, many graves have already lost their tomb­
stones, so its territory has a complex cultural layer.
Restoration work is carried out in cramped conditions,
with a minimum set of mechanization or manually, in
the open air, in compliance with the conditions of
temperature and humidity conditions. Therefore, it is
so important for the restoration of monuments located
on the territory of the necropolis to attract specialists
with extensive experience in this field.
It is worth noting that in Russia, historical necrop­
olises are primarily perceived as a place of burial,
although there are examples when the necropolis is
part of a museum exhibition. It seems obvious that
247
finding new meanings for the spaces of museum
necropolises is an interesting and important aspect
for their preservation (Felicori & Zanotti 2004), and
drawing up development concepts is a separate topic
for research.
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 Reconstruction and Restoration of Architectural Heritage 2021 – Sementsov, Leontyev & Huerta (Eds)
© 2021 Taylor & Francis Group, London, ISBN 978-0-367-68296-5

Rehabilitation of the Guillespie house for heritage management offices in

Quito, Ecuador
F.S. López-Ulloa
Universidad Técnica de Ambato, Ecuador

ABSTRACT: The headquarters of the Instituto Metropolitano de Patrimonio of Quito, Ecuador (IMP),
is located where was the house of Guillespie-Delgado family, a stately building built in 1930 by the
architect Francisco Durini Cáceres (1880-1970). It was built with luxury finishes in an eclectic style
with influence from the historicist academicism, but also, with a rationalistic intention, with some
technological novelties, such as reinforced concrete. The building was built, on a property of 1236 m2,
probably following the layout of a previous colonial house. It has two blocks of three stories and an
attic. The building had some uses and several modifications; therefore, it was necessary to carry out
a comprehensive architectural rehabilitation project for its new use. This paper describes the building
and its rehabilitation, that has included the stylistic restoration of several of its architectonic details,
and the polemic withdrawal of some structures.

1 INTRODUCTION

The time of construction of the Guillespie house is

related with design management brought by several
architects who studied mainly in Europe and United
States, some of them coming from those places
(Lara 1992).
In this sense, although other styles had already
begun to be developed in Europe or the United
States, associated with Art Deco and Rationalism,
most of the local architecture was still realized with
the influence of historicist academicism, and the use
of finishing structures and materials related to metal
carpentry, cast and wrought iron or noble woods.
Although in part of its design a hybridization of his­
toricism to rationalism is identified.
The house was built on one of the main roads of the
city, on García Moreno Street, in the Santa Bárbara
neighborhood, and had the use of housing, only five
years, since its owners went to live in the United
States, where the father of the family James
G. Guillespie was originally from.
Since then, it was leased until 1947, when it was
sold to the Caja del Seguro, in whose property it was
until 2011 when the IMP of Quito bought it for its
new headquarters (IMP 2012a). The inauguration of
the rehabilitated building was in June 2018.
Figure 1. IMP of Quito, main courtyard corridor, after
Currently, the building is part of the Quito’s built
rehabilitation (Photo by author 2020).
heritage, located in its Historic Centre, which holds
the title of World Heritage since 1978.

DOI: 10.1201/9781003136804-48

248
Figure 2. IMP of Quito, longitudinal section plan, before rehabilitation (IMP 2012d).

2 MATERIALS AND METHODS

2.1 Architectural description

The layout was planned with two blocks of three
stories, organizing the rooms around the central
court-yards. These courtyards were covered with
heavy translucid structures, made with beams and
glass bricks, having the intention to allow the pass of
natural light from the top glazed ceiling (Figure 6),
a resource also used by the architect Durini in other
buildings (IMP 2012a, 9).
The building was built with brick and stone sup­
porting walls, and some concrete structures. The
gen-eral structures of exterior floors were made in
Catalan style, with bricks and wooden beams (IMP
2012a, 16). The general ceiling of the building was
made with wooden structure and tile roof.
The back area of the building was designed with
open terraces in accordance with the unevenness of
the terrain. In this area there was a garden where
there is still an ancient magnolia tree. Also, there is
a small building at the end of the terraces, where
probably the rooms of the service personnel were.
As for the architectural details, the building has
a formal repertoire that has as characteristic the use
of jonick columns, garlands, cornices and corbels in
several designs, associated with the classical styles.
The imposing façade of the building was designed
with an eclectic historicist formal repertoire, where
reminiscences of the baroque and the neoclassicism.
The stone wall of the ground floor was built with
a very representative neoclassical style, with padded
ashlars. On this façade, stand out a large balcony
with wrought iron railings in Art Nouveau style Figure 3. IMP of Quito, main façade (Photo by author
(Figure 3). 2020).
Doors and windows combine materials such as
wood, wrought iron and glass. The finishes of the
walls were plastered and painted, some walls and Regarding the floor finishes, most of the exteriors
architectural details, have mural and decorative were covered with ceramic tiles of several motifs
painting. Most of the ceilings have polychrome (Figure 8), while the interiors were made of wooden
brass. planks. The main staircase was built in concrete,

249
with finish of marble powder, and wrought iron rail­
ings. The last section of the staircase, which gives
access to the at-tic, was built completely of wood
(Figure 13).

3 RESULTS AND DISCUSSION

3.1 Rehabilitation project. The building before

project
The building was in an advanced state of disrepair,
mainly due to the lack of maintenance and the most
varied uses (Figure 4). There were offices, associ­
ations, shops, collective housing, a medical center,
a school, and even a morgue and a crematorium
(Figure 5).
The indiscriminate uses that the building had, pro­
duced its damage, there were also constructive alter­
ations and risk of ruin, due to the collapse of parts of
the roof, where the seepage of rainwater accelerated its
deterioration.
The general structure of the building also had sev­
eral cracks, which had never been repaired, putting
some rooms at risk of collapse.
On the other hand, the translucent structures that
covered the courtyards, weren’t successful in terms
of give a lighting solution, and worse with respect to
ventilation, resulting in gloomy and underused
spaces (Figures 5-8).
Figure 5. IMP of Quito, backyard with crematorium,
before re-habilitation (IMP 2012a).
3.2 Rehabilitation proposal
One of the central axes of the project was the
with drawal of the heavy translucent structures of
the courtyards, in both blocks of the building
(Figures 5, 7-8). These structures did not have
the expected success, perhaps for the same inten­
tion of merging the concept of two different
architectures. Perhaps a failure, as Roth says, «a
modern architecture rooted in concepts that had
little or nothing to do with architecture» (Roth
1999, 523). In this case, the modern part was
like an addition to the architectonic characteristic
layout, prior to rationalism.
The removal of these structures was necessary,
for a true recovery of the building’s functionality.
The rest was to plan the respective rehabilitation
and resto-ration works of the entire building,
according to the new use as offices of the tech­
nical management department of the IMP of
Quito.

Figure 6. IMP of Quito, glazed cover, main courtyard,

Figure 4. IMP of Quito, back block, before rehabilitation before rehabilitation (IMP 2012c).
(IMP 2012a).

250
Figure 7. IMP of Quito, main courtyard, first floor, (left) after rehabilitation (IMP 2012a); (right) before rehabilitation
(Photo by au-thor 2020).

Figure 8. IMP of Quito, main courtyard, low level, (left) after rehabilitation (IMP 2012a); (right) before rehabilitation
(Photo by author 2020).

The project included all facilities for offices,

library, archive, workshops, meeting rooms, gardens,
cafeteria, showroom and storage. It was developed by
the technical staff of the IMP of Quito, in correspond­
ence with heritage regulations and technical standards
(IMP 2012c). This included the conservation and res­
toration of original finishes of floors, ceilings, mural
painting and structural elements, taking in-to account
in some cases, the recovery of missing parts, or the
replacement of parts due their advanced damage.
Also, the recovery of structures, from different
previous anti-technical works. For the back block
and some corridors, new lightweight glass and metal
structures of roofs, were planned (Figures 11-12, 14).
A connection with the adjoining building, where
the administrative department is located, was
planned opening parts of the walls, coinciding with
corridors, in one of those, an elevator was projected,
with ser-vice for both buildings.
The rehabilitation of the back terraces with gardens Figure 9. IMP of Quito, architectural rehabilitation plan,
and a rest area, was also planned (Figures 14-15). longitudinal section of main courtyard (IMP 2012e).

251
 Figure 11. IMP of Quito, new light glazed roof of the back
courtyard (Photo by author 2020).

Figure 10. IMP of Quito, architectural rehabilitation plan,

first floor (IMP 2012e).

3.3 Technical studies

The project included, archaeological, historical
and structural studies, from which many of the
construction and use particularities could be
known. Also, an architectural survey (IMP
2012d), (Figures 2, 10) with architectural details,
elements of wood and metal carpentry, patholo­ Figure 12. IMP of Quito, side corridor, after rehabilitation
(Pho-to by author 2020).
gies, constructive modifications and additions

252

Figure 13. IMP of Quito, main staircase, after rehabilita­
tion (IMP 2012c).
Figure 14. IMP of Quito, back courtyard, after rehabilita­
tion (Photo by author 2020).
Figure 15. IMP of Quito, back terraces, after rehabilitation
(Photo by author 2020).
253
(Figure 2). Finally, all plans, for structural rein­
force, sewerage, drinking water, rainwater col­
lection, electrical, electronic, special and fire­
fighting installations, was done (IMP 2012c).
4 CONCLUSIONS
The discussion around the restoration and rehabilita­
tion of the built heritage has a wide debate, espe­
cially regarding to the possible actions to achieve
habitable and functional spaces, beyond of a specific
conservation or restoration. A debate that continues,
de-spite having its origin as a scientific method in
the 19th century (López-Ulloa 2010, 1045).
In the case of the old Guillespie house, is contro­
versial the decision to free the courtyards from their
translucent structures. However, this action in these
structures, which from the beginning did not have
the expected success, in terms of lighting and venti­
lation functionality, has been the reason for their
withdraw-al, with a surprising result.
This decision has had a successful result, associ­
ated with the architectural possibilities of the build­
ing it-self, in terms of its spatial organization around
central courtyards, whose ancient Roman origin, the
«atrium», had the main characteristic of being pre­
cisely, an open area.
REFERENCES
IMP. 2012a. Historia constructiva de las casas: Guillespie,
García Moreno N8-3, casa García Moreno, García
Moreno N8-11 y Manabí, esquina. Instituto Metropoli­
tano de Patrimonio. Quito: IMP Archive.
IMP. 2012b. Informe estructural de factibilidad para la
rehabilitación de las casas ubicadas en la esquina nor­
este, entre las calles García Moreno y Manabí, frente
a la iglesia de Santa Bárbara. Instituto Metropolitano de
Patrimonio. Quito: IMP Archive.
IMP. 2012c. Memoria técnica de rehabilitación arquitectó­
nica integral casa Guillespie para traslado de oficinas
del IMP. Instituto Metropolitano de Patrimonio. Quito:
IMP Archive.
IMP. 2012d. Planos de levantamiento arquitectónico edifi­
cio calle García Moreno. Instituto Metropolitano de
Patrimonio. Quito: IMP Archive.
IMP. 2015e. Planos de obra, rehabilitación arquitectónica
integral casa Guillespie para traslado de las oficinas del
IMP. Instituto Metropolitano de Patrimonio. Quito: IMP
Archive.
López-Ulloa, F. 2010. The theory and practice of restor­
ation in England in the second half of the 19th Century:
The work of George E. Street. Advanced Materials
Research, Vols. 133-4, pp. 1045–50. Switzerland: Trans
Tech Publications.
Roth, L. 1999. Entender la arquitectura sus elementos, his­
toria y significado. Barcelona: Editorial Gustavo Gili.
Salvador, J. 1992. Quito. Madrid: Editorial MAPFRE.
 Reconstruction and Restoration of Architectural Heritage 2021 – Sementsov, Leontyev & Huerta (Eds)
© 2021 Taylor & Francis Group, London, ISBN 978-0-367-68296-5

Integrated approach to shoring of the foundation of a historical building

using injection technologies
R.A. Mangushev, A.I. Osokin & F.N. Kalach
Saint Petersburg State University of Architecture and Civil Engineering, Saint Petersburg, Russia

ABSTRACT: The article presents the results of solving the engineering and geotechnical problem of ensur­
ing the safety of the building of the architectural monument, which is located in the immediate vicinity of the
site of production work on the construction of a pit with a depth of excavation of more than 2.5 meters below
the mark of laying the foundations of the existing building. The solution is presented through the implementa­
tion of a number of compensatory measures using modern injection technologies and an integrated approach
to support design and construction through physical and mathematical modeling, geotechnical monitoring,
and scientific and technical support.

1 INTRODUCTION – technogenic soils are underlain by flowing lake-sea

The development of construction activities in terms
of the development of underground space in the his­
torical built-up part of St. Petersburg is due to the
need to comply with the height regulations of the cen­
tral part of the city and its architectural and historical
ensemble. At the same time, the possibility of effect­
ive use of underground floors as technical, administra­
tive, and household premises justifies the economic
costs of their arrangement. However, in connection
with the neighboring historical buildings and architec­
tural monuments (Bogov 2016), the first priority is to
ensure the safety of any geotechnical work in relation
to them. The complexity of this problem lies in the
density of historical buildings, the technical condition
of the buildings under consideration, and the features
of the engineering and geological conditions of the
historical districts of the city (Mangushev at al. 2017,
2018), mainly composed of weak dusty-clay water-
saturated soils (Kalach at al. 2019).
low-peat loam with layers of powdery sand (IGE­
2), weak in geotechnical terms, and having pro­
nounced thixotropic properties. Thixotropic proper­
ties are also possessed by lake-sea sandy loams of
pulverized plastic (IGE-2a), medium-density pulver­
ized sands (IGE-3a), and loams (IGE-4, IGE-4a,
IGE-5);
– gravelly and large water-saturated sands (IGE-3)
have high values of mechanical characteristics. At
the same time, the low thickness of the layer and
the unevenness in the stretch do not allow us to
consider it as a load-bearing layer of foundations;
– glacial sandy loam (IGE-6) and loam (IGE-7, 7a)
have high strength and deformation characteris­
tics, which allows them to be considered as
a load-bearing layer of pile foundations;
– the water-bearing rocks are bulk soils (IGE-1),
sandy layers in littorin loam (IGE-2) and sandy
loam (IGE-2a), as well as gravelly (IGE-3) and
dusty (IGE-3a) sands. Underground unpressurized
waters were uncovered at depths of 1.4 m.

2 MATERIALS AND METHODS

Features of the engineering and geological condi­ 3 RESULTS

tions of the locality. The site under consideration is
geomorphologically located within the Prinevskaya
lowland. Soils within the area under consideration
(Table 1) are characterized by the following building
properties:
– bulk soils (IGE-1) are heterogeneous in density
and composition and are mixed sandy loam, sand
with construction debris;
Technical condition of the building of the architec­
tural monument. The building in question is located
in a 30-meter zone of direct influence (Figure 2) and
is a three-story wing with an attic floor of pre­
revolutionary construction (1844). The building in
the plan has a polygonal shape and a wall structural
system with load-bearing longitudinal and transverse
walls. The exterior and interior walls are made of
red solid brick on lime-sand mortar. Under the

DOI: 10.1201/9781003136804-49

254
Table 1. Physical and mechanical characteristics of soils.

C, φ, E,
ИГЭ ρ, g/cm3 e IL kPa degr. MPa

IGE-2/2a 1.48 1.894 3.09 5 4 2

IGE-3 2.00 0.650 - 1 38 30
IGE-3a 2.00 0.612 - 3 29 22
IGE-4 1.96 0.772 0.65 17 17 9
IGE-4a 1.91 0.866 1.21 10 10 6
IGE-5 1.78 1.189 1.34 7 8 5
IGE-6 2.04 0.638 0.52 25 19 9
IGE-7 2.22 0.542 0.28 30 22 16

external and internal load-bearing and self-

supporting walls, there is a ribbon rubble foundation
on a natural foundation (Figure 1).
Geometric parameters of the strip foundation and Figure 1. Pit, made inside the building.
data of the underground part: the total height of the
rubble masonry tape is 1.51 m; the width of the
foundation along the edge is 0.98 m; the width of the
foundation along the sole is 0.86 m; the upper edge Polishchuk 2004, 2013). The forecast consists of
of the foundation is located at minus 0.66 m below a complex of analytical and computational works,
the level of the daily surface (DL); the depth of the the objectives of which are qualitative and quantita­
sole (FL) is cut at minus 2.17 m; the level of under­ tive assessment of the behavior of the bases, founda­
ground water, at the time of the survey, was not met. tions, and structures of the projected structure and
When examining the foundation, horizontal and ver­ the surrounding development, as well as assessment
tical waterproofing was not revealed. Under the sole of the impact of construction on the change in the
of the foundation, wooden structures (skid-mounted, stress-strain state of the groundmass during construc­
piles) were not found. The backfill of the founda­ tion and during the initial period of operation.
tions is made by local excavated soil with inclusions Under the repair and restoration work in this situ­
of cobblestones, brick battle, and other construction ation, it is planned to build a two-story building with
debris (El Sawwaf 2012). a basement and attic floors (Kolybin 2008). In the
At the site of the pit, the following stratification basement of the projected building, there is
of the soil was uncovered (from top to bottom): a wardrobe, bathrooms, and a technical underground.
For the construction of the underground floor, a pit is
– paving slabs with a thickness of 80 mm; provided with a depth of 3.7 m from the day surface
– sand with a capacity of 300 mm; (Figure 2). The pit is developed under the protection
– 120 mm thick asphalt layer; of an enclosing structure made of reinforced con­
– sand with construction debris with a capacity of crete piles made under the protection of clay mor­
1500 mm; tars, with a maximum length of 11 m and a diameter
– loam, below the base of the foundation, the thick­ of 350 mm.
ness of the layer was not determined.
According to the results of the survey, the general
technical condition of the foundation was recognized
as operable. In accordance with the Russian regulatory
documentation, the building belongs to the II (satisfac­
tory) category of technical condition. The maximum
permissible draft of a historical building with load-
bearing walls made of brickwork without reinforce­
ment is Su=10 mm (Henn 2010; Ivanova 2015).
Geotechnical forecast for assessing the impact of
repair and restoration work on the architectural
monument. When designing the bases, foundations,
and underground parts of newly constructed or
reconstructed structures located in a built-up area, it Figure 2. Situational location of the pit relative to the
is necessary to perform a geotechnical forecast building of the architectural monument.
(Shashkin at al. 2011, 2014; Hanson at al. 2001;

255
 As part of the geotechnical forecast, the numerical
method was evaluated in the PLAXIS 3D software
package, which implements the finite element method
in the three-dimensional formulation of the problem
of excavating the pit to the design mark under the
protection of the above measures, and its impact on
additional deformations of the architectural monument
building (Figure 3) (Osokin at al. 2014, 2019).
According to the results of numerical calculations,
the deformations of the foundations of the architec­
tural monument were more than S=18 mm, which is
higher than the permissible values. The above cir­
cumstances have caused the need to develop com­
pensatory measures in the area of the development
of the greatest deformations of the building, which
must be performed before the start of work.
According to the results of numerical calculations,
the deformations of the foundations of the architec­
tural monument were more than S=18 mm, which is
higher than the permissible values. The above cir­
cumstances caused the need to develop compensa­
tory measures in the area of the development of the
greatest deformations of the building, which must be
performed before the start of work.
Development of compensation measures. When
developing such measures, the task was to choose the
most effective and economical solution from the point
of view of the economic security of the existing build­
ing. Considering the experience of geotechnical work
of specialists of the Department of Geotechnics of
SPbGASU in difficult engineering and geological con­
ditions (Mangushev at al. 2019), the following
sequence of technological operations was developed to
minimize the impact on the existing building
(Figure 4):

Figure 4. Scheme of reinforcement of the building of the

architectural monument in the conditions of the thickness of
weak soils (E<7 MPa).

Step 1-reinforcement of the foundation body with

Figure 3. Isofield of deformations of the building founda­
tions during excavation of the pit to the design mark.
a cement-based binder solution to recreate the integ­
rity of the foundation laid with rubble stone;
Stage 2-strengthening of the “foundation-ground”
contact zone 500 mm below the base of the foundation
to eliminate voids formed during man-made impact;
Stage 3-reinforcement of the foundation soil by
the cuff technology method to create a geotechnical
barrier between the pit and the existing building;
Stage 4-reinforcement of foundations with
inclined drilling and injection piles Ø151 mm in
increments of 500 mm. The piles were carried out
using core drilling to the level of the foundation
sole, then the drilling tool is replaced with a pic bur,
and drilling is carried out on the ground to the
design mark, about 20 meters, with washing with
cement mortar and its subsequent replacement with
cement (injection) mortar (Markou 2012).

256
 Figure 6. Photo of the injection work performed on the site
by the Beretta 43T drilling rig.

Figure 5. Isofield of deformations of the foundations of

the building when excavating the pit to the design mark,
considering the completed compensation measures.

To assess the effectiveness of the adopted

compensation measures, an additional geotech­
nical forecast was made, the results of which are
presented in the form of isofields of vertical
deformations of the base of the building founda­
tions in Figure 5.
According to the results of the numerical evalu­
ation, considering the performed compensatory meas­ Figure 7. Photo of the injection works performed to
strengthen the foundations of the building of the architec­
ures to strengthen the base and foundations of the
tural monument.
building with the help of injection technologies, the
deformations of the foundations of the building of the
architectural monument amounted to S=9 mm, which
is permissible and does not exceed the limit value of
Su=10 mm.

4 DISCUSSION

Implementation of the adopted decisions and analysis

of geotechnical monitoring. For preventive strength­
ening of the foundations of the existing building, the
Gertek injection complex and Beretta 43T mobile
self-propelled drilling rigs were used (Figure 6).
For visual inspection of the implemented injection
works, the development of the pit was carried out
and the successful completion of these works was
recorded (Figure 7).
The criterion for evaluating the effectiveness of
the adopted design decision on the compensation
measure is a long-term and regular geotechnical
monitoring of the deformations of the building
(Figure 8).
Comparing the schedule of vertical deformations
in time with the schedule of work on the construc­
tion site, several sections can be noted:
Figure 8. Graph of the dependence of the vertical deform­
ations of the foundation base over time.
1) A sharp rise in the foundations in October-
November 2019, which is due to the techno­
logical features of the production of injection
works to strengthen the foundation soil by
hydraulic fracturing.
2) Gradual minor foundation sedimentation, starting
from December 2019, with subsequent stabiliza­
tion after excavation of the pit to the design level
(August 2020).

257
 Analyzing the graphs of the development of
building sediments, we can conclude that they are
predicted to be uniform and stabilize to the calcu­
lated values that do not exceed the maximum per­
missible values (Figure 8).
5 CONCLUSION
When performing earthworks related to the develop­
ment of underground space in the historical built-up
part of the city, there are risks of their negative
impact on existing buildings.
The primary task is to ensure their safety, which
is solved by an integrated approach and includes
analytical and numerical forecasting of the impact of
not only the final design decision but also modeling
of the phased technological cycle of production of
various types of work, providing regular geotech­
nical monitoring by a highly qualified organization
with equipment that provides at least the 2nd class of
accuracy, as well as providing scientific and tech­
nical support for construction by a specialized organ­
ization, performing scientific and methodological
and expert-controlling functions. The analysis of the
implemented integrated approach to ensuring the
safety of a historical building-a monument of archi­
tectural heritage with the use of injection technolo­
gies allows us to conclude that it is highly effective.
It is worth noting the high convergence of the
results of the obtained deformations in the geotech­
nical forecast in the PLAXIS 3D software computing
complex, which make up Su, cal = 9 mm, and in the
course of performing geotechnical monitoring for
1.5 years for the deformations of the building – the
maximum deformations at the time of completion of
the excavation work were Su, mon = 8 mm. This solu­
tion has proven itself well in the construction of
a 3.7 m pit near the existing responsible building,
which allows us to transpose this experience to other
responsible objects in conditions of dense urban
development. However, it is necessary to consider
the uniqueness of each building and the complex
engineering and geological stratification of the soil
in St. Petersburg, mainly composed of weak soils
(E <7 MPa) with the content of organic substances
and lenses of frozen soils. This circumstance
requires an individual approach to each engineering
and geotechnical task.
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 Reconstruction and Restoration of Architectural Heritage 2021 – Sementsov, Leontyev & Huerta (Eds)
© 2021 Taylor & Francis Group, London, ISBN 978-0-367-68296-5

Architectural & artistic methods to preserve historical and cultural heritage

subjects in Saint Petersburg residential interiors
O.V. Mueller
Saint Petersburg Stieglitz State Academy of Art and Design, Saint Petersburg, Russia

ABSTRACT: The article identifies architectural and artistic methods which promote the preservation of pro­
tected subjects in residential interior architecture spaces in buildings of historical and cultural heritage. The
problem of preservation exists in cities where residential architectural landscapes represent buildings of his­
torical and cultural heritage. To identify the methods, the author analyzes the residential interior spaces of
20th century Post-Soviet and Modern times in Saint-Petersburg buildings with historical and cultural protec­
tion. As a result of a study, the following artistic and cultural methods were established: stylization, eclecti­
cism and reminiscence. Historical and cultural justifications for the use of the methods in various times of the
Post-Soviet period are given.

1 INTRODUCTION frame covers the beginning of a new worldview era

The preservation of historical and cultural heritage is
relevant in modern interior architecture. Saint Peters­
burg is a city where the residential architectural land­
scape is represented by extensive historical buildings
with 19th Century original details in interior spaces.
These details require preservation. In this case, archi­
tects have the task of finding a structural interaction
between the architectural details of both the past and
modern aesthetic trends and the comfort of living. The
awareness of methods expands the range of possible
options to analyze the historic details in modern inter­
ior architecture and promotes the preservation of his­
torical details in the interior architecture of modernity.
The research reveals and determines architectural
and artistic methods of interaction with historical
details in residential interiors from the beginning of
post-soviet times till modernity.
2 MATERIALS AND METHODS
The methodological basis for this analysis is
a comprehensive study of the preservation of build­
ings and interior architecture of cultural and historical
heritage, the examination of artistic and architectural
methods, and the cultural studies devoted to the
issues of a modern worldview in architecture.
For empirical analysis, the author selected post-
soviet and modern residential spaces with protected
interior architectural elements of the 19th and early
20th century in rental properties with cultural and
historical facades in Saint Petersburg. The time
in Russia from the 1990s to the 2010s.
3 RESULTS
In the 1990s, architects turned to the stylization
method which was determined by the romantic mood
in society and the political changes in the country.
The decade saw an interest in pre-revolutionary his­
tory and a desire to revive the connection with the
great national past of imperial Russia leading to an
increase in the number of reconstructed historic
buildings of Saint Petersburg.
Renovations of interior architectural spaces in the
1990s preserved the original construction plans of
the buildings. The historical, interior architecture
elements were complemented by replicas produced
during those times. The whole artistic image of inter­
ior architectural space was aligned with the stylistic
model of the historical detail.
The A. G. Ananov residential interior was renovated
in the 1990s. This architectural space is located in an
early 20th century rental property (Michurinskaya
Street, 7, architect L. L. Fufaevsky, 1911, interior archi­
tect A. G. Ananov, 1990, Figure 1). The artistic image
of the interior was stylized in accordance with the
architectural style of the historical interior elements
with stucco rods and cornice decorations from the time
of Nicholas II. Architectural and decorative means
were used to achieve the appropriate style. For
example, the outlines, shapes, colors and materials rep­
licated the historical prototypes. The interior space con­
struction plan remained unchanged.

DOI: 10.1201/9781003136804-50

259

Figure 1. On the left – Residential building of cultural and
historical heritage of Saint Petersburg (7 Michurinskaya
street, 1911); right - residential interior with original details
of Nicholas II times, 1990s.
Figure 2. On the left – residential building of cultural and
historical heritage (16 Martynova Embankment, 1900s);
right - residential interior with classic style original elem­
ents in combination with new-made elements different
architectural styles, 2000s.

From the early 00s of the 21st century, architects

applied the eclecticism method. The choice of this
kind of interaction method was influenced by the
socio-economic changes in the country. It was
expressed in architecture and interior architecture
with combinations of elements of different architec­
tural styles of the past. As a result, original historical
details of one style were combined with replicated
elements of other past and modern architectural
styles. The constructional plans got complicated and
architects moved away from the constructive enfil­
ade composition.
The influence of innovative technologies in con­
struction and production must be also taken into con­
sideration. In these times, new technologies
appeared that improved the standards of apartment
living. For example, internal heat insulation was
implemented in a building with a protected facade in
the historical part of Saint Petersburg (Margula,
Pukhkalb). In the 00s, the increased use of the
“multi-level ceilings” technique for the closure of air
conditioning ceiling pipes also required new archi­
tectural and artistic solutions. In K. G. Ershov’s
rental property (16 Martynova Embankment,
unknown architect, 1900s), Art Nouveau motifs
were used in the architectural and artistic image of
one of the residential interior spaces. The layout of
the living space corresponded with the chosen style Figure 3. Nevsky Avenue, 65, architect L. L. Fufaevsky,
1902-1904; interior architect Mueller O.V., 2005.
and was built according to the principle of
a diverging spiral. In the center of the plan was
a spiral staircase from which the space of the apart­
ment developed (Figure 2). Since the 10s of the 21st century, the method of
The interior residential space in G. G. Blokk’s reminiscence was used along with the methods of
rental property (Nevsky prospect, 65, architect stylization and eclecticism. The changed worldview
L. L. Fufaevsky, 1902-1904 interior architect revealed in the works of leading late 20th century
O. Muller, 2005, Figure 3) was reconstructed in the philosophers affected the perception of aesthetics and
neoclassical style. The artistic image was designed in the organization of the residential environment.
accordance with the style of the preserved molding A person was perceived not as an “outside observer”,
elements (ceiling rods, cornices, rosettes) and fire­ but as “a part of the environment and the world” in
places with tiles of the early 20th century. However, which he was (Habermas). “Design planning was pre­
the spatial plan was resolved in a constructional way sented as a way to harmonize human life in an urban
of modernity. The volume of the interior space which environment” (Ptitsyna). According to the method of
was originally divided into small rooms was reminiscence, architects did not strive to “integrate”
replanned to increase the common area (Figure 3). into the existing historical style of the premises, but

260
instead to create a new image on the basis of its artis­ the contour lines of the molded historical elements
tic forms. The original elements of the pre­ like cornices, rods, and ceiling corners.
revolutionary era of Saint Petersburg in the residential
interior spaces were perceived as elements for inte­
gration. Freely usable forms of the past created sym­ 4 DISCUSSION
biotic solutions with modern architectural trends.
According to the method of reminiscence, one In the 1990s to the 2010s, the variety of methods was
of the residential interior spaces in a building of constantly updated (Table 1). The chosen method
historical and cultural heritage, the rental property determined the type of interaction between architect
of M.P. Tolstoy was constructed (54, Fontanka and subject of protection by creating an architectural
River Emb., architect F.I. Lidval, 1910-1912, and artistic image of an interior architectural space
interior architect E. Lee, 2016, Figure 4). Here the (Table 2). The appeal of a particular method was influ­
material of the neoclassical architecture style of enced by the worldview philosophy which was chan­
the beginning of the 20th century was interpreted ging over time. The revealed architectural and artistic
and integrated with a modern worldview. The con­ methods of preservation have the historical approach
tour of the Doric column and the outline of the (Figure 5).
portal in motifs of ancient Greek architecture were
smoothed out. They were built into the soft lines
of the historical architecture outline decoration
including massive stucco ceiling profiles and ros­
Table 1. Architectural and artistic methods to preserve
ettes (Figure 4). The column finishing material
subjects of historical and cultural heritage in residential
was Port Laurent brown marble, often used in interiors.
interiors of classical architecture. The material
was combined with modern interior architecture 1990s 2000s 2010s
finishing mediums, such as wood and glass.
The aspect of personal perception of the 21st cen­ Stylization Stylization Stylization
tury as part of a “communicative society” (Haber­ Eclecticism Eclecticism
mas) affected the aesthetics of the interior. The Reminiscence
desire to make a name, to show individuality and to
stand out in the consumer culture changed the
approach in interior architecture. The trend was non­
standard, kitschy forms. The pluralism of “styles”
was considered in interior architecture as Table 2. Types of interaction with historical and cultural
a phenomenon that fully met the customer’s satisfac­ elements in residential interior architectural spaces depend­
tion of desires and emotional comfort (Kovaleva). ing on architectural and artistic method.
In the residential interior architectural space (8-ya Method Way of interaction
Liniya V.O. 37, Figure 4) the soviet car body was
integrated in forms of pre-revolutionary Saint Peters­ Stylization Replication
burg architectural styles. For example, the baroque Eclecticism Free combination
motifs and the ornament of the painting interpreted Reminiscence Integration

Figure 4. 2010s interior. At the top: 54, Fontanka River Figure 5. Influences on architectural and artistic methods of
Emb, 1910-1912; below: 37, 8-ya Liniya V.O., 1912. preservation in the 1990s to the 2010s.

261
5 CONCLUSION
Based on the analyses presented in this article,
the architectural and artistic methods which pro­
mote the preservation of protected interior archi­
tectural elements in interior residential spaces
were identified. These methods are the stylization
method, the eclecticism method, and the reminis­
cence method.
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Dengler F. 2003. Bauen in historischer Umgebung. Hildes­
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Genisaretsky O. I. 2015. The philosophy of design: from
the history of design culture in the second half of the
twentieth century. Moscow: Lenand.
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architectural composition. Moscow: Art.
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Appearance of the Historical Buildings due to Heat
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 Reconstruction and Restoration of Architectural Heritage 2021 – Sementsov, Leontyev & Huerta (Eds)
© 2021 Taylor & Francis Group, London, ISBN 978-0-367-68296-5

Historical center of the small town of Biryuch, Belgorod region

M.V. Perkova, E.I. Ladik, L.I. Kolesnikova & Y.A. Nemtseva
BSTU named after V.G. Shukhov, Belgorod, Russian Federation

ABSTRACT: The historical center of the small town of Biryuch in the Belgorod region is considered.
Contradictions in the development of small historical cities and their historical centers are associated with
unresolved urban planning conflicts and contradictions in the modern use of cultural heritage objects. Urban
planning conflicts in the historical center of the city are considered and classified. It is revealed that the main
urban planning conflicts are socio-functional, transport, and environmental. By type of location, they are div­
ided into a linear, point, and areal. The directions of the development of the historical center of the city are
proposed. The social and economic diversity of the urban environment and architectural features makes the
city more sustainable. Preservation and restoration with adaptation to a new function of objects-cultural heri­
tage preserve the urban identity, the memory of the place, making the urban environment unique and attractive
to residents.

1 INTRODUCTION The purpose of the study is to identify urban plan­

The historical center of each city is unique. The
urban center is characterized by multi-functionality
and includes centers of trade, management, services,
culture, as well as residential buildings. With the
development and expansion of cities, it becomes
necessary to improve and green areas, create
a comfortable environment, as well as restore and
preserve historically valuable buildings.
The relevance of the topic is determined by the
need to solve a complex of problems related to the
development of historical centers of small towns in
the Belgorod region. Recently, urban planning con­
flicts in historical centers have become quite
common in the planning structure of small cities.
For example, when preserving historically valuable
buildings, building residential or public buildings,
highways, or landscaping. The choice of the cat­
egory of a small historical city is justified by the
actual problem of preserving the identity of histor­
ical centers in a post-industrial society, a high-
quality urban environment, and conditions for
human development (Perkova et al. 2018). A city is
an object that “promotes” values and life experi­
ences through material and abstract expressions in
the context of diversity, change, and conflict (Zan­
cheti et al. 2007). The article deals with the identifi­
cation of urban conflicts on the example of the
small town of Biryuch in the Krasnogvardeysky
district of the Belgorod region, 128 kilometers east
of Belgorod.
The object of the study is the historical center of
Biryuch.
ning conflicts in the historical center of Biryuch and
to suggest ways to resolve them.
The researchers Cherepanov K. A. (Cherepanov
2013), Konchekov S. M., Bolshakov A. G., Perkova
M. V., Vaytens A. G., Baklazhenko E. V. (Perkova
et al. 2018, 2019) were engaged in the definition of
urban planning conflict, their classification, causes
of occurrence, including considering regional spe­
cifics. Belyaeva E. L., Komarova T. P., Kolesnikova
L. I. were engaged in urban planning problems
related to the reconstruction of the development of
historical cities.
2 MATERIALS AND METHODS
The research applied a complex and conflict-based
approach. The integrated approach includes the ana­
lysis of natural and socio-economic factors of the
development of territories. In solving the tasks, the
authors’ used methods of studying the spatial and
social characteristics of the territory of the historical
center, compositional analysis, and graph-analytical
methods of evaluation. The application of the con-
flict-based approach is to identify and classify urban
conflicts in the territory of the historical center of
a small city.
3 RESULTS
E. A. Bolkhovitinov (a writer and a major
church figure) described the city of Biryuch in

DOI: 10.1201/9781003136804-51

263
1800: “… Biryuch is a district city of the Vor­
onezh province. It lies on the left bank of the
Quiet Pine River and on both sides of the Bir­
yuchka river that flows into it, partly on a flat
place, partly on a slope. According to the con­
firmed plan, it is divided into 29, and suburban
settlements into 12 blocks. To the square in the
middle of the city located, there are 8 streets, of
which the best four are: Ostrogozhskaya, Ver­
khososenskaya, Slonovskaya, Userdskaya”. In
the city and suburbs, there are 2 wooden and 3
parish stone churches; 5 wooden state-owned
wooden buildings, a county school, an almshouse,
an inn, 15 shops, 20 forges, 3 breweries, and 3 dis­
tilleries. “The inhabitants, according to the privil­
eges granted by the Slobodsky Ukrainian regiment,
use distilling, sell cattle and bread…”. The city line
divided the urban settlement from the Slobodskys
along the Tikhaya Sosna River, along Turgenev
Street, along Krupskaya Street to the settlement
council and the fire station.
Biryuch is the only small town in the Belgorod
Region that has a radial-circular planning structure.
The center is the cathedral square, from which the
main roads of citywide and district significance
diverge in eight rays. The main compositional axis
has historically been the Tikhaya Sosna River. In the
process of urbanization and road construction, the
spatial axis became the meridian connection - the
intersection of roads from Voronezh to Valuiki, from
Ostrogozhsk to Novy Oskol. Consider the historical
center of the small town of Biryuch (Figure 1).
It has two squares: the upper one – the Cathedral,
which got its name from the Pokrovsky and
Uspensky churches located in close proximity to
each other, the Assumption Church, built to the
south of the Pokrovsky Temple, has not been pre­
served, there was also a Gostiny Dvor, the second
square – the Lower One or the Shopping Area,
formed by the buildings of the stone shopping rows
of the classicism era with open arcature galleries and
Tuscan semi-columns. Eight straight streets radiate
from the vast Cathedral Square, radially connected
by three semi-circular streets. In the plan, the whole
city turned out to be octagonal in the center with the
Figure 1. Historical center of Biryuch.
264
Cathedral Square (upper) and the Shopping Square
(lower). Cathedral Square originally included the
functions of the church (processions, water consecra­
tion, etc.), administrative, cultural and entertainment,
and shopping on the days of large fairs. During the
XX century after 1917, the functional content of the
Cathedral Square changed in accordance with the
socio-economic and ideological demands of society.
So, for example, the Pokrovsky Cathedral, adapted
for the House of culture, was preserved from two
churches, and a park with attractions and the core of
a sport was laid out on the square in the western
part. The central part of the square was used for
demonstrations of workers and mass actions in front
of the house of the district administration, built in
the north-eastern part of the square. With the con­
struction of the new Palace of Culture, which closed
the square on the eastern side, it was decided to
restore the Intercession Church. By this time, the
rides were moved to a new park and the core of the
sport to a new sports complex. Today, the Cathedral
Square includes only administrative, cultural, and
ecclesiastical functions.
As S. V. Sementsov notes, the category “object of
cultural heritage” is revealed, “…from the standpoint
of its correlations with the concept of “cultural
values” (Bulavsky & Sementsov 2018). Objects of
the cultural heritage of federal and regional signifi­
cance are located in the central part of the modern
city of Biryuch, in particular near Sobornaya Square
(Biryuchansky shopping malls), along Krasnaya,
Pavlovsky, Olminsky streets (the building of the
Zemstvo (now the library), the district school (now
the treasury), the military enlistment office, etc.)
(Figure 2).
• Objects of the cultural heritage of federal signifi­
cance:1) Biryuchansky shopping malls (now the
Museum of Local Lore), Sobornaya Ploshchad
St.; 2) Biryuchansky shopping malls (now the
Department of Culture), Sobornaya Square street.
Figure 2. Historical and cultural reference plan of the his­
torical center of Biryuch. Made under the direction of
L. I. Kolesnikova. Objects of the cultural heritage of federal
significance of Biryuch.
• Cultural heritage sites of regional significance In Biryuch, objects that are characteristic
:3) trade shop; 4) building Council (now examples of the architecture of public buildings of
the library, music school, and typography) on the the eclectic period have been preserved to this day. It
street Olminskogo, 1; 5) houses on the street is a brick-style building with whitewashed details,
Pavlovsky, 6; 6) district school (now the Treas­ where the first revolutionary Voronezh Regiment
ury) on the street Pavlovsky, 1; 7) 19th-century was formed. It is also associated with the name of
pharmacy on the street Pavlovsky, 2; 8) town the famous commander Budenogo SM (Figure 4).
manor on the street of Karl Marx, 2-6; 9) military Another object of interest is the house of the mer­
enlistment office on the street Olminskogo, 19. chant Kovalishchenko. It is an element of the back­
• Objects that have the characteristics of cultural ground development of the historical center of the
heritage objects : Boundaries of the territor­ eclectic period (Figure 5). The main problem of the
ies of cultural heritage objects ; Boundaries modern use of the building is the location of the
of historic districts ; The boundaries of the entrances and the placement of outdoor advertising.
historical center . Currently, the building houses several different
organizations (pharmacy, retail enterprises, bank
Consider several cultural heritage sites. The branch, etc.). Also, of interest is the object of the cul­
object of the cultural heritage of federal significance tural heritage of regional significance - a one-story
is the “Shopping Malls”, which is the most signifi­ pharmacy building with a basement, built in Biryuch
cant in the city and consists of 2 rectangular “L” ­ in the early XX century (Figure 6).
shaped buildings (built-in 1782). For many centuries,
trade was conducted here, shops, shops, warehouses
were located. Both buildings have been restored and
adapted for modern use: The Department of Culture
of Biryuch Administration and the Museum of Local
Lore (Figure 3). Both buildings form the building of
the central part of the former Lower Shopping
Square, located north of the Pokrovsky Cathedral.
Shopping malls are surrounded by galleries. The
metrical row of facades is defined by a Tuscan-style
arcade enclosing open galleries along the facades
from the outside. The facades are completed with
entablatures with a smooth frieze, bounded from
below by profiled shelves, and from above by
a stepped cornice. The arched openings are decor­
ated with large locks. Biryuchansky shopping malls
are an example of public architecture in the style of
mature classicism, characterized by the monumental­
ity of architectural forms.
Figure 4. The object of the cultural heritage of regional
The buildings of the complex have undergone sig­
significance “The house where the first revolutionary Vor­
nificant changes: the interiors have been redesigned, onezh Regiment was formed”.
many arched openings have been laid, and new win­
dows and doors have been installed. One buttress
was lost.

Figure 3. The object of the cultural heritage of federal sig­ Figure 5. The object of the cultural heritage of regional
nificance “Shopping malls”. significance “The House of merchant Kovalishchenko”.

265

Figure 6. The object of the cultural heritage of regional
significance “Pharmacy”.
The considered objects show social and functional
conflicts related to their use. This leads to the loss of
their authentic appearance.
As S. V. Sementsov and E. V. Sergeeva note, we
need a system of “… value imperatives that signifi­
cantly influence the decision to adapt an architectural
monument for modern use (utilitarian and functional,
urban planning, historical and emotional values)
“ (Sergeeva & Sementsov 2018). In order to make
the most optimal adaptation of cultural heritage
objects, it is necessary to identify, classify and pro­
pose ways to resolve existing urban conflicts.
The main ones among them are:
- contradictions between the original function of the
object and the set of additional functions that
arose later;
Figure 7. Scheme of localization of urban conflicts in the
historical center of Biryuch.
266
- inconsistency of outdoor advertising elements
with the appearance of buildings;
- adding new elements (adding additional stairs,
organizing entrances, etc.) that violate the com­
positional structure of facades;
- the need to include green spaces in the urban com­
position as important elements of urban planning
(Wolch et al. 2014);
- location of cultural heritage sites near discordant
buildings.
In this regard, it is necessary to search for the
principles of socio-functional adaptation of archi­
tectural monuments of regional significance for
modern use, allowing to preserve their historical
value and the organization of a harmonious spatial
environment in the territories adjacent to them
(Sementsov 2018). After all, urban spaces, streets,
parks, and transportation systems are components
of the public domain. The quality of the organiza­
tion of public spaces reflects the public culture
and the level of management of the territory (Ken­
worthy 2006).
S. V. Sementsov in his research reveals the prin­
ciples of preserving the architectural and urban heri­
tage of St. Petersburg, which can be applied to small
cities: 1) the principle of unity of urban compos­
ition; 2) the principle of complex inclusion in the
composition of the natural landscape; 3) the prin­
ciple of the genetic urban code. It manifests itself in
a special system of urban planning and compos­
itional patterns and should be implemented in spa­
tial, architectural, stylistic morphological parameters
and patterns of urban environment development
(Sementsov 2013).
4 DISCUSSION
It is the historical centers of the districts that are
today the points of innovative growth and the
development of cultural and historical traditions
(Perkova & Zaikina 2016.). Socio-economic infra­
structure should include not only social, natural,
transport, and recreational components, but also
consider the needs of different consumer groups
and comply with regulatory documents on accessi­
bility. To develop human potential, it is necessary
to create multifunctional facilities that meet the
requirements of different population groups. In the
structure of the historical development of the cen­
ters of small towns, there are several urban conflicts
related to the modern use of cultural heritage sites.
The main contradictions in the development of the
territory of the historical center of the small town of
Biryuch are the lost versatility of the territory over
time. Over time, the place of attraction formed earl­
ier, ceased to be interesting for the citizens. In this
regard, it is necessary to expand the functions of
the historical center, saturate it with infrastructure
facilities that meet the modern needs of residents.
 The development of the economy, social culture,
and technology, as well as the historical course of
these processes, show the constant complexity and
interactive impact of various factors on urban space
and the environment (Milojevic 2015). The solution
of socio-functional conflicts in the structure of the
historical center can be carried out with the tools of
integrated planning, based on the integration of plan­
ning, development, and sustainability of the ecosys­
tem into a single process (Milojević 2018). In the
process of urban planning, including the design of
streets, avenues, squares, public spaces, green areas,
it is necessary to create eco-friendly spaces and func­
tionalize the aesthetic environment (Çelikyay 2016).
The development of pedestrian infrastructure is also
important for improving the quality of life of citizens
(Jackson 2003).
5 CONCLUSION
The social and economic diversity of the urban
environment and architectural features makes the
city more sustainable. Restoration with adaptation to
the new function of cultural heritage objects pre­
serves the city’s identity, the memory of the place,
making the urban environment unique and attractive
to residents. In this regard, the directions of develop­
ment of the historical center should include:
- restoration of cultural heritage monuments and
restoration of their original appearance;
- adaptation of cultural heritage objects to new
functions without losing their authenticity;
- work on the harmonization of dissonant buildings;
- creation of additional green recreational spaces;
- reconstruction and major repairs of buildings with
high moral and physical wear and tear;
- improving the quality of transport, cycling and
pedestrian infrastructure to optimize the links
between city districts and functional areas.
In the process of urban planning, including the
design of streets, avenues, squares, public spaces,
green areas, it is necessary to strengthen the nat­
ural framework, create its continuity by landscape
means to improve the ecological state of the
riverine territories of the small river Tikhaya
Sosna, biodiversity and the preservation of eco­
systems in general.
REFERENCES
Bulavsky S. V., & Sementsov S. V. 2018. APPROACHES
TO THE DEFINITION OF THE CATEGORY
“OBJECT OF CULTURAL HERITAGE” IN THE
RUSSIAN LEGAL FIELD. In Protection and restor­
ation of cultural heritage monuments:12–16.
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Çelikyay S. 2016. A Theoretical Framework on
Retro-Fitting Process Based on Urban Ecology. Sustain­
able Urbanization, Editör: Ergen M., Intech open:
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 Reconstruction and Restoration of Architectural Heritage 2021 – Sementsov, Leontyev & Huerta (Eds)
© 2021 Taylor & Francis Group, London, ISBN 978-0-367-68296-5

Rehabilitation of Penhas Chapel in Mitra’s Homestead

M.T. Pinheiro-Alves
School of Arts, Department of Architecture, University of Évora, Évora, Portugal

S. Costa
Scorepromise - Consulturia Engenharia, Benfica do Ribatejo, Portugal

N. Ramos
Technical Services, University of Évora, Évora, Portugal

ABSTRACT: This article describes the main rehabilitation works carried out at Capela das Penhas. Some
structural anomalies were found that were causing cracks in the walls and vaults. The Chapel had already
undergone several interventions over the years, but not all of them had been successful, with some problems
prevailing until today. The correct analysis of the structure's behavior was essential to be able to correct them
and avoid further problems. We tried to maintain the same layout and identity of the Chapel, using traditional
materials and techniques, whenever possible.

1 INTRODUCTION it difficult to fit these buildings in traditional solutions,

The constructive solutions in historic buildings are
mainly made from stone and brick masonry (Adam
2020). These types of solutions can carry well vertical
loads, the same cannot be said for horizontal loads
from earthquakes (Betti et al. 2008). The masonry
material has a highly nonlinear behavior and low ten­
sile strength (Choudhury et al. 2014). The lack of
maintenance over time leads to the accelerating pro­
cess of degradation of these structures (Betti et al.
2008). All of these aspects add uncertainties and make
requiring a more specific approach (Gunes et al. 2019).
At the beginning of the XVI century, the Quinta do
Paço was founded in Mitra’s Homestead, in Évora.
Several chapels were built on it, one of which, the
Penhas Chapel. In Figure 1 is a current plan of Quinta
do Paço, with the location of the Penhas Chapel.
At Quinta do Paço there is a very interesting irriga­
tion system, which allows transporting water through­
out the Quinta. From the water sources (outside
Quinta do Paço, and located to the southeast), the
water that goes through an aqueduct is captured to
enter Quinta do Paço, where it continues. In Quinta
do Paço, the aqueduct allows the connection to sev­
eral tanks and cisterns. Subsequently, it is directed to
the different irrigation zones through small surface
channels. To fill the areas beyond the reach of the
aqueduct's irrigation system, several devices were
built to capture the underground water there, which
also uses small surface channels to channel the water.
It is believed that this irrigation system had some
connection to the Penhas Chapel and that the water
could circulate through it.

2 MATERIALS AND METHODS

A few years after its construction, in 1736 the Penhas

Figure 1. Location of the Penhas Chapel in the Quinta do Paço.
Chapel was already in ruins, being subsequently
rebuilt by order of Archbishop D. Miguel de Távora.
The Penhas Chapel has an irregular and asymmet­
ric plant, built on granite rocks. It consists of three
prayer zones, two connected by a corridor and the

DOI: 10.1201/9781003136804-52

268
other with access from the north (Figures 2-5). The
irregularity in the Chapel's plan led to an original
shape of the roof (Figure 5).
The Chapel was built under a granite base, taking
advantage of a rock massif there. The walls are in
ordinary stonemasonry from the region, poorly
equipped, filled with soil and aerial lime mortar, and
plastered on both sides, also with aerial lime mortar.
The walls have a thickness that varies between 0.45­
0.74 m. On top of them, they load vaults in brick
masonry with a thickness of approximately Figure 4. Longitudinal section of the Penhas Chapel.
0.27 m. The vaults discharged on top of walls or
arches. The arches are made from brick masonry.
Above the vaults there was a filling with remnants of
ceramic materials and earth, to guarantee the compres­
sion of the structural elements face the possibility of
alternating overloads and to obtain the desired inclin­
ations for the placement of the ceramic straw tile. On
the roof, for natural light to enter the southern prayer
area, there are two brick masonry turrets towed. In this

Figure 5. Roof plan of the Penhas Chapel.

same area, inside, there are four niches and on the

Figure 2. South view of the Penhas Chapel before the
intervention.
Figure 3. Plan of the Penhas Chapel.
walls between them were found some fresco.
The vault of the interior prayer area to the north has
a very original floral design on its soffit, made of
stucco.
State of conservation previous to rehabilitation
works and anomalies. The roof had a high degree of
degradation. The lack of maintenance, the absence of
tiles in some places, the existence of broken tiles, the
dirtiness, the moss, and the presence of vegetation,
facilitated the entry of water for many years. The roof
has multi-valleys, with variable slopes and an asym­
metrical shape. It is believed that this solution was not
the original one and that over the years it has been
adapted to be improved. Unfortunately, the existing
solution has not yet been able to prevent the passage of
water.
The entry of water through the roof was imbibed by
the filling material that was over the vaults, signifi­
cantly increasing the loads in the vaults and other
elements, and the impulses in the structural elements.
Along with this pathology, the entry of water enhanced
the leaching of the fines in the structural elements,
either by drainage or by the alteration of the mortar
connection, causing the appearance of differential
settlements in the structural elements due to the
rearrangement and settling of the components, stone
and masonry.

269
 In the area of the two turrets, the vaults unload on
arches and a stone slab. The stone slab had a crack
next to the capitel of one of the columns (Figure 6).
This element was in disrepair and the forces were
transmitted between both sides of the slab by friction.
On the walls and vaults next to that area, structural
cracks of up to 5 mm thick appeared (Figures 7-8). It
was in this area that they had more expression because
it was the place that was farthest from the center of
rotation materialized by the crack in the slab.
The existence of the crack in the slab allowed the
relative displacement of the various vault elements,
Figure 6. Crack in the stone slab.
Figure 7. Cracks in the vaults and walls facing south ­
cross-sectional cut.
Figure 8. Cracks in vaults, walls, and stone slab - longitu­
dinal cut.
270
Figure 9. Fissurometer.
Figure 10. Rotation of the vaults and walls to the interior
caused by the crack of the stone slab.
which is why cracks in these structural elements and in
the encounter with the walls that support it, are appre­
ciated. In the walls, the cracks were thicker in the
upper areas and in the vaults in the lower areas. In
some of the cracks, strain gauges and fissurometers
were placed (Figure 9) for monitoring. The results
showed that they were not active, which is why it was
concluded that it would be the yielding of the stone
slab that would be causing the rotation of the vaults, as
indicated in Figure 10 and consequently the opening of
cracks in them.
In addition to these structural cracks, there were
also others of lesser importance, scattered through­
out the Chapel (Figure 8).
The floral design of the interior prayer area to the
north was in some areas incomplete and the window
frames were in poor condition.
3 RESULTS AND DISCUSSION
The rehabilitation work consisted mainly of the fol­
lowing solutions:
• stone slab replacement;
• filling the voids in the structural elements (cracks
due to leaching of fines) in the walls and vaults;
• repair of the masonry;
• solving the problems of water infiltration through
the roof.
Initially, the replacement of the stone slab was fore­
seen, thinking that it would be broken in the area
where the crack existed, but at the time of the biting
works of this zone, it was noticed that it ended in the
place where the crack existed. and from then on there
was a segmental arch made with brick masonry
(Figure 11).
Based on what was found, there were other repair
interventions in the same area. The area around the
stone slab should also have a segmental arch, but for
some reason, which is unknown, it will have been
replaced by a stone slab. Due to the reduced space
on-site, it would not be possible to place a new stone
slab, since all the work would have to be manual.
We opted for the placement of two square steel tubes
of 0.14x0.14x0.05 m, protected with polyurethane
paint, and coated on both sides with expanded poly­
styrene, a polyester mesh, and finally towed and
whitewashed (Figure 12). The 0.01 m thick steel
plate that appears above the steel tubes, served as in-
Figure 11. Stone slab before the intervention.
Figure 12. Cross section of the solution adopted for the
stone slab.
271
direct support of the temporary support structure for
removing the stone slab and segmental arch and, for
placing the steel tubes, being lost in the structure,
according to Figures 12-13.
This intervention aimed to guarantee the elimin­
ation of the movement of the support of the vault, and
the transmission of the loads to the supports, resistant
walls and, columns. The initial project foresaw the
lashing of the walls in the zone where the vaults
meet, but it was verified by the instrumentation plan
that the cracks were not active and that their origin
was due to the rupture of the stone slab support, so it
was decided not to do it. To fill the voids in the
cracks, they were opened and injected and/or poured
with a binder made with aerial lime mortar (1 vol.
aerial lime in paste + 1 vol. of pozzolanic additive, 1
vol. of limestone filler + 1 volume of water). This
repair procedure aimed to ensure that there were no
empty spaces that would allow relative movements of
the structural element (vaults/arches/walls), consolidat­
ing them, since its resistant mechanism is based on
the transfer and forwarding of loads by compression.
The intersection areas were also reinforced by
increasing its section and placing a polyester mesh
embedded with aerial lime mortar to guarantee the
connection and uniformity of the existing elements
with the new elements in the area of the vaults and
against the resistant walls.
In the areas where the masonry was disintegrated,
lose or, with no material, the empty spaces were filled
with granite stones and aerial lime mortar (1 vol. aerial
lime paste + 2 vol. river sand + 1.5 vol. of fine washed
sand + 15% of the volume of the lime in pozzolanic
additive). Subsequently, a reinforced mortar was made
with a polyester mesh, fixed to the support with con­
nectors by the previous techniques at a distance never
lower than 0.05 m, with the same aerial lime mortar.
After repairing and filling the cracks, the walls were
whitewashed.
Figure 13. Replacement of stone slab and segmental arch.
 To repair the roof, all tiles and filler were removed
in the first place. After cleaning, it was verified if
there were cracks in the outside of the vaults and
was injected and leaked aerial lime mortar in the
existing cracks (1 vol. aerial lime in paste + 1 vol. of
pozzolanic additive, 1 vol. of limestone filler + 1
volume of water). Subsequently, to consolidate and
increase the rigidity of the structure of the vaults,
a polyester mesh was placed (Figure 14), with filling
carried out in 2 layers, each 1.5 cm thick:
• ecological pre-dosed mortar with water-repellent
filling (1.5 cm) - composition: 1 vol. hydrophobic
aerial lime paste + 2 vol. river sand + 1.5 vol. of Figure 16. West facade of Penhas Chapel before intervention.
fine washed sand + 15% of the volume of the
lime in pozzolanic additive;
• ecological pre-dosed mortar with non-water­
repellent filling (1.5cm) - composition: 1 vol.
aerial lime paste + 3 vol. of fine washed sand.
Then a cement mortar lath was placed, since
a wooden lath would be very complicated to per­
form, due to the design of the cover. Subsequently,
ceramic roof tiles were placed (Figure 15).
Two images of the Penhas Chapel before and after
the intervention are in Figures 16-17, respectively.

Figure 17. West facade of Penhas Chapel after intervention.

4 CONCLUSIONS

Figure 14. Polyester mesh over the vaults.
Figure 15. Coverage during the intervention.
Nowadays there are more and more works of
rehabilitation, mainly those that intervene in histor­
ical heritage.
The absence of funds to carry out surveys and
tests associated with the fact that there are almost no
records or information on the interventions already
carried out in the historical heritage, restrain
a detailed characterization in the design phase of the
pathologies and existing materials in the structure.
This preliminary study allows the characterization
of existing materials and solutions, to conceive
appropriate solutions to the existing pathologies and
anomalies, reducing, the changes and adaptations of
the projected solutions during the construction
works.
An adequate diagnosis and characterization of
pathologies and anomalies proved to be essential
for the design of reinforcement solutions and
choice of materials to increase the longevity of the
intervention.

272
 From the current intervention carried out in the
Penhas Chapel, it was found that the main problems
were associated with the entry of water through the
roof and structural problems derived from a deficient
resistant capacity of the stone slab.
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Structural rehabilitation of a Middle Byzantine ruin
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 Reconstruction and Restoration of Architectural Heritage 2021 – Sementsov, Leontyev & Huerta (Eds)
© 2021 Taylor & Francis Group, London, ISBN 978-0-367-68296-5

Part of creative spaces in updating the historical and architectural heritage

of St. Petersburg
D.A. Plaksieva
Moscow Architectural Institute, Moscow, Russia

I.N. Demionov & O.P. Fedorov

Saint Petersburg State University of Architecture and Civil Engineering, Saint Petersburg, Russia

ABSTRACT: The article is devoted to the updating of the historical and architectural heritage of
St. Petersburg with the help of creative spaces. On the example of several iconic art clusters for
St. Petersburg, the mechanism and essence of the transformative strategy are revealed: it consists in the func­
tional “reconfiguration” of entire fragments of the degraded urban environment while preserving their archi­
tectural shell. A comparative analysis of these fragments proves that the flexible functional framework of
clusters can fit into any strata of the urban fabric and form open spaces of culture and communication in its
lacunae. As a result, the pulse of the living space of communication returns to St. Petersburg. As research
shows, creative spaces serve as triggers in the regeneration of adjacent depressive territories. As a result, it is
concluded that art clusters serve as a tool for updating the architectural heritage of St. Petersburg due to the
coincidence of their functions with the structure of the historical space they develop, and their mission-with
the scenic nature of the museum city itself.

1 INTRODUCTION regeneration of this environment? This study is

In the post-industrial era, the revival of many cities
that experienced a state of” depression “as a result of
the historical crisis and the decline of the industrial
model of the city in the second half of the twentieth
and early twenty-first centuries is directly related to the
revitalization of degraded, abandoned urban spaces as
public spaces.
Public (or public) spaces are, first of all, open and
accessible communication spaces, cultural spaces:
here there is a concentration of unique cultural objects
and the consolidation of special functions (museums,
theaters, galleries), leading to the intensive use of this
area by all citizens. However, these urban areas with
a high degree of urbanization, with maximum density
and diversity of urban functions, are now facing such
negative consequences of urban development in the
era of globalization as the privatization and commer­
cialization of the use of the historical environment.
St. Petersburg is no exception, in this case, the
multi-layered historical environment of the city is
currently undergoing active modernization, and not
rarely and unprecedented displacement of new com­
mercial buildings. Will the urban environment be
able to resist the aggressive process of commercial­
ization and can the use of the cultural capital of the
city solve the problem of proper revitalization and
devoted to the answers to these questions.
St. Petersburg is the most “intentional” city on
earth and has a unique urban space that forms the
stage spaces of its famous ensembles. The status of
these representative spaces strictly regulates the style
and character of public life in the city, assuming its
well-known ceremonial. Originally conceived as
a setting for the play of the empire, St. Petersburg
has never parted with its theatricality. A century in
its squares is the ceremonial life of the court,
a century behind it is the ceremonial life of the state,
and where is the space for a person? It is missing.
St. Petersburg is noticeably lacking in “human­
ized” public spaces, the potential of which is hidden
in the dense fabric of historical development. “We
can say that in the depths of historical St. Petersburg
there is a certain treasure and the key to prosperity.
But at the level of urban development policy, it is
not involved” (Yavein 2013). The current state of the
intra-district historical environment is characterized
by experts as problematic: a compromise between
modernization and preservation of heritage has not
yet been found, citizens are alienated from the envir­
onment, the severity of social problems remains at
the same level, the artistic image of the environment
is violated, the integrity of its fragments is often lost
(Lavrov 2020).

DOI: 10.1201/9781003136804-53

274
 St. Petersburg, as before, is in dire need of
a flexible system of methods for protecting, trans­
forming, and updating its historical and architectural
heritage, but at the same time, the city will have to
solve a whole range of new tasks. In recent decades,
the importance of the city as a consumer space has
grown immeasurably. “The city becomes an” enter­
tainment machine” (Mastalerzh 2013). This is the
focus of the main conflict in the development of the
historical urban environment: consumption spaces
actively replace cultural spaces in it, sometimes imi­
tating them. However, the trading environment is an
artificial public space controlled by private capital
and designed for consumption, not residence (Sorkin
1992).
Representatives of a wide range of professional
spheres are puzzled by the search for alternatives to
consumer spaces and the actualization of the urban
environment with the help of public spaces. “Actual­
ization” is an interdisciplinary task: both architec­
tural and urban planning, scientific and technical,
and ideological and ideological. The range of
research is expanding exponentially due to the
aggravation of the problem of revitalization, which
requires professional intervention, primarily by
architects and urban planners. “The role of the archi­
tect in the modern world, where public space is
actively privatized, is to create a void and a gap. It is
in this void that the possibility of constructing the
social opens up” (Groys 2012).
Public spaces play the role of creative cores in
the urban planning structure, realizing the most
important potential of the city – “the reproduction
of culture and the formation of civil society”
(Zakharova 2018). “It is the cultural resource of the
territory that creates the potential for its further
development” (Florida 2005). The cultural resource
of St. Petersburg is unique, and it is a difficult task
to preserve and update it.
Despite the validity of the interdisciplinary
approach and the importance of its sociological, eco­
nomic, and cultural aspects (Fedorov and Grigorieva
2018), it is necessary to identify and prove the dom­
inant role of architecture as a social and environmen­
tal art in this process. This is the purpose of this
study.
2 MATERIALS AND METHODS
The practice of revitalizing the historical environ­
ment of St. Petersburg provides researchers with
extensive material that requires analysis, compari­
son, theoretical generalization, and practical testing.
It should be emphasized that revitalization clearly
implies the actualization of the socio-cultural heri­
tage contained in the urban environment: not its
forced renewal, “facade repair”, but a deeply mean­
ingful introduction beyond the visible, deep into the
problem of the deadening of old functions and the
unprecedented rapid change of new ones. The
275
architectural practice of recent decades has
decisively refuted the main postulate of the doctrine
of modernism, formulated in 1896 by the American
architect Louis Sullivan in his aphorism: “Form fol­
lows function” (Sullivan L. 1896). The functionalism
of the 1920s interpreted this formula quite unam­
biguously – as a call to utilitarianism and rational
rationalism. At the same time, the interrogative
intonation of Sullivan’s reasoning: “… if the func­
tion does not change, then the form should not
change either? “was gradually forgotten. As it turned
out later-completely in vain. The many abandoned
factories, mansions, churches, arsenals, and other
buildings prove that in historical progression, func­
tion dies before form. However, this is not a reason
for the form to follow function, despite the conta­
giousness of many ideas of the architectural avant­
garde. Conservative humanity was able to resist the
total world perestroika. Now it is necessary to main­
tain the achieved balance, and the revitalization of
the historical environment seems to be the most
acceptable of the possible solutions.
The modern city is full of multi-format projects
aimed at both the real revitalization of the historical
environment, and very dubious actions to attract
public attention and use the urban space as an
amusement park. To avoid the effect of a total attrac­
tion, St. Petersburg is a city where culture is focused
and purposefully develops a dialogue between its
two cultural institutions: the museum and the theater.
If museumification is aimed at preserving the histor­
ical appearance of the city, then theatricalization is
designed to “dramatize the mobility, everyday life
and routine of the environment” (Rappaport 1984).
These processes are most clearly read in the open
urban environment, mastered by the museum and
theater in various formats of creative spaces.
The concept of a creative cluster, which was
later transformed into the concept of a creative
space, was formulated in 2006 by the American
urbanist Simon Evans, who interpreted it as “a
community of creatively oriented entrepreneurs
who interact in a closed territory” (Khakimova
2013). In this interpretation, the functional content
of the cluster involves the inclusion of various
cultural institutions: art spaces, scientific, educa­
tional, and media centers, non-profit enterprises,
lofts. The key characteristic of the creative space
is its versatility, aimed at the creative self-
realization of citizens. As practice shows, the
involvement of citizens in the preservation of the
environment in which they live is an indispensable
condition for updating the historical and cultural
heritage of the city. One of the forms of public
participation in this process is a public-private
partnership. We are talking about the transfer of
some architectural monuments or fragments of his­
torical buildings to private hands in conditions of
insufficient public funding. The trend of recent
years is the formation of creative clusters based
on them, covering both the monuments themselves
and the surrounding territory. The same trend can
be traced to the redevelopment of the former
industrial territories of St. Petersburg, which are
being renovated for art spaces and lofts. As
a result, publicity returns to St. Petersburg.
The analysis of a domestic and foreign experience
of the functioning of creative spaces in a neutral or
depressive environment of the city suggests that they
contribute to its regeneration and revitalization
through functional “reconfiguration”, architectural
and figurative renewal, the formation of publicly
accessible territories in it, support for local initiatives
(“grassroots”), a reflection of local authenticity.
The synthesis of the research results revealed the
dependence of the functional content of creative
spaces on the specific historical, architectural and
cultural potential of the territories they develop. If
lofts prevail in the “middle” zone of the gray indus­
trial belt, crafts are revived in former industrial quar­
ters, and technoparks are formed on university
campuses, then art clusters are mainly formed in the
historical centers of such megacities as
St. Petersburg. They are the tool for the revitalization
of degraded fragments of the historical environment,
rich in monuments and valuable background build­
ings. “Depending on the existing architectural poten­
tial, economic conditions, and the mentality of the
population, approaches to the development of the
city are developed, but the task of preserving its
main identification characteristics is always rele­
vant” (Perov 2015). The very architectural environ­
ment of the city dictates the priority directions of its
regeneration.
3 RESULTS
In the historical center of St. Petersburg, illustrative,
but few examples from the practice of the last
decade indicate the effectiveness of the development
of art clusters of intra-block territories, which are
now used extremely irrationally. Only the front edge
of the blocks, within which the historical environ­
ment is gradually degraded, works for the city. Art
clusters, due to their flexible and multifunctional
structure, fit into almost any stratum of urban devel­
opment and fill any gaps and voids. The essence of
their transformative strategy is to reveal to the public
the behind-the-scenes stage space of history and
return the pulse of the living space of communica­
tion to the inner-city of St. Petersburg.
About fifty creative clusters that have mastered
a wide range of fragments of the urban environment,
from compact abandoned mansions and churches to
vast factory territories, have now coped with this
task. A comparative analysis of their urban planning
bases indicates a common feature of many of the
developed spaces - their relative isolation. They are
enclosed in a “capsule” of buildings, the outer per­
imeter of which can function independently of the
inner one (Sementsov 2006).
276
This is the structure of New Holland – the only
one of the 42 islands of the city, created by hand at
the very beginning of the XVIII century when the
construction of the Northern Fleet began in parallel
with the foundation of the city. The island was
intended for the storage of ship’s timber in storage
facilities. At the beginning of the XXI century, the
question arose about the implementation of the fed­
eral monument of industrial architecture. As a result
of the international competition, a multifunctional
cultural complex was created based on New Holland,
which has become since 2016. an experimental plat­
form for the implementation of large urban projects
often organized on the initiative of the citizens them­
selves. For many decades, the Island, closed from all
sides, literally opened up to the city. The concept of
turning New Holland into a “city within a city” was
proposed by the American architectural bureau
WorkAC, based on which a new project was devel­
oped by the Dutch company West 8, known for its
achievements in the field of landscape and environ­
mental design. The project excludes new construc­
tion and is fundamentally aimed at functional
“reconfiguration” of the historical shell of the island
to meet the current challenges and needs of urban
society. The presence of an extensive park area and
the preservation of genius loci are two basic postu­
lates of the concept currently being implemented
(Stieglitz & Nefedov 2016).
No less interesting is the renovation of the coastal
territory of the Sevkabel plant (Siemens & Halske)
in the Harbor of Vasilievsky Island. The plant was
founded in 1879. After its reorganization in 2014,
part of the territory was allocated for a cultural clus­
ter. The renovation process, which started in 2017,
involves preserving the historical appearance and
structure of its factory buildings, which belong to
different periods. A special feature of the project is
the organization of the sea embankment, which is
planned to be extended along the entire contour of
Vasilievsky Island. The renovation process is in con­
stant development, but the Sevkabelport art cluster is
already actively functioning, which is greatly facili­
tated by the water transport connection with the city
center, which ensures the inclusion of this creative
cluster among the most popular public spaces in
St. Petersburg.
The design concept for the reorganization of the
Sevkabel plant is handled by the Architectural
Bureau of Khvoya. The urban planning aspect of the
concept consists in the free flow of the functions of
open zones into closed architectural objects of fac­
tory development. The environmental design uses
interpretations of the theme of cable coils – a symbol
of the cable factory, the specifics and history of
which are carefully preserved and played out. This is
the basis of the whole imaginative concept.
In the same vein, the concept of the renovation of
the Nikolsky Rows, built in 1789 on the model of
the Gostiny Dvor, is now being born. The monument
of federal significance is located in Kolomna - one
of the oldest districts of St. Petersburg. Despite the
significant concentration of cultural institutions and
architectural attractions, including the Mariinsky
Theater and St. Nicholas Cathedral, Kolomna
remains among the “forgotten” territories, the rich
historical and cultural potential of which is still not
in demand, and many environmental fragments are
frankly depressing.
The Nikolsky Ryad complex, reconstructed by
2018, initially did not claim to be a trigger in the
development of the adjacent territory. According to
the project of the architectural bureau “Liteynaya
Chast – 91”, a restaurant and hotel complex was cre­
ated. But in two years, the concept has changed dra­
matically: the idea of turning Nikolsky Rows into
a creative center of a citywide scale has emerged. To
this end, in the summer of 2020, the courtyard of the
complex was transformed into an open public space.
Subsequently, a competition was held for scenarios
for the development of urban spaces around and
inside the complex, designed for implementation in
the next 5 years. Young urbanists under the guidance
of curators from architectural bureaus (“Urbanika”,
“Katarsis Architects”, and “ArhAtaka”) presented
three possible scenarios for the regeneration and
revitalization of the urban environment: Kolomna –
“theater”, “water”, and “research”.
In any presented version, the role of the creative
space of the Nikolsky Rows remains decisive – as
the core of the district, and the role of the Kryukov
Canal, which faces the main facade of the complex,
as a link in the chain of the dominant Kolomna:
St. Nicholas Cathedral, the Mariinsky Theater, New
Holland. If the project concept “Nikolskiye Ryady
2025” is fully implemented, the city will receive
another example of an art cluster of city-forming sig­
nificance, which serves as a trigger in the process of
revitalizing the historical district of Kolomna.
A similar role is played by the rest of the creative
spaces of St. Petersburg: regardless of the scale of
development, they update abandoned monuments,
neutral or depressed urban areas. In contrast to the
large-scale projects described above with
a “capsule” urban planning sub-base and
a significant zone of influence, a dispersed network
of small creative spaces is often formed close to
each other. The urban planning concept, in this case,
is based on a thorough analysis of the inner-block
spaces adjacent to the city arteries, and the formation
of new creative clusters strung on the axes of these
arteries. The potential of these spaces is hidden in
the architectural fabric of the historical building,
which is gradually cleared, updated, and filled with
new functional content. For example, among the
museums, libraries, and art clusters opened on
Liteyny Avenue during the past 2020. It represents
the creative space “Third Place” based on the Lopu­
khin-Naryshkin mansion, the creative space on
the second floor of “Subscription Publications” and
the Brodsky Museum. Their proximity to the Shere­
metyevo Garden of the Fountain House repeatedly
277
enhances the synergistic effect in the functioning of
the creative oases that have emerged on the recent
ruins of the cultural and historical monuments of the
Foundry part of the city. Art clusters, museums, and
libraries are once again playing the role of a driver
in the revitalization of the adjacent territory. Thanks
to them, the zone of influence of Liteyny Prospekt
acquires the aura of a creative space.
4 DISCUSSION
A clear advantage of the method of updating the his­
torical environment described above is an integrated
approach: creative clusters develop integral frag­
ments of the environment, including courtyards, kur­
donery, intermediate spaces, and degraded areas of
factory territories.
The urban planning essence of the process is the
penetration of creative spaces inside the block devel­
opment and the disclosure to the public of “squares­
yards”, abandoned mansions, empty production
buildings, chaotic layers of factory buildings, and
closed factory territories. The city significantly
increases the depth of “coverage”, development and
return to a life of its historical bowels. Art spaces
with an architectural shell facing the water have
a great advantage: their zone of influence includes
embankments and potential recreational areas near
the water, which greatly increases the attractiveness
of the architectural objects themselves and contrib­
utes to the regeneration of the surrounding area.
From the point of view of preserving the architec­
tural heritage, it is extremely important that art clus­
ters have a multifunctional structure that does not
pretend to radically clean up the historical fabric but
assumes its tactful development. Unlike the centers of
business or trade activity with their rigid cellular
structure that breaks the historical shell, creative clus­
ters are aimed at its maximum preservation, because
the space of modern culture increases its status if it is
based on the cultural heritage of the past. The devel­
opment of the creative cluster is identified with the
“creative culture… this is one of the steps on the way
to transform the urban space, the emergence of
a creative city… Creativity is becoming one of the
key areas in solving urgent urban planning problems,
and the formation of a creative economy is becoming
the main direction for the socio-economic develop­
ment of cities” (Moiseev 2017).
5 CONCLUSION
The synthesis of the results of the study of 50 pro­
jects implemented or being implemented in
St. Petersburg allows us to conclude:
– the actualization of the historical heritage of
St. Petersburg with the help of art spaces is not
accidental. The very architecture of the city, as
 a certain way organized material environment, can
provoke society to new models of life, which, on
the one hand, cannot exist outside of this environ­
ment, and on the other hand, this environment is
preserved, reanimated and brought back to life;
– restoration of the historical landscape around cul­
tural objects, creation of creative clusters, forma­
tion of open-air exhibition spaces, investment in
creative industries, implementation of cultural
renovation projects-all these solutions contribute
to the gradual revival of the historical and archi­
tectural heritage of the city after a long period of
“depression” as a result of the historical change
in the social model of cities at the turn of the
millennium;
– creative spaces serve as a tool for actualizing the
architectural potential of the urban environment,
hidden in the dense fabric of the historical devel­
opment of St. Petersburg, due to the coincidence
of their functions with the structure of the space
they develop, and their mission with the scenic
nature of the museum city itself;
– it is fundamentally important in the process of
updating the historical and architectural heritage
of the city that the method of its development by
creative spaces preserves the public character of
open zones within privatized spaces and spaces of
private interests (Groys 2012);
– the architectural and urban planning form of the
stage space, which contains the history of
St. Petersburg, dictates special scenarios of
modern urban life, based on culture and
communication.
Thanks to the gradual implementation of these
special scenarios for the renewal of the environment
with the help of creative clusters, St. Petersburg to
some extent manages to resist the aggressive process
of commercialization, and the formation of
a creative economy based on the unique cultural cap­
ital of the city allows us to outline a new direction of
socio-economic development, which contributes to
the growth of its competitiveness. This is especially
true at the present time when the dynamics of
increased global competition puts the attractiveness
of unique cities on the agenda. “Now it is necessary
to emphasize differences and signs of uniqueness in
competition with other cities; local separations and
specific talents that distinguish some points and
places from others” (Berking 2019).
278
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 Reconstruction and Restoration of Architectural Heritage 2021 – Sementsov, Leontyev & Huerta (Eds)
© 2021 Taylor & Francis Group, London, ISBN 978-0-367-68296-5

Restoration of sculptures of rostral columns in St. Petersburg

Yu.V. Pukharenko, A.M. Kharitonov & I.U. Aubakirova
Saint Petersburg State University of Architecture and Civil Engineering, Saint Petersburg, Russia

N.N. Shangina
Emperor Alexander I St. Petersburg State Transport University, Saint Petersburg, Russia

ABSTRACT: The article discusses the results of the work carried out on the restoration of sculptures of
Rostral columns, made in 2019. The data on the research of the compositions used to compensate for the loss
of the original stone during early restorations are presented. The use of lime coating with hydrophobization
for the device of protective and decorative coating of the surface of sculptures is justified.

1 INTRODUCTION At the same time, the highly porous structure of

The material of the sculptures. The Rostral Columns
ensemble is an integral symbol of St. Petersburg and
carries an allegorical meaning, reflecting the power
of Russia. The sculptures located at the foot of the
columns were made by the artel of S. K. Sukhanov
based on the models of J. V. Sh. Camberlain and
J. Thibault in 1813 were given conditional names in
honor of the four largest rivers in Russia: The north­
ern column has Volga and Dnepr, the southern
column has the Neva and the Volkhov.
The architect of the ensemble, Tom de Thomon,
was originally supposed to make sculptural elements
from bronze, but for a number of reasons, the statu­
esque Pudost stone (calcareous tuff) was proposed as
a replacement. The deposits of this stone were
located in the valley of the Pudost River in the
St. Petersburg province near the city of Gatchina
(Mozgovaya 2000).
At the beginning of the 19th century, statuary cal­
careous tuff was considered the most suitable mater­
ial for creating sculptures due to its simplicity in
processing and high decorative properties (Spash­
chansky 2020, Haryuzov 2004). The natural “warm”
color of tuff was more suitable for sculpting human
figures than “cold” marble. In addition, the texture of
the surface of the stone is similar to the ancient, wea­
thered stone over many years, which is especially
appreciated when creating monuments in the Roman
and Greek style (Ordóñez & Benavente 2014). The
sculptural groups “Hercules strangling Anthea”, “The
Abduction of Proserpine by Pluto”, the frieze of the
facade of the Mining Institute and the statues of the
Admiralty, as well as the columns and capitals of the
Mining Corps, the Admiralty, and the Kazan Cath­
edral were carved from the same material.
the stone, which makes it easier for sculptors to pro­
cess it, does not contribute to the high durability of
stone structures in the climatic conditions of
St. Petersburg (Brimblecombe 2014). After a short
period of being in an open atmosphere, there was
a progressive deterioration in the condition of the
sculptures. Therefore, already at the very initial stage
of operation of the sculptures, various plastering and
painting were used to maintain their condition, and
from time to time, the most destroyed elements were
replaced with inserts made of the original material.
Similarly, lime tuff proved itself during the con­
struction of the Kazan Cathedral. On this account,
A. B. Aplaksin wrote: “The disadvantage of this stone
was a large shell porosity, thanks to which it was
easily exposed to atmospheric influences, strongly
browned and crumbled, losing the original forms of
profiles and ornaments. This unpleasant property of
the Pudozhsky stone forced the builder of the Kazan
Cathedral to make another work on it, namely, to rub
the entire surface of the stone with a thin layer of Riga
alabaster, and to avoid discoloration to paint with lime
paint under the main color of natural stone” (Aplaksin
1911). The cathedral was erected in the period from
1801 to 1811, but additional grout was required less
than 10 years after the start of construction, even at the
time of work.
2 MATERIALS AND METHODS
Previous restorations. By the end of the 1880s, the
condition of the Rostral Column sculptures required
the replacement of individual elements, but the
craftsmen found themselves in a difficult situation:
the material required for inserts was not available

DOI: 10.1201/9781003136804-54

279
due to the exhaustion of tuff reserves. According to
the available data, they had to borrow tuff from the
back of the facings of other objects, return the clad­
ding to its place, and use the cut to make up for the
losses. In addition, the inserts used the so–called
“white stone” - white chalk-like homogeneous lime­
stone, widely used in Central Russia. The Kolomna
dolomite was also used for the inserts (Bulakh &
Abakumova 1987).
Thus, by the beginning of the XX century, the
sculptures of the Rostral columns were extremely
heterogeneous in composition: in addition to frag­
ments of the original material, inserts made of
“statue” stone, and other types of limestone, there
were multi-layer coatings and colors.
During the hundred-year history of the sculpture,
columns were subjected to four major restorations:
1926-1928; 1947-1949; 1998-1999, 2019. Before the
restoration of the sculpture Rostral columns, held in
1928, I. V. Krestovsky described the state of the
sculptures as follows: “Sculptures at the time of their
restorations, held after the October Revolution, were
painted with oil paint, and not once, but several
times, and each time a new color. All the sculptures
made of Pudozhsky limestone were ugly smeared
with plaster, cement, or plaster, not only in the
places of breakdowns but also in completely intact
places. During the restoration of the stone figures of
the Rostral columns, two or three loads of extrane­
ous cement, plaster and plaster smears were removed
from each of the figures” (Mozgovaya 2000). How­
ever, it was not possible to completely remove the
foreign inclusions. However, in the future, it was not
possible to completely avoid the practice of using
pre-components, inserts, and various coatings during
restoration.
Based on the above, the sculptures of Rostral col­
umns can be considered not only as a cultural value
but also as a unique object of research in the field of
restoration materials science. This object is charac­
terized by high heterogeneity in terms of the mater­
ials used and difficult operating conditions, which
requires consideration when choosing a general strat­
egy for the restoration work.
Basic principles of performing restoration. In
2019, the restoration of the sculptures was carried
out based on the following main tasks:
1. Removal of plasters and pre-compounding com­
positions made with the use of gypsum or
cement, as well as the removal of inserts from
stone, the properties of which differ from the ori­
ginal stone;
2. Maximum preservation of the original material-
calcareous tuff;
3. The use of pre-compounding compositions based
on air lime, for losses of no more than 0.01 dm3.
The loss of a larger volume is made up for by
inserts made of natural stone, which most closely
corresponds in appearance and physical and
mechanical properties to the original material.
280
Use for the device of inserts of vapor permeable
reversible mineral adhesives;
4. Creating a reversible vapor-permeable protective
and decorative coating on the surface of the
sculptures, which gives water-repellent proper­
ties, but does not change the perception of the
surface of the sculptures as made of natural
stone.
3 RESULTS AND DISCUSSION
Survey of sculptures. When examining the materials
of the pre-compositions of the sculptures by X-ray
phase analysis, it was revealed that lime-sand solu­
tions were mainly used, but lime-gypsum and lime-
cement solutions were also identified.
According to the results of X-ray phase analysis,
the main components of sample No. 1, taken from
the pre-mastication of the Neva sculpture, are labra­
dorite (~43%) and quartz (SiO2 ~32%), as well as
calcite (CaCO3 ~17%). Based on this, it can be con­
cluded that the studied sample is a solution based on
air lime, in which arkose sand was used as a filler.
The mineral composition of sample No. 2, taken
from the surface of the Neva sculpture, is mainly
represented by calcite (CaCO3 ~53%), quartz (SiO2
~31%), bitovnite ((Ca,Na) [Al(Al, Si) Si2O8] ~12%)
and albite (Na[AlSi3O8] ~4%). Based on this, it can
be concluded that this sample is also a solution
based on air lime, but quartz-feldspar sand was used
as a filler.
The mineral composition of sample No. 3, taken
from the surface of the Neva sculpture, is mainly
represented by quartz (SiO2 ~63%), calcite (CaCO3
~12%) and its polymorphic form – aragonite
(CaCO3 ~16%), as well as gypsum ((CaSO4 2H2O)
~8%). Based on this, sample No. 3 can be character­
ized as a solution based on a lime-gypsum binder
with a filler made of a mixture of quartz sand and
crushed lime tuff.
Some of the repair trains were prepared with the
addition of Portland cement. For example, sample
No. 4 (also taken from the Neva sculpture) consists
of calcite (CaCO3 ~33%) and quartz (SiO2 ~25%),
portlandite (Ca(OH)2 ~6%), bitovnite ((Ca,Na) [Al
(Al,Si) Si2O8] ~18%), muscovite (KAl2 (AlSi3
O10)(OH)2 ~5%).
The presence of alite (C3S ~5%) and ettringite
(~5%) indicates the presence of Portland cement.
Thus, sample No. 4 is a solution based on a lime-
cement binder with quartz-feldspar sand as a filler.
After the cleaning of dirt and lime coating applied
during the restoration in 1999, the heterogeneity of the
inserts made of natural stone was clearly shown. Fig­
ures 1 and 2 show photos of the front part of the Volga
sculpture before and after the clearing (Figures 1-2).
This sculpture is shown in the article as the most
diverse example of the problems encountered during
the restoration (Figure 1).
Figure 1. Sculpture “Volga” before clearing (photo by
Kharitonov A.M.).
Figure 2. Sculpture “Volga” after clearing (photo by Khar­
itonov A.M.).
From the photos, it can be seen that the replace­
ment of quite large losses was made with the use of
“white stone”, which is characterized by a denser
structure. At the same time, these inserts make up
a significant volume of the sculpture, which makes it
impossible to replace them with a stone correspond­
ing to the original material without additional losses
of the historical part of the object. Based on this, it
was decided to save the previously executed inserts
that are in satisfactory condition.
For the new inserts, the limestone tuff of the
deposit located in the Pskov region was used. In
appearance, structure, and properties, the stone of
this deposit is the closest to the original one
(Figure 3).
The density of calcareous tuff is 1700 kg/m3, the
compressive strength is 2.1 MPa, and the water absorp­
tion by weight is 26% (Tucker 2001).
Installation of inserts made of natural stone. The
insertion of elements made of natural stone was
281
Figure 3. Calcareous tuff of the Pskov deposit (photo by
Kharitonov A.M.).
carried out using a silicate adhesive made of potas­
sium soluble glass as a binder and a carbonate filler
(Pukharenko & Kharitonova 2019).
The main advantage of this material in relation to
cement and epoxy composites is its reversibility. Pro­
viding a sufficiently high adhesion to the tuff, if
necessary, it can be dismantled without damaging the
historical stone due to the lack of water-resistance of
the glue (Bianco 2017, Shaybadullina et al. 2018).
It is also worth noting the high vapor perme­
ability of the silicate adhesive, which makes it
more compatible with lime tuff compared to com­
positions based on cement or organic binder. The
characteristics of the silicate adhesive are shown
in Table 1.
The silicate glue was also tinted with mineral pig­
ments in the color of calcareous tuff, which reduced
the visual appearance of the insert seams (Figure 4).
Protective and decorative coating. A complete
perception of the appearance of sculptures with
multiple inserts and mastication areas is provided
by a protective and decorative coating. The speci­
fied coating should also be characterized by
reversibility, high vapor permeability, biostability,
and have water-repellent properties (Sanders at
al. 2005). These requirements can be provided
with a coating based on air lime with a carbonate
filler, which, after being applied to the tuff
Table 1. Characteristics of silicate glue.
Indicators Values
Solution density 1800 kg/m3
Bond strength to the base:
- concrete 0.6 MPa
- limestone 0.8 MPa
- steel 0.4 MPa
Figure 4. Arrangement of inserts made of natural stone on
the sculpture “Volkhov” (photo by Kharitonov A.M.).
surface, undergoes a hydrophobic treatment
(Bianco et al. 2013).
In addition, given the presence of a large-porous
structure in calcareous tuff, the treatment of its sur­
face with a hydrophobizer will not protect the stone
from excessive moisture from atmospheric precipita­
tion. Therefore, it is necessary to create a coating
layer, the hydrophobization of which can be per­
formed with greater efficiency (Kharitonov, A.,
Smirnova 2019).
From a decorative point of view, the lime coating
should be perceived as a true surface of natural stone.
For this purpose, the color solution of the coating
composition is selected in strict accordance with the
natural material, and the coating itself is applied by
the method of tamponing to preserve the characteristic
texture of the stone. Hydrophobization of the surface
of the sculptures is performed with a composition
characterized by a decrease in the vapor permeability
of the coating by no more than 10%.
Figure 5 shows a photo of the sculpture “Volga”
after applying the coating and hydrophobization.
Figure 6 graphically shows the evaluation of the
protective properties of hydrophobized lime coating
by the amount of water absorption (ml) of the sur­
face, determined using Karsten tubes.
As can be seen from the graph, direct hydrophobi­
zation of the tuff surface does not reduce the amount
of water absorption. Applying a hydrophobizer to
a thin-layer lime coating can significantly reduce the
absorbency of the surface, which helps to reduce the
negative impact of rain moisture on the sculptures.
The appearance of spots on the surface of sculp­
tures after restoration. Restoration work was com­
pleted in September 2019, but in March 2020, dark
spots from excessive moisture with clearly defined bor­
ders appeared on the surface of the Volga sculpture
(Figure 7).
282
Figure 5. Sculpture “Volga” after applying the lime coating
and hydrophobization (photo by Kharitonov A.M.).
Figure 6. Evaluation of the protective properties of the
coating.
X-ray phase analysis of the sample taken at the
spot location showed the presence of gypsum stone
under the coating (about 27%).
Such a high content of gypsum indicates insuffi­
cient cleaning of the sculpture from early repair coat­
ings, which are extremely difficult to visually identify.
Gypsum stone, characterized by high hygroscopi­
city, contributed to the accumulation of moisture on
the surface of the sculpture, which manifested itself in
the form of a characteristic dark spot. Only after the
onset of stable positive temperatures and a decrease in
humidity, the spots disappeared. This once again indi­
cates the unacceptability of using restoration compos­
itions based on gypsum binder and their complete
removal from the surface of the sculptures.
On the other hand, the hygroscopic moistening of
the early gypsum mastic proves the high vapor perme­
ability of the lime coating. In places where there are no
gypsum solutions, the condition of the coating and the
stone itself does not cause any complaints according to
the monitoring results.

Figure 7. The appearance of dark spots on the sculpture
“Volga” after the restoration (photo by Kharitonov A.M.).
4 CONCLUSION
The restoration of the sculptures of the Rostral col­
umns showed the presence of various mastic solu­
tions made on the basis of air lime, gypsum, and
Portland cement during previous restorations.
Ground calcareous tuff, arkose, and quartz-feldspar
sand were used as aggregates.
For the installation of inserts made of natural
stone, it is recommended to use a silicate adhesive
that meets the basic requirements for restoration
materials: reversibility, high vapor permeability, and
adhesion to the base.
The negative effect of the plaster compositions
was clearly evident even after the completion of the
restoration carried out in 2019. Dark spots in the
areas of hygroscopic moistening of undetected
gypsum mastics appeared within 6 months after the
completion of the work.
Undoubtedly, as a protective and decorative coat­
ing, it is necessary to use a vapor-permeable coating
based on air lime, which must be treated with
a given frequency with a hydrophobizing compos­
ition that reduces the vapor permeability by no more
than 10%.
283
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 Reconstruction and Restoration of Architectural Heritage 2021 – Sementsov, Leontyev & Huerta (Eds)
© 2021 Taylor & Francis Group, London, ISBN 978-0-367-68296-5

Innovation through tradition: “Cerreto Smart Land” project

M.R. Ronzoni
Department of Engineering and Applied Sciences, University of Bergamo, Italy

M.S. Brioschi
Department of Management, Information and Production Engineering, University of Bergamo, Italy

F.L. Bianchi
Bergamo Educational Institutes Foundation, Italy

ABSTRACT: In this paper we focus on a small region located in Northern Italy and propose a transformation
project for this territory designed to enhance the character of the place, revive ancient crops, and secure its
economic and social repositioning through innovation. The first step of this immense work, aimed at restoring
the meaning of a territory rich in memories and traditions, is related to the restoration of an ancient farmhouse.

1 INTRODUCTION main source of the firm cluster creation, which devel­

The idea that regions may play a central role in the
economic growth process is embedded in the increas­
ing attention that the economic literature has paid over
the last three decades to regional transformation pro­
cesses. Rooted in the seminal works by Alfred Mar­
shall (1890, 1919) on the notions of industrial districts
and industrial atmosphere, several theoretical and
empirical contributions have detected the main factors
of territorial competitiveness and accounted for the
economic development of regions. In particular, recog­
nizing three main territorial actors – firms, govern­
ment, academia – and their virtuous interplay in
driving territorial transformation and innovation, the
Regional Innovation System (RIS) paradigm together
with the Triple Helix model identify three trajectories
of local economic development: the RIS-into process,
the RIS-from process, and the RIS-through process
(see, among others, Cooke et al. 1998, Etzkowitz &
Leydesdorff 2000, Brioschi et al. 2009).
In the RIS-into process, the Regional Innovation
System originates from the prior presence of
a cluster of firms within a territory. Here, the RIS is
designed to strengthen local economic specializa­
tions, focusing on the original sectors that can still
guarantee competitiveness to the local economy. An
example is the Baden-Württemberg region in Ger­
many, where in the 1990s the formation of
a Regional Innovation System was specifically
planned to support and nurture the existing techno­
logical trajectories developed within the region.
In the RIS-from process, regional growth follows
an opposite trajectory. In this case, the RIS is the
ops from scratch at a later stage, typically in know­
ledge-intensive sectors, by exploiting all the local
resources in terms of cooperation and interaction
with the university and local institutions. An often-
cited case of this trajectory of local development is
the Cambridge region in the UK, where the forma­
tion of a high-tech cluster of firms was made possible
by the existence of a unique ‘business environment’
led by the vigorous presence of the University.
The RIS-through process is a combination of the
previous two development trajectories. The territories
undergoing this transformation path are characterized
by a long past of development based on traditional
economic activities. Here, the RIS originates after
severe periods of economic decline and acts as cata­
lyst for the local system renewal process, driving the
regional competitive repositioning through the devel­
opment of a cluster of innovative firms.
In this paper we focus on a small region located
in Northern Italy and propose a transformation pro­
ject for this territory by virtue of the third trajectory
outlined above, the RIS-through process. The territor­
ial repositioning shall result from cooperation efforts
among firms, local (private-sector and governmental)
institutions and the education sector, accountable for
production, diffusion and application of new ideas
and knowledge. The key ingredient to the successful
outcome of the project shall be the ability to leverage
on the history and the identity of the region and to
‘activate’ the territorial heritage into new resources
to be passed on to future generations.
The paper is organized as follows. Section 2 pro­
vides a historic framework of the territory under

DOI: 10.1201/9781003136804-55

284
investigation, Castel Cerreto, along with its potential
development axes. Section 3 presents a proposal for
the “Castel Cerreto Smart Land” Project, unfolding
the main actions for territorial renewal. Section 4
describes the restoration of an ancient farmhouse
located in Castel Cerreto. Section 5 offers some con­
cluding remarks.
2 CASTEL CERRETO: THE CONTEXT
Castel Cerreto, with a population of approximately
340 inhabitants, is a small agricultural borough in
the Municipality of Treviglio, 23 km south of Ber­
gamo and 45 km east of Milan, Lombardy, Italy.
Cerreto is in a water-rich and very fertile plain,
within a region that is at the same time one of the
most industrialized areas in Europe.
Castel Cerreto, during the 19th century, was the
centre of the possessions of the noble Piazzoni
family. Countess Emilia Wojna Piazzoni, of Polish
ancestry (Milan, 1823 - Bergamo, 1900), had
a school built in Cerreto to allow the peasants’ chil­
dren access to education (Minuti 2019). Upon her
death she left the most of her assets to the Bergamo
Orphanages, on condition that they maintained the
school she founded. In the first decade of the 20th
century the Orphanages opened an agricultural
colony, where orphaned children were trained in
modern agricultural techniques. The history of the
Orphanages has centuries-old roots, which date back
to 1532 when the Venetian nobleman Girolamo
Miani, who dedicated the second part of his life to
charity, founded the Male Orphanage and the Lay
Hospital for orphan girls in Bergamo. In 1971 the
Bergamo Orphanages took on a new institutional
form and the name of Bergamo Educational Insti­
tutes. Today it is a Foundation which, by statute,
exclusively pursues purposes of education and social
utility in its reference territory.
To date the Foundation still possesses, among
other properties, over 400 hectares of agricultural
land and several buildings in the Castel Cerreto area.
Some are in good condition and in use, while others,
mainly farmhouses, once inhabited and productive,
are currently in a state of quasi-abandonment.
The Foundation intends to keep investing in
Castel Cerreto to foster a development process along
four main axes: a) education and training on sustain­
able agriculture, renewable energy, circular econ­
omy; b) restoration and new use of historic
buildings; c) assistance to farmers in the transition
from ‘chemical’ to organic and regenerative agricul­
ture; d) establishment of services to support fragile
social subjects, in partnership with specialized
operators.
Cerreto is potentially very attractive due to its
pleasant location and natural beauty combined with
its proximity to Treviglio, Bergamo, the Adda river
and the metropolitan area of Milan. The Founda­
tion’s interventions are designed to be the thriver of
285
a broader value generation process, with a variety of
actors to involve and connect in virtuous interactions
and collaborations.
3 CASTEL CERRETO DESERVES A BRAND:
THE “CASTEL CERRETO SMART LAND”
PROJECT
Along the development axes traced by the Bergamo
Educational Institutes Foundation, a project proposal
was developed with the aim of enhancing the agri­
cultural vocation of the countryside of Castel Cerreto
and give voice to the vernacular architecture that
characterizes these places. The project was arranged
within the Land Planning course at the University of
Bergamo, together with the students Michele Bian­
chessi, Ruggero Folli and Simone Rapelli. The ana­
lysis carried out highlighted both the elements to be
valued as well as the aspects to be contrasted. It was
guided by the availability of current urban planning
tools and involved all territorial actors that, based on
past experience, may spur a virtuous territorial
renewal. The project, that developed through intense
and passionate discussions and progressively took
shape through a flow of ideas intertwining with one
another, is briefly summarized below.
Goal: to restore the meaning and exploit the
attractiveness of a place that was important in the
past, and that is currently penalized by numerous
conditions that have arisen over time.
Proposal: to create an education, training and eco­
nomic center devoted to sustainable agriculture (see
Figure 1 below). The idea falls within the tradition
of the Foundation’s purpose for this territory, but
also crosses themes such as circular economy, redis­
covery of ancient fruits and seeds, sustainable tour­
ism connected to the cultural expression of places as
well as to traditions rooted in the past but overlook­
ing the future in an innovative perspective. In fact, if
cared for and enhanced from an environmental point
of view, this territory could also attract a modern and
sustainable tourism, aimed at offering an alternative
type of holiday.
A first distinctive element perceived as inextric­
ably connected to this land was its agricultural trad­
ition. It is no coincidence that the director Ermanno
Olmi set his movie “L’albero degli zoccoli” here.
The agricultural tradition may be easily unveiled in
the numerous farmhouses that are still present yet
fragmented by building insertions that appear disson­
ant with the context. The farmlands ask to be recon­
figured as a system to arm this territory in a logic of
subsidiarity and competitiveness. Other strong elem­
ents of this region are the ‘breath of art’ due to the
presence of Leonardo da Vinci in nearby Vaprio and
the expression of the best of the late 19th century
industry in the experience of the workers’ village of
Crespi d’Adda (now part of the Unesco World Heri­
tage), to name just some of the historical memories
of which these places are repositories.
Figure 1. A proposal for the “Castel Cerreto Smart Land” Project.
* Maria Rosa Ronzoni together with students Michele Bianchessi, Ruggero Folli and Simone Rapelli.
The first action was aimed at systemically tack­
ling all the architectural, historical and environmen­
tal emergencies that the reading of the Castel Cerreto
territory highlighted. This was initially carried out
by designing a network of connections by rail and
road, but also through cycle and pedestrian paths.
The property of the Foundation is crossed by the
Treviglio-Bergamo railway line which, once
redesigned as a metropolitan connection, could well
include a stop at Castel Cerreto. As far as cycling is
concerned, there are several cycle paths (partly
cycle-only and partly on regular roads) reported by
cycling associations, to which a “Bicipolitana” pro­
ject promoted by the Municipality of Treviglio is to
be added. Our project hooks up to these current and
planned realities and aims at integrating them with
cycle links that place Castel Cerreto at the center and
give continuity to the existing routes.
Once accessibility was taken care of and the
attracting elements of the surroundings were identi­
fied, we focused on three additional actions aimed at
restoring the traditional values of this region and
securing its repositioning through innovation. First,
to establish education programs in agriculture, to be
carried out both with traditional teaching methods
but also on the fields, where students may enrich
their knowledge and skills through direct observation
286
and implementation. Secondly, to organize an agri­
tourism activity within some of the recovered farm­
houses, which also offers guests the opportunity to
participate in agricultural work and cooking classes
that promote local produce, better if grown directly
on the estate and served at the farm table. Agritour­
ism premises may also accommodate students
attending the agricultural school. Thirdly, the crops
to be introduced must be able to support a supply
chain aimed at producing goods to be offered on the
market with the Castel Cerreto brand.
The choice of local produce might fall on historic­
ally present crops such as hemp and chestnut, or
crops widely used in Lombard cuisine, in particular
Milanese, such as saffron, or new crops such as
bamboo. Also, the cultivation of chamomile and the
growth of small groves, historically documented in
the past, might be encouraged. Finally, biodiversity
could be strengthened in the expression of spontan­
eous blooms, which can also be traced in the
memory of those who inhabited this land in the past.
Is all this feasible? In fact, there are two major
obstacles that stand in the way of the realization of
this project. The first one relates to the layout of
a new road connection that is expected to cross this
area in its western part, further fragmenting it and
interfering with its agricultural vocation.
 The actual need for the above connection should
be properly assessed and, if confirmed, a possible
alternative less invasive solution should be addressed.
A key role shall hence be played by local authorities
in exploiting the full potential of this territorial trans­
formation. The second highly penalizing element is
the hexavalent chromium pollution on a portion of
land considered by our project. This type of pollution
makes the affected areas non-arable.
This condition was turned into an opportunity by
identifying such portion of land as the site of a pilot
project of soil reclamation using arboreous essences.
This project shall enrich the education offer available
to the students attending the agricultural school and
also constitute an element of interest to tourists. The
essences identified to reclaim the land are bamboo,
cotton, sunflower and willow. This solution must, in
a context of circularity, give rise to complete supply
chains. Bamboo, for example, is used as a building
material or in the furniture industry. When cultivated
on non-polluted areas it can be used in the kitchen,
while when used to reclaim the soil it can be disposed
of in a biogas plant, properly sized to balance the pro­
duction of waste and local energy demand (see Figure
2 above). It was hence decided to study a feasible
supply chain also for saffron, cotton, sunflower,
willow, and hemp. To this aim, several charts were
elaborated, each dedicated to a possible cultivation to
be introduced in the area under investigation, which
highlight how the proposed production fits into
a circular process.
Figure 2. The bamboo supply chain.
** Maria Rosa Ronzoni together with students Michele Bianchessi, Ruggero Folli and Simone Rapelli.
287
For example, as regards saffron, its stigmas, har­
vested and suitably packaged, could be marketed and
also sold in the shop inside Castel Cerreto farm­
houses. To spread the role of saffron in the culinary
tradition of Milan, the project provides for the organ­
ization of cooking classes that offer, among other
things, dishes cooked with products at zero kilometer,
grown mainly on the farmland. Guests, as well as stu­
dents, will be involved in the activity of working the
land and preparing the dishes in dedicated courses.
The waste material will be sent to the biogas plant.
Cotton is also among the plants of interest. It is
a plant capable of promoting land reclamation and, in
this sense, our project suggests planting it on the land
portion to be reclaimed. It could lend itself to activat­
ing a cotton supply chain, supplemented by training
courses on its processing. The processing of the yarns
should indeed involve the local industry. In a first
phase the processing is aimed at producing sound­
proofing materials as well as curtains and carpets but,
once the remediation process is completed, the supply
chain can be expanded to manufacture fabrics for
clothing and the house. The waste resulting from the
processing of cotton will be sent to the biogas plant to
be converted into energy. Among other things, it
should be emphasized that cotton biomass is particu­
larly suitable for thermochemical conversion
processes.
Another important contribution could come from
the cultivation of sunflowers to be proposed on the
land to be reclaimed. In fact, it is recognized that the
sunflower is counted among the plants that have
excellent absorbent properties of pollutants. The
seeds are to be squeezed in a dedicated area within
the estate. The extracted oil can be used as an energy
carrier, while the squeezing waste, together with the
other waste, will be sent to the biogas plant.
Another useful plant for reclaiming the land that
our project proposes in Castel Cerreto is the willow.
In the reclamation phase, the leaves and the bark,
together with other waste, will be sent to the biogas
plant, while the branches can be used to produce bas­
kets or fruit bowls. Once the remediation is com­
plete, leaves and bark can be offered in herbal
medicine for infusions and herbal teas. Among the Figure 3. The deconsecrated church in the Cascina Batta­
activities proposed in the farm’s workshops, courses glie complex.
on weaving could also take place.
Finally, another crop is proposed that fits into the
tradition of these places: hemp. Its cultivation could
lead to the production of food such as seeds and oil
to be used in the kitchen as well as to be launched on
the market. It could be processed as a building
material and sold together with bamboo and cotton.
But it could also feed the textile supply chain for the
production of clothing, fabrics, carpets and ropes.
All these products could be marketed under the
Castel Cerreto brand as well as conveyed within the
market at zero kilometer. The choice will fall on the
most effective crops in environmental terms and
those ensuring the best performance, also consider­
ing the initial investment cost as well as potential
grants from regional, national and European Figure 4. The irrigation canal that once rotated the Cascina
institutions. Battaglie mill and, in the background, the Bianchi bicycle
factory.

4 THE FIRST STEP: RESTORING CASCINA

BATTAGLIE
It is in this context that the restoration project of an
ancient farmhouse was started. Cascina Battaglie
(see Figures 3, 4) has a centuries-long story. The
Foundation entrusted the project to the architect
Silvia Guadagni and to Beatrice Bolandrini, art his­
torian, curator of the artistic heritage of the Founda­
tion, as well as mayor of the nearby Municipality of
Brignano, where the renowned Visconti Castle is
located. The recovery and re-functionalization pro­
ject of the entire complex will begin with the restor­
ation of the small ancient church, to continue with
the recovery of the agricultural wing and finally of
the internal courtyard.
The intervention on the church is based on the
restoration of the original characteristics of the
building, which will then be made suitable for the
conservation of the Foundation’s collection of works
of art (Noris & Gritti 2007) and their thematic exhib­
ition in rotation. The agricultural wing should host
both training courses and cultural projects, as well as
blocks of services, offices, congress and educational
spaces, small restoration workshops or artistic activ­
ities. There will also be space for children games.
The inner courtyard, known for its two mulberry
288
trees planted at the beginning of the 17th century,
will be used as an ‘outdoor sculpture repository’,
with the aim of making art accessible to public and
a source of beauty.
From the point of view of public authorization,
the intervention is subject to the control of both the
Municipality and the territorial office of the Italian
Ministry of Culture.
Not far from Cerreto, in the Lurano Castle, is the
headquarters of the Giovanni Secco Suardo Associ­
ation, which has been operating since 1991, in
coordination with leading public, national and inter­
national institutions, in the field of protection, con­
servation and restoration of the artistic and cultural
heritage. Lanfranco Secco Suardo, founder and
President of the Association, focuses on the follow­
ing critical issues: “The social and political commu­
nity of the lower Bergamo plain, in recent decades,
has oriented its choices and resources towards the
expansion of production, commercial and residential
activities. If on the one hand these choices have cer­
tainly generated large economic flows and improved
the economic well-being of the population, on the
other they have caused upheavals in the organization
of the territory and landscape. This entailed
enormous land consumption – in the space of
a decade there was a loss of agricultural area of
23.7% against a percentage of 5.3% in Lombardy
and 2.3% in Italy – combined with the demolition or
abandonment of many historic rural buildings, due
to the absence of a conservation policy for the exist­
ing cultural heritage. The “Cerreto Smart Land” Pro­
ject can therefore become a reference model for
urban and territorial planning. The themes that the
Project deals with are both economic-territorial and
identity-cultural in nature. The common thread is
represented by two emerging issues: the enhance­
ment of the cultural heritage and the landscape,
related to the development of a socially and environ­
mentally inclusive and sustainable economic
system”.
5 CONCLUSIONS
Adding to the long-going debate on local economic
development, in this article we focused on Castel
Cerreto, a small region in Northern Italy, and pre­
sented our project for its repositioning mainly based
on the agricultural sector. A crucial aspect of the
debate is that of the ‘system’, and the interaction
between the different agents involved in innovation,
across the public and the private sectors.
In the process of territorial renewal, cooperation
among education institutions, territorial actors and
local businesses is essential. Education, also in agri­
culture, is the main feature to create firms’ develop­
ment and competitive opportunities according to
precise conditions of sustainability and productive
efficiency. In the Europe 2020 report, indeed, the
European Commission (2010) underlies the key role
of research, innovation and technology transfer in
equipping the Union for a smart, sustainable and
inclusive growth. In the case of Castel Cerreto, agri­
cultural firms and all actors operating in the different
phases of the agro-food supply chain (‘from field to
fork’) shall undoubtedly be at the heart of such an
educational effort. The same holds true also for oper­
ators in interconnected sectors such as agritourism,
parks design and maintenance, environmental
restoration.
However, local development cannot be fully
exploited without a network of private and public
institutions nurturing and promoting the process.
Firstly, a prominent role for the success of the
“Cerreto Smart Land” Project shall be played by
the Bergamo Education Institutes Foundation,
which owns the land and is willing to invest in the
289
transformation process. The Foundation shall also
commit to the search for grants by regional,
national and European institutions concerned with
sustainable and inclusive projects. Secondly, it
would be highly desirable to involve local author­
ities in the process, in order to give them the
opportunity to engage in and back the develop­
ment, for example by providing a viable solution
regarding the planned road connection. And by
authorizing the restoration and reuse of idle his­
toric buildings, which represent an exceptional
opportunity to preserve the cultural heritage,
create employment opportunities and develop
social dynamics.
CONTRIBUTIONS
Maria Rosa Ronzoni wrote Section 3, Maria Sole
Brioschi wrote Sections 1 and 5, Francesco Lino
Bianchi wrote Sections 2 and 4.
REFERENCES
Brioschi, M.S., Cassia, L. & Colombelli, A. 2009.
Common Frameworks for Regional Competitiveness:
Insights from a Number of Local Knowledge
Economies. Scienze Regionali 8 (2): 19–43.
Cooke, P., Boekholt, P. & Tödling F. 1998. Regional Innov­
ation Systems: Designing for the Future, Final report to
DG12 of the REGIS TSER project, Centre for Advanced
Studies in the Social Sciences, University of Wales,
Cardiff.
Etzkowitz, H. & Leydesdorff, L. 2000. The Dynamics of
Innovation: from National Systems and “Mode 2” to
a Triple Helix of University–Industry–Government
Relations. Research Policy 29 (2): 109–123.
European Commission 2010. Europe 2020: A Strategy for
Smart, Sustainable and Inclusive Growth. Brussels.
Innocenti, S. & Ronzoni M.R. 2008. Adda tra percezione
e conoscenza. Roma: Gangemi Editore.
Marshall, A. 1890. Principles of Economics. London:
MacMillan.
Marshall, A. 1919. Industry and Trade. London:
MacMillan.
Minuti, L. 2019. Spes et Fortitudo. Nel 130° Anniversario
di Fondazione dell’Asilo Infantile “Emilio Costanzo
Piazzoni”. Bergamo: Fondazione Istituti Educativi di
Bergamo.
Noris, F. & Gritti, N. (eds) 2007. Ars et Caritas. La colle­
zione d’arte degli Istituti Educativi di Bergamo. Azzano
San Paolo (BG): Bolis Edizioni.
Settis, S. 2010. Paesaggio Costituzione Cemento. La batta­
glia per l’ambiente contro il degrado civile. Torino:
Einaudi.
 Reconstruction and Restoration of Architectural Heritage 2021 – Sementsov, Leontyev & Huerta (Eds)
© 2021 Taylor & Francis Group, London, ISBN 978-0-367-68296-5

Adjustment of requirements of regulatory documents about cultural heritage

objects
A.G. Shashkin & V.A. Shashkin
Georekonstruction Institute, Saint Petersburg, Russia

ABSTRACT: The article is devoted to the issues of ensuring the mechanical safety of cultural heritage objects.
There is a lack of attention paid to the engineering aspects of the preservation of monuments in the Russian
legislation, which, when questions of mechanical safety arise, addresses restorers to general construction norms
and rules that are unsuitable for monuments. The article proposes an approach to ensuring the mechanical safety
of cultural heritage objects, considering the specific features of monuments in comparison with the objects of
new construction. The article presents a logical analysis of the shortcomings of the existing building codes,
which are manifested when they are applied to monuments. The work on the preservation of monuments is
recommended to be built on the basis of the dialectical unity of two opposite requirements – on the one hand, on
the unconditional provision of mechanical safety of the monument, otherwise, the monument may be lost, and,
on the other hand, on the need to preserve its authenticity, the threat of loss of which may be the measures them­
selves to strengthen the monument. The authors of the article draw attention to the illegality of using the same
approaches when assigning loads and impacts, reserve coefficients, and reliability in the calculation of structures
and foundations of new construction objects and monuments. Monuments are proposed to be considered as
objects, the performance of the structures of which has been tested by time. The approach outlined in the article
is proposed to form the basis of regulatory documents on the issues of mechanical safety of monuments.

1 INTRODUCTION works of many researchers. The works of

The task of preserving cultural heritage is one of the
most important for any civilized State. International
charters and national laws protect the preservation of
architectural monuments. In the Russian Federation –
this is the law on cultural heritage objects, which regu­
lates in detail the activities for the preservation, restor­
ation, conservation, adaptation for current use of
monuments, for the protection of their territory, for
their state protection.
Russian legislation in this area is fully harmonized
with international legislation, which is based on the
Venice Charter (International Charter for the Conserva­
tion and Restoration of Monuments and Places of
Interest).
Nevertheless, as the analysis of the current legisla­
tion and regulatory documents shows, the issue of
ensuring the mechanical safety of monuments remains
the least developed. It can even be emphasized that
the current regulatory documents do not consider the
specifics of monuments and in their modern form are
not suitable for working with monuments.
The need to create a special approach for architec­
tural monuments, the inadmissibility of automatically
extending to them the requirements of modern stand­
ards written for new construction, was noted in the
E. M. Pashkin (2013) are devoted to the issues of
engineering and geological diagnostics of monuments,
the research of the multicomponent underground
environment of monuments-the work of R. E. Dashko
and her school (Dashko 2011, Dashko et al., 2003),
the problems of preserving the authenticity of monu­
ments and at the same time ensuring their mechanical
safety are reflected in the articles and books of
V. A. Dementieva, V. S. Rakhmanov, O. V. Tiunov,
V. M. Ulitsky, A. G. Shashkin (Dementieva et al.
2014, Tiunov & Shashkin 2020, Ulitsky & Shashkin
2017, etc.). And yet, it should be recognized that the
professional community does not pay due attention to
this topical topic and today we cannot protect monu­
ments from the literally understood requirements of
the norms addressed to new construction.
2 MATERIALS AND METHODS
Monuments and norms. Let’s try to arm ourselves
with simple Aristotelian logic and analyze the short­
comings of the existing building codes, which are
manifested when they are applied to monuments. At
the same time, we will keep in mind that the work
on the preservation of monuments should be built on

DOI: 10.1201/9781003136804-56

290
the basis of the dialectical unity of two opposite
requirements – on the one hand, on the unconditional
provision of mechanical safety of the monument
(otherwise the monument may be lost), and, on the
other hand, on the need to preserve its authenticity,
the threat of loss of which may be the measures
themselves to strengthen the monument.
When choosing a technical solution to ensure the
mechanical safety of the monument, article 10 of the
charter is particularly important: “in the event that
the traditional technique is unsuitable, the strength­
ening of the monument can be ensured with the help
of modern conservation and construction technology,
the effectiveness of which is confirmed by scientific
data and guaranteed by experience.” This formula­
tion contains several fundamental postulates:
• it is necessary to strive to ensure the preservation
of the monument using traditional methods and
materials;
• the use of modern technologies is allowed only if
a conservative approach does not allow for the
preservation of the monument;
• modern methods should be well researched and
tested.
These postulates exhaust the requirements of the
charter, which could be attributed to the engineering
side of the preservation of monuments. We can add
to it, perhaps, another important issue that has been
widely discussed in the professional environment for
many years, which can have a significant impact on
the adoption of engineering decisions for the preser­
vation of the monument, namely the principle of
reversibility in restoration. Reversibility implies the
ability to get rid of the introduced additions over
time. The principle of reversibility cannot always be
implemented when solving problems of strengthen­
ing the monument. Nevertheless, under other equal
conditions, it is necessary to choose exactly the tech­
nical solution that satisfies this principle.
In the domestic legislation, work on the preser­
vation of an object of cultural heritage that affects
its structural and other characteristics of reliability
and safety is required to be carried out in accord­
ance with the requirements of FL no 73 and the
Urban Planning Code. The Law on the Protection
of Monuments addresses all participants in the
process of preserving the monument to the gen­
eral construction legislation and regulations.
According to article 15 of the federal law “Tech­
nical Regulations on the safety of buildings and
structures” (FL no 384), to ensure mechanical
safety, it is necessary that any structure (without
any exception for monuments) meets the require­
ments of standards and codes of rules. This is
quite natural, since it is necessary, first of all, to
exclude the destruction of the monument in order
to have something to protect. The laws of nature
(including those reflected in the fundamentals of
strength theory and structural mechanics) apply
291
equally to both ordinary buildings and artistically
valuable structures. Violation of the “laws of
strength and structural mechanics” is unacceptable
both for new construction and for monuments.
However, the ways to meet the requirements of
these natural laws for new construction and for
monuments should differ significantly.
The fact is that the building codes developed for
new construction have never been adapted to cultural
heritage sites. Therefore, much of what is laid down
in the norms, if thoughtlessly extended to monu­
ments, can be disastrous for the latter.
It can be argued a priori that monuments (with the
exception of such massive ones as the pyramids of
Ancient Egypt) most likely do not comply with cur­
rent regulations. It is not difficult to prove this state­
ment: in order for the monument to fully comply
with the requirements of modern regulatory docu­
ments, either our ancestors had to foresee the emer­
gence of these norms for centuries to come, or the
norms themselves must reflect the state of construc­
tion art centuries ago.
Forcibly bringing the monument into compliance
with the current regulations is a clear threat to its
authenticity.
Thus, we are faced with a dialectical contradic­
tion: on the one hand, the mechanical safety of the
monument must be ensured unconditionally, without
any discounts on the status of the monument, other­
wise, the monument may be lost, and, on the other
hand, saving the monument, we risk losing its
authenticity, i.e. destroying the monument.
It should be recognized that this key issue remains
almost not worked out in the domestic and inter­
national restoration community. If it is quite natural
to rely on the professional taste and tact of the archi­
tect-restorer when solving architectural and artistic
issues in restoration, which can always be corrected
by specialists of the same level on methodological
advice, then it seems inappropriate to leave the
safety of the monument to the discretion of the res­
toration engineer or even consultation of specialists.
Here, in engineering approaches, calculations should
prevail, not opinions, mathematical proofs, not
authoritative (but unsubstantiated) judgments.
Let’s try to make up for the noted imbalance in
the methodology of engineering restoration of
monuments.
3 RESULTS
Monuments and risk theory. As you know, the risk
can be defined as the coincidence of the probability
of occurrence of some adverse (dangerous) event
and the probability of occurrence of negative conse­
quences caused by this event. Mathematically, the
intersection of two probabilities is expressed as their
product. This fact is very important for understand­
ing how to reduce the risk of destruction of the
monument to an acceptable level (Shashkin 2014).
 The first factor in relation to the monument
reflects its actual technical condition, with accumu­
lated deformations, defects, and damage. The more
of them, the higher the probability of losing the
monument (the occurrence of a dangerous event).
In contrast to the first factor, which represents
a certain initial datum, the second one is amenable to
change due to creative human activity. If nothing is
done to preserve the monument, the probability of
negative consequences will be close to 1.0, but if
adequate measures are taken for engineering restor­
ation, this probability can be minimized, thereby sig­
nificantly reducing the value of the integral risk
R. To ensure the preservation of the monument,
applying measures for engineering restoration, the
risk can be reduced to an acceptable level.
Probabilistic analysis of the state of the structure,
the construction of a “risk tree” of such a multi-
factor system as a construction object is very diffi­
cult and still difficult to solve the problem with
a very large number of unknowns. And although the
building codes of some countries (for example, in
European standards) contain the concept of an
“acceptable” level of risk, and even on the basis of
it, partial reliability coefficients are determined, yet
this is only the first step towards probabilistic risk
analysis. The main approach remains (including in
the domestic regulatory construction practice) the
use of so-called deterministic methods based on the
design using certain values of the coefficients of
safety and reliability. With the help of a system of
reserve coefficients and reliability coefficients,
a certain reserve is created between the calculated
and limit values of loads. The reliability coefficients
to some extent reflect an incomplete knowledge of
the actual construction conditions on the site, and
their value depends on the experience gained in the
design and operation of structures and territories.
Thanks to the reserve coefficients, the defects
allowed during construction, the use of materials
with mechanical characteristics that do not corres­
pond to the project, and even the imperfection of the
design schemes adopted during the design are lev­
eled (to a certain level). If there were no reserve
coefficients, each discrepancy would be fatal for the
structure. Thanks to the established regulatory
system of reserves, an accident occurs, as practice
shows, most often, due to the concentration of
a whole complex of errors and unaccounted-for fac­
tors on one object.
But is it legitimate to apply the same approach to
monuments? After all, this status is given to objects
that have existed for more than a dozen years and
even more than one century. If there were any sig­
nificant errors in their construction, they would have
already appeared during this time.
In everyday consciousness, there is a belief: “The
ancestors built reliably.” This opinion does not con­
sider the fact that only what was reliably built by our
ancestors was preserved, and everything else was
destroyed long ago.
292
Nevertheless, if the house has stood for 100 years
and has survived to our time without any significant
damage, does not this fact itself serve as the best proof
of the efficiency of its design? Does it not follow from
this conclusion that there were no mistakes and defects
in the design during construction, and the building
materials had sufficient strength? If this is the case, do
we have the right to apply the same reserve coeffi­
cients (for the material, for the mechanical properties
of the soil at its base, etc.) to the calculation of histor­
ical structures that have been tested by time, as in the
construction of a “clean slate”?
We believe that the answer here is obvious: for
monuments, the reserve coefficients for materials
and the parameters of soil properties should be
assumed to be equal to 1.0.
During the existence of the monument, everything
that could happen on this territory happened: hurri­
cane winds, snowdrifts, floods, and earthquakes (at
least with the security corresponding to the actual
service life of the structure). Should the monument
be additionally protected from all these hardships
that it has already experienced more than once so
that it becomes “stronger than before”?
Obviously, in this case, the correct answer is: no,
you should not. On reflection, we must come to the
logical conclusion that if the monument is not able
to withstand any impact dictated by modern norms,
then either such an impact has never happened in
this territory (as clearly evidenced by the very fact of
the monument’s existence), or it is able to withstand
it, but we do not notice these resources due to the
limited knowledge of the monument.
So, considering the risks to ensure the mechanical
safety of the monument, we must, first of all, pro­
ceed from a simple postulate: if the monument is
preserved without significant damage, then its design
is adequate to external influences. This leads to
a logical conclusion: to ensure the safety of such
a monument, it is enough to perform an engineering
restoration of historical structures, without changing
its structural scheme of work, without invading its
matter with additional reinforcement structures.
Unfortunately, this approach is not reflected in
domestic legislation, although in some European coun­
tries there is such a rule (we will give it in a simplified
formulation): if a house has stood for 100 years and
has not collapsed, it should be considered built cor­
rectly, even though it does not meet modern standards.
In fairness, we note that the ideology of the pro­
posed approach does not contradict the postulates of
the “main” Russian construction law (FL no 384),
which allows you to prove the mechanical safety of
the structure in one of three ways:
• compliance with standards (for a monument, as
we have already noted, this is in many cases
unattainable);
• scientific research (which may not be sufficient
for the mechanical aspects of the safety of
monuments);
• testing. The latter method just says that the test of
time can be the basis for considering the” pre­
sumption of innocence “of the monument before
modern standards.
4 DISCUSSION
On the “presumption of innocence” of the monu­
ment. Of course, it is not always possible to ensure
the long-term preservation of the monument by
engineering restoration methods alone, without
resorting to strengthening the structures. But
a barrier must be put in the way of the thoughtless
sacrifice of the monument to the literally understood
requirements of modern standards for new construc­
tion (Tiunov & Shashkin 2020).
Often, analyzing the solutions proposed by
modern designers to strengthen cultural heritage
objects, we have to conclude that the reinforcement
is redundant (Ulitsky & Shashkin 2017). In response,
the designer states: “And prove that my reinforce­
ment is not required!” It seems that this question
should be put from head to foot and introduce as
a mandatory section of the project a calculated justi­
fication for the need for modern reinforcement of the
monument structures. We must proceed from the
“presumption of innocence” of the monument (it is
not his fault that today there are general construction
standards) and resort to modern intervention only if
the need for this has a strict scientific justification.
Often, the need for historical overlaps to perceive
the loads dictated by the modern joint venture
“Loads and Impacts” makes it necessary to
strengthen and sometimes replace the overlaps. For
example, in an old Moscow mansion of the late
XVII century, it was necessary to arrange an art
museum. To do this, it was necessary to consider the
impact of a distributed load of 400 kg/m2, which had
never happened here before and which could not be
perceived by the existing floors. Obviously, in this
case, it would be necessary, first of all, to consider
the possibility of reducing the loads to a level that
does not require strengthening the overlap.
Indeed, to imagine that in the small halls where
the paintings are displayed, a crowd of people will
gather, as during rush hours in the subway, is absurd.
Therefore, limiting the loads here is very productive,
and it does not interfere with the placement of the
desired function in the building. At the same time,
the danger of crowding people in the room in the
event of evacuation can be avoided, for example,
with the help of organizational and technical meas­
ures. The entrance to the museum can be carried out
in limited groups, with an interval in time. By the
way, this is exactly what many museums do, it does
not interfere with their normal work.
But it is not only the danger of forced reinforce­
ment for the perception of abstract payloads that lies
in wait for monuments in modern norms. There are
293
more formidable dangers. Among them is the so-
called “counteraction to progressive destruction”
(Shashkin & Ulitsky 2017).
The source of progressive destruction is usually
considered: the terrorist threat, the threat of damage
to the supports due to the collision of transport,” fail­
ure “(i.e. failure) of structures (due to marriage).
With regard to the monument, we can safely say
that the failure of the structure has not happened and
this threat does not exist. The remaining threats are
eliminated by organizational and technical measures.
Today, it is difficult to imagine that a visitor will be
allowed to enter a museum or theater with suspicious
luggage, and the building itself will not be protected
from a truck ram. In addition, compared to modern
large-span structures for the structures of the vast
majority of historical buildings, these nightmares of
modern life are not too dangerous.
Despite the uniqueness and originality of the
architectural design of each object of cultural heri­
tage, we must admit that the structural structure of
the buildings erected before the industrial revolution
of the mid-XIX century was not very diverse. Histor­
ical buildings were built of wood, brick or rubble
masonry on lime mortar, in the ancient Roman era,
even concrete was used. Brick vaults, stone blocks,
wooden beams were used for the floors, and metal
beams were used from the XIX century. For all these
buildings, there is no danger of their destruction
according to the “house of cards” scheme. Why, in
recent years, have monuments, if they have the mis­
fortune to fall into the category of objects of an
increased level of responsibility, begun to be forced
to counteract the progressive destruction?
The very application of the concept of “progres­
sive destruction” for a brick building is absurd –
a historical brick building with longitudinal and
transverse load-bearing walls is a repeatedly static­
ally indeterminate structure, the collapse of any pier
line never leads to the destruction of the entire build­
ing, which has nothing to do with a house of cards.
That is, the concept of the danger of an avalanche-
like collapse is not applicable to such a building in
principle. Brickwork is characterized by the distribu­
tion of forces in an arched pattern. A cannonball that
broke through a brick wall was known to form
a hole, rather than cause the entire wall to collapse.
Thus, the issue of countering progressive collapse
for historical brick buildings can be excluded in the
absence of such a danger in principle. Thus, we save
the monument from imminent destruction, covered
with a good intention to adapt it to the misunder­
stood requirements of modern norms.
Another very formidable danger for monuments
may be seismic (of course, for objects located in
earthquake-prone areas). And sometimes it is not so
much the seismic effects that are terrible (the monu­
ment has already experienced them many times and
successfully over the long history of its existence),
but the measures of seismic protection prescribed by
modern standards for new construction.
 A striking example of historical earthquake-
resistant construction is the Khan’s Palace in Bakh­
chisarai, in an area that is characterized by seismicity
of 8 points. The rubble foundations of this two-story
building are not built on a hard lime mortar, but on
clay, which provides the effect of” damping “during
the passage of transverse seismic waves. Despite its
effectiveness over the past 500 years, such
a foundation has no place in modern norms, and,
consequently, in life.
The ground structures of the palace have a half-
timbered system (although the wooden elements are
not powerful logs, thin poles – only such trees grew
in this area) with a heterogeneous filling (there are
shell stones, raw bricks, and even willow weaving
with clay coating). Such a structure seems very pli­
able, but it is, therefore (according to the calculation)
quite earthquake-resistant (unless, of course, we
remember the direct prohibition of modern standards
for the construction of adobe structures in earth-
quake-prone areas).
Of course, it is possible to bring the palace into
compliance with the norms. But at the same time,
the authentic thing that remains in it will be com­
pletely lost. Therefore, the only correct way is engin­
eering restoration with the “repair” of all damaged
elements and their junctions, but without interfering
with the structural scheme of the building and histor­
ical materials. This, of course, will not protect the
palace from a catastrophic earthquake (which, we
note, has not happened for half a thousand years),
but the safety of visitors can be ensured even in this
case by organizational and technical measures. For
example, the access of visitors can be limited to
a zone from which it is possible to quickly (within
a minute) – at a danger signal – evacuate from the
premises to the courtyard, to a safe zone.
It should be noted that the Russian standards do
not exclude the possibility of introducing certain
restrictions during operation, there is even such
a thing as a limited-working state of the structure. At
the same time, the quantitative uncertainty of this
concept is overcome either by the proposal to
strengthen the structures (which, as noted above, we
recommend resorting to in relation to the monument
only if it is proven necessary) or by monitoring, the
content of which should be discussed separately.
Monitoring of the technical condition of the
monument. First of all, it is worth noting that the
requirement to conduct monitoring during the oper­
ation of any structure (including a monument) is
a direct requirement of FL no 384. The only problem
is that this requirement is not met even for outstand­
ing monuments.
At the same time, it is quite obvious that monitor­
ing based on the principle of an outside observer is
not necessary for anyone. Only interactive monitor­
ing is useful, which allows you to continuously
monitor the situation and give timely signals about
the need to perform specific actions. The regime of
monitoring the state of the monument in case of
294
identifying a trend in the development of a negative
scenario should be replaced by the regime of aiding
the monument. Based on the monitoring, if plan “A”
does not work (when everything is good and only
monitoring of the patient’s health is needed),
a transition to plan “B” should be initiated (which
should be carefully thought out and prepared in
advance).
Monitoring is an effective tool that is designed to
diagnose and predict the technical condition of nat­
ural and technical systems, in particular, architec­
tural monuments. Monitoring should contain, first,
an information basis – a system for determining the
parameters of the state of the monument by means of
stationary or mobile sensors or signs, with the help
of which measurements can be made in a continuous
(continuous) or discrete (periodic) mode, as well as
a system for archiving the measurement results.
Secondly, the most important component of moni­
toring is the system of interpretation of measurement
data. In general, its heart is an interactive mathemat­
ical model of an object that can reflect its most likely
current state (Shashkin 2018). The object model
should include not only the structure of the monu­
ment but also its foundations and consider their
interaction, considering the nonlinear and rheo­
logical properties of materials and soils (Shashkin
et al. 2019, Ulitsky et al. 2014).
A model is considered adequate to an object only
if it has undergone all the necessary verification pro­
cedures and can reliably describe the behavior of the
object (Ulitsky et al. 2015). When carrying out work
on the adaptation of monuments for modern use or
for monuments that are in the zone of influence of
new construction, the verification procedure must
necessarily include a retrospective analysis of accu­
mulated deformations, which must demonstrate com­
pliance with the estimated expectations and real
deformations of the existing object. A retrospective
analysis should serve as a basis for diagnosing the
causes of the development of deformations of the
building, on the basis of which a correct “diagnosis”
can be made and an effective “treatment” of the
monument can be prescribed (Shashkin & Glybin
2017, Shashkin 2014).
Based on the results of computational modeling
of the most probable current state of the object,
alarm signals (yellow signal) are determined and
based on design calculations for two groups of limit
states, alarm signals (red signal) are determined.
For the simplest cases, the criteria for permissible
impacts can be assigned according to the tables of
current standards.
The data interpretation system must be organized
in such a way that when an alarm signal occurs
(“yellow traffic light signal») it would allow us to
assess the reliability of the measurement results. For
this purpose, it should be possible to verify the
results (for example, by comparing continuous meas­
urements by sensors and periodic measurements by
geodetic instruments). Another verification tool is
the analysis of trends in parameter changes, the iden­
tification of regular changes in parameters, and the
assessment of the correlation of sensor readings.
Third, a necessary component of monitoring is
a management decision-making system, which is
based on a data interpretation system, and which,
like all monitoring, should be arranged in
a hierarchical order. At the lower level (the level of
an individual sensor or sign), the data interpretation
system should inform the monitoring service, for
example, about the need to check the sensor’s oper­
ability, about the need to clarify the actual loads or
make other adjustments to the interactive mathemat­
ical model. If the measurement results are recog­
nized as reliable, the alarm signal is transmitted to
the management decision-making system at the
object level (middle hierarchical level). At this level,
when an alarm is received, actions should be taken
such as reducing the impact on the monument, and if
this is impossible or insufficient, strengthening the
structural elements according to a previously devel­
oped project (implementation of plan “B”).
The alarm signal (which means a significant devi­
ation - within 10-20% - of the actual measurements
from the predicted calculated parameter of the math­
ematical model that reflects the most likely state of
the object) provides sufficient time for making and
implementing a management decision. In case of an
adequate response to the alarm signal, the “red light
of the traffic light” (danger signal) should not light
up in principle.
The upper hierarchical levels should receive the
information that corresponds to the threat criteria
relevant to these levels (risk of damage to the monu­
ment). Of course, at these levels, no one is interested
in information that a certain sensor has failed. At the
top level, it is advisable to display information, for
example, about the degree of responsiveness to the
alarm signal of the performers responsible for the
middle hierarchical level. If the problem has not
been resolved within a certain period of time, it is
time for the supervisory authorities to intervene.
Today, monitoring is mistakenly understood only
as of the first component-the creation of an informa­
tion database, limited only to the simplest periodic
measurements. The discreteness of measurements,
the impossibility of continuous receipt of informa­
tion about the state of the monument make this data­
base very incomplete and unreliable. When creating
systems for monitoring building structures (SMBS),
a typical case is the measurement of point values of
stresses in structural elements without creating
a mathematical model and determining the predicted
values of the parameters under consideration. The
lack of the ability to verify the adequacy of the data
obtained, as well as the tool for assessing what
exactly the measurement results mean and what con­
clusions follow from them, does not allow us to call
such activities monitoring.
The criteria basis for monitoring in the current
practice also remains very primitive. In the best
295
case, the results of the measurements are compared
with the criteria for the permissibility of impacts
drawn from the tables of norms. At the same time,
information is often distorted and misinterpreted.
Often, the limit of permissible deformations allowed
for the entire period of work on the adaptation of the
monument for modern use is exhausted at the very
beginning of the work. But the alarm signal is sent
to the upper hierarchical level only on the eve of the
work stoppage by the supervisory authority.
Monitoring should be considered as a tool to
ensure the safety of the restoration process and work
on the adaptation of the object for modern use only
if it allows you to diagnose and predict the condition
of the object and the surrounding structures. Moni­
toring is the feedback between the behavior of a real
object and the forecast of its state, which was the
basis of the project. The better the information pro­
vided by monitoring, the more effective this feed­
back is and the more the theory and practice of the
restoration and adaptation of the monument for
modern use can be developed.
5 CONCLUSION
The use of modern building codes that are not
adapted to the specifics of the monument can
damage its authenticity. It is necessary to develop
a special set of rules “Ensuring the mechanical
safety of cultural heritage objects”, in which the pro­
posals set out in this article would receive the status
of regulatory requirements.
It seems to be methodologically erroneous to
apply the same concept of reserve and reliability
coefficients for new construction projects that have
not yet been implemented and for monuments whose
performance has passed the test of time.
When adapting monuments for modern use, it is
necessary to provide for the development of
a special computational and analytical section of the
project “Computational justification of the need for
modern reinforcement of monument structures”,
based on a mathematical model of the interaction of
monument structures and its foundation.
When designing, it is necessary to give preference
to limiting the loads on the structure, resorting to
strengthening only if proven necessary.
Organizational and technical measures that limit
the number of visitors, the frequency of visits and the
functional purpose of the premises are recommended
to be considered as the most acceptable for the monu­
ment. It is with consideration of the effectiveness of
such restrictions that the analysis of the monument in
terms of its adaptation for modern use should begin.
The adaptation and restoration (in general) of the
monument should ideally be reduced to the restor­
ation or restoration of historical structures or elem­
ents of such structures and their junctions.
Finally, the most important tool for ensuring the
mechanical safety of the monument is monitoring,
the need for which is explicitly spelled out in the
domestic legislation, but which still remains the
exception rather than the rule in the operation of cul­
tural heritage objects.
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 Reconstruction and Restoration of Architectural Heritage 2021 – Sementsov, Leontyev & Huerta (Eds)
© 2021 Taylor & Francis Group, London, ISBN 978-0-367-68296-5

Telemetric vibration measuring complex for monitoring mechanical safety

of cultural heritage object: “Russian Renault”
A.G. Shashkin
Emperor Alexander I St. Petersburg State Transport University, Saint Petersburg, Russia

M.A. Shashkin & S.O. Kondratiev

Institute of Construction Engineering “Georeconstruction”, Saint Petersburg, Russia

P.A. Bakusov
Saint Petersburg State University of Architecture and Civil Engineering, Saint Petersburg, Russia

ABSTRACT: The article is devoted to the issue of safety of cultural heritage during the dismantling works in
the immediate vicinity. The need for comprehensive monitoring of the technical condition of structures under
heterogeneous vibrodynamic influences is considered using the example of the building “Russian Renault”, cre­
ated by the master of “Northern Modern”, a graduate of the Institute of Civil Engineers A. F. Bubyr. The effect­
iveness of the use of telemetric vibration measuring systems for monitoring to ensure the mechanical safety of
the object of cultural heritage and the operational adjustment of the modes of technological processes is shown.

1 INTRODUCTION 2 MATERIALS AND METHODS

An essential aspect of the protection of cultural
heritage is to ensure the mechanical safety of
historical buildings and structures (Ulitsky at al.
2013). In today’s practice, it is not uncommon
for dismantling works to be carried out in close
proximity to the preserved object, which necessi­
tates special monitoring work. This class of sur­
veys includes a direct assessment of the
vibrodynamic effects on the structure of the
building as a whole, as well as monitoring
changes in the dynamic parameters of the natural
vibrations of the most critical structures (Sakh­
arov at al. 2019).
Improving the methods of vibrometric moni­
toring, in particular the use of systems that
remotely transmit information from sensors to
recording devices (telemetry), is an urgent task
because it increases the efficiency of observa­
tions, and allows for the early stages of the
emergence of various negative trends, to ensure
the management of technological operations in
order to minimize the risk of damage to the pre­
served object.
The article describes the methodology of com­
plex urodynamic monitoring of the safety of the
object of cultural heritage of regional significance
“Russian Renault”, which is a monument of
industrial architecture of the early twentieth
century.
General information about the monitoring object.
According to the preserved information (Shugurov
2001), the history of the plant “Russian Renault”
began in 1912. His task was to establish the repair of
cars of a French company in St. Petersburg (Figure
1, 2). This company was located in the industrial
zone between Bolshoy Sampsonievsky Prospekt and
the railway tracks. The construction was carried out
under the supervision of the famous St. Petersburg
architect, a graduate of the Institute of Civil Engin­
eers A. F. Bubyr.
The monitoring object is in one part a one-story
rectangular building, without a basement, two-light
with a combined surface, and, in the other part,
a two-story building with an unused attic. The main
structural scheme is represented by a load-bearing
frame. Separately, it is worth noting the use of new
(at the beginning of the twentieth century) capabil­
ities of reinforced concrete structures. The load-
bearing structures of the central hall cover are made
in the form of a monolithic reinforced concrete thin-
walled shell with a thickness of 80 mm, reinforced
with stiffening ribs. The stiffeners have monolithic
reinforced concrete puffs supported by reinforced
concrete suspensions to the stiffeners. The span of
the shell is ~17 m, the length is ~60 m, the pitch of
the ribs is ~3.3 m, the boom of the arch in the
middle of the span is ~3 m. In the individual axes,
there are cutouts for light lanterns measuring

DOI: 10.1201/9781003136804-57

297

Figure 1. Factory “Russian Renault”, 1915-1916 (Shu­
gurov 2001).
Figure 2. Fragment of the project of the workshops of
“Russian Renault”. According to the Central State Histor­
ical Archive of St. Petersburg, Fund 513, Inventory 102,
Case 2884: Drawings of workshop buildings on the site
owned by the automobile company “Russian Renault” at
B. Sampsonievsky Ave., 75-77.
2.8×8.9 m in light. The strength of the thin-walled
shell concrete was assigned to Class B15.
The foundations of the reinforced concrete col­
umns of the building frame are separate, monolithic,
reinforced concrete with the use of foundation
beams. According to the survey data, in terms of
engineering and geology, the site is represented by
deposits of the modern and upper parts of the Quater­
nary system: man-made deposits, marine and lake
deposits, lake-glacial and glacial deposits. The bear­
ing layer of the base soil is dusty sand saturated with
water, potentially unstable under dynamic influences.
Regulated parameters and regulatory requirements.
The mechanical safety of cultural heritage objects
exposed to dynamic impacts is ensured by compliance
with the vibration assessment criteria. These criteria
(permissible and maximum permissible levels of
forced vibrations acting on the preserved object as
a whole or individual structure) are presented in the
regulatory documents. Analyzing the provisions of the
standards set out in various national standards, the fol­
lowing is established. As a rule, for historical build­
ings located in the most unfavorable engineering and
geological conditions, the values of the criteria are
298
Figure 3. Comparison of the limit values of vibration vel­
ocity in the regulatory documentation of different
countries.
about 2 … 7 mm/s (Figure 3). Separately, the national
standard of the United Kingdom BS 7835-2:1993
should be noted: according to it, the maximum peak
vibration velocity is assumed to be 15 mm/s, which is
almost an order of magnitude higher than the global
values (Svinkin 2017, Shashkin 2017, Shashkin 2019).
In the Russian system of regulatory documenta­
tion, issues related to monitoring the mechanical
safety of cultural heritage objects under man-made
impacts, according to GOST R 56198-2014. It
reflects the basic principles of the modern approach
to the control of the technical conditions, and also
focuses on the need for the use of telemetric auto­
mated monitoring tools. At the same time, special
values of the vibration criteria are not given, and due
to the “individual characteristics” of cultural heritage
objects, the maximum vibration amplitudes must be
determined in each case separately, considering the
geotechnical conditions, the category of technical
condition, design features, existing defects and
damage, characteristics of excitation sources, etc. To
obtain the most adequate results, it is recommended
to start observations 3 months before the start of
work and continue them throughout the entire period
of influence of dynamic influences, as well as for
two years after the end by a specialized organization.
These works, as a rule, contain two main tasks,
described in more detail below:
• engineering and seism metric surveys (determin­
ing the basic tone of the elements of the preserved
buildings and the dynamics of its change);
• monitoring of kinematic vibration parameters, i.e.
comparing the actual amplitudes of forced vibra­
tions with the established vibration criteria.
3 RESULTS AND DISCUSSION
Engineering and seism metric studies. Within the
framework of the research, the parameters of the
vibration modes of the coating structures of the cen­
tral hall were evaluated. The parameters of the oscil­
lation modes include:
• modal frequency (the frequency of natural oscil­
lations in the mode);
• modal attenuation (logarithmic decrement of
mode oscillations);
• modal form (the shape of the oscillation mode).
The purpose of engineering and seism metric
studies of the building covering structures was to
obtain the dynamic parameters of reinforced con­
crete vaults for the subsequent use of this informa­
tion in the development of permissible dynamic
impacts (vibration assessment criteria) during dis­
mantling works (Chernov 2018).
A mobile system based on the ZETSENSOR
complex was used as the measuring equipment. The
complex consists of digital short-period seismo­
meters ZET7156 and a series of digital modules. The
seismometer consists of three sensitive elements that
receive mechanical vibrations in three mutually per­
pendicular directions: X, Y, Z, and translate these
vibrations into an analog signal. Further, the received
signal is digitized, stored, and transmitted to the
working computer via the GSM channel (Figure 4).
The vibrations of the coating structures were
measured in two stages at 7 points in the middle of
the spans (Figures 5, 6): between the light lamps
above the stiffeners (in the axes “3-18”) and at the
boundaries of the shell (on the axes “1” and “20”).
At point “B4” there is a deformation seam, so at
the first placement, the sensor was installed to the
right of the seam, and at the second-to the left. Since
the sensor installed at the point “B4” was used the
same in both positions, it was considered as
a reference in further analysis.
During the measurements, records of the vibration
velocities of the coating structures were obtained at 7
Figure 4. The scheme of implementation of the measuring
complex.
Figure 5. Diagram of measurement points for vibrations of
coating structures.
299
Figure 6. Examples of installed seismometers.
points in three mutually perpendicular directions (X ­
axis-longitudinal, Y-axis-transverse, Z-axis-vertical).
Using time integration, the oscillation velocity signals
were converted into displacements. The results are
presented in the form of seismograms (displacement
graphs), an example of which is shown in Figure 7.
To determine the modal frequencies, the amplitude-
frequency spectra (ASF) were constructed in three dir­
ections, using records of vibrations of the coating
structures. These spectra are obtained by averaging the
amplitude values over the sample and reflect the
expected response of the system from the seismic load,
which is assumed to have a white noise spectrum in
the frequency band under consideration. Thus, by
evaluating the amplitude-frequency spectra, we can
conclude in which frequency band we should look for
the natural tone frequencies (related to a particular
mode). As the analyzed band, the frequency range is
selected, within which there is a “surge” of the ampli­
tude caused by the phenomenon of resonance. Since
the first form (in our case, the first bending mode)
makes the main contribution to the full form of oscilla­
tions, it was its evaluation that was carried out. An
example of ASF on the Y-axis for 4 points is shown in
Figure 8.
To determine the confidence intervals of modal
frequencies (averaging over the dominant frequency)
with a confidence probability, a frequency band
equal to 1 Hz was taken, i.e.:
• on the X-axis - [2.85; 3.85] Hz:
• on the Y-axis - at a frequency of about [2.15;
3.15] Hz;
• on the Z-axis – at a frequency of about [5.5; 6.5]
Hz (for the left half) and [5.7; 6.7] Hz (for the right
half).
Figure 7. Example of a seismogram of vibrations of coat­
ing structures along the X-axis. Placement no 1, point B1.

Figure 8. The amplitude-frequency spectrum, Y-axis.
Since the sensors were set at the top point of the
coating, the modal shapes can only be estimated for
transverse bending vibrations (along the Y-axis). The
points indicate the values of the vibration amplitude
(an example of the modal shape estimation is shown
in Figure 9), obtained during measurements and sub­
sequent analysis (normalized relative to the values
from the reference sensor), the line is the theoretical
first form of bending vibrations, whose parameters
were selected using the least-squares method. The
largest relative deviation of the measured amplitudes
from the theoretical ones was:
• at a point on the Y-axis – 18.8% (point B6);
• at a point on the Z-axis – 17.6% (point B3).
Thus, it can be reliably stated that the estimates of
the values of the modal frequencies for the Y and
Z axes relate to the first bending form of oscillations.
Thus, engineering and seismometric measure­
ments of the coating structures of the cultural heri­
tage object “Russian Renault” allowed us to
determine the main dynamic parameters, namely the
natural vibration frequencies and mode shapes. The
Figure 9. Evaluation of the modal form, Y-axis.
300
first dominant burst (1st waveform) of the amplitude
is observed:
• on the X-axis (longitudinal direction) at
a frequency of about 3.35-3.36 Hz;
• Y-axis (transverse direction) at a frequency of
about 2.65-2.66 Hz;
• on the Z-axis (vertical direction) at a frequency of
about 6.02-6.29 Hz.
The obtained values correlate well with the results
of previously conducted dynamic tests and can be
used as a basis for developing a criterion for permis­
sible dynamic effects on the structure during dis­
mantling operations and for monitoring the
frequency of the main tone of the structure.
Vibration monitoring. Vibrometric methods as
part of geotechnical monitoring provide control of
the permissible level of vibration of load-bearing
structures of preserved objects and their bases during
the period of work on the dismantling of buildings.
The work on vibrometric monitoring includes sys­
temically organized instrumental observations of
vibrations and their control (Johnson & Hannen
2015, Konon & Schuring 1985, Shashkin 2018).
For monitoring, a telemetric vibration measuring
system (Figure 10) is used, installed on one of the
reinforced concrete arches and the corresponding
column, which allows receiving and processing
incoming data in real-time.
As part of the monitoring, a comprehensive
approach was applied to the assessment of vibrody­
namic effects: for the column, amplitude criteria for
vibration velocity (ensuring the strength of struc­
tures) and vibration acceleration (preventing the
development of additional deformations of the base
soils) were used; for the arches, the dynamics of
changes in the frequency of the main tone of vibra­
tions is monitored and the frequency composition of
forced vibrations is controlled in order to prevent the
occurrence of resonant phenomena (Bakumov 2019).
The main sources of man-made dynamic loads
during dismantling work are the work of hydraulic
Figure 10. A bicycle meter mounted on a reinforced con­
crete column.
Figure 11. The collapse of a chimney on a nearby develop­
ment spot (more than 100 m from the cultural heritage
site).
hammers, the collapse of massive structural elements
of buildings (Figure 11), the movement of heavy con­
struction equipment, in particular, loaded dump trucks
on irregularities, as well as braking-acceleration, etc.)
and other special equipment (Voznesensky 2001).
Each source of dynamic impacts corresponds to its
own characteristic vibration levels: the highest values
are observed when several hydraulic hammers are
operating (5 … 20 mm/s), as well as when trucks
carrying out construction debris are passing (leaving
the construction site in the immediate vicinity of the
monitoring object), characterized by the presence of
shock pulses in the impact spectrum that falls into the
frequency range of the main tone of the building as
a whole (2.7…6.1 Hz). Daily waveforms with marked
boundaries that meet the established criteria (Figure
12). The excess was recorded by means of an auto­
matic system with prompt notification of the customer
via one of the popular messengers.
The results of monitoring the structural integrity
of the arch by the pitch frequency are presented in
the form of the amplitude-frequency spectrum of the
signal. Figure 13 shows the spectrum of natural
oscillations of the arch in the transverse direction
(Y-axis) for the period from 30.10.2020 to
20.01.2021. As can be seen from the graph, the main
frequency, located in the region of 2.6 Hz, has not
Figure 12. Daily waveforms: a) Velosigram; b)
Accelerogram.
301
Figure 13. Dynamics of changes in the pitch frequency of
a reinforced concrete arch.
undergone significant changes, and its minor vari­
ations (10-12 %) are associated with changes in tem­
perature and humidity conditions over the presented
time period.
The use of telemetric systems of vibro-seism
metric measurements as part of the work on geotech­
nical monitoring of the technical condition of cul­
tural heritage objects allows us to obtain a whole set
of data, with the help of which timely and effective
management of technological processes is possible.
4 CONCLUSION
On the example of the object of cultural heritage of
regional significance “Russian Renault”, the need for
comprehensive monitoring in the conditions of
vibrodynamic impacts from dismantling works is
shown. An effective tool for such monitoring is tele­
metric vibration measuring systems, which allow
obtaining information about the nature of impacts on
the preserved object continuously and promptly cor­
recting the nature of construction processes (Shash­
kin & Ulitsky 2017).
REFERENCES
Bakumov P. A. 2019. Determination of the technical condi­
tion of the vaults of New Holland by dynamic
characteristics. In Modern Construction Issue 1(2):
101–105.
Chernov Yu. T. 2018. Design of buildings and structures
exposed to dynamic impacts. Industrial and Civil engin­
eering (4): 73–77.
Johnson A. P., & Hannen W. R. 2015. Vibration limits for
historic buildings and art collections. APT Bulletin: The
Journal of Preservation Technology 46(2/3): 66–74.
Konon W., & Schuring J. R. 1985. Vibration criteria for
historic buildings. Journal of construction engineering
and management 111(3): 208–215.
Massarsch K. R., & Fellenius B. H. 2008. Ground vibra­
tions induced by impact pile driving. The Sixth Inter­
national Conference on Case Histories in Geotechnical
Engineering, Missouri University of Science and Tech­
nology, August 12–16, 2008, Virginia: 2–38.
Sakharov, I. I., Shashkin, M. A., & Nizovtsev, S. I. (2019).
Real-time vibration monitoring. Geotechnics Funda­
mentals and Applications in Construction: New Mater­
ials, Structures, Technologies and Calculations:
301–306.
Shashkin A. G., & Ulitsky V. M. 2017. Fundamentals of
monitoring the mechanical safety of structures during
construction and operation. Industrial and civil engin­
eering (12): 6–14.
Shashkin K. G. 2018. Theoretical foundations of interactive
monitoring of complex buildings and underground
structures. Geotechnika 10 (3): 26–35.
Shashkin M. A. 2019. Criteria for evaluating acceptable
dynamic impacts on historical buildings. In Prospects
for the development of engineering surveys in construc­
tion in the Russian Federation: 654–658.
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Shashkin M.A. 2017. Real-Time vibration Monitoring for
Repair and Construction Operations, Industrial and
Civil Engineering (12): 53–59.
Shugurov L. M. 2001. The history of Renault in Russia:
From the Russian Renault to the Autoframos. Moscow:
Rosman.
Svinkin M. R. 2017. A choice of proper criteria for soil and
structural vibrations from construction and industrial
sources. In ICSMGE 2017–19th International Confer­
ence on Soil Mechanics and Geotechnical Engineering,
Seoul: 1589–1592.
Ulitsky V. M., Shashkin A. G., Shashkin K. G., &
Lisyuk M. B. 2013. Preservation and reconstruction of his­
toric monuments in Saint Petersburg with provisions for
soil-structure interaction. In Geotechnical Engineering for
the Preservation of Monuments and Historic Sites-Proc. of
the 2nd Int. Symp. on Geotechnical Engineering for the
Preservation of Monuments and Historic Sites: 735–742.
Voznesensky E. A. 2001. Energy approach in soil dynam­
ics. Dynamic instability of soils. Bulletin of the Moscow
University. Series 4. Geology (2):76–78.
 Reconstruction and Restoration of Architectural Heritage 2021 – Sementsov, Leontyev & Huerta (Eds)
© 2021 Taylor & Francis Group, London, ISBN 978-0-367-68296-5

Griboyedov Canal of St. Petersburg: Outdoor lights

I.I. Verkhovskaia
Saint Petersburg State University of Architecture and Civil Engineering, Saint Petersburg, Russia

ABSTRACT: The article presents a comparative analysis of the development of targeted outdoor lighting of
the Griboyedov Canal in St. Petersburg in 2017 and 2021 from the Church of the Savior on Spilled Blood in
the direction of Nevsky Prospekt. The necessity of developing a unified strategy for the development of light
exposure of architectural and cultural heritage in the evening and at night is revealed. The article may be of
interest to specialists in the field of lighting design, implementing the concept of preserving the culture and
images of the heritage of St. Petersburg.

1 INTRODUCTION the use of decorative lighting of building facades with­

St. Petersburg is a unique place that includes historical
and cultural value and combines tourist, public, and
leisure space. There are more than 8,460 cultural heri­
tage sites in the city. The historical center of
St. Petersburg and its associated groups of monuments
are included in the UNESCO list of cultural heritage
and are a center of attraction for tourists from all over
the world.
The light environment of twilight St. Petersburg
transforms the city beyond recognition, changing
cultural monuments, the architecture of the space.
Sometimes lighting becomes more than a way of
lighting, and illumination changes the appearance of
familiar buildings (Bystryantseva 2015).
Since 2012, the Government of St. Petersburg has
been implementing the “Light City” program (the
Committee on Energy and Engineering 2012, the
Government of St. Petersburg 2010), and since 2018,
targeted investment programs 2018-2022 (the Com­
mittee on Energy and Engineering 2021) are being
implemented, the list of which includes a program for
the reconstruction of outdoor lighting facilities in
parks and gardens, within the framework of the law
of St. Petersburg No. 891-180 “On Improvement in
St. Petersburg”, taking into account the Urban Plan­
ning Law of the Russian Federation, as well as current
sanitary, construction and fire regulations. The Admin­
istration of St. Petersburg is implementing the pro­
gram “Development of outdoor lighting systems in
St. Petersburg” (Government of St. Petersburg 2020),
which is designed to improve the architectural and art­
istic lighting environment in the evening and at night.
As a rule, the implementation of a single light
design of an architectural ensemble is violated not only
by various information and advertising lights, an abun­
dance of light inscriptions, film projections, as well as
out considering a single space and composition.
The design and execution of the light-spatial
environment of the historical and cultural space
requires the purposeful application of various types
of lighting and artistic means and techniques as
a single space with the main points of perception as
a holistic architectural scenario (Zennaro 2017).
At the same time, modern society places increas­
ingly high demands on the ecological and aesthetic
parameters of the public environment, including its
light-color or visual component, which is used to
judge the visual comfort and artistic merits of the
architecture of the space as a whole (Mehmedalp
Tural & Cengiz Yener 2006, Gherri 2015).
The main parameters of the light environment that
provide a certain visual comfort are regulated by the
norms and all calculations and justifications of each
project before the sections of natural lighting and inso­
lation are carried out in design workshops, as a rule,
by architects (Kharlamov 2011). Measures to ensure
the required visual conditions and visual expressive­
ness of architectural solutions are considered formative
measures since they are directly related to the choice
of parameters of urban planning structure, spatial and
plastic composition of buildings and structures, as well
as construction, finishing, and lighting materials
(Batova 2012).
2 MATERIALS AND METHODS
The study presents a critical analysis of the dynamics
of the development of light exhibition design and the
light-spatial environment as a historical and artistic
value of the perception of the composition of the
architectural space of the Griboyedov Canal in
St. Petersburg from the School of Folk Art, the

DOI: 10.1201/9781003136804-58

303
Figure 1. Spatial-planning scheme the embankment of the Griboyedov Canal in St. Petersburg from the building of the
School of Folk Art, the Church of the Savior on Blood to Nevsky Prospekt. a) the left-bank part, b) the right-bank part.
Church of the Savior on Spilled Blood to Nevsky
Prospekt (Figure 1).
The study aims to assess the dynamics of the
development of light design and holistic perception
of the composition of one of the most popular cul­
tural and tourist spaces in St. Petersburg. The prob­
lem can be represented by the lack of a unified
strategy for the development of the light environ­
ment of the historical center and is divided into sev­
eral main issues: how artificial lighting is used to
emphasize the forms of the architecture of buildings,
whether it is used to create an identity and increase
the level of recognition, whether their aesthetic qual­
ities, ideas and sense of perception of monuments
laid down by architects are preserved.
Lighting itself is a work of art, and, in addition, is
designed to enhance spatial perception, determine
mood, and form ideas about art, aesthetics, and
beauty, which are complexly related and have their
own form, image, and other aspects that makeup
plastic composition and expressiveness (Fathy et al.
2020). For each monument of cultural heritage, the
lighting design is designed differently, considering
all the features and uniqueness, while the environ­
ment and composition of the exposure should be
considered, as well as the methods of preserving the
original image, creating a light counter-image and
replacing the original image (Kharlamov 2011).
There are several techniques of light and color
design and design to optimize the historical and art­
istic value: flooding, including in combination with
accompanying subordinate lighting, contributing to
the reflex to identify the three-dimensional structure
and plasticity of facades, as well as local illumin­
ation to illuminate the most expressive elements of
sites, as well as the structure of structures (Ching &
Binggeli 2018).
The subject of the study was the light environ­
ment of the Griboyedov Canal section, which has
a rectilinear, semi-closed layout from the side of the
304
Church of the Savior on Spilled Blood, which is the
compositional center, and open towards Nevsky
Prospekt. By its nature, this section is very different
in its straightness from the rest of it with whimsi­
cally winding, with numerous turns.
Historical background. In the reign of Elizabeth, in
the 1740s, the first section of the future Griboyedov
Canal, previously called the Catherine Canal, was car­
ried out, connecting the Moika River with the Kri­
vusha River. This straight channel was called the
Stable Channel because of the nearby court stables on
the Moika River. However, the main work on the cre­
ation of the canal was carried out in the reign of Cath­
erine II, hence the old name of the canal. In 1764­
1790, the Krivusha River was cleared, deepened, and
turned into a canal. The works were conducted under
the supervision of F. V. Baur, I. N. Borisov, and
I. M. Golenishchev-Kutuzov. Granite embankments
with cast-iron grilles appeared on the banks of the new
canal. After the revolution, in 1923, the name of the
channel was replaced by a new one in honor of
A. S. Griboyedov.
The Griboyedov Canal is divided into left-bank
and right-bank channels. A special feature is that on
both sides of the canal are concentrated architectural
monuments. There are two zones:
• the left-bank part with residential and public
buildings, narrow sidewalks for pedestrians, with
a heavily loaded roadway for parking and vehicle
traffic. The movement of pedestrians on this sec­
tion is also carried out in two directions from and
to Nevsky Prospekt;
• the right-bank part with public and cultural build­
ings, a wide part for pedestrians and one lane for
vehicles. The movement of pedestrians on this
site is carried out in two directions, both from
Church of the Savior on Blood to Nevsky Pros­
pekt and in the opposite direction. On this site,
there are numerous places for recreation and tour­
ist viewing with views of the famous sights-the
 Kazan Cathedral and of Church of the Savior on
Blood.
In the left-bank part are located (Figure 1a):
1. The building of the School of Folk Art (2 Gri­
boyedov Canal embankment; 1914-1915, archi­
tects N. E. Lancere, I. F. Currently, the building
houses the Higher School of Folk Arts;
2. Chapel-sacristy and residential wing of Church
of the Savior on Blood (1906-1907, architect
A. A. Parland);
3. Theatre Bridge (1829-1830, engineers
E. A. Adam N. G. Tretter);
4. Church of the Savior on Blood project by Archi­
mandrite Ignatius (I. V. Malyshev) and architect
A. A. Parland (construction management and
changes in the project by A. A. Parland);
5. Mikhailovsky Garden fence (1903-1907, archi­
tect A. A. Parland);
6. Residential building on the embankment of 26
Griboyedov Canal;
7. Russian Museum. Corpus Benoit (Palace of
Exhibitions, or Palace of Arts. 1913 -1919,
architect L. N. Benois);
8. Mikhailovsky Theater, (1833, architect
A. P. Bryullov);
9. The mansion of M. A. Gorchakov. The building
of the oil production association “Nobel Broth­
ers” (1896, architect F. I. Lidval). It is currently
a public building;
10. The House of the Order of the Jesuits (Griboye­
dov Canal embankment, 1 8-Italianskaya str.;
1801-1805, architect L. Ruska). It is currently
a public building;
11. Griboyedov Canal Embankment (1882, archi­
tect G. A. Solovyov). It is currently a public
building;
12. Griboyedov Canal Embankment (1862, architect
E. A. Tur). Currently, it is a residential building;
13. Griboyedov Canal embankment (first half of the
XIX century, rebuilt). Currently, it is
a compressed building;
14. V. V. Engelhardt House (30/16 Nevsky Prospekt;
1829-1831, architect Jaco Paul). Currently, it is
a public building with a small hall of the Philhar­
monic located in it, the metro station “Nevsky
Prospekt-2”.
In the right-bank part are located (Figure 1b):
1. House of JSC “Singer & Co.” (21 Griboyedov
Canal embankment, 28 Nevsky Ave.; 1902-1904,
architect P. Yu. Syuzor). Currently, it is a public
building with a branch of a bank, a book house,
and a publishing house;
2. 19 Griboyedov Canal Embankment (1875-1876,
architect A.V. Ivanov). Currently, it is
a residential building with a cafe located in it;
3. 17 Griboyedov Canal Embankment (1850, archi­
tect N. P. Grebenka, AI. Lange). Currently, it is
a compressed building with a cafe located in it;
305
4. 15 Griboyedov Canal Embankment (1875, architect
P. Y. Syuzor). Currently, it is a residential building;
5. The building of the First Mutual Credit Society (13
Griboyedov Canal Embankment, 1888-1890, archi­
tect P. Yu. Syuzor). It is currently a public building;
6. The building of the Court Hospital (11 Griboye­
dov Canal embankment, 1852-1857, architect
R. I. Kuzmin). It is currently a public building;
7. Buildings of the Court Stable department (7, 9
Griboyedov Canal embankment; first half ­
middle of the XIX century, built in the XX cen­
tury; house 9 in Soviet times was used as
a residential house of writers). Currently, they are
residential buildings;
8. Buildings of the Court Stable Department (5 Gri­
boyedov Canal embankment; first half - middle
of the XIX century, built in the XX century). It is
currently a public building;
9. Buildings of the Court Stable Department (3 Gri­
boyedov Canal embankment; first half - middle
of the XIX century, built in the XX century). It is
currently a public building.
3 RESULTS AND DISCUSSION
In 2017, when designing the lighting space, attention
was paid not only to the functional lighting of the ter­
ritories and the main places of movement of pedes­
trians and cars but also to the illumination of historical
objects and the surrounding landscape (Figure 2).
The project is made with an emphasis on the right-
bank (even-numbered) part of the Griboyedov Canal-
the architectural and artistic illumination of the
Church of the Savior on Spilled Blood, the fence, and
parts of the trees of the Mikhailovsky Garden due to
lantern lighting and the reflections of floodlights
(Figure 3), which became the compositional center.
The Church of the Savior on Blood architec­
tural lighting project uses iGuzzini MaxiWoody
floodlights, which are located on the pillars and
the roofs of buildings located on the other side of
the Griboyedov Canal. They create elliptical light
Figure 2. Panorama of the Griboyedov Canal 2017. (Photo
by author).

Figure 3. The light environment of Church of the Savior
on Blood, fences, and parts of the trees of the Mikhailovsky
Garden in 2017. (Photo by author).
spots, which, overlapping each other, create
a uniform illumination of the facades. The side
domes are illuminated by MaxiWoody floodlights
in the superspot version. At the same time, the
huge shadows that even in the daytime hide the
splendor of the central dome, disappear at night
thanks to the light of 4 Platea spotlights located
on the roof of the temple. With the help of Radius
spotlights, equipped with a special device for
adjusting the flow of light, a dynamic pulsating
illumination of the western bell tower is created.
The light dynamics symbolize the living memory
(Figure 3a). The project is completed by a light
illumination of the ancient cast-iron fence of the
temple and the park, made with the help of Radius
searchlights (Figure 3b).
Further on the left-bank plot, individual buildings
are decorated: the lighting of the facade and columns
of the Russian Museum and window openings of the
House of V. V. Engelhardt. On the right bank side-
lighting of the buildings of the Court Hospital and the
First Mutual Credit Society, with Martini Lighting
equipment.
At the same time, the lighting of the architec­
tural environment did not create a common space
and existed only locally with the illumination of
individual buildings, while the over-illuminated
306
buildings negatively affected the overall percep­
tion, and the floodlight lighting of Church of the
Savior on Blood blinded and did not allow the
formation of a single perception of the compos­
ition. Also, functional lighting in the study area,
despite its good development, required replace­
ment due to outdated lighting devices. At the
same time, there was an abundance of informa­
tion and advertising media.
Currently, the architectural lighting environment
of the site has changed qualitatively (Figure 4).
The intensity of the lighting of the Russian
Museum, the building of the First Society, the
House of V. V. Engelhardt, and the Church of the
Savior on Spilled Blood has been changed, the
floodlight illumination has been turned off. There is
no lighting design of the buildings of the First
Mutual Credit Society, the House of JSC “Singer
and Co.” at the same time appeared on the facade
of the Mikhailovsky Theater. The problem of the
high brightness of the illumination of the Court
Hospital has not been solved.
There is a discontinuity of the degree of transi­
tions and the integrity of the perception of the histor­
ical and cultural environment is destroyed. There is
no single compositional solution for the light design
of the Griboyedov Canal, as well as a large-scale,
rhythmic, and tectonic structure of the monuments,
which largely depends not only on the brightness of
the light used but also on the spectral composition of
the lamps, which contributes to maintaining the
authenticity of the light climate of the historical
environment. Also, the aggravation is observed
when the distribution of light flow on detached
buildings is uneven horizontally and vertically, with
an emphasis on columns, curved surfaces of niches,
etc., which distorts the perception of their size and
proportions, and the close location of the lamps cre­
ates uneven illumination of the surface.
At the same time, there is a lack of attention to the
illumination and emphasis on the water space of the
canal, which is a true St. Petersburg landscape that
combines all the architectural styles of the historical
space.
Figure 4. Panorama of the Griboyedov Canal 2021. (Photo
by author).
4 CONCLUSION
Contradictory results of the dynamics of light design
in St. Petersburg on the example of the Griboyedov
Canal are associated with the lack of a unified strat­
egy for the development and tactics of design, the
use of light design techniques, and the exposure of
architectural and cultural heritage in the evening and
at night. There is a need to develop the protection of
the light environment of St. Petersburg, which would
promote compliance not only with the environmental
and aesthetic parameters of the public environment
but also would favor the formation of a general illu­
sory and perspective space, maintaining the compos­
ition of the frame as an element of the visual
scenario by approaching and removing planes, gen­
eralizing color accents and tonal contrast of the
flooding light. In general, the light design allows you
to discover and use all the possibilities, but if you
consider the main tonal relations of the artistic fea­
tures of monuments and the environment and under­
stand the role of different types of lighting about the
main points of perception of the architecture of the
historical and cultural environment.
REFERENCES
Batova A. 2012. Principles of designing outdoor lighting
for architectural objects. Moscow: Moscow Architec­
tural Institute.
307
Bystryantseva N. 2015. A comprehensive approach to cre­
ating a light environment of the evening city. Moscow:
Moscow Architectural Institute.
Ching F. D. & Binggeli C. 2018. Interior design illustrated.
New York: John Wiley & Sons.
Committee on Energy and Engineering. 2012. Program
“Light City”. Saint Petersburg: Administration of Saint
Petersburg.
Committee on Energy and Engineering. 2018. Address lists
2018–2022. Outdoor lighting. Saint Petersburg: Admin­
istration of Saint Petersburg.
Fathy F., Mansour Y., Sabry H., Refat M., & Wagdy A.
2020. Conceptual framework for daylighting and facade
design in museums and exhibition spaces. Solar Energy
(204): 673–682.
Gherri B. 2015. Assessment of daylight performance in
buildings: methods and design strategies. Southampton:
WIT Press.
Government of St. Petersburg. 2010. Program for the
development of the outdoor lighting system in
St. Petersburg “Light City” for the period 2010–2017.
Saint Petersburg: Administration of Saint Petersburg.
Kharlamov M. V. 2011. Methods for creating a light image
of architecture. Bulletin of Civil Engineers (3): 28–33.
Mehmedalp Tural, Cengiz Yener. 2006. Lighting monu­
ments: Reflections on outdoor lightingand environmen­
tal appraisal. Building and Environment 41: 775–782.
The Government of St. Petersburg. 2020. Development of
outdoor lighting systems in St. Petersburg. Saint Peters­
burg: Administration of Saint Petersburg.
Zennaro P. 2017. Strategies in colour choice for architec­
tural built environment. Journal of the International
Colour Association (19): 15–22.
 Reconstruction and Restoration of Architectural Heritage 2021 – Sementsov, Leontyev & Huerta (Eds)
© 2021 Taylor & Francis Group, London, ISBN 978-0-367-68296-5

BIM technologies in restoration of architectural heritage

A.V. Volkov & I.D. Shevyakov
Saint Petersburg State University of Architecture and Civil Engineering, Saint Petersburg, Russia

K.Yu. Gubinskaya
Committee for State Control, Use and Protection of Historical and Cultural Monuments, Saint Petersburg, Russia
Saint Petersburg State University of Architecture and Civil Engineering, Saint Petersburg, Russia
National Committee of the International Council for the Preservation of Monuments and Places of Interest
(ICOMOS), Saint Petersburg, Russia

N.P. Diakonov
Committee for State Control, Use and Protection of Historical and Cultural Monuments, Saint Petersburg, Russia

ABSTRACT: For the preservation of architectural monuments, it is necessary to solve many problems
related to various aspects of the restoration of architectural heritage objects. An integrated approach using
BIM technology allows you to solve many of the tasks. However, it is necessary to develop regulatory legal
acts that will indicate to us the criteria of accuracy, reliability, and completeness in the implementation of
BIM technology in the work on the preservation of architectural heritage.

1 INTRODUCTION According to the Federal Law” On Objects of Cul­

Saint Petersburg is a unique city in many ways, one
of which is the number of cultural heritage sites and
historical buildings (Makarov 2015).
The restoration experience of St. Petersburg is one
of the most advanced in this field. However, despite
the work of the Committee for State Control, Use and
Protection of Historical and Cultural Monuments in
St. Petersburg for more than a century much remains
unknown in the field of restoration work, and what is
studied in paper form goes to the archives, where it is
often not fully used in the development of measures
to preserve the architectural heritage (Makarov 2018).
One of the key tasks of our time in general, includ­
ing the restoration industry, is the application of modern
digital technologies and the adaptation of the proven
system of architectural heritage research to the condi­
tions of actively developing software and technology.
2 MATERIALS AND METHODS
The attention of restoration specialists is currently
focused on the issues of methodology for the study
of architectural heritage objects, monitoring their
technical condition, and the system for storing data
about it. Design technologies using modern model­
ing tools (for example, various Autodesk products)
have long replaced manual graphics.
tural Heritage (Historical and Cultural Monuments) of
the Peoples of the Russian Federation “of 25.06.2002
No 73-FL, the preservation of architectural heritage is
understood as measures aimed at ensuring its physical
preservation and preservation of historical and cul­
tural value, providing for conservation, repair, restor­
ation, and adaptation. These activities must include
research and survey work in accordance with the
mandatory procedure established by law.
It is worth noting that for practicing architects-
restorers, design engineers, technologists and other
specialists of the restoration industry, the division of
historical architectural heritage into cultural heritage
objects and historical buildings is often nominal. Of
course, the legislation categorically distinguishes the
approach to the procedure for carrying out work on
cultural heritage sites and historical buildings, how­
ever, in production work we often encounter the
same examples of historical structures and technolo­
gies. For unification, we will choose a general name
of the architectural heritage or objects of architec­
tural heritage.
To ensure the preservation of architectural heri­
tage objects, it is necessary to organize monitoring
of their technical condition before the start of pro­
duction work on their preservation.
According to GOST R 55567-2013 “The procedure
for organizing and conducting engineering and tech­
nical research on cultural heritage sites. Historical and

DOI: 10.1201/9781003136804-59

308
cultural monuments. General requirements”, GOST
R 56905-2016 “Carrying out measurement and engin­
eering and geodetic works on cultural heritage
objects”, GOST R 55945-2014 “General requirements
for engineering and geological surveys and studies for
the preservation of cultural heritage objects” within
the framework of the development of project docu­
mentation related to measures for the preservation of
architectural heritage objects, it is necessary to carry
out measures to assess the technical condition of its
parts and elements, determine the suitability for fur­
ther operation, the need for repair and restoration
work. The research is carried out by the program,
which in its essence should embody the methodology
of the study of architectural heritage.
If the building is an object of cultural heritage, it
is required to obtain a permit for conducting research
and survey work when performing field studies in
the form of pits, soundings, and other similar
studies.
Immediately, already in the process of work, it is
necessary to perform additional examinations after
opening structures that are not available during the
main survey.
At the same time, according to GOST R 55567­
2013 “The procedure for organizing and conducting
engineering and technical research on cultural heri­
tage sites. Historical and cultural monuments. Gen­
eral requirements “the results of the technical survey
of buildings may be used if the period of limitation
for performing the technical survey does not exceed:
five years - for objects of categories I, II (service­
able, working condition); three years - for objects of
category III (limited working condition); one year ­
for buildings and structures of categories IV and
V (unacceptable condition, emergency condition)
(Kolodyazhny at al. 2018).
The results of engineering, chemical-technological,
measurement studies, and photo fixation, which are
part of the project documentation, are stored in spe­
cialized archives on paper, without the potential for
monitoring the state of the architectural heritage.
The development of modern technologies allows
us to look at the issues of studying the spatial charac­
teristics of buildings and structures, their monitoring,
and the system of storing the collected data from
a new point of view.
3 RESULTS AND DISCUSSION
Formation of modern archives of project documenta­
tion and prospects for creating electronic databases
of project documentation. In modern practice, the
storage of project materials received by the state
bodies for the protection of the cultural heritage of
the Russian Federation is mainly on paper. This
method has the undeniable advantage of long shelf
life, however, and a clear disadvantage is that in
the conditions of digitalization, it is inconvenient to
use in work. A complete transition to electronic
309
storage of project documentation has not yet been
successful, although attempts are being made regu­
larly. The transition to some other forms of informa­
tion storage, in turn, raises the problem of choosing
a medium for transferring a paper archive to it.
At the same time, there is no need to completely
switch to electronic document management, rather, it
is necessary to develop an integrated approach.
A significant number of organizations licensed by
the Ministry of Culture of the Russian Federation
working in the field of restoration, resort to the con­
struction of three-dimensional models of research
objects during the execution of architectural meas­
urements. The above models are not an appendix to
the project documentation and remain in the personal
archive of the designers. But this situation does not
allow for subsequent restoration work to see the
state of the building at the time of the previous study
and in fact, a three-dimensional model built based on
point clouds stores this information (Marshall &
Stutz 2011).
Thus, there is a need to systematize, process, and
store all the resulting dimensional models within
a single organization. This function can be per­
formed by the bodies of protection of the architec­
tural heritage of the Russian Federation.
According to Federal Law No 190-FL of
29.12.2004 “Urban Planning Code of the Russian
Federation”, there is a concept of state information
systems for urban planning activities that contain
information, documents, materials on the develop­
ment of territories, on their construction, on existing
and planned capital construction facilities and other
information necessary for the implementation of
urban planning activities. According to the order of
the Ministry of Communications of the Russian Fed­
eration of 01.08.2018 No 428 “On approval of
Explanations (methodological recommendations) for
the development of regional projects within the
framework of federal projects of the national pro­
gram “Digital Economy of the Russian Federation”,
explanations (methodological recommendations) for
the development of regional projects within the
framework of federal projects of the national pro­
gram “Digital Economy of the Russian Federation”
are given, including explanations on measures to
digitalize the construction industry, which also
includes the restoration industry.
Also, according to the order of the Ministry of
Construction of the Russian Federation dated
06.08.2020 No 433/or. “On Approval of technical
requirements for maintaining Registers of State
Information Systems for Urban Development Activ­
ities, methods for assigning registration numbers to
information, documents, materials placed in state
information systems for urban development activ­
ities, reference books and classifiers necessary for
processing the specified information, documents,
materials, formats for providing information, docu­
ments, materials, The requirements for the mainten­
ance of registers of state information systems for the
provision of urban development activities contained
in the state information systems for the provision of
urban development activities” are regulated.
Based on the above, there is an urgent need to
create a database that would accumulate information
about the architectural heritage based on geographic
information systems and in which it will be possible
to map objects, giving an accurate reference to each
object of cultural heritage, historical building or
structure, to see the documentation related to it, to
monitor its existence during the restoration process,
to monitor its changes during each stage of conserva­
tion work, and during its further operation.
The tool for implementing such a database can be
widely used in foreign and actively implemented in
domestic practice BIM-technology (Building Infor­
mation Modeling).
International experience of IT technologies. As an
example, we can cite the experience of the United
States, where in 1933 an archive of documents was
formed called “America’s antique buildings” (Xu, Yi
2019), which contained text descriptions, photo­
graphs, and drawings of historically valuable objects.
By 2018, this system was transformed into a single
database, where you can get a full description of the
requested object.
The next step in the development of such data­
bases is the creation of a BIM model database
(Kirby & Kirby 2018), and this step has already
been taken by some countries. For example, in the
State of Qatar, this database has already been created
(Qatar Historical Building Information Modeling
(Q-BEAM) platform) (Fadli & AlSaeed 2019).
In the world, a new direction in construction has
already been created and is being developed by the
scientific community, defined at the junction of two
areas: restoration and modeling. Historical Buildings
Information Modeling (HBIM) deals not only with
the issues of accelerating and detailing the modeling
of architectural heritage but also with ways to pre­
serve the data of buildings and structures over time,
predicting the behavior of buildings in conditions
that pose a danger to them (Ying-Mei Cheng, Chiao-
Ling Kuo & Chia-Ching Mou 2021).
For this purpose, the expert community of archi­
tects, restorers, engineers, designers, and other spe­
cialists in interdisciplinary interaction created
a single tool for integrating historical information
about the object into the digital format of the build­
ing representation (CIDOC CRM). This HBIM tool
allows you to achieve the following goals:
– provide guidance for information system develop­
ers on best practices in conceptual modeling for
the effective construction and integration of infor­
mation related, inter alia, to the construction his­
tory of architectural heritage objects;
– be a communication tool, between various spe­
cialists, experts, and developers, to use accurate
and complete information about the architectural
heritage site (Khalil 2017).
310
The modern process of working with HBIM is as
follows:
I. Creating a spatial model:
1. Using laser scanning and photogrammetry:
a shooting or creating a point cloud;
b getting a textured surface;
c modeling the object on the resulting
surface;
2. Using the “bottom-up” method:
a obtaining or creating two-dimensional
drawings;
b modeling of the object based on the received
drawings.
II. Integration of the model into the historical
context:
1. Obtaining comprehensive information about
the object (historical and bibliographic and
material science studies, including field and
desk work).
2. Holding several discussion sessions, where
architects, professionals in the field of restor­
ation work discuss issues related to the object
(the domestic equivalent is the Council for the
Preservation of cultural heritage). Decisions
made at meetings are also “attached” to the
object.
3. Creating a knowledge base for the object.
III. Creating a platform for viewing the results
obtained
1. Creating the site of the object.
2. Attach a 3D model and a database about the
object to the site.
The described technology can be applied in
domestic practice.
Development of BIM technologies in Russia. BIM
technology in the concept of “Information Model”
appeared in the Russian Federation relatively
recently. Currently, several regulatory documents
have been published that include this concept.
According to a survey conducted in 2019, among the
surveyed construction organizations, only 22% used
BIM technologies (CONCURATOR 2019).
BIM technologies can be used in the restoration
industry to monitor the condition of buildings and
structures, to develop a design and working docu­
mentation for the preservation of architectural heri­
tage, as well as for research activities, including, for
example, cataloging elements of architectural and
artistic decoration, etc.
In the construction industry, the information
model primarily serves as a source of project docu­
mentation, and in the restoration industry, the infor­
mation model can be a “repository” of all the unique
elements created for a particular object, and in
the case of loss of both an individual element and
the entire building, when deciding on restoration, the
human factor is excluded in the development of
documentation based on iconographic materials and
manual measurements and has high accuracy in all
volumetric parameters, which should certainly be
associated with materials science research.
In Russian historiography, there are few publica­
tions on the subject under consideration. Most of the
examples describe only the moment of obtaining the
point cloud and the subsequent three-dimensional
model as the realization of a commercial advantage
in the market.
However, when implementing laser scanning tech­
nologies and photogrammetric data processing, there
is a problem of the lack of up-to-date regulatory docu­
ments regulating the methods of work and the accur­
acy of shooting. As a result, it is not certain that the
methods described in the above scientific works
allowed us to obtain a model of sufficient accuracy,
reliability, and completeness for subsequent restor­
ation work.
Also, a negative factor in the implementation of
BIM is the corporate secrecy associated with the fact
that many companies are trying to solve their tasks by
building a three-dimensional model, in the absence of
standards, they are forced to develop such standards
independently, and, as a result, are not ready to share
the results with competing organizations.
Currently, the source of primary information that
provides the characteristics of accuracy, reliability,
and completeness is the technology of ground-based
laser scanning.
The technology of ground-based laser scanning
has a significant drawback: if the facades or internal
parts of the scanned object have a complex terrain,
then a large number of dead zones appear, which sig­
nificantly affect the completeness and reliability of
the model. The way out of this situation is the joint
use of various technologies: laser scanning, photo­
grammetry using a drone, lidar shooting. When com­
bining all models into one, the number of dead zones
is minimized, therefore, the completeness of the
model is increased.
4 CONCLUSION
Thus, the domestic practical experience of imple­
menting BIM shows that for the restoration industry,
it is necessary not just to use these technologies dir­
ectly, but to combine different technologies to obtain
characteristics of accuracy, reliability, and complete­
ness, due to the peculiarities of work on the preser­
vation of architectural heritage.
With the advent of BIM, coupled with various vari­
ations of obtaining a rough measurement model
(point cloud), the work completion time will be sig­
nificantly reduced. With the development of
a methodology for obtaining combined spatial data,
311
the need to develop them independently for each
object will disappear, as a result of which the time for
performing research work will be reduced even more.
An important source of information for the devel­
opment of methods for obtaining combined spatial
data and their implementation at the state level is the
study of foreign experience and the introduction of
technologies developed and described abroad in
domestic realities.
It is necessary to approve the methods of obtain­
ing combined spatial data at the state level.
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of cultural heritage: international and Russian
experience. Bulletin of the St. Petersburg State Institute
of Culture 4 (21): 6–13.
Cheng Y. M., Kuo C. L., & Mou C. C. 2021. Ontology-
based HBIM for historic buildings with traditional
woodwork in Taiwan. Journal of Civil Engineering and
Management 27(1): 27–44.
Concurator. 2019. The level of BIM application in Russia
2019. Research report. Moscow: MGSU.
Fadli F. & AlSaeed M. 2019. Digitizing vanishing architec­
tural heritage; The design and development of Qatar his­
toric buildings information modeling [Q-HBIM]
platform. Sustainability 11(9): 2501.
Fadli F., Barki H., Boguslawski P. & Mahdjoubi L. 2015.
3D scene capture: A comprehensive review of techni­
quesand tools for efficient life cycle analysis (LCA) and
emergency preparedness (EP) applications. In Building
Information Modelling (BIM) in Design, Construction
and Operations: 85–96.
Fadli F., Barki H., Shaat A., Mahdjoubi L., Boguslawski P.,
& Zverovich V. 2015. 3D capture techniques for BIM
enabled LCM. In IFIP International Conference on
Product Lifecycle Management: 183–192.
Fadli F., Sobhey M., Asadi R. & Elsarrag E. 2014. Environ­
mental impact assessment of new district developments.
WIT Transactions on The Built Environment 142:
517–528.
Khalil H.B. 2017. HBIM and environmental simulation:
Possibilities and challenges. In Heritage Building Infor­
mation Modelling.
Kilby T. & Kilby B. 2018. A Different View: Using Drones
to Document Historic Places. In Forum Journal 32(1):
13–21.
Kolodyazhny S. A., Mishchenko V. Ya., Shcheglov A. S.,
& Shcheglov A. A. 2018. Engineering studies of archi­
tectural monuments. Moscow: ASV Publishing House.
Makarov S. V. 2015. Protected by the state. Herald. Archi­
tect. 21st century (3): 28–31.
Makarov S. V. 2018. To the 100th anniversary of KGIOP.
Herald. Architect. 21st century (1): 2–3.
Marshall G. F. & Stutz G. E. 2012. Handbook of optical
and laser scanning. London: Taylor & Francis.
Xu Y. 2019. Planning in Advance for Rehabilitation
and Restoration Using BIM and Seismic Simulation
to Record and Analyze the Japanese House in Los
Angeles. Southern: University of Southern California.
 Reconstruction and Restoration of Architectural Heritage 2021 – Sementsov, Leontyev & Huerta (Eds)
© 2021 Taylor & Francis Group, London, ISBN 978-0-367-68296-5

Contemporary architecture and historical landscape: Philosophical and

communicative aspect of form formation
N. Voronova
State Social and Humanitarian University of Russia, Kolomna, Russia

A. Nikiforova
Herzen State Pedagogical University of Russia, St-Petersburg, Russia

ABSTRACT: The philosophical aspects of the historical and cultural direction of the theory of architecture
affect a wide range of problems: the reconstruction of historical cities, the integration of historical and new
architecture, the formation of the ideological basis of the creative methods of architects. The study of the con­
temporary architecture space reveals a pattern: innovative shaping in the field of architecture is closely related
to the philosophical worldview. A critical analysis of contemporary culture allows us to identify significant
links between contemporary art and architectural practice and current aesthetic concepts, as well as to establish
scenarios for the interaction and integration of modern and historical architectural spaces in the diversity of the
urban environment. The aesthetic concepts of postmodernism, the understanding of the role of space and time
in post-culture are projected not only on the sphere of contemporary architectural shaping but also on the
monuments of the past included in the life of the city: ensembles, palaces, memorial sites. As a result, there is
an intertextual multidimensional communication system with complex historical and temporal patterns that
often dissonant with the current trends of architectural and artistic creativity. Often there are successful forms
of connection of these historical spaces, allowing to preserve the chronotope of the past in the form of histor­
ical reconstruction, organically connected with modern ways of organizing the urban and memorial landscape.

1 INTRODUCTION (Dobritsyna 2009), “emptiness”, “multidimensional­

1.1. The positions of the philosophy of culture about
modern architecture are formulated quite clearly.
Among them, the following are fundamental: under­
standing of space and time as fundamental categories
of artistic and figurative shaping of the urban environ­
ment; interactivity of architectural space, where the
inhabitants themselves become co-authors in the devel­
opment of its spatial and temporal characteristics;
incongruence of architectural shaping, due to the
socio-cultural context.
Philosophical and aesthetic postmodernist concepts
are embodied in eclecticism, anti-perspectivism,
decentering, metaphorical, symbolic coding, multi­
dimensionality, and openness of architectural works. In
conceptual architecture, the idea prevails over the
form, which negates the importance of the compos­
itional structuring of the architectural image, but
increases its sign-symbolic load and interpretational
processability.
The projection of the idea of “chaos” into architec­
tural form formation allows us to create complex
dynamic systems of nonlinear architecture: it
expresses the philosophical ideas of “form-movement”
ity”, “space-events”, “deconstruction”, “intertextual­
ity”, based on the concepts of synergetic complexity,
self-organization, and instability, on the dialogic con­
cepts of postmodern philosophy, its textual paradigm.
Modern ideas in architecture most clearly manifest
themselves in the author’s futuristic projects, in the
boundaries of specific buildings, ensembles of the new
urban environment, but they also become incompre­
hensible, alien and sometimes cause rejection when it
comes to the principles of postmodern architecture
within historical cities, whose body preserves the
memory of the architecture of the past. This” invasion
“of postmodernism into the historical landscape is
noticed all the more acutely because at the same time
there is a loss of the urban environment of its national
artistic identity.
Unsuccessful experiments in the field of innovative
construction in the historical part of cities are because
the authors of the projects ignore the communicative
and dialogical function of architecture, including in
connection with the historical place of its construction.
But it is in this way that the transition from the space
of place to the communication eventfulness is car­
ried out.

DOI: 10.1201/9781003136804-60

312
 1.2. Most studies consider the state of modern
architecture from the standpoint of architectural
studies or art studies. Much less attention is paid to
the philosophical and cultural approach to this prob­
lem. Mostly, the existing works pay attention to the
stylistic and formal interpretation of the phenomenon
of modern architecture, but not to its real interaction
with the living space of historical cities.
The research of A. G. Rappaport, I. A. Azizyan,
I. A. Dobritsina, Yu. S. Somov, V. L. Hait,
A. A. Nesterenko, James Kalb, E. P. Grigoriev,
I. A. Golosov, and others is devoted to the stylistic
diversity and prospects of the development of artistic
and aesthetic architectural concepts.
From the historical point of view, the relation­
ship between the worldview and the structuring of
architectural styles as such is considered in the
works of M. M. Bakhtin, M. Foucault, R. Barth,
J. Baudrillard, Yu. M. Lotman, and others.
Formative architectural experiments are described
by G. N. Kuznetsova, V. E. Karpenko, E. P. Filin,
G. V. Esaulov, W. J. Mitchell, and others. The theor­
etical basis of the research consists of works on the
philosophy of architecture by R. Arnheim, 3. Hadid,
P. Eisenman, R. Venturi, etc. Fundamental to this
study is the philosophical ideas of Zh. Derrida,
J. Deleuze, J.-P. Liotard, M. Merleau-Ponty,
F. Guattari, M. S. Kagan.
Problems and the state of modern architecture
are analyzed in the works of A.V. Ikonnikov,
F. A. Novikov, A. Papadakis, K. Melnikov,
A. Korotkovsky, etc.
Postmodernist theorist Charles Jenks criticizes
modernist architecture for its isolation from the his­
torical and cultural context and notes the “radical
eclecticism” and “irony” of postmodern architecture.
J. Hill, in his book Immaterial Architecture, analyzes
the influence of modern building materials on archi­
tectural and spatial images. Understanding the non­
linear paradigm in architecture is carried out in the
works of I. A. Dobritsyna.
Spatial experiments in the architecture of
the second half of the twentieth century are con­
sidered in the works of M. Novak, S. Perella,
S. Hall, E. Zengelis, J. Nouvel, G. Linn.
2 MATERIALS AND METHODS
Within the framework of the philosophical and cul­
tural approach, the essential connections between the
historical and cultural context, philosophical and
aesthetic concepts, and the formation of the modern
architectural and spatial life environment are
revealed. The authors proceed from the phenomeno­
logical interpretation of space. The theoretical basis
is the concept of the lifeworld by E. Husserl (1928),
which integrates perceptual spaces, as well as the
philosophical concepts of poststructuralism. Based
on the postmodernist paradigm, architecture is
understood as a semiotic space, as a set of texts and
313
interpretations. The textual nature of architecture
allows us to reveal new meanings, its communicative
specifics in interaction with the viewer. This
approach makes it possible to reveal the intertextual
nature of modern architectural and spatial shaping.
The semiotic approach allows us to study architec­
ture as a sign system. The historical method is used
to consider the dynamics of the development of
architectural forms. Based on the comparative
method, the correlation of modern and historical
architecture in a single urban environment is
revealed. A comparative analysis of philosophical
ideas with methods of structuring in architecture is
also carried out. The empirical basis of the study
was the works of European, Japanese and Russian
architecture of the XX-XXI centuries.
3 RESULTS
Modern scientific and technological innovations and
new socio-cultural needs are actively changing the
spatial living environment. Traditionally, functional­
ity has dominated form, but in postmodern aesthet­
ics, form-building prevails over content and
pragmatics. At the heart of modern space-time,
architectural shaping is multi-dimensionality.
Against the background of the accelerating socio­
cultural dynamics, a new architectural understanding
of time as “ephemeral”, as “flow”, “transformation”
is also emerging.
The sociocultural dimension of time is changing,
which is also reflected in modern architecture. The
modern urban environment is a multi-temporal
space, combining historical and architectural layers
of different cultural eras and periods. On the one
hand, historical architecture creates images of the
past in the recipient’s mind, but at the same time, it
is always a reflection of the time of its creation.
The conversion of modern and historical archi­
tecture in the context of increasing urban density is
becoming an increasingly urgent problem. It is dif­
ficult, but it is possible to integrate the old and the
new in a harmonious way. The proximity of con­
ceptually new architecture can significantly change
the perception of historical architecture. This is
how the monumental appearance of once majestic,
large-scale, and high-rise buildings is leveled in the
context of its historical time, surrounded by modern
skyscrapers. This relationship of spatial and tem­
poral contexts accumulates and forms an updated
holistic image of urban space, generating new
experiences for the modern resident.
An example of stylistic integration at different
times is the architectural complex of the Kaiser
Wilhelm Memorial Church (Gedechtniskirche) in
Berlin. Reconstruction of the temple was not pos­
sible, but it was decided to keep the old tower as
part of a new modernist complex. Using modern
materials, the architects preserved the spirit of
classical church architecture, while they managed
to integrate religious, educational, and social
functions in this project.
Modern architectural shaping is increasingly
focused on the intense change of sensations in the
process of perceiving structures from different
angles, due to the contrasts of interior and exterior
spaces, changes in the appearance of changing the
lighting scenario at different times of the day, inter­
active facades, etc. Time in the architectural appear­
ance can be measured or abrupt, monotonous or
accelerating, cyclical or linear, pulsating and multi­
dimensional. This is how the Philharmonic Hall in
Hamburg (the Elbe Philharmonic), created by archi­
tects Jacques Herzog and Pierre de Maron, pulsates
in the rhythm of music with its vibrating wavelike
and mirror forms.
The biological vector of time is embodied in the
mimicry of structures under organic forms, while
both fading and blooming. On the other hand, the
avant-garde legacy of non-objective art has become
a craving for abstractness and “ugliness” of architec­
tural forms.
The predominance of smooth, transparent, mirror-
like surfaces dematerializes the structure, making it
illusory and ephemeral. Only fleeting reflections of
time pass through the glass surfaces. Paradoxically,
an invisible architecture becomes spectacular, elud­
ing and dissolving, such as the building of modern
art on the Boulevard Raspail in Paris, made of
glazed screens and alleys, or the Glass House of the
architect Peter Pichler near the city of Bolzano in
Italy. The idea of “immaterial” in architectural shap­
ing is expressed in fuzzy silhouettes and contours,
which emphasizes the illusory, “intangible”, which
creates the effect of blurred memories. Architecture
tends to “dissolve” in the environment.
The spatial and temporal formation of a structure
can be associated with the history of the place of its
construction. For example, on the site where the fac­
tory was located in the past, architect P. Eisenman is
building the complex of the Wexner Center for
Visual Arts in Columbus, whose elements resemble
factory chimneys, initiating an architectural space-
time dialogue in the spirit of postmodernism.
Both the buildings of modern museums them­
selves and the” traces of the destruction of the past
“that are not subject to restoration (for example, in
Berlin and Hiroshima) turn into an” exhibit”.
Renovation of old industrial zones for multifunc­
tional cultural complexes is becoming a common
trend in design practice. An example of successful
integration is the project of the business center
“Stanislavsky Factory”, when a multifunctional
architectural complex was created on the territory of
the former factory of the XIX century by 2009, com­
bining clubs, restaurants, a hotel, a residential com­
plex, a business center, etc. The conceptual basis
here was the historical and temporal components.
Reconstructed, but modernized buildings here con­
duct a dialogue with modern buildings, they echo the
facade elements, rhythms, geometry, themes of
314
decorative decoration. The renovation of the old
docks of the Borneo Sporenburg district in Amster­
dam is widely known.
For the integration of different architectural
objects, it is important to establish an aesthetic con­
nection, compositional logic, avoiding intrusive styl­
ization or copying. The new adaptive architecture,
rethinking what has already been built, is able to
reanimate the problematic urban space, including
restoring the relevance of abandoned objects. This
is, for example, the project of the 3BOX superstruc­
tures by the French architect Stephane Malky.
Within the framework of modernity, a variety of
conceptual architectural solutions coexist and are
implemented, but in general, against the background
of globalization, they are not yet significant. Modern
cities are becoming unified, losing their national art­
istic material and spatial environment. If the histor­
ical areas of the city, even the dilapidated ones,
retain their attractiveness, and their artistic and aes­
thetic properties may increase over time, then typical
neighborhoods do not have an attractive force
already in the present and are unlikely to become
objects of aesthetic pleasure in the future. Industrial
and commercial architecture is also losing its iden­
tity, becoming more and more impersonal.
4 DISCUSSION
The organization of the space of palaces, manors,
public buildings of the past has always been deter­
mined by the way of life, the type of social commu­
nication, the ceremonial, certain prescriptions for the
behavior of representatives of different social
groups, that is, it was specialized. With the develop­
ment of mediated, virtual and remote means of com­
munication, attachment to specific places in space is
lost, and the idea of space as physical and material is
transformed. A modern person in the flow of com­
munications ceases to identify himself with
a specific place, the specialization of space recedes
into the background, multifunctional spaces that
allow establishing communications of different
forms and types become relevant. Such architectural
and spatial places do not have a constant semantic
load, the meaning is not in the place itself, but in the
contact that is established in it. If in historical retro­
spect there was first the development and compre­
hension of space from the external to the internal,
then in the opposite direction – from the internal to
the external, then today it is rather a movement not
in space, but in time, a transition from the space of
place to the communication eventfulness.
Modern architects, in their experiments and
author’s concepts, strive to integrate the figurative-
symbolic, functional, environmental, and historical-
cultural into a single architectural and artistic whole.
The communicative function of this figurative-
symbolic synthesis is realized in architectural histor­
ical and stylistic reminiscences. At the same time,
quoting a genuine prototype can take place either by
formal analogy or signally-abstractly, abstractly. In
such places, there is a “memory exchange”,
a hypertext is created that requires diverse reading
and multiple interpretations (Mamoshin 2007).
Spatial shaping in modern architecture combines
metaphorical retreatism, artistic fiction, and reality.
In such a spatial-architectural environment, there is
a lot of invisible, but tangible.
Architects Jacques Herzog and Pierre de Meuron,
referring to the deep cultural archetypes and tradi­
tions, at the same time create in their reconstruction
projects original structures that correctly conduct
a dialogue with the prototype images and the histor­
ical urban environment. The exhibition pavilions –
Madrid’s Caixa Forum Art center (2008) and Basel’s
Museumder Kulturen (2010)-grow organically on
the basis of ancient buildings. For example, the cul­
tural complex of the Metropolitan Parasol in Seville,
which combines a market, restaurants, shops, and an
archaeological museum. Architect Jürgen Hermann
Mayer) and specialists of the bureau “J. MAYER
H. Architects “created a futuristic, resembling giant
mushrooms, sculptural and architectural structure.
At the same time, the Metropolitan Parasol retains
its connection with history, the remains of an ancient
Roman settlement were found at the construction
site, so instead of the planned underground parking,
they made a museum of archeology. And the market
area is a tribute to the historic city market of the
XIX century, which existed in the Plaza de la Encar­
nacion. The architect himself associated the structure
with the vaults and interior of the Cathedral of Sev­
ille, calling it “a temple without walls”.
Modern architecture is replete with metaphors:
“house-ship”, “building-iceberg”, “airport-bird”, “house­
bridge”, “building-wave”, “crystal palace”, “house­
hive”, “building-plane”, etc. Such metaphors can be
read both by external forms and by symbolic codes,
rather than abstract associative links. At the same time,
the less the structure looks like something familiar, the
more active the comparison and search for recognizable
forms and meanings is carried out in the recipient’s
mind, thereby increasing the communication of the
architectural design with the viewer. So the famous
Opera House building in Sydney has caused an abun­
dance of metaphorical readings.
Some metaphors are quite archetypal and under­
standable for general perception, and to read others,
you need to know the national cultural context. For
example, the Japanese architect Kisho Kurokawa in
Tokyo builds a residential building-hotel (Nakagin,
Capsule Building) in the form of a pile of capsule
blocks, symbolizing bird feeders, which are typically
made for birds by the Japanese themselves.
The integration of historical and modern archi­
tectural spaces can be carried out on different
grounds: sign-symbolic, artistic-figurative, stylistic,
conceptual, environmental, contextual, engineering-
technological, historical-temporal, metanarrative,
communicative and functional.
315
The aesthetics of “emptiness” is increasingly used
in architectural shaping. The interpretation of” emp­
tiness “in modern architecture is ambiguous. Archi­
tect D. Perrault (Perrault, 2011) notes that”
emptiness is an important building material” because
it is through it that the connections between the vari­
ous elements are established. A gaping giant “void”
stands out in the center of the Zaha Hadid-designed
hotel complex “The Opus” in Dubai. This “blurring”
in the form of a curved void gives the building an
illusory and surreal appearance. At nightfall, the
controlled LEDs installed in the glass panels turn on
and the building turns into a spectacular installation.
In the building of the Headquarters of the Central
Television of China (CCTV), architect Rem Koolhaas
pushes the void space both along the vertical axis and in
the horizontal plane, which greatly changes the appear­
ance of the building from different angles, the center of
the structure remains empty, and part of the structure
hangs over the urban space. The project of Ryu Nishi­
zawa and Rei Naito Teshima Art Museum is a complex
of teardrop-shaped pavilions and a rectangular building
built into a hill, with large elliptical holes in the roofs of
the pavilions, through which “exhibits” in the form of
insects, leaves, water drops periodically fall into the
empty exhibition space, and the “empty” space is filled
with the play of light, sounds, forests, and the sea
nearby, gives comfort and silence.
The placement of voids in an architectural compos­
ition can enhance the drama, giving the appearance of
the building a fragmented, fragmented, appeal to the
understatement, pointlessness, ontological Nothing­
ness. The aesthetics of “empty” space is also con­
nected with the idea of impermanence, temporality,
and variability of the material world: “emptiness” is
communicative, multifunctional.
The time of historical and cultural dominance of
modern architectural trends is also shortened, they
do not even mature to the scale of historical styles,
but become bright, but fleeting flashes in the fleeting
fashion of subject-spatial socio-cultural existence
(Volichenko & Omuraliev 2013).
5 CONCLUSION
Modern architecture is rapidly aging, and first of all,
not physically, but functionally and in the perception
of the consumer, who quickly loses interest in it,
accustomed to the constant novelty in the field of
technology and design. Therefore, it can be assumed
that the restoration, renovation, and revalorization of
architectural objects will be increasingly in demand,
which also raises questions about what will become
the future “cultural heritage” from the present. On
the other hand, the architecture of “shells” may be
promising, the design of which does not depend on
its specific purpose, but it can carry out various com­
munications and various functions.
A contemporary architectural object becomes
a kind of intersection point of the past, present, and
future, combining promising engineering, techno­
logical and digital innovations, and imaginative
kenotypes of the city of the future, allusions, and
interpretations of the architecture of the past and the
functional present.
In general, the space-time dimension of modern
megacities remains chaotic, “flow” and disorderly,
sometimes overwhelming the inhabitants with
impersonality and industrialization.
The projection of a number of philosophical cat­
egories, such as “chaos” and “order”, “time”, “empti­
ness”, “immaterial” on the space of modern
architecture, allows us to identify possible scenarios
of interaction and integration of modern and historical
architectural and spatial environments. The desire for
dialogicality, entertainment, heterogeneity, historical-
cultural and environmental integrativity, interpretive
relativism, multidimensional scenarianism and hyper­
textuality, interactivity, illusory and conceptual origin­
ality come to the fore. Trends towards stylistic
integration and allusions of different times in the
modern architectural space make it possible to effect­
ively use it together with historical reconstruction.
The postmodern discourse of form formation
interprets the historical landscape, giving it new
meanings and functions. The desire to combine the
stable and the changeable, the old and the new, the
natural and the artificial, the real and the imaginary,
the historical and the modern, creates a dialogical,
multi-layered chronotope of modern architectural
forms and historical and cultural monuments.
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“folding” and the concept of “form-movement”. In
Essays on the History of the Theory of Modern and
Modern Architecture: 597–607.
Hill J. 2006. Immaterial architecture. Oxfordshire:
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Ikonnikov A. V. 1986. Function, form, and image in archi­
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Perrault D. 2011. The void is an important building
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 Reconstruction and Restoration of Architectural Heritage 2021 – Sementsov, Leontyev & Huerta (Eds)
© 2021 Taylor & Francis Group, London, ISBN 978-0-367-68296-5

The problem of museumification and display of historical structures on the

example of the church of St. Panteleimon in St. Petersburg
Е.R. Vozniak, S.G. Golovina & M.M. Skhodnova
Saint Petersburg State University of Architecture and Civil Engineering, Saint Petersburg, Russia

ABSTRACT: The article describes contemporary methods of museumification and display of historical
structures on the example of the current Orthodox Church of St. Panteleimon in St. Petersburg. The possibility
of the existence of an Orthodox church and a museum area in the same building at the same time, without
violating its original purpose, is considered. The choice of means and methods of museumification and display
of historical elements depend on many factors and are considered individually about a particular building.
Among the main methods of exhibiting the historical value of churches are the following: identification of
buildings of different times, preservation and display of historical structures and materials, organization of
passage and access to inspect the historical structures of the basement and attic, organization of ascent to the
bell tower, installation of information stands, organization of exhibition areas and sightseeing routes. The
preservation, identification, and display of historical structural elements will increase the cultural value of the
architectural object as a whole and ultimately give an ideological and economic effect.

1 INTRODUCTION architectural monument is not much different from the

St. Petersburg has many architectural monuments,
but often their current state and functioning do not
reflect their centuries-old complex history. The value
of many objects can only be understood by
a specialist, such as an architectural historian. It is
necessary to use contemporary methods to reveal the
history of the object, to emphasize the different times
of the additions, to open access to the preserved his­
torical elements. These methods include the methods
of exhibiting and museumification historical struc­
tures. The preservation, identification, and display of
historical structural elements will increase the cul­
tural value of the architectural object as a whole and
ultimately give an ideological and economic effect.
This article discusses the possible ways and tech­
niques of museumification, display, and preservation
of historical structures on the example of the Church
of St. Panteleimon the Great Martyr and Healer, one
of the oldest churches in St. Petersburg.
Panteleimon Church belongs to the Anninsky Bar­
oque period (1730-early 1740s). Most of the buildings
of this period were rebuilt and very few buildings that
have preserved their original appearance have survived
to our time. The Church of St. Panteleimon has pre­
served the main volume and part of the historical
details from this original and extremely important his­
torical period for the history of the city. Currently, the
church has been transferred to the church and reno­
vated. In its external and internal appearance, this
temples of the late XVIII, XIX, and early XX centur­
ies. Behind layers of plaster and closed doors, there is
a three-century history. Is it possible to reveal the his­
tory of the object by restoration and architectural
methods?
2 MATERIALS AND METHODS
The materials for the article are collected based on
archival data, historical photographs, iconography,
and bibliographic sources. Collected and analyzed
design and restoration materials, drawings, descrip­
tions, and security obligations. The author made
a full-scale survey and measurement of the attic,
basement space of the church, and the bell tower.
Contemporary methods of museumification and
display are analyzed. The main principles of museu­
mification should include preservation, authenticity,
integrity, marking visualization, reversibility, func­
tionality, and multilayering. The world restoration
practice has accumulated quite a lot of experience in
identifying and demonstrating historical structures.
St. Petersburg has its own experience in the museum
design of the most important architectural monu­
ments of the city. The techniques of exhibiting struc­
tures in the State Hermitage Museum and St. Isaac’s
Cathedral are analyzed. One of the successful
examples of the recent years of the organization of
the joint functioning of the museum and the current

DOI: 10.1201/9781003136804-61

317
Orthodox church is the Smolny Cathedral. Func­
tional zoning has been made in the church, including
the area of worship, the exhibition area for perman­
ent and temporary expositions, the Sunday school
area, and the concert area where the Smolny Cath­
edral Chamber Choir conducts concerts. The cath­
edral has an observation deck on the belfry with an
audio guide, an opportunity to view the magnificent
cathedral from the choirs located around the perim­
eter and a passage for viewing the structural elem­
ents of the roof is also organized in the attic room.
Based on the contemporary principles of restor­
ation and museumification, using new methods of
exposure, it is proposed to reveal the long history of
the church of St. Panteleimon, while preserving its
main function as a functioning Orthodox church.
3 RESULTS AND DISCUSSION
The architectural history of the monument. The
Church of St. Panteleimon has a long and complex
history of construction, alterations, and additions. In
1718, a chapel in the name of St. Panteleimon was
built for the workers of the Particular Shipyard, by
order of Peter I. On the day of the memory of this
saint, July 27, old style, the Russian fleet in 1714
won a victory over the Swedish fleet at Gangut. In
1722, the mud hut church was built on the site of the
chapel, designed by architect N. Gerbel (Antonov &
Kobak).
In 1735-1739, by the order of the Empress Anna
Ioannovna, simultaneously with the reconstruction
of the buildings of the Particular Shipyard, the cur­
rent building of the Panteleimon Church was erected
on the site of the original mud hut building. The
church was built according to the project of
I. K. Korobov. «…Korobov built a stone church
according to his project, similar in plan to the
Moscow pillarless churches with a refectory” (Mali­
novsky 2008).
The building is a typical example of the Anninsky
Baroque. Distinctive features of this style: pictur­
esque silhouette and bright, two-tone color, high
roofs and pediments of complex configuration, flat­
tened character of decorative elements of facades
with figured window frames and pilasters or blades
in the piers. The composition of the temples of that
time was usually built by a “ship”: the bell tower,
the main domed volume, and the” refectory“connect­
ing them were grouped along one longitudinal axis
(Figure 1). A tiered stone bell tower ended in a spire,
and a large faceted dome with a lantern, made of
wood, rested on a massive octagonal drum. Initially,
the temple had one throne. From the stairs leading to
the bell tower, a passage was arranged through the
church attic to the choir, which protruded from
a small balcony under the dome on the opposite side
of the iconostasis. The Church of St. Panteleimon
was consecrated on July 27, 1739 by Bishop
Ambrose of Vologda.
318
Figure 1. The original plan of the Panteleimon Church of
1735-1739, from the collection of the museum of the State
Museum of Architecture named after A.V. Shchusev.
In 1779-1783, the first significant alterations
were made in the church. The height of the bell
tower was increased, which, due to the additions,
“grew” into the extended horizontal volume of the
temple. On the west side, in the former “refectory”,
a warm chapel of St. Catherine was built (Figure
2a). At the same time, a small space was allocated
for the altar of the chapel on the right side, in front
of the stone abutment of the dome, and protected by
an iconostasis. The main cold part of the temple,
located under the dome, was separated from the
refectory by a sash glass partition 2.5 fathoms (1
fathom = 2.1336 m) high and 3 fathoms wide. In
winter, only this refectory with the chapel of
St. Catherine was heated, and in summer, the glass
partition was opened and access to the main altar
was opened. This method of dividing the temples
into warm and cold parts was typical for the temples
of the middle of the XVIII century when it was not
technically possible to heat the entire volume in
winter.
In 1834-1835, the building of the Panteleimon
Church was reconstructed by a prominent master of
late classicism, V. I. Beretti. By this time, it was
technically possible to heat the entire volume of the
temple in winter. The church was equipped with
a new stove heating, the interior of the church was
then expanded and updated. The chapel of the Holy
Cross. St. Catherine’s Cathedral, which divided the
church into two parts: cold and warm, is placed in
line with the main altar of St. Catherine. Pantelei­
mon, for which a small stone extension was erected
on the south side of the temple. By this extension,
and on the north side, the same symmetrical one is
made, in which the sacristy is placed. The dome in
the cold church on the inside was partially disman­
tled, made warm, and decorated with paintings.
Instead of the former flat ceiling in the warm church,
wooden vaults are arranged, which are plastered and
painted. To support the vaults, eight stone columns
lined with artificial marble are arranged (Figure 2b).
In place of the removed glass partition, a high stone
arch is thrown over, through which a full view of the

Figure 2. Diagrams of the plans for the reconstruction of
the Panteleimon Church: a) 1779-1783; b) 1834-1835.
iconostasis and the eastern part of the church opens
(Antonov & Kobak 1994).
V. I. Beretti also made changes in the appearance
of the church: the shape of the roof of the church was
changed, the completion of the bell tower was rebuilt,
which now became equal in height to the main dome.
Some facade details were changed, so that a complex
pediment, stylized as Baroque, appeared on the apse.
The entrance part of the temple was also redone,
a gatehouse and storerooms were added.
In 1840, the facade was decorated with marble bas-
reliefs by the sculptor A.V. Loganovsky. On both sides
of the altar apse, there are images of the Holy Great
Martyr Catherine, to whom the south aisle of the
church is dedicated. The third bas-relief, located on the
longitudinal wall, depicts the holy healer Panteleimon.
In 1852, the church was expanded through the
destruction of the guardhouse and storeroom rooms,
according to the drawing of the architect Malgin. After
that, the size of the temple in length from the iconosta­
sis became 12 and in width everywhere 6 fathoms. In
1861, the roof on the dome of the church and the bell
tower, which had fallen into disrepair, was dismantled,
renewed, and covered with white iron. In 1875, from
the side of the modern Pestel Street, the architect
Vasily Gekker once again altered the narthex, arran­
ging a chapel in it, completing the volume from the
south, according to Malgin’s drawings.
In 1895-1896, the architect Yevgeny Anikin (or
Ivan Golmdorff) added a side chapel to Prince
Mikhail of Chernihiv and his son Theodore on the
Neva side (Antonov & Kobak 1994). As a result of
alterations and repairs of the roof of the late XIX
century, a false parapet also appeared above the cor­
nice. Above the north and south facades are brick
superstructures with segmental windows. On the axis
of such a window, facing Pestel Street, the pilaster
was destroyed, and a bas-relief was installed instead.
319
In 1910, a three-story church wing was built at
the back of the courtyard (Figure 3b). In 1910-1912,
a church wing was built. Within two years, the res­
toration of the temple was carried out under the
guidance of famous architects, civil engineers
A. P. Aplaksin, G. A. Kosyakov, and technician
G. I. Kotov. In 1914, when the bicentennial of the
Battle of Gangut was celebrated, the Imperial Rus­
sian Military Historical Society installed marble
memorial plaques on the facade of the church with
a list of regiments that participated in the battles of
Gangut and Gringam (Antonov & Kobak).
In Soviet times, the Panteleimon Church was
closed, while most of its interior decoration was lost.
Only the columns and minor fragments of the paint­
ings have been preserved. For many years, the
former church housed a weaving shop, which
adversely affected the safety of the building (Kufer­
stein et al. 1991).
In the 1980s, architect I. N. Benois developed
a project for the restoration of the church, which pro­
vided for the return of the original appearance of the
church. The building was freed from the layers of
the XIX century, the cultural layer was lowered,
which covered almost the entire basement, distorting
the proportions of the building. The restoration pro­
ject was not carried out (Kuferstein et al. 1991).
In 1981, on the occasion of the 40th anniversary
of the heroic defense of the Hanko Peninsula,
a branch of the Leningrad History Museum was
opened in the church building, where the exposition
“The Defense of the Hanko Peninsula in the Great
Patriotic War” was opened (Kuferstein et al. 1991).
In 1994, the church was transferred to the diocese,
and services were resumed in the right-side chapel.
On September 25 of the same year, the first liturgy
was served, and restoration began inside and outside.
By 2003, the facades, roof, and domes were restored,
and in 2007, the restoration of the church’s mural
began.
Contemporary functioning and problems of res­
toration. The building of the Panteleimon Church is
Figure 3. Diagrams of the plans for the reconstruction of
the Panteleimon Church: a) 1772-1775, b)1895-1896, c)
1910s.
unique in its urban planning significance, architec­
tural appearance, and preserved historical elements.
The church is located at the intersection of the Fon­
tanka River and Moika, Pestel Street, and Salt Lane
being a high-rise accent and compositional center,
several adjacent blocks, and busy streets. The church
is renovated and open, but there are few visitors. The
church regularly hosts services accompanied by
a choir. In the Panteleimon Church, a small museum
dedicated to the Battle of Gangut is organized in the
main volume of the temple. On the walls in the west­
ern part of the temple, stands are showing preserved
objects and engravings, and a memorial sign is also
installed. For believers and tourists, access to the
main volume of the church and the church shop is
open, all other rooms can only be entered by
employees. In the basement and the attic space, there
is a storage of household items as well. A small res­
toration workshop is located in the room between
the entrance to the attic and the bell tower.
The building requires additional research and
fragmentary restoration. For example, it is possible
to recreate the lost choirs, since the opening in the
attic room has been preserved. In the documents for
the protection of the monument, it is necessary to
add data and dating of existing historical structures
and materials. The expansion of the space for
museumification and display of historical elements
of the monument will help in its preservation by
increasing funding for its maintenance and restor­
ation, will also increase the influx of tourists and
interested people.
The restoration project, developed by Irina Niko­
laevna Benois in the 80s of the XX century, provided
for the return of the original appearance of the
temple, the liberation of the building from the layers
of the XIX century. It was proposed to dismantle the
later additions, as well as to remove the upper layer
of the adjacent pavement, which covered the base­
ment of the building by almost one and a half
meters, thus distorting the proportions of the temple.
This restoration called into question the valuable
elements of the church that appeared later, namely:
wooden vaults, bas-reliefs, commemorative plaques,
and other details. Representatives of the architectural
community objected to this decision, considering
that the extensions that have existed for more than
a century and a half also have historical value and
are an organic element of the existing development
of the street (Kuferstein et al. 1991).
Proposals for the museumification and preserva­
tion of the historical structures of the object. The
problem of museumification of monuments of reli­
gious architecture is becoming particularly acute at
this time. In connection with the active revival of
church life, the property of religious purpose is
transferred to the church, and in this process, the
concept is touched upon: a museum is a church. Is it
possible for a temple and a museum to exist in the
same building without violating its original purpose?
320
In pre-revolutionary Russia, churches were not
considered as museums of history and culture, exhib­
iting the development of architectural, artistic, and
engineering thought. In Soviet times, many churches
became museums and completely lost their religious
function. Is it possible to move to a new level at pre­
sent, if the monument continues to exist with its ori­
ginal living function (in this case, as an active
Orthodox church) and at the same time be a genuine
source of information about the development and
achievements of Russian culture? The means and
methods of museumification of monuments are very
individual and depend on many factors that should
be considered about a particular building. For this
reason, the analysis of the possibility of using the
methods of museumification on the building of the
Panteleimon Church is quite relevant. Will the
museum-temple that was formed in the Soviet years,
as the only option for saving the monument-temple,
be able to move into the possibility of developing
the temple-museum, giving resources for its preser­
vation and restoration. This will create favorable
conditions, both for believers who come to pray and
for the general public who want to get acquainted
with the history of the temple.
In the Panteleimon Church, the following
methods of museumification and display can be
used:
- organization of the observation deck on the bell
tower;
- highlighting the original volume of the temple
with tinting and information signs;
- organization of viewing pits to show the historical
ground level and the preserved elements of the
plinth;
- opening of access to the attic and basement
rooms, organization of excursion routes along
with them, arrangement of additional exhibition
space in the church shop, and the rooms between
the entrances to the attic and the bell tower.
The organization of the viewing platform on the
bell tower is possible and corresponds to contempor­
ary world trends. The Church of the Great Martyr
Panteleimon, serves as the high-rise dominant of
Pestel Street, the Fontanka River embankment, and
Salt Lane. The height of the bell tower is 32.5
meters. The location of the bell tower allows you to
organize an observation deck on it, which offers
a view of the Summer Garden, the Art and Industrial
Academy named after A. L. Stieglitz, Mikhailovsky
Castle. The entrance to the bell tower is through the
parable house. Work is required to strengthen the
existing staircase leading to the bell tower, install
lighting on the observation deck, and set up an audio
guide that tells a brief history of nearby objects.
Analogs of such a solution are the building of the
Smolny Cathedral with an organized ascent to the
belfry, as well as numerous viewing platforms on the
bell towers of churches in Western European cities.
 The separation of the main volume of the temple
from the later additions will show the multilayered
historical formation of the building. Initially, the
church had ten light axes along the main facade and
three naves along Salt Lane, later its configuration
was changed, additions were made, alterations were
made, and new volumes were added (Figure 4). In
the architectural appearance, the elements and tech­
niques characteristic of the Anninsky Baroque were
preserved.
On the facade, it is necessary to distinguish the
main original volume of the church from further
reconstructions by tinting. The color tone of the ori­
ginal walls may be darker. Perhaps also partial dis­
closures of plaster walls showing masonry from
different historical periods. It is necessary to install
information stands in several places along the facade
showing the original facades of the temple according
to the drawings of F. Bergholz and V. I. Beretti. The
material of the stands should be accessible to the
visually impaired, that is, contain elements of relief
and Braille, and comply with contemporary museum
standards.
In the interior of the bell tower, the transition
from the original construction to its reconstruction in
1779-1783 has been preserved, by reducing the
thickness of the wall and the appearance of a niche
around the perimeter with interruptions at the cor­
ners, located just below the ringer’s platform. It is
necessary to highlight and emphasize the place of
completion, to establish information signs that reflect
the formation of the current appearance in its stages.
Figure 4. Facades of the Church of St. Panteleimon: a) the
facade of the church according to the drawing from the col­
lection of F. Bergholz in the 1740s; b) the facade of the
church after the reconstruction of V. I. Beretti in the 1830s;
c) the current situation.
321
The installation of viewing pits to show the histor­
ical ground level and the preserved elements of the
plinth is possible if the pits are glazed level with the
sidewalk. The building previously had a different
height and proportions, because of the raising of the
cultural layer by 1.5 meters, the overall perception
of the temple is disturbed. On the sidewalk, it is pos­
sible to organize observation pits with lighting,
covered with glass and install information signs.
A lighted and glazed pit showing the original ground
level in St. Petersburg can be a spectacular demon­
stration of the historical process.
In the interior of the bell tower, the transition
from the original construction to its reconstruction in
1779-1783 has been preserved, by reducing the
thickness of the wall and the appearance of a niche
around the perimeter with interruptions at the cor­
ners, located just below the ringer’s platform. It is
necessary to highlight and emphasize the place of
completion, to establish information signs that reflect
the formation of the current appearance in its stages.
The installation of viewing pits to show the histor­
ical ground level and the preserved elements of the
plinth is possible if the pits are glazed level with the
sidewalk. The building previously had a different
height and proportions, because of the raising of the
cultural layer by 1.5 meters, the overall perception
of the temple is disturbed. On the sidewalk, it is pos­
sible to organize observation pits with lighting,
covered with glass and install information signs.
A lighted and glazed pit showing the original ground
level in St. Petersburg can be a spectacular demon­
stration of the historical process.
In the temple, it is possible to organize sightsee­
ing routes, open access to the basement and attic.
Opening access to the basement will allow you to
see the historical foundations (columnar and ribbon),
masonry walls, and brick arches of the XVIII cen­
tury. In the basement, the bases of the pilasters and
the stairs that originally led to the entrances are pre­
served (Figure 5a). It is required to clear the base­
ment, install inspection pits, install lighting,
information signs with explanations.
In the premises of the church shop and the pas­
sageways leading to the attic and the bell tower, it is
possible to additionally organize an exhibition dedi­
cated to the construction history of the cathedral.
During the restoration, it is necessary to open the
opening in the wall and restore the choirs, which pre­
viously had a passage through the attic. In the attic
room, it is possible to create safe passages, install
fencing and information stands. Opening access to
the attic will allow you to see an interesting struc­
tural system of rafters and suspended wooden arches
over the “refectory”, formed as a result of repairs
and restorations of the XIX and XX centuries. There
you can also see the walls of the main dome of the
temple, made in the XVIII century according to the
system of a wooden log house (Figure 5b). To
inspect the structures of the dome and the vaults of
the attic, it is necessary to install additional lighting.

Figure 5. Preserved historical structures of the Church of
St. Panteleimon: a) the base of the basement plinth; b) the
arches and rafters of the refectory.
4 CONCLUSION
The problem of preserving the monuments of reli­
gious architecture is of great importance for
St. Petersburg. In connection with the active revival
of church life, the property of religious purpose is
transferred to the church, and in this process, the
relations of the two different functions of the
museum and the church are affected. It is necessary
to ensure the existence of both the temple and the
exhibition space in the same building, without violat­
ing its original purpose. Contemporary methods of
exhibiting make it possible to create favorable condi­
tions for both the parishioners of the church and for
the public interested in the history and culture of the
city.
The choice of means and methods of museumifi­
cation and display of historical elements depend on
many factors and are considered individually about
a particular building. Among the main methods of
exhibiting the historical value of churches, it is
necessary to distinguish such as organization of pas­
sage and admission to inspect the historical struc­
tures of the basement and attic, organization of
ascent to the bell tower, identification of buildings
of different times, installation of information stands,
including with elements for the disabled, organiza­
tion of exhibition areas and sightseeing routes
around the church.
Methods of museumification and demonstration
of historical structures proposed for implementation
on the monument of the federal significance of the
Church of St. Panteleimon in St. Petersburg: the
organization of an observation platform on the bell
tower, the allocation of tinting and information
signs of the original volume of the temple, the
organization of viewing pits to show the historical
level of the ground and the preserved elements of
the basement, the opening of access to the attic and
basement, the organization of excursion routes
along with them, arrangement of additional exhib­
ition space in the church shop and in the rooms
322
between the entrances to the attic and the bell
tower.
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St. Petersburg: Historical and Ecclesiastical encyclope­
dia in three volumes. St. Petersburg: Chernysheva Pub­
lishing House.
Golovina S. 2020. Architectural and constructive concept
of the historical residential development of
St. Petersburg in the XVIII-early XX centuries. In E3S
Web of Conferences (164): 05006
Golovina S. G., & Sementsov S. V. 2012. The history of the
development of structures of buildings of residential his­
torical development on the example of St. Petersburg.
St. Petersburg: SPbGASU
Kondratieva L. N., Sementsov S. V., & Pukharenko Yu. V.
2016. Structural systems and materials of the historical
residential development of St. Petersburg of the XVIII-
early XX centuries. Bulletin of Civil Engineers (6):
53–58.
Kondratieva L. N., Sementsov S. V., & Pukharenko Yu. V.
2016. Structural systems and materials of the historical
residential development of St. Petersburg of the
XVIII-early XX centuries. Bulletin of Civil Engineers
(6): 53–58.
Krasnolutsky A. 2011. Architectural drawings and plans of
St. Petersburg (1730-1740) from the collection of Fried­
rich Wilhelm Berchholz. Saint Petersburg: Kriga.
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Pestel Street (Panteleimonovskaya). Saint Petersburg:
Svecha Partnership.
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Kondratieva L. N. 2019. St. Petersburg “genetic code”.
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eers (5): 33–40.
Matsenkov S. A. 2011. Attics of the Hermitage.
St. Petersburg: State Hermitage Museum Publishing
House
Sementsov S. V. 2011. Urban development of
St. Petersburg in the XVIII-early XXI century. Develop­
ment of the territories of Prinevye before the foundation
of St. Petersburg. The development of St. Petersburg in
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Stolpyansky P. N. 1915. Old St. Petersburg. To the history
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Smurova, N. A. 1977. Structures and architectural form
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 Reconstruction and Restoration of Architectural Heritage 2021 – Sementsov, Leontyev & Huerta (Eds)
© 2021 Taylor & Francis Group, London, ISBN 978-0-367-68296-5

Technology violations of plastering facades of old buildings in the process

of repair and restoration work
A. Yudina
Saint Petersburg State University of Architecture and Civil Engineering, Saint Petersburg, Russia

ABSTRACT: The article focuses on the reconstruction of old buildings belonging to cultural heritage
sites, as a rule, plastering works are carried out to restore and restore the facades. In the process of oper­
ation of the plaster coating experiencing different weather conditions, which influence and eventually
reduce their protective function and appearance. Violations of the technology of plastering the facades of
old buildings in the process of repair and restoration work further exacerbate their impact and significantly
accelerate the process of destruction of the facade finish. Conducting a full-scale survey allows you to iden­
tify the degree of preservation of the materials used in the decoration of the facade in the course of repair
and restoration work, the presence of defects, and identifying the causes of their appearance. The correction
of poorly executed plaster works with a violation of the technology of their production, the restoration of
brickwork using a harder mortar with foreign inclusions, poorly mixed, etc. will require significant add­
itional labor and economic costs.

1 INTRODUCTION if possible, the same materials that were used

During the reconstruction of buildings and structures
of old buildings, work is carried out to restore the
facade, related to a complex of special restoration
works related to the restoration of the original architec­
tural appearance of the building, which has lost its
appearance from time or in the case when the work
was performed in violation of the technology of work.
Such works include plastering (Zavrazhin 2008 &
Bayanova 2016). Restoration of buildings performed
in violation of the production technologies of plaster­
ing works, as a rule, requires additional repair work to
eliminate defects made during the work (Tishkin
2017).
In the old buildings, the exterior brick walls were
the most damaged. Their condition and destruction
directly depend on climatic conditions and on the
quality and timeliness of restoration and repair work
(Figure 1) (Medyanik 2012 & Freitas et al. 2014).
The most important and responsible is the prepar­
ation work, such as cleaning with dry sand or
a mixture of sand and water, or blowing air on contam­
inated and damaged surfaces; washing with lime milk
and only then laying the bricks on a cement-lime
mortar, in which lime is at least 30% (Degaev et al.
2019).
When repairing and reconstructing a building,
you can use simpler materials, but when restoring
and restoring it is unacceptable, since the task of
restoration is to preserve the old masonry and use,
during the construction of this building. When
restoring the walls of the building, it is necessary to
use such materials that are able to bond together the
old masonry with new materials and at the same
time preserve the appearance of the building. For
this purpose, it is recommended to use cement-lime
solutions instead of lime solutions, which in
masonry have the required value of vapor perme­
ability and thus provide rapid evaporation of mois­
ture (Arıoglu et al. 2006).
If there are cracks in the old masonry, it is pos­
sible to inject cement-lime milk into the wall array.
After injection of the solution, the seams are sealed
or caulked with a solution with the addition of chro­
mium oxide to obtain the desired color and iron
meerkat for tinting (Nacheman 2005).
The strength of the plaster and the reliability of
its adhesion to the base are checked by tapping the
wall surface. A dull sound indicates insufficient
strength and poor adhesion of the plaster layer to
the base. If there is a dull sound on an area of more
than 0.25 m2, the plaster is beaten off, the surface is
cleaned and wetted with water, after which the plas­
ter solution is applied, usually manually. If after the
work performed on the plastered surface there are
efflorescence’s and dampness, this process is
repeated (the plaster is beaten off, the surface is
cleaned and wetted with water, and then the plaster
solution is applied (restoration of the plaster) (Sko­
pintsev 2020).

DOI: 10.1201/9781003136804-62

323
Figure 1. Fragments of the destruction of the brickwork of
the surface of the plaster layer of the facade as a result of
violations of the plastering technology. Figure 2. The condition of the facade surface revealed
during visual inspection.

2 MATERIALS AND METHODS

During the investigation of violations committed

during the repair and restoration work, a visual
inspection of the facades from the ground level and
photo fixation with a digital camera was performed.
Samples were taken for laboratory studies, fol­
lowed by petrographic studies of mortar materials,
including the determination of the composition of
finishing paint and putty materials used for plaster­ Figure 3. Samples of mortar materials.
ing the surfaces of brick walls (Pavía et al. 2006). The solution is fine-grained, the binder is air lime with the
Petrographic study of the solutions was carried out addition of up to 5% gypsum, the filler is quartz-feldspar,
under the MBS-9 microscope using simple micro- the grain fraction is up to 2 mm with inclusions of charcoal,
chemical reactions to determine the quantitative etc. a-the surface with traces of putty and paint; the b-the
assessment of the substances that make up the binder sample is wet to the touch; the humidity is about 8%. The
solution is gray, initially white, crumbling.
of the solutions.
Micro-photo fixation was also performed with an
increase in the surfaces of the samples under study
using an HP Scanjet G1040 scanner.
The humidity of the samples that were wet to the
touch was estimated by the “Protimeter mini III”
moisture meter in relative units.

3 RESULTS AND DISCUSSION

Visual inspection of the facade surface revealed the

following violations of the plaster production
technology:
– cleaning, clearing and flushing of dirt and
cement-containing solutions are not performed;
– peeling of the plaster layer from the base and loss
of paint layers, (the influence of climatic factors
on the binder of solutions);
– the joints of the brickwork are not cleared of
mortar; the voids are filled with broken bricks;
– repair work was carried out with hard, poorly mixed
solutions with foreign inclusions, which included
cement, which confirms the presence of cracks on
the surface of the plaster layer (Figure 2).
To determine the binder and binder solutions for
facade surface finishing, petrographic studies of
samples of mortar materials for facade finishing
were carried out, the results and conclusions of
which are presented in Figure 3, 4.
Figure 4. Samples of mortar materials.
The solution is a white non - uniform fine-lumpy, loose,
astringent-lime, with a significant amount of dust and
dirt, about 60% of the volume of the solution, filler­
quartz-feldspar, grain fraction up to 2 mm in an amount
of 30-40%, with the inclusion of small grains of brick, is
distributed unevenly in the solution.
Thus, on the basis of visual and laboratory studies
of the surface of the facade of buildings of old con­
struction during the repair and restoration work, vio­
lations of the technology of repair and restoration
work on the plaster finishing of facades were
revealed.
Preparatory work (cleaning, notching, priming,
etc.) is not carried out in accordance with the manda­
tory regulatory requirements. As a result of poor

324
surface preparation of the old layer, the new plaster
layer peeled off along with a layer of old paint and
putty. Poor adhesion (adhesion, adhesion of surfaces
of heterogeneous coatings) and, as a result, the for­
mation of pores into which moisture enters, etc. also
contributes to the peeling of new plaster and paint
layers.
The plaster mortar is prepared in violation of
regulatory requirements and is heterogeneous,
lumpy, loose, with inclusions of garbage, cement
within 40% of the volume of the mortar, not suffi­
ciently mixed.
When applying the first layer of the plaster layer
in a solid, even layer on the grid, followed by apply­
ing layers of soil to it with leveling flush with the
beacons, the sequence of operations is violated. The
plaster layer on the grid is applied unevenly in thick­
ness without smoothing and leveling the surface,
which also led to the peeling of the plaster layer.
Works with mortar materials of the last repair
were carried out carelessly with an obvious violation
of technologies both at the stage of preparation of
solutions from dry mixes and at the stage of their
application to the surface of the facade. The high
humidity of a number of the studied solutions is
associated with the lack of insulation of the working
surfaces of the facades from external atmospheric
factors at all stages of the work.
4 CONCLUSION
The listed comments and shortcomings of the tech­
nology of performing plastering work significantly
affect the operational reliability of the facade sur­
face. For facades with a plaster coating, their dur­
ability is determined by the period of operation
before the appearance and opening of cracks, the
formation of which occurs as a result of active
moisture migration and moistening of the finishing
layer. According to the research data, the initial
period is estimated in the range from 2.0 to 5 years
of operation and depends on compliance with the
permissible temperature and humidity of the
325
environment. Moistening of the plaster coating
leads to the appearance of additional deformations
that exceed the calculated resistance and contribute
to more intense cracking. These processes are
accelerated by fluctuations in the ambient
temperature.
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 Reconstruction and Restoration of Architectural Heritage 2021 – Sementsov, Leontyev & Huerta (Eds)
© 2021 Taylor & Francis Group, London, ISBN 978-0-367-68296-5

Replacement of wooden intermediate floors in old buildings

A. Yudina, I. Platonov & E. Khoroshenkaja
Saint Petersburg State University of Architecture and Civil Engineering, Saint Petersburg, Russia

ABSTRACT: The buildings built at the beginning of the 19th century have historical value and are unique
objects. Most of them are in poor condition. One of the options for the reconstruction of such buildings is the
restoration of an object without changing its volume and facade but with the redevelopment of premises,
replacement of ceilings, roofs and possibly other elements. It will create a layout of the internal premises that
meet the regulatory requirements of residence while maintaining the historical appearance of the building.

1 INTRODUCTION Analysis of the results of calculations and inspec­

The need to replace the floors in the buildings of the
old Fund is primarily due to the age of the building,
during which they were subjected to various influ­
ences (destruction or damage, humidity, leaks, bio­
logical lose wood beams, etc.), but their timely
replacement is not carried out fully, limiting some
reinforcement and repair. Complete replacement of
ceilings is economically justified in buildings in
which the size of the living area is not less than
1200 m2 (Platonov 2019, Dresvyanina 2019,
Akimov & Malakhov 2017, Yudina 2019, Ananyin
2018, Afanasyev 2019, Goulouti et al. 2018, Tiziano
et al. 2017).
2 MATERIALS AND METHODS
In the course of research on the replacement of
floors in the buildings of the old foundation, visual
inspection of the floors and photo fixation were per­
formed. During the examination of the overlapping
set design scheme with the degree of incorporation
of beams on the piers, their actual bearing capacity,
serviceability and condition of the beams (the pres­
ence of water blots, decay, freezing, etc.).
The state of overlaps most often determines the
type of reconstructive works all over the building.
The difficulty of examining of overlaps lies in the
limited opening of the structures.
The inspection of the floor structures revealed
defects and deflection of the wooden beams in the
center of the span up to 80 mm, as well as damage to
the wooden beams by biological corrosion to a depth
of 3-5% of the cross section.
Based on the actual state of the floor structures,
verification calculations of the main load-bearing
elements of the floors were performed.
tion showed that the wooden floor beams are over­
loaded and their condition is assessed as limited
working capacity and for further safe operation, it is
necessary to repair or strengthen them by installing
additional steel beams or replacing them.
3 RESULTS AND DISCUSSION
In almost all buildings of the old construction, inter-
floor floors were preserved on wooden beams made of
beams or logs or metal beams made of I-beams, which
were laid in increments from 1 to 1.5 m with filling
between them with a plank selection of boards
(Figure 1). Almost all buildings of the old building
have preserved inter-floor floors on wooden beams
made of bars or logs or metal beams made of I-beams,
which were laid in increments from 1 to 1.5 m with
filling between them with a plank selection of boards
(Figure 1).
According to the results of the survey, a project
was developed for the construction of an inter-floor
ceiling of the old foundation building on wooden
beams with the construction of a duplicate concrete
floor on metal beams (Figure 2).
The work is carried out in the following sequence.
Partitions and ceiling sheeting are pre-dismantled,
floor beams and supports are installed under them.
Figure 1. The scheme of overlapping on wooden beams.

DOI: 10.1201/9781003136804-63

326
Figure 2. Scheme floor decks buildings of the old
Foundation on wooden beams with a concrete slab on
metal beams: 1-parquet board (20 mm); 2 - reinforced
concrete slab (120 mm); 3 - galvanized sheet
(0.7 mm); 4-upper reinforcement; 5-lower reinforce­
ment; 6 - I-beam; 7, 8 - noise insulation (mineral
wool 2 layers of 50 mm); 9 - support bar
(70x70 mm); 10-wooden beam (200x280 mm);
11-selection of boards (60 mm); 12 - ceiling lining of
boards (30 mm); 13-plaster layer (up to 30 mm).
Then the wooden floors are dismantled and the con­
struction backfill is removed from the floor and the
geodesic breakdown of the floor beams is performed.
For the production of works, the overlap is div­
ided into sections (spans) and after installing a metal
beam and restoring the selection, the next section is
disassembled.
Making nests in brick load-bearing walls should
be started after the inspection of ventilation and
smoke channels with the identification of existing
channels and their locations. In the old foundation,
there is a whole network of channels in the load-
bearing walls, mainly they run along the central, end
and firewall walls. For example, in an apartment with
an area of 100 m2 in a 5-story building of the old
fund, the number of canals passing from it or in tran­
sit is 18 pieces, 50% of which about are functioning.
In accordance with the layout of the vent chan­
nels, the nests for the device of supports for metal
beams are marked.
The disadvantage of the method of repairing wooden
floors by installing a duplicate reinforced concrete floor
over metal beams in one elevation is the inability to
bypass the channels with a crossbar beam with T-joints
running along the wall. Therefore, when marking the
nests, it is necessary to consider these features and
install metal beams as close as possible to wooden ones
with a depth of 500 mm. This is necessary for the
smooth insertion of a long beam into the socket. The
support in the socket is made of a metal plate with
a thickness of 10 mm, which is installed on a reinforced
cement-sand cushion with a thickness of 30-50 mm.
The supply of floor beams to the floor is carried
out by a crane-beam installed in the window opening
and securely fixed with an extension slightly larger
than half the length of the raised beam (Figure3).
To improve the conditions of noise insulation and
fire safety, all voids are laid with soft non-flammable
327
Figure 3. Installation diagram of a crane-beam for lifting
rolled metal through a window opening: 1-crane-beam;
2-carriage stroke limiter; 3-attachment to the upper slope of
the window opening on chemical anchors; 4-struts from the
corner of 75x5mm; 5-floor beam; 6-carriage; 7-electric
pedal, controlled by a remote control; 8-metal storage area.
rock wool of the “Rockwool Light Butts” type with
a density of 37 kg/m3 [8].
Sealing of joints in brickwork is carried out using
fixed formwork made of profiled sheet with
a thickness of 0.7 mm. The profiled sheet is attached
to the metal beams with self-tapping screws. All
gaps between the formwork and the brick walls are
filled with mounting foam to avoid concrete leaks.
Metal floor beams are covered with an anti-
corrosion compound with a thickness of at least 80
microns before installation.
The upper and lower reinforcement is carried out
using reinforcement with a diameter of 10 and
12 mm, respectively, with a viscous mesh through
the cell in a staggered order (Figure 4) [9].
The concreting of the plates is made of the con­
crete mix prepared directly at a place of laying.
As a result of the work on the repair of the
wooden floor of the old foundation, an independent
reinforced concrete slab with a thickness of 60­
120 mm on metal beams was made using the method
of constructing a reinforced concrete floor over
Figure 4. The scheme of reinforcement of the floor slab:
-reinforced concrete floor slab with a thickness of
60-120mm; 2-profiled sheet; 3-lower reinforcement mesh;
4-upper reinforcement mesh.
metal beams. The load-bearing capacity of metal
beams is calculated to meet the current loads with
a margin of safety, the maximum deflection does not
exceed the maximum permissible. If the original
wooden beams were overloaded by 31%, then after
repair, their load-bearing capacity meets these loads
with a margin of 63 %.
The advantage of this technology is that it allows
you to reduce the complexity of work on the repair of
the overlap in difficult conditions of tightness and
restriction of access roads for the supply of materials.
The disadvantage is an increase in the duration of
work, since each stage of work is performed sequen­
tially on a certain section of the overlap.
4 CONCLUSION
As a result of the work on the repair of the wooden
floor of the old foundation, an independent reinforced
concrete slab with a thickness of 60-120 mm on metal
beams was made using the method of constructing
a reinforced concrete floor over metal beams. The
load-bearing capacity of metal beams is calculated to
meet the current loads with a margin of safety, the
maximum deflection does not exceed the maximum
permissible. If the original wooden beams were over­
loaded by 31%, then after repair, their load-bearing
capacity meets these loads with a margin of 63 %.
The advantage of this technology is that it allows
you to reduce the complexity of work on the repair of
the overlap in difficult conditions of tightness and
restriction of access roads for the supply of materials.
The disadvantage is an increase in the duration of
work, since each stage of work is performed sequen­
tially on a certain section of the overlap.
328
REFERENCES
Afanasyev G.A. 2019. Technologies for replacement of
blocs with capital repair of multilevel buildings. Journal
of Construction and reconstruction: 131–136.
Akimov S.F., Malakhov V.D. 2017. Features of the technol­
ogy of replacing floors during the reconstruction of resi­
dential buildings of historical urban development
Economics of construction and environmental manage­
ment, 3 (64): 4–10.
Ananyin M.Y. 2018. Reconstruction of buildings. Modern­
ization of a residential multilevel building. Moscow:
Yurayt Publishing House.
Dresvyanina Y.A. 2019. Methods for replacing wooden
floors during reconstruction. Advanced Sciencea: collec­
tion of articles of the X International Scientific and
Practical Conference: 45–47.
Kyriaki Goulouti, Pierryves Padey, Sébastien Lasvaux.
2020. Uncertainty of building elements service lives in
building LCA& LCC: What matters? Building and
Environment, 183, 106904.
Platonov I.V. 2019. Overhaul of intermediate floors in
buildings of the old housing stock. On Sat. “Technology
and organization of construction.” Materials of the I All-
Russian interuniversity scientific-practical conference of
young scientists dedicated to the 80th anniversary of the
founding of the Department of Construction Production:
288–291.
Righi A., Dalla Mora T., Peron F., & Romagnoni P.
2017. Historical buildings retrofit: The city hall of
the city of motta di livenza (tv). Energy Procedia,
133: 392–400.
Rodrigues F., Matos R., Alves A., Ribeirinho P. &
Rodrigues H. 2018. Building life cycle applied to refur­
bishment of a traditional building from Oporto,
Portugal. Journal of Building Engineering, 17: 84–95.
Yudina A. 2019. Enhancing technological processes in
building construction and reconstruction by means of
new technologies. Asian Journal of Civil Engineering,
20 (5): 727–732.
Parallels and features in the development of urban planning, architecture
and construction art in Russia and Spain: The fate and work of Augustine

Augstinovich Betancourt
 Reconstruction and Restoration of Architectural Heritage 2021 – Sementsov, Leontyev & Huerta (Eds)
© 2021 Taylor & Francis Group, London, ISBN 978-0-367-68296-5

Agustin de Betancourt and his political and cultural environment

Carlos Puente Martín
International Business School, Budapest, Hungary

ABSTRACT: Augustine de Betancourt, by his own merits in the spokesperson for science and technology,
is an outstanding engineer, intellectual and humanist, a paradigmatic character of the time in which he lived:
The Enlightenment, the Industrial Revolution, the French Revolution, the Napoleonic Wars, and the rise of
Romanticism.

1 INTRODUCTION Matías de Gálvez, viceroy of Mexico, when he was

We all know that Agustín de Betancourt y Molina
was a distinguished engineer, intellectual and human­
ist, a paradigmatic character of the time in which he
lived (Puente Martín 2019): The Enlightenment, the
Industrial Revolution, the French Revolution, Napo­
leon’s wars, and the rise of Romanticism. He met
important artists and intellectuals from various coun­
tries and kept a close friendship with some of them.
As Antonio Rumeu de Armas (1967, 1974, 1980,
1985) underlined, Agustín de Betancourt and the
great Spanish poet and playwright Leandro Fernán­
dez de Moratín “were not simply close by
a circumstantial relationship, but by a constant, firm
and intimate friendship”. Rumeu de Armas himself
adds a differentiating characteristic between both
because to know the real dimension of that friendship
“we have to use the testimony of one of the parties,
Leandro de Moratín, since Agustín de Betancourt, as
a man of science, was not an expert in using the pen,
he has left few traces of his existence, activities, and
intimate relationships”. Asides, Rumeu underlines
that “within the cultural environment in which the
Enlightenment movement unfolds, Leandro Fernán­
dez de Moratín was the most representative person
of Spanish literature to the same degree that Agustín
de Betancourt became, by his own merits, the
spokesperson for science and technology (de Armas
1974). The former still retains an unfading prestige
as a playwright; the second sees his fame grow as an
undisputed genius in the field of mechanics and
inventiveness. Moratín and Betancourt were contem­
poraries in the strictest sense of the word. They were
born so close in time that they can be considered the
same age (Fernández Moratin was born in 1760 and
Bethancourt in 1758)” (de Armas 1974).
The future engineer Betancourt maintained contacts
not only with the intelligentsia but also with the ruling
nobility and he moved to the Peninsula after meeting
passing through Tenerife, and being recommended by
him to his brother José de Gálvez, Minister of the
Indies. In 1783 he was commissioned to inspect the
Aragón Canal works by Secretary of State José
Moñino, Count of Floridablanca. Agustín was close to
the elite of the Canarian intelligentsia in Madrid,
among them Clavijo and Fajardo, Antonio Porlier,
Marquis of Bajamar, Minister of Grace and Justice,
and Governor of the Council of the Indies and, of
course, with the Iriarte brothers. He also kept a close
relationship with the Court and with King Carlos IV
himself.
2 MATERIALS AND METHODS
The article presents a historical, bibliographic, his­
torical and cultural study of the life and activities of
Agustín de Betancourt y Molina.
3 RESULTS AND DISCUSSION
From Tenerife to Madrid. The Enlightenment influ­
enced science, politics, and economic knowledge
through the dissemination of debates in the media
that the bourgeoisie used in meeting rooms and liter­
ary or scientific writings. Let us remember that
the father of the engineer, Agustín de Betancourt
y Castro, “was an active intellectual member of the
Tertulia de Nava that met in the Nava palace, in La
Laguna, being the most important meeting of intel­
lectuals in the Canary Islands, and was the founder
of the Real Sociedad Económica de Amigos del País
(Royal Economic Society of Friends of the Country)
in Tenerife, with which Agustín himself and his
brother José would later interact in La Laguna,…
Since he was a child he showed a great attraction to
science, technique, and arts, especially drawing. His

DOI: 10.1201/9781003136804-64

331
father brought Agustín and José to the Tertulia de
Nava where Agustín met great intellectuals such as
José de Viera y Clavijo, the highest representative of
the Enlightenment in the Canary Islands. … Betan­
court was familiar with the high society of Puerto de
la Cruz in the 18th century, where he met many
intellectuals such as the three brothers Bernardo,
Domingo and Tomás de Iriarte” (Puente Martín
2019).
The future engineer Betancourt maintained con­
tacts not only with the intelligentsia but also with the
ruling nobility and he moved to the Peninsula after
meeting Matías de Gálvez, viceroy of Mexico, when
he was passing through Tenerife, and being recom­
mended by him to his brother José de Gálvez, Minis­
ter of the Indies. In 1783 he was commissioned to
inspect the Aragón Canal works by Secretary of
State José Moñino, Count of Floridablanca. Agustín
was close to the elite of the Canarian intelligentsia in
Madrid, among them Clavijo and Fajardo, Antonio
Porlier, Marquis of Bajamar, Minister of Grace and
Justice, and Governor of the Council of the Indies
and, of course, with the Iriarte brothers. He also kept
a close relationship with the Court and with King
Carlos IV himself.
Between France and England. At the end of
March 1784, Betancourt undertook his first trip to
Paris, encouraged by the Minister of the Indies, José
Gálvez, and the Count of Floridablanca himself.
Betancourt cultivated friendship with high officials
and, among them, with the Spanish ambassador to
France, Carlos Gutiérrez de los Ríos and Rohan-
Chabot, count of Fernán Núñez, who was decisive
support for the Betancourt brothers. Later, Pedro
Pablo Abarca de Bolea, president of the Council of
Castile and Count of Aranda, commissioned him to
study some projects in the Jardin des plantes de
Paris.
Agustín de Betancourt in Spain was living
during kings Carlos III, Carlos IV and Fernando
VII. In 1783 he was elected representative in
Madrid by the Sociedad Economica de Amigos
del País in La Laguna and was a contemporary of
the painter Francisco de Goya, at the San Fer­
nando Academy of Fine Arts with whom he col­
laborated, together with Maella and Bayeux, in
the improvement of the system of education of
the arts, being named member of honor in 1784.
In that year, Betancourt was commissioned by the
Spanish government to traveled to France, which
was the capital of science and culture, where he
met many intellectuals, such as Lagrange, Laplace,
Carnot and Lavoisier. He also was familiar with
the doctrines of the philosophers Voltaire and
Rousseau, although he did not personally meet
them. England was the cradle of industrialization
and mechanization with the success of the steam
engine invented by Scotsman James Watt in 1775.
The Enlightenment (Diderot & d’Alembert 1751)
and encyclopedism had produced figures like Vol­
taire, Montesquieu, Diderot, Rousseau, etc. whose
332
influence was spread throughout Europe. The 18th
century became the most flourishing time for the
progress of technology and science and the great­
est political-social transformation took place with
the American Revolution and the independence of
the Thirteen Colonies in 1776, the French Revolu­
tion of 1789, and the Industrial revolution.
Many of the intellectuals that the Canarian engin­
eer met were sympathizers of the French Revolution
and Rumeu de Armas has added to the above-
mentioned people the names of Baillo, Lacepede,
Perronet, Prony, Monge, Borda, and Mechain, aside
“his half countryman Francisco de Miranda, the pre­
cursor of the independence of America and general
of the revolutionary army” and other important fig­
ures such as Teresa Cabarrús, daughter of the Count
of Cabarrús, the aristocrat Andrés María Guzmán,
the scholar Santibáñez and the sailor Rubin de
Celis”. However, the most important person Betan­
court met in Paris for his professional and academic
life was the Mexican engineer José María Lanz Zal­
divar, with whom he published the work Essai sur la
composition des machines.
The discovery of the steam engine became
a magnet for the engineer Betancourt who paid
a visit to the facilities of the Boulton & Watt com­
pany during his trip to England in November 1788
and where he met the Scottish inventor, although he
was not allowed to observe the mechanisms of the
steam boiler. His close relation to King Carlos IV is
clear by the fact that on March 8, 1789, he had
applied to join the Order of Santiago, which the king
granted him for understanding that it was important
for his career. Augustin remained in England until
1796 and in 1795 he had been awarded by the Soci­
ety for the Encouragement of Arts Manufactures and
Commerce. Also, he won two additional awards
from the Royal Society of Agriculture in London,
which named him a Merit Fellow. In Spain Betan­
court had very important friends who supported him
in his projects, such as Mariano Luís de Urquijo,
Minister of State, who supported his project to install
the optical telegraph between Madrid and Cádiz in
1798.
In November 1802, the Royal Cabinet of
Machines, located in the Buen Retiro Palace in
Madrid, was joined to the General Inspection of
Roads and Canals for which Agustín de Betancourt
was appointed responsible and adopted the name of
School of Engineering of Roads, Canals and Ports of
which Betancourt became its director until 1807.
Betancourt set up the program degree based on the
existing one at the École de Ponts et Chaussés de
Paris whose director was Perronet, hence the first
School of Engineering of Road and Canals in Spain.
In 1805, the favorite of the king, Godoy, removed
Betancourt and Bauzá, a fact that encouraged Betan­
court to emigrate to Russia. It was his enmity with
Godoy that was the determining factor that prompted
Agustín to adopt such a drastic decision to move to
the distant court of Saint Petersburg.
 Betancourt in the Russian Empire. Betancourt is
contemporary with the progress of mathematical sci­
ence, botany, physics, and economics that evolved
with the development of philosophy and politics pro­
moted by Voltaire, Rousseau, and Adam Smith (Wil­
liam 1967). The monarchies were governed by
principles of “enlightened despotism” and the 18th
century was the starting of secret societies and the
incipient revolutionary movements. The end of the
century was the outbreak of Romanticism, as
a reaction against the Enlightenment, whose peak
period would take place between 1800 and 1850, just
when Agustín de Betancourt had already embarked on
his adventure in Russia where he had made the first
trip in November 1807. A year earlier, another famous
Spaniard, the musician Vicente Martín y Soler, died in
San Petersburg. Betancourt and Martin were in
London for a short period at the same time, Agustín
was in London between 1793 and 1796 and the musi­
cian in 1795-1796, but there is no evidence that the
two men met there. In September 1808 Agustín de
Betancourt and Alexander I reached an agreement
during the Congress of Erfurt, where the Tsar met
Napoleon to reaffirm the alliance after the Treaty of
Tilsit. Betancourt was part of the group of engineers
and scientists who accompanied the French emperor.
At the end of 1808, Agustín entered the service of the
Tsar in the Russian Army with the rank of general,
being assigned to the Department of Roads of Com­
munication (Corps of Engineering analogous to the
Inspection of Roads and Canals in Spain), and was
promoted to lieutenant general the following year. He
collected a generous amount of 24,000 rubles a year
that was shortly risen to 60,000 rubles ().
When he arrived at the Department of Roads and
Communication, he met the Flemish general and
engineer François-Paul de Vollant, who recognized
Agustín’s experience and values but who put many
obstacles in his way. In 1809, the general director of
the Corps of Communication Canals was Prince Old­
enburg, who directed a Council whose members were
De Volant, Betancourt, and Gerard, with the Minister
of the Interior, Prince V. P. Kochubey as president.
Thus, Betancourt had entered into the elite of aristoc­
racy and power people in Saint Petersburg. His pres­
tige was increasing and the same year he founded the
Corps of Engineers of Roads and Communication
where he became chief inspector and, at his proposal,
the French captain of engineers Stepan Ignatievich
Senovert was appointed the first director, and
P. M Manicharov was nominated administrator, who
hosted Augustin when he arrived in St. Petersburg. In
1816 Alexander I appointed Betancourt as president
of the Construction and Hydraulic Works Committee
to improve the urbanization of the capital. The Anich­
kov Palace was rebuilt, and the Elagin and Mikhai­
lovsky Palaces, now the Russian Museum, the
General Staff building, the Alexandrisky Theater, the
Senate and Synod buildings, etc. were built.
In 1818, when Lieutenant General Agustín de
Betancourt was already the director of the Imperial
333
Roads and Communications Department and the
Academy of Engineering of Saint Petersburg, he met
the Spanish adventurer Juan van Halen to whom he
protected and recommended to the Tsar to be
appointed as Major General of chivalry. Van Halen
was under the command of General Alexei Petrovich
Iermolov, whom Betancourt met during his trip to
the Caucasus, and was assigned to the Caucasus
region, residing in Tbilisi (Georgia). In Saint Peters­
burg, Van Halen attended the meetings of the secret
society Union of Salvation, the Masonic lodge that
was also attended by Bauzá, Viana, and Espejo,
assistants of Agustín de Betancourt. Van-Halen men­
tions Betancourt several times in his work “Dos años
en Rusia: obra redactada a la vista de las memorias
y manuscritos originales del general D. Juan Van-
Halen”. We reproduce the most important quote: “…
for the realization of the colossal work projected by
Peter the Great, after his victory at Poltava; that is,
to open a wide channel of eighty werstas in length so
that the waters of the Baltic, linked to those of the
Caspian Sea, and with those of the Black Sea, would
be the great commercial flow of the entire European
continent with Asia. When Betancourt spoke with
the ingenuity he had on topics of this nature, he fre­
quently said that it was a pity that Alexander didn’t
pay attention to the execution of this plan, which
would surely have immortalized him. In Betan­
court’s professional notebook the following note
handwritten in pencil can be found: Project of the
great Alexandrine channel. At the time we write this,
the channel that linked the Volga and the Don rivers
can be considered finished” (Van Halen 1849).
In 1821, Agustín de Betancourt brought two Span­
iards to Russia and made them part of his team. The
first was his nephew, Agustín de Monteverde
y Betancourt, who was in charge of the construction
of the highway from Saint Petersburg to Moscow and
later was responsible for the water supply to Odessa,
the city founded by José de Ribas. Augustine advised
to set up a shipyard in Sevastopol for the construction
and repair of ships and proposed public works and
urbanization in Odesa, at the time of the governor
Count Louis Alexandre Andrault de Langeron, who
ruled the city in 1816-1820. Agustín de Betancourt
inspected the port infrastructures, urbanization, and
drinking water supply, admiring their good condition,
due to De Ribas, Richelieu, and Langeron.
On August 2, 1822, Betancourt was received in
the audience by Alexander I who informed him that
the Duke Alexander of Württemberg was appointed
as General Administrator of Roads and Communica­
tions, assuring him that Betancourt would continue
to be responsible. The behavior of Alexander of
Württemberg demoralized Betancourt. In the middle
of 1823, Betancourt made his last trip to Nizhny
Novgorod, where he received the news of the death
of his daughter Carolina. He returned immediately to
Saint Petersburg and submitted his resignation of all
his positions, which were accepted on February 4,
1824. Agustín de Betancourt y Molina died on
July 14, 1824, in his adopted homeland far from his
native Tenerife. He was appointed Knight of the
Order of Santiago in which he entered by Royal
Order of January 1792 and, in 1813, he was decor­
ated with the Order of Saint Alexander Nevsky and
also entered as a member of the Académie Royale de
Sciences (Royal Academy of Sciences) of Paris. He
was a member of numerous other institutions.
4 CONCLUSION
Agustín de Betancourt y Molina was a unique
person, an outstanding engineer, intellectual and
humanist, and had a difficult but interesting fate.
Agustín de Betancourt y Molina had many contacts
in various circles of society in different countries,
created and implemented unique projects, the results
of which can now be identified in many countries.
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Armesto F. F. 1958. Nueva aportación documental sobre
Agustín de Betancourt y Molina y su familia. Anuario
de Estudios atlanticos. Cabildo de Gran Canaria.
Armesto F. F. 1981. Nueva aportación documental sobre
Agustín de Betancourt y Molina y su familia. Anuario
de Estudios atlanticos 1(27), 239–259.
Bogoliúbov, A., Baroja, J. C., García-Diego, J. A., &
Sánchez, J. F. 1973. Un héroe español del progreso.
Madrid: Seminarios y ediciones.
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Cullen Salazar, J. 2008. La familia de Agustín de Betan­
court y Molina. Correspondencia íntima. Bruselas:
Domibari Ediciones.
de Armas A. R. 1974. Leandro Fernández de Moratín
y Agustín de Betancourt: testimonios de una entrañable
amistad. Anuario de estudios atlánticos (20): 267–303.
de Armas, A. 1967. Agustín de Betancourt, fundador de la
Escuela de Caminos y Canales. Nuevos datos biográfi­
cos. Anuario de Estudios atlanticos 13: 243–301.
de Armas, A. 1980. Ciencia y tecnología en la España Ilus­
trada, La Escuela de Caminos y Canales. Madrid:
Turner.
de Armas, A. 1985. El ilustrado Agustín de Betancourt.
Leve cala sobre su mentalidad, Anuario de Estudios
atlanticos 31: 315–342.
Diderot D. & d’Alembert J. L. R. 1751. Encyclopaedia, or
a Systematic Dictionary of the Sciences, Arts, and
Crafts. Paris: André le Breton, Michel-Antoine David,
Laurent Durand and Antoine-Claude Briasson.
Diego J. A. G. 1975. Huellas de Agustín de Betancourt en
los archivos de Breguet. Anuario de Estudios atlanticos
(21): 177–222.
García-Diego, José A. 1978. Despedida a Betancourt,
Anuario de Estudios atlanticos 24:147–228.
González J. F., González A. C. & Cruz J. A. C. 2006. Agus­
tín de Betancourt en la historia de la ciencia. IES Agus­
tín de Bethencourt.
Puente Martín, C. 2019. Tres Egregios Españoles en la
Corte de San Petersburgo. Madrid-Vienna.
Van Halen, J. 1849. Dos años en Rusia: obra redactada
a la vista de las memorias y manuscritos originales del
general D. Juan Van-Halen. Valencia: J. M. Garin.
William B. 1967. Historia del pensamiento económico.
Madrid: Alianza.
 Reconstruction and Restoration of Architectural Heritage 2021 – Sementsov, Leontyev & Huerta (Eds)
© 2021 Taylor & Francis Group, London, ISBN 978-0-367-68296-5

The Betancourt-Castro archive and its documentary collection

J. Cullen Salazar
Descendant of Agustín de Betancourt, Betancourt Archive, La Orotava, Tenerife, Spain

ABSTRACT: This brief overview of the Betancourt-Castro family documentary collection, located in the
Villa de La Orotava, on the Tenerife Island, highlights the importance of its conservation to preserve the
memory of those who have contributed to generating small or large personal narratives that, inadvertently, are
part of the universal history and the inner-history of its protagonists. This is the case with Agustin de Betan­
court y Molina (1758–1824), the best engineer of his time in Europe, who contributed extraordinarily to the
advances in science and technology in Spain, France, England and, above all, Russia.

1 INTRODUCTION twentieth century it was installed in a proper Fer­

The documentary fund of the Betancourt-Castro
family is nourished by documents dated from Octo­
ber 11, 1535, the date of creation of the Mayorazgo de
Castro (entailed state) by Rodrigo Jussar de Castro, by
writing to the scribe of La Orotava Rui Garcia de
Estrada (Betancourt-Castro Heirs Archive AHBC. sig.
9101).
Genealogical headlines were later Fernando de
Castro, Juan Bautista de Castro Navarro, Fernando
de Castro Salvatierra, Andrea de Castro Salvatierra,
Marcos de Betancourt-Castro, Jose Antonio de Betan­
court-Castro Llarena, Agustin Betancourt-Castro Jac­
ques de Mesa (AHBC: signature 9380), José de
Betancourt-Castro y Molina and José de Betancourt-
Castro y de Lugo (Rodríguez Mesa, 1996).
The first news about the location of the documents
in the collection relates to the main address of José de
Betancourt-Castro y Molina, owner of the mayorazgo,
primogeniture, whose main house was in La Orotava
in Calle del Agua, nowadays Tomás Zerolo street. The
house was adjacent to the convent church of Santo
Domingo and in the late nineteenth century suffered
a dreadsome fire that destroyed it. In this property was
kept all the family documentation, an extensive library
and a set of paintings that gathered the work of local
and European relevant authors. This collection is
a valuable testimony of the brothers José and Agustin
de Betancourt y Molina collaboration (AHBC: sig.
9380).
Despite the voracity of the fire, the flames were
able to save the documentation of the archive, as
well as much of the furniture, library, and paintings,
which proves the value that its inhabitants gave to
these goods (Rodríguez Mesa, 1998).
The exact location where the archive was moved
after the fire is unknown, but at the beginning of the
nando de Salazar Betancourt-Castro’s building in La
Orotava, at Calle de Rodapalla number 2. In the
early 1960s the collection was relocated to garages
wich the family had on the other side of Rodapalla
Street, at numbers 1 and 3. There, archive was in pre­
carious condition until in 1974, when was moved
again, this time to a house in the street of Inocencio
García number 1, which is currently base to the Euro­
pean University of the Canary Islands. Three years
later, in 1977, the Salazar Méndez family, inheritors,
agreed to entrust the deposit and preservation of the
collection to Juan Cullen Salazar, who moved him to
his home at 12 Brother Apolinar Street, where he has
been preserved ever since (Lorenzo Lima, 2018).
The archive was classified in the following years
using a database that identifies each document with its
date, authors, place of origin and destination, content,
and a signature number, all computerized. Surpris­
ingly, the documentation was usually in good condi­
tions, although it lacked of any cataloguing, and the
documents were scattered and unrated of any kind.
The Betancourt Archive is composed of docu­
ments dated from October 1535, which we have
above mentioned about the funding of Castro
entailed state, and January 1890 (AHBC: sig.
9683). It also incorporates documents after that
date because it was of interest to the Salazar
Méndez family, whose last descendant who bore
the surname Betancourt or Bethencourt was Fer­
nando Salazar Bethencourt.
In addition to chronologically classified docu­
ments, there are several sections with accounts of the
Castro family bound in parchment and dated in
1663, 1725 and 1791. They are accounting docu­
ments of Jose Betancourt-Castro Lugo, several docu­
ments on censuses of the La Palma island,
accounting documentation of Betancourt-Castro and

DOI: 10.1201/9781003136804-65

335
Garcia ladies with recipes, and several school note­
books dated 1853, not yet classified.
The archive was examined and studied by several
authors prior to its current classification and under dif­
ficult conditions. This is evidenced by several publica­
tions of Sebastián Padron Acosta (Padron Acosta
1951, 1958), Alejandro Cionarescu (Cionarescu 1965)
and Antonio Rumeu de Armas (Rumeu de Armas
1968, 1974, 1980, 1985). Years later, in 1988, Manuel
Rodríguez Mesa published an excellent monograph Un
canario al servicio de Carlos III: José de Betancourt
Castro, in which he used unreleased documentation
from the family collection (Rodríguez Mesa, 1998).
In 2008 this author published The Family of
Augustine of Betancourt and Molina. Intimate cor­
respondence in Ediciones Domibari, Las Palmas de
Gran Canaria, in which exposed the correspondence
exchanged by José and Agustin de Betancourt and
Molina with other members of the family, which
until then was unknown (Cullen, 2008).
Lately, interesting documents related to Maria del
Carmen de Betancourt and Molina, the third sister of
the family, were being studied. She became very
interesting person given her research work in the
eighteenth century and her often undervalued female
status. Therefore, apart from the publication of other
works and studies, we should remark that the Funda­
ción Canaria Orotava de Historia de las Ciencias
(FUNDORO) scanned all the documents of the
authorship of Agustin de Betancourt and Molina
working in the archive and published them on its
website for increasing knowledge and dissemination
(Relancio Menéndez 2009).
The first time that some documents of this collec­
tion were presented to the public took place when an
exhibition on the work of Agustin de Betancourt
y Molina, organized by the Ministry of Development
(Cedex-CEHOPU) held in Puerto de la Cruz, in the
Congress Center of Taoro Park, in July 1996. This
temporary exhibition gathered fine documentation
from Spain, France, Russia, and Tenerife.
2 BRIEF SIGHT OF BETANCOURT-CASTRO
DOCUMENTS
To publicize documents of exceptional importance
which exist in the documentary background we
should list the following:
Memoire sur un nouveuau systeme de navigation
interieur, with which Agustin de Betancourt entered
the National Institute of France in Paris in 1807
(AHBC: sig. 9353).
Proyecto de un invento de Agustin de Betancourt
dedicado al Principe de La Paz de una máquina
para limpiar los ríos y canales navegables, prized in
1795 by London Society of Arts, Manufacturing and
Commerce, (AHBC: sig.9818).
Proyecto de una fábrica de motonería para la isla
de León, by José Betancourt y Castro in 1789
(AHBC: sig. 9822).
336
Dibujo de una cabeza de mujer, for a contest at
Real Academia de Bellas Artes de San Fernando de
Madrid on 6th December, 1779 (AHBC: sig. 9697).
Dibujo de una cabeza de hombre, for a contest at
Real Academia de Bellas Artes de San Fernando de
Madrid on 6th December, 1779 (AHBC: sig. 9698).
Nota a lápiz y en idioma francés de la mano
y rúbrica del zar Alejandro I de Rusia dirigida
a Agustin de Betancourt, submitted to Tenerife in
a letter on 15th September, 1814 (AHBC: sig. 9370).
Proyecto de Puente sobre el Rio Neva de San
Petersburgo, by Agustín de Betancourt in 1811
(AHBC: sig. 9821).
Boceto de la máquina de vapor de doble efecto
inventada por Watt, at this case under Agustín de
Betancourt’s design and produced during his first
visit to England in 1788 (AHBC: sig. 9815).
Retrato a lápiz de Agustín de Betancourt,
sketched by his daughter Adelina and sent by letter
to his brother José in September 1814 (AHBC: sig.
9368).
Carta de Agustín de Betancourt a su hermano
José on 15th September, 1814, about his leaving to
Russia (AHBC: sig. 9370).
Noticias biográficas de D. Agustín de Bethencourt
y Molina, written by his nephew José de Bethencourt
y Castro in 1840 (AHBC: sig. 9434).
The collection has been visited numerous times
by various Russian academic authorities, includ­
ing the rector and vice-chancellor of the Univer­
sity of Transport (Institute of Communication) in
St. Petersburg in 2016 and 2018; Drs. Irina (Gou­
zevich 2002, 2005) and Dimitri Gouzevich (Gou­
zevich 2005), professors at the Polytechnic
University of Paris in 2006; and Dr. Dimitri
Nikolski, professor at the St. Petersburg Institute
of Communications in 2004 and 2005. Students
from the University of Las Palmas of the Canary
Islands in 2010 and Austrian ambassador in Spain
in 2009 visited the collection as well. There are
numerous Spanish authorities who have also
visited the archive in recent years, as well as
individuals of all kinds and background, interested
in the great work and effort of our countrymen
members of the Betancourt and Molina family.
In this sense, it is necessary to highlight the
informative work carried out by the Canarian Cul­
tural Foundation of Engineering and Architecture
Betancourt y Molina about the Betancourt and
Molina family, established on November 21st, 2002.
From then until a few years ago it was presided by
military General Don Francisco Santos Miñón,
whose efforts was possible its creation. The Higher
Colleges of Industrial Engineers of the Canary
Islands, the College of Technical Architects of Santa
Cruz de Tenerife, the Industrial College of Technical
Engineers of Public Works, the Official College of
Engineers of Roads, Canals and Ports, the College of
Forest Engineers and The College of Architects of
the Canary Islands are part of the foundation as
founding partners.
 In addition to the founding partners already
described, the statutes consider as honorary members
of the Excellency City Council of Puerto de la Cruz
(Tenerife) for being the place of birth and residence
of the aforementioned family and Juan Cullen Sala­
zar, descendant of the Betancourt family and Molina.
In recent times, Doctors Juan Alejandro Lorenzo
Lima, Pablo Miguel de Souza Sánchez and Elena
Rodríguez Naveiras were editors of a collective
book titled The Bethancourt Family Legacy. Aca­
demic, heritage and tourism incentive in Tenerife
(2018), (being the result of a research project pro­
moted by the European University of the Canary
Islands (2016-2018) (Lorenzo Lima et al. 2019).
Likewise, Lorenzo Lima is the author of El sabor
latente. Libros, estampas y dibujos de la Coleccion
Betancourt, a book published by the Government of
the Canary Islands and the European University of
the Canary Islands in the same year 2018. It offers
a reconstruction of the family library in 1816 and
a cataloguing of the engravings and drawings which
make up the family collection, arising great interest
to the brothers Betancourt and Molina scholars (Lor­
enzo Lima 2018).
More recently Dr. María Jesús Pozas, of the
Deusto Bilbao University, has published several
works on the personality of Agustin de Betancourt
and his contributions to European architecture and
urbanism (Pozas 2019).
This brief review wants also to thank you to the
Betancourt family, to the Spanish and Russian
authorities for future Betancourt’s memorial which
will be fitted in the house where Agustin de Betan­
court lived during the last years and died in 1824.
Located in the center of St. Petersburg, in Bolshaia
Morskaya number 19, it is a perennial testimony to
the memory of this transcendental and unrepeatable
character of our common history.
3 CONCLUSIONS
The preservation of the documents that are part of the
Family Documentary Collection of the Heirs of Betan­
court-Castro for almost five centuries have a special
interest, not only to know family relations but also
other matters of public life related to the History of
the Canary Islands of Spain, and Russia during the
Old Regime and part of the Contemporary Era. This
Family Archive has its origins in the documentary
repositories that the Betancourt family was creating in
the Renaissance era, and that its descendants have
been concentrating and saving in one place all the
documents that are currently kept in the Orotova.
These documentary funds have a utilitarian and
pragmatic function and can be consulted by those his­
torians interested especially in the most illustrious
figure of the family as was Agustin de Betancourt, the
father of modern engineering. Another function of this
archive is to collect the documentation generated by
337
the different generations of the Betancourt-Castro
family in a safe and orderly way. In addition to serving
when it has been required for exhibitions dedicated to
Agustin de Betancourt, as was the case with the last
exhibition held in 2018 at the University of La Laguna
in Tenerife when the two hundredth anniversary of the
founding of the Institute of Communication Roads in
St. Petersburg by Agustin de Betancourt, which
became the first School of Civil Engineers in Russia.
In short, these archival funds are at the service of
society.
In this Archive of Betancourt-Castro is
guarded a documentation that is considered
a good of cultural importance or documentary
historical heritage of the past, which serves as
evidence for the elaboration of the historiograph­
ical story and is also guarantor to determine the
truth about the members who were part of this
eminent Canarian family.
It is also desirable to know certain data by Agustin
de Betancourt from the documentary funds, to better
understand its figure in privacy, and thanks to this
documentation a rigorous historical investigation can
be seriously undertaken avoiding errors and inaccur­
acies that have been propagating in some historiog­
raphy over time.
REFERENCES
AHBC Betancourt-Castro Heirs Archive (Archivo Here­
deros Betancourt-Castro, AHBC: sig. 9101, AHBC: sig.
9353, AHBC: sig. 9368, AHBC: sig. 9370, AHBC: sig.
9380, AHBC: sig. 9434, AHBC: sig. 9683, AHBC: sig.
9697, AHBC: sig. 9698, AHBC: sig. 9815, AHBC: sig.
9818, AHBC: sig. 9821, AHBC: sig. 9822
Cionarescu, A. 1965. Agustín de Betancourt: su obra téc­
nica y científica. La Laguna de Tenerife: Instituto de
Estudios Canarios.
Cullen, J. 2008. La familia de Agustín de Betancourt
y Molina. Correspondencia íntima. Las Palmas de Gran
Canaria: Ediciones Domibari.
Gouzevich, Irina. 2002. Agustín de Betancourt, modelo de
la comunicación profesional de los ingenieros a finales
del siglo XVIII y principios del XIX. Ciencia
y Romanticismo.
Gouzevich, Irina, y Vérin, Helene. 2005. Sobre la institu­
ción y el desarrollo de la ingeniería europea. En
Silva Suárez (ed.). Técnica e ingeniería en España.
Zaragoza: Institución Fernando el Católico.
Gouzevich, Irina; Gouzevich, D. 2005. Les écluses de
Schlusselbourg: une histoire en deux temps. En
Estuaria, 7.
Lorenzo Lima, J. A. 2018. El saber latente. Libros, estam­
pas y dibujos de la colección Betancourt. La Orotava:
Universidad Europea de Canarias, 2018.
Lorenzo Lima, J. A; Souza Saánchez, P. M; Rodríguez
Naveira, Elena 2019. El legado de la familia de Betan­
court. Le Canarien Ediciones: La Orotava.
Padrón Acosta, S. 1951. El ingeniero canario Don Agustín
de Berthencourt Molina. En Revista de Historia. La
Laguna: Universidad de La Laguna, 93-94. Marzo-
Junio. Faltan las páginas
Padrón Acosta, S. 1958. El ingeniero Agustín de Betan­
court y Molina. La Laguna de Tenerife: Instituto de
Estudios Canarios.
Pozas Pozas, María Jesús. 2019. San Petersburgo una
ciudad creativa en tiempos del zar Alejandro I. La apor­
tación a la arquitectura y al urbanismo del ingeniero
español Agustín de Betancourt. En Revista de Historia
Canaria. 201, 299–351.
Relancio Meléndez, A. 2009. Proyecto digital Agustín de
Betancourt (FUNDORO). Cronología de un proyecto de
investigación y divulgación. En El legado de la familia
Betancourt. Aliciente académico, patrimonial,
y turístico de Tenerife. La Orotava: Universidad Europea
de Canarias, 93–102.
Rodríguez Mesa, M. 1996. El entorno familiar de Agustín
de Betancourt. En Betancourt. Los inicios de la inge­
neiería moderna. Madrid: CEHOPU, 27–47.
338
Rodríguez Mesa, M. 1998. Un canario al servicio de Carlos
III. José de Betancourt y Castro. La Laguna: IECan.
Rumeu de Armas, A. 1968. Agustín de Betancourt, funda­
dor de la Escuela de Caminos y Canales, nuevos datos
biográficos. Madrid: Colegio de Ingenieros de Caminos,
Canales y Puertos.
Rumeu de Armas, A. 1974. Leandro Fernández de Moratín
y Agustín de Betancourt: testimonios de una entrañable
amistad. En Anuario de Estudios Atlánticos. Madrid-Las
Palmas, 20.
Rumeu de Armas, A. 1980. Ciencia y Tecnología en la
España ilustrada; La Escuela de Ingenieros de Cami-
nos, Canales y Puertos. Madrid: Colegio de Ingenieros
de Caminos, Canales y Puertos.
Rumeu de Armas, A. 1985. El ilustrado Agustín de Betan­
court: leve cala sobre su mentalidad. En Anuario de
Estudios Atlánticos. Madrid- Las Palmas, 31.
 Reconstruction and Restoration of Architectural Heritage 2021 – Sementsov, Leontyev & Huerta (Eds)
© 2021 Taylor & Francis Group, London, ISBN 978-0-367-68296-5

Drawing and understanding Gothic architecture in the first half of

XIX- century England
J. Girón
Universidad Politécnica de Madrid

ABSTRACT: This paper will show how in the first half of the 19th-century, scholars of Gothic architecture
in England were aware of the difficulty of dealing with unfamiliar architecture forms and principles with cul­
tural and mental schemas adapted to another formal language such as classical was. Then through three sig­
nificant cases (T. Rickman, R. Willis, F.A. Paley) it will be explored how those pioneering first authors faced
this problem, creating a new mental scheme through attentive observation and drawing.

1 INTRODUCTION mistakes appear when a draughtsman - or a copyist ­

In the first half of the 19th-century, scholars of Gothic
architecture in England were aware of the difficulty of
dealing with unfamiliar architecture forms and prin­
ciples with cultural and mental schemas adapted to
another formal language such as classical was.
A situation that was revealed starkly in the drawing
errors of travelers, antiquarians and topographers.
Given that it was essential to read Gothic forms cor­
rectly in order to organize a classificatory science or
construct a historical account, to what extent is this
awareness reflected in their methodology? Can we
detect in their work an effort to learn how to see
Gothic architecture? If so, what procedures did they
follow?
In this paper will see through three significant cases
(T.Parcker, R. Willis, and P.A. Paley) how they faced
this problem, trying to create a new mental scheme
through attentive observation and drawing. A drawing
that projected hypotheses and questioned the Gothic
forms until the principles of their formation emerged.
Once fixed in the memory, they allowed forthcoming
progress to be made in the right direction.
2 SCHOLAR’S AWARENESS OF THE IMPACT
OF MENTAL SCHEMES ON
ARCHITECTURAL DRAWING
In his groundbreaking book Art and Illusion,
E. Gombrich pointed out in one of the chapters on
“truth and stereotype,(1961, 72-87) an observation
that would cause a seismic shift in the assumptions
about what we mean by representation.
Gombrich explained - with striking examples taken
from different themes and periods- how easily
is forced to represent something new, which does not
find a place in the context of the artist’s visual culture.
We usually use a previous scheme, a preformed
image (stereotype) that helps us give shape and sense
to what we are seeing. Which finally can motivate
the error that eventually appears in a painting, an
engraving, or an illustration. When facing an ambigu­
ous object, we draw things as we expect them to be,
based on our previous training. Among the examples
he cited, he compared Notre Dame de Paris’s repre­
sentation in an engraving by Merian with Garland’s
Chartres Cathedral as published by Winkles (1837).
Merian made a symmetrical interpretation of Notre
Dame de Paris and makes the pointed windows
appear rounded, while Garland did just the opposite,
exaggerating their acuteness. Gombrich underlined
that one would expect of an English artist of the first
decades of the nineteenth century, a greater fidelity.
But Gombrich would not be the first to notice this
phenomenon. For us, it is very revealing to see how
the authors who were beginning to seriously study
Gothic architecture in England in the first half of the
nineteenth century were fully aware of it.
A striking antecedent of Gombrich’s observation
we find it in a review of books on Gothic architec­
ture (Quarterly Review 1821, 114) that by its
subtlety deserves to be quoted in extenso: “A draw­
ing made by a draftsman who does not fully under­
stand the parts of the subject will exhibit similar
faults. To be able to delineate accurately, he must
know what the outline ought to be: if he does not
possess this antecedent knowledge, he will never dis­
cover what it is. The slightest irregularity in the
curve will induce him to twist the depressed arch
into an ogee. He converts the foliaged pinnacle into
a jagged pyramid. Destitute of any distinct

DOI: 10.1201/9781003136804-66

339
conception of the meaning of the several parts, he
has no distinct perception of their united forms and
bearing: he may look and gaze attentively, yet the
lines which he traces upon his paper will never
arrange themselves significantly, unless the mind’s
eye also sees that which is seen by the corporeal eye,
unless the intellect guides the hand”.
Indeed a superb description of the need to forge
a correct mental outline in the mind of the
draftsman.
Decades later, we come across another subtle
commentary by Robert Willis, one of the leading
academic authorities at this moment. Willis warns us
that we might encounter this effect when perusing
drawings by someone who has no prior knowledge
of the architectural language of the building he has
been dealing with. In his study of the Holy Sepulchre
(1849, 158-9), he found some mistakes in the draw­
ings he handled that he attributed to the “classical”
training of the person recording - or transcribing ­
the original sketch. Thus, he noted, there are docu­
ments (such as that of Le Bruyn) in which windows
in the form of pointed arches are drawn as semicir­
cular arches: “In their rough sketches, therefore, they
never indicated the form exactly, and the artists and
engravers, who prepared their drawings for publica­
tion, naturally made every arch of the semicircular
form familiar to their own eyes, unless a very par­
ticular remark to the contrary was to be found in the
sketch. Le Bruyn was a professional artist; yet, as we
now know, he has repeatedly represented ruins and
buildings in his travels with round arches, that still
exist to convict him of error.”
Willis shrewdly concluded that, by the same
token, a draughtsman of the previous century must
be trusted when he drew a pointed arch, because it
had to be so obvious, so striking, that it prevented
prejudice from conditioning perception.
In reality, this was not a thing of the past. Errors
did still occur in contemporary drawings. Many
cases could be cited which - for lack of space will
not be dealt with here- Willis, for example, could
have mentioned examples of “gothicisation” in many
of the illustrations of a celebrated work of E. Street
on Spanish Gothic (1865).
3 THE SEARCH A SCHEME FOR
UNDERSTANDING AND DRAWING
GOTHIC ARCHITECTURE
In the first half of the 19th century, it was clear
to British researchers that one tended to draw
according to what one expects to find. For those
who wanted a serious approach to Gothic archi­
tecture, this kind of effect was certainly
a problem: Wrong drawings will lead to wrong
thoughts. To solve this was suitable -in addition
to implementing more sophisticated measuring
instruments- to train the draughtsman to antici­
pate what was correct.
340
But if classical architecture had a theory and
a bank of images that had taught generations to
appreciate all its nuances, there was no manual for
apprehending Gothic architecture. Their buildings
were kind of an “unknown extinct animal” from
which everything had to be learned in a self-taught
manner.
3.1 T. Rickman and the comparison of Gothic with
Classical architectural language: Members
and rules
One way of correcting the problem of the “projec­
tion” of stereotypes of appreciation adapted to clas­
sical forms was precisely to try to fix what, by
contrast with it, could characterize the language of
medieval architecture.
That is what, in a book with a very revealing title,
An Attempt to Discriminate the Styles of English
Architecture, T. Rickman (1817) sought to do. It was
a matter of identifying, employing drawings and
words -that is, recovering his terminology-, the dif­
ferent elements, or “members,” which seemed to
compose it (a method that in the classical work of
Frankl (1960) is called “membrological”) This
approach, eminently formalist, was intended to
familiarize the reader with the forms taken by the
elements in a medieval building (called here “Eng­
lish”) and follow their changes throughout specific
periods.
To understand the syntax of these members, to go
from the known to the unknown, Rickman (110-111)
proposes a table that summarized and compared in
two columns the main characteristics of what he
calls “Grecian” and “English” architectures
(Figure1)
From the point of view of learning to “see” the
Gothic building, this “dismemberment” had the
Figure 1. Table comparing known rules in “Grecian” (clas­
sical) architecture with the ones to be found in English
(Roma-Gothic) architecture in T. Rickman (1817).
additional virtue of teaching how to read the medi­
eval building as a palimpsest in which elements
from different periods could coexist the doors were
usually preserved, but not the windows, 1817, 48).

3.2 R. Willis: The syntax of Gothic members and

its drawing
In 1835, Robert Willis, in his seminal Remarks on
the Architecture of the Middle Ages, again recurred
to the comparison between the two languages. In the
section “Concluding Summary” he suggested adding
new considerations to Rickman’s comparative table,
which he presented in two columns headed “Middle
Ages Styles” and “Classical Styles” (Willis
1835, 158).
As Rickman also proceeds to a study by parts of
the Gothic building (imposts, shafts, foliation, Tra­
cery, Vaulting and parts depending of it, doorways)
(for contextualizing how Willis understood the
“membrological” method, see Buchanan, 2013, 97­
106) But he brilliantly suggested that many of these
elements can be read mentally as composites of
others, as the result of a “syntax.” It was up to us to
take a member either as an “indecipherable” unit or
as the compound of simpler, analyzable parts.
In at least one case, this approach gave promising
results. James Hall (1813) had earlier pointed out
that the muillions and tracery bars of a Gothic
window could follow a law of formation that may be
illustrated. Hall’s authority was questionable (he had
put forward other theories such as that the Gothic
nave was born in imitation of a tree gallery). How­
ever, Willis gave credibility to this observation,
which he rescued and termed the “principle of subor­
dination of mouldings” of Gothic traceries: bar
mouldings were generated by a superposition of suc­
cessive orders of mouldings.
Willis also realized that certain elements’ shape of
the Gothic building may depend on how they are con­
nected, on their syntax with others (the very way he
arranges certain headings of the index: for example,
“Vaulting and parts depending” expressed this idea).
This was the case of the pillars, whose configuration
may depend on how the vault rests on them, and thus
in some way condense the most relevant information
of the whole nave. This is why pillars for Willis
(Willis, 87) are a critical element to follow when con­
structing a historical narrative of Gothic architecture
(whereas for Rickman, it was the window).
Willis successfully translates this form of syntac­
tic analysis into a new kind of drawing, which
allows a better appropriation of the mental process
that has been followed to understand the principle of
formal generation.
In the case of the window, Willis drew one half in
full. The other half is a diagram of its layout’s gen­
eral lines, accompanied by a diagram showing the
different bars’ section and how the configuration of
the larger ones derived from the smaller ones
(Figure 2). Willis will devote several pages and
Figure 2. How to represent a Gothic window taking into
account the law of subordination, in Willis’ (1835).
plates to explaining this procedure. (Willis, 57, Plate
XII, 198) (also 49, 54, 56, and plate XI under
“orders of arches orders of tracery”).
Willis also proposes a novel form of drawing that
eased this reading of the pillar as an element whose
shape can be related to the vault. He suggested to
draw first the horizontal section of the pillar, and
with a dotted line, the plan projection of the arches
of the vault. Superimposed over them appeared the
sections of their mouldings (Figure 3).
Those drawings allowed a more in-depth reading of
the Gothic building, and could easily be recalled (a
poem is better recorded in the memory than prose.
Likewise, a drawing that gives an account of a rule or
principle of generation is better retained than a mere
copy of the forms). On the other hand, this mode of
analysis and drawing that Willis advocated could
uncover genuine principles of Gothic design hitherto
unknown. It was also an approach that strained “mem­
brology” as a model for apprehending the Gothic by
partly dissolving the identity of the members it
isolated.
On reviewing the list of elements recognized by
Willis, it is striking that he does not devote a specific
section to mouldings (which he does, however, draw
and include in his plates) (Willis, Plate, III, fig. 24
(bases), fig. 25 (string mouldings, 26. Diagonal Vault­
ing ribs).
The moulding could be a relevant element, not suf­
ficiently emphasised, a sort of stylised signature that
condensed a whole vision of the architectural form,
which deserved to be recorded and drawn correctly. It
seemed that the matter needed to be studied in more
depth.

341

Figure 3. How to represent a Gothic pillar in order to
reflect its relation to the arches supporting the vault, in
Willis (1835).
3.3 F.A. Paley: Mouldings, memory and free-hand
drawing
This is what F. A. Paley proposed in his very suc­
cessful A Manual of Gothic Mouldings (1845),
which he presented as “A Practical Treatise on Their
Formations” and the first specialised study of mould­
ings”. Paley would have turned to this type of study
under the impact of Rickman, whose work he had
read with avidity” (Paley, 5).
His work should serve to sharpen the reader’s per­
ception. Paley notes that for many, a Gothic moulding
is just: “an unmeaning cluster of holes, nooks, and
shapeless excrescences.” And he realises that in order
to achieve a clear recognition of its configuration, it
would be essential to find its principles and raison
d’être, a horizon to which it points: “few are aware that
every group can be analysed (sic) with perfect ease and
certainty; that every member is cut by rule, and
arranged by certain laws of combination” (Paley, 6).
As did the previous authors, he devotes a section
entitled “The general principles of formation” (Paley,
10-21) to examine the principles governing classical
mouldings, contrasting them with those that might
control Gothic mouldings. For this comparative study,
342
he also relies on the comments that - in a very
engaging review of books on Gothic (entitled signifi­
catively “Philosophy of Gothic”) - had been published
in the English Review (1844, 401-423).
However, Paley acknowledges that although he
was convinced that “some system (his italics) must
have been observed” (Paley, 2), he had not suc­
ceeded in clearly unravelling its laws, overwhelmed
by the enormous diversity shown by the mouldings.
A challenge that Paleys believes, Willis will be able
to address (for how Willis dealt with this issue later,
see Eileen Roberts, 1977).
While waiting for this to happen, in the absence of
analytical diagrams that would reveal their rules, he
proposed a drawing that would at least engrave their
forms in the memory. He recommended recording
their profiles, a technique (which, he points out, is
common use by stonemasons). For him, this was
better than representing them in “the usual popular
way of engraving” (indeed, in many “membrological”
publications, mouldings were often illustrated in
a three-dimensions perspective (Paley 7-8) (Figure 4).
To prevent his knowledge from being “vague, par­
tial, and imperfect,” the student “must not only
observe; he must copy mouldings” (Paley, 8). The
existence of instruments that allow precise surveys of
the mouldings, such as the Cymaograph -invented by
Willis (Willis, 1842) which Paley mentions and uses,
(Paley, 23, 30) - does not cancel out the need to trace
them by hand to imprint their nuances correctly in his
mind: “The practice of copying mouldings by the eye
alone is of the greatest importance in acquiring a sound
acquaintance with the subject….The eye becomes per­
fectly familiar with every kind and variety by fre­
quently contemplating new examples and collections
previously made; and thus a very great degree of accur­
acy is in time attained”. (Paley, 24, more in this line, in
section III “on copying mouldings” (Paley, 21-25) and
also (Paley 19-20) on how to examine the mouldings”
when drawing them).
Figure 4. On the left: a sample of Paley’s recollections of
profiles. Right, perspectives of mouldings in Rickman’s
fifth edition (1848).
 In this way, the draughtsman could thus refine his
perception, discover the “various stages of their devel­
opment,” and establish the dating, even of ruined
buildings from “the merest fragment” (Paley, 7)
3.4 Viollet-le-Duc’ similar drawings: A case for
further research
To conclude and open the door to further
research, I would like to point out that some of
these contributions reappear in the second half of
the century in France in the work of E. Viollet-le
-Duc. Willi’s drawings and diagrams explaining
the configuration of a Gothic window and the
law of subordination of their bars have a place in
the Dictionnaire in “Meneau” (Viollet-le-Duc,
1864, 317-345)(Figure 5); Willis’s proposed
drawing for a pillar plan, pop up in “Construc­
tion” (Viollet-le-Duc, 1854, 1-279) (Figure 6); the
Figure 5. “Meneau” of the Nôtre Dâme chapel, in Viollet­
le-Duc’s Dictionnaire de l’architecture (1864) To be com­
pared with Willis’ analysis of a Gothic Window (1835).
343
Figure 6. Drawing of a pillar of Peterborough’s cathedral,
in Viollet-le-Duc’s Dictionnaire de l’architecture. (1854)
To be compared with Willis’ representation of this member
(1835).
use of profiles to analyse mouldings is recurrent
in the article “Profil” (Viollet-le-Duc, 1864, 483­
532) and his Entretiens (1863, 385-448) In none
of these cases does Viollet-le-Duc cite his pos­
sible sources.
On the other hand, Viollet-le-Duc, as his British
counterparts, also noticed how having in mind clas­
sical stereotypes could prevent one from clearly
seeing the Gothic principles. And that the remedy to
it is to understand it as a language. As he points out
in “Profil”: “Ceci étant, on comprend comment des
architectes habitués à ne considérer les profils que
comme un tracé élastique qui diminue ou augmente
en raison des dimensions données à l’ensemble, ont
pu affirmer que les tracés des profils appartenant aux
monuments occidentaux du moyen âge étaient dus
au hasard. Or, c’est un langage qu’il faut connaître,
langage qui a ses lois parfaitement définies” (Viollet­
le-Duc, 1864, 487).
These circumstances invites further research into
how much French authors active in the second half
of the century indebted to the process unfolded in
England for “discriminating and seeing” Gothic
architecture and their own contributions to it.
3.5 Epilogue
Generally speaking, the authors’ efforts we have
studied were addressed to “discriminate and see” the
formal language of Gothic architecture and generate
mental schemes that allowed us to apprehend its
subtlety. Drawing could facilitate the refinement of
its apprehension, either by establishing in
a “memorable” way rules -that seemed to fit Gothic
language’s essence- or by merely insisting on
a consistent hand-drawing.
Once the draughtsman’s work was done, the work
of the historian (who often, as in the case of Willis
or Viollet-le Duc, coincided) began: to give
a historical account of these forms and their changes.
It remains for further research to study: the rele­
vance they would give to individual members, the
“causes” they adduced for their forms (control of
light effects, perspective effects, and scale, linguistic
analogy), or what historical narrative they developed
(rationalist, evolutionist). To describe how the ana­
lysis of construction emerges alongside this formalist
analysis also deserves an inquiry.
4 CONCLUSIONS
In this paper, we have pointed out how the British
scholars of the first half of the century were aware of
the classical stereotype’s distorting influence in
understanding and accurately representing Gothic
architecture.
From this (overlooked) circumstance, these
authors’ methodology can be seen in a new light.
They wanted to foster a new mental scheme to read
the building correctly, based on drawings that oper­
ated as a hypothesis that deconstructed the gothic
forms until their raison d’être was understood. Once
these drawings were fixed in the memory, it was pos­
sible to move in the right direction.
First of all, the aim was to discern the parts that
composed the “unknown Gothic artifact” and their
formal rules. A way of reaching this goal was to
compare it with the known classical language when
this was possible (Parker). With Willis, an idea also
emerged that would refine Gothic edifice members’
apprehension: they could be seen as forms resulting
from a syntax. Either they may be a composition of
simpler sub-members or a configuration depending
on their linkage with others. This reading led to
innovations in drawing that fixed such interpretations
in mind. When it was not possible to recognise and
draw the principles of form generation, reliance was
placed on the conscious education of a hand-drawing
that would lead to intuitive assimilation of the cor­
rect Gothic forms (Paley).
The new ways of drawing that had successfully
reflected a formal law (bar’s window shapes) or had
been useful for thinking about the possible depend­
ence of (the pillars on the vaults) reappeared later in
Viollet-le-Duc. This circumstance invites further
research on French authors’ debt to the process of
“discriminating and seeing” Gothic architecture dis­
played in England and their own contributions to it.
344
REFERENCES
Anon.1821.Normandy-Architecture of the Middle Ages.
Quarterly Review, April& July xxv: 114–147
Anon. 1844. Philosophy of Gothic. English Review, or
Quarterly Journal of Ecclesiastical and General Litera­
ture, vol II: 401–423.
Buchanan, A. 2013. Robert Willis (1800-1875) and the
foundation of Architectural History. Woodbridge: Boy-
dell Press., UK.
Frankl, P. The Gothic: Literature Sources and Inter­
pretations through Eight Centuries, (Princeton, N),
1960.
Gombrich, E. 1961. Truth and the Stereotype, An Illusion
Theory of Representation. In Art and Illusion. Princeton:
Princeton University press.
Hall, J. 1813. Essay on the Origin, History and Principles,
of Gothic Architecture. London: John Murray, 1813
Paley, F.A. 1845. A Manual of Gothic Mouldings:
A Practical Treatise on their Formations, Gradual Devel­
opment, Combinations and Varieties. London: John van
Voorst.
Roberts, E. 1977. Moulding Analysis and Architectural
Research: The Late Middle Ages. Architectural History
20: 5–13.
Rickman, T. 1817. An Attempt to Discriminate the Styles
of English Architecture, from the Conquest to the Refor­
mation. Preceded by a Sketch of the Grecian and
Roman Orders, with Notices of Nearly Five Hundred
English Buildings. London: Longman, Hurst, Rees,
Orme, and Brown.
Street, G. E. 1865. Some account of Gothic architecture in
Spain. London: J. Murray.
Viollet-le-Duc, E. 1854. Construction. Dictionnaire rai­
sonné de l’architecture française du XIe au XVIe siècle,
Paris: Morel, vol. 4: 1–279.
Viollet-le-Duc, E. 1863. Entretiens sur l’architecture.vol.1.
Paris: Morel.
Viollet-le-Duc, E. 1864. Meneau. Dictionnaire raisonné de
l’architecture française du XIe au XVIe siècle, Paris:
Morel, vol.7: 317–345.
Viollet-le-Duc, E. 1864. Profil. Dictionnaire raisonné de
l’architecture française du XIe au XVIe siècle. Paris:
Morel, vol, 7: 483–532.
Winkles, B. 1837. French cathedrals. From drawings taken
from the spot by R. Garland, with an historical and
descriptive account. London: Charles Tilt.
Willis, R. 1835. Remarks on the Architecture of the
Middle Ages, especially of Italy. Cambridge: J.J.
Deighton
Willis, R. 1842. Description of the Cymagraph for Copying
Mouldings. In Civil Engineers and Architects’ Journal
5: 219–29, Lám. 9. 1842.
Willis, R. 1849. The Architectural History of the Church of
the Holy Sepulchre at Jerusalem, London: John
W. Parker.
 Reconstruction and Restoration of Architectural Heritage 2021 – Sementsov, Leontyev & Huerta (Eds)
© 2021 Taylor & Francis Group, London, ISBN 978-0-367-68296-5

Contributions of European specialists to the development of reinforced

concrete in pre-revolutionary Saint Petersburg
V. Korensky
Brandenburgische Technische Universität Cottbus-Senftenberg, Cottbus, Germany

ABSTRACT: The omission of the contribution of European specialists to the development of early
reinforced concrete in the publications of the Soviet and later periods led to this research. An investigation of
the technical literature and archival documents brought about new discoveries. European engineers and repre­
sentatives of well-known European construction companies played an important role in the early development
of reinforced concrete in the Russian Empire. This paper describes the introduction and the development of
this construction technology in Saint Petersburg and is an extract from the author’s doctoral thesis on the
development of reinforced concrete in the Russian Empire from its inception to the outbreak of the October
Revolution.

1 INTRODUCTION and Switzerland were visited to collect information

The early development of reinforced concrete (RC)
in the Russian Empire (RE) was described for the
first time during the Soviet period in publications on
the history of construction technology (Ivanov 1962,
Ljudvig 1962). Only European countries where the
construction companies came from are listed in their
works. Neither names of engineers nor their build­
ings in Russia are mentioned in these publications.
Therefore, the aim of this paper is to name the most
important actors in the development of RC and to
describe some representative buildings constructed
in Saint Petersburg (SPb) using RC technology.
2 METHODS
This paper concentrates on civil buildings in the pre­
revolutionary capital of the RE and its immediate
surroundings. This limitation allows the study area to
be reduced to significant representative buildings of
this type. The study of industrial, transport and mili­
tary structures is therefore will not be addressed in
this paper. The buildings discussed in this paper were
erected over a period stretching from the first appli­
cation of RC in SPb to the beginning of the October
Revolution. The latter temporal border is conditioned
by the worsening conditions for foreign specialists in
the RE and related to it significant reduction of their
involvement in construction industry.
This research was conducted using Russian,
French, German and English technical literature about
RC in the RE. Archives in Russia, France, Germany,
on actors and completed RC structures. The buildings
were added to an extensive database which is used for
quantitative research.
One important approach to this study was to iden­
tify conditions and context for the knowledge trans­
fer and introduction of the new technical method.
At the time of the first application of RC in SPb,
there was an established construction materials
industry (iron and cement) in and around SPb. The
capital had a well-developed iron industry. A cement
factory had been established in SPb in 1887. All of
the factories producing construction materials were
connected to the capital by railways. SPb had
favourable administrative, scientific, and profes­
sional infrastructures for introduction of new con­
struction method.
Moreover, the use of RC was not restricted by any
building regulations. The administrative officials
would approve projects according to their adherence
to general construction codes and would leave the
responsibility of ensuring the stability of the struc­
ture to a project engineer in charge. This remained
the accepted process until local regulations for RC
were drafted. The development of rigid RC regula­
tions was initiated by Russian Railways. These regu­
lations were intended to be applied to transport
construction projects.
Knowledge about RC was first introduced to the
RE on a theoretical level through publications and
through a patent filed by a French gardener, Joseph
Monier, in 1880. It was the most influential patent in
Russian history. The patent expired a year after its
filing and thus became public property.

DOI: 10.1201/9781003136804-67

345
 A study of the technical, logistical, scientific, and
social preconditions of the RE provided a better jus­
tification for the involvement of foreign specialists
in the use of RC in buildings in SPb.
3 RESULTS
SPb was not the first place in the RE where RC was
applied. This first implementation of this method
took place in Moscow and employed the Monier
system. A trading house owned by the Baltic
German Julius von Hueck (1840 - 1915) carried out
a loading test in Moscow in 1886 during the con­
struction of slaughterhouses. This project led to the
dissemination of this new technology throughout
Moscow and its surroundings. In order to acquire fur­
ther commissions and to attract the attention of the
authorities in the capital, the trading house initiated
official loading tests in SPb in 1891. The iron was
supplied by the ironworks of Mertens and the cement
came from a factory in Riga, owned by one of the
trading house’s business partners, Carl Chr. Schmidt.
Representatives from different authorities and min­
istries were invited to that event. Rudolf Johannsen
(1850 - 1920), a Baltic German engineer, was respon­
sible for the design of the samples and the execution
of the loading tests. Slabs of different sizes, tubes,
reservoirs, and several vaulted structures were tested.
The largest structure tested was a bridge with a span
of 17 m (Figure 1). The test samples were very simi­
lar to those used for the loading tests in 1886 in
Berlin. This similarity was a result of the cooperative
relationship between the trading house and a German
construction company, Aktiengesellschaft (AG) für
Monierbauten, that had carried out the previous tests
in Berlin also financed the tests in SPb.
In the year following the tests (1892), the company
secured at least eight commissions in SPb. For the
following five years (until 1897), it was the only con­
struction company using RC in the capital. During
Figure 1. A photo from the official loading tests in Saint
Petersburg in 1891 (Akcionernoe Obščestvo 190-).
346
that time the company constructed administrative,
educational, industrial, and religious buildings.
Later, other local construction companies in the
capital employed the Monier system. A remarkable
design was developed by a Polish engineer Prawdzick,
Bronislav Kazimirovič (1862 – 1922) for the vault
above the Universal Reading Room in the National
Library of Russia. In order to cover the 15.8 m span
between the rows of pilasters on the side walls and to
keep the structure light, hollow blocks were used.
Each block was reinforced with wire rings. Their
heights ranged from 15 cm at the crown to 25 cm at
the springer (Figure 2).
In 1898 in south-western Ekaterinoslav (present-day
Dnepropetrovsk), another system of RC was intro­
duced. This system belonged to an international con­
struction company established by François Hennebique
(1842 - 1921). The main figure promoting the Henne­
bique system in the RE was the French engineer Paul
de Monicourt (? - ?). With his business partner, Swiss
chemical engineer Gabriel Egger (1867 - 1904), he
brought knowledge of the Hennebique system to SPb.
Before the system could be employed in the capital, it
had to be approved by the Mechanical Laboratory of
the Institute of Communications. This approval was
awarded in 1900. Egger took part in the local S’’ezd
Russkich cementnych technikov i zavodčikov (Congress
of Russian Cement Technicians and Manufacturers) at
which he likely promoted the system amongst the gath­
ered professionals.
In the following years, de Monicourt and Egger
employed the system in industrial, residential, and
public buildings. Buildings in which construction
elements from the Hennebique system (mainly ceilings
and walls) were used included the residence of Duke
Konstantin Gorčakov, the Russian-Chinese Bank, the
D.O. Ott Obstetrics and Gynecology Research Insti­
tute, and Peter the Great St. Petersburg Polytechnic
University.
After shifting to the employment of larger con­
struction elements like domes, the representatives of
the Hennebique company secured the opportunity to
build the Arena for the Imperial Stud in 1904
(Figure 3). The building’s RC dome is strengthened
by visible radial ribs and rings. It was constructed on
Figure 2. The construction of the vault (Prawdzick 1899).
Figure 3. The Arena of the Imperial Stud (Černomorskoe
stroitel’noe obščestvo 1906).

the top of a 4-m-high masonry wall. The whole

structure inscribes a hemisphere with a diameter
of 20 m.
At the end of 1904, Egger died and de Monicourt
had to manage the network in Russia on his own. De Figure 4. A completed semi-dome at the construction site
Monicourt started a partnership with the SPb con­ (Černomorskoe stroitel’noe obščestvo 1906).
struction company—Černomorskoe stroitel’noe
obščestvo (Black Sea Construction Company, abbre­
viation ČSO). After this partnership was established,
de Monicourt’s name disappeared from the official
publications of the Hennebique company and was
replaced by the name of the Russian company. After
1906, ČSO became the only representative of the
Hennebique system in the RE. De Monicourt con­
tinued to be a liaison to the Hennebique main office
in Paris. ČSO built remarkable structures throughout
the RE employing the Hennebique system.
In 1905 de Monicourt and the company were
commissioned to build a large dome and two semi-
domes for the Naval Cathedral of Saint Nicholas on
the island of Kronstadt (Figure 4). They were con­
structed on top of masonry arches. The main dome
has a span of 26.75 m and both semi-domes have
a span of 23 m. All the domes were stiffened with Figure 5. A side wing of the theatre (Černomorskoe stroi­
ribs, and between every two ribs a lunette in RC has tel’noe obščestvo 1906).
been integrated. The semi-domes were completed in
1905, and the main dome was finished in 1906.
De Monicourt cooperated with ČSO on the con­ constructed entirely out of RC. Even though this
struction of new buildings at Tauride Palace and on building is attributed to ČSO, an archival document
modifications to the palace’s main building from attests to the contribution of the French engineer
1905 to 1906. Floors in RC and a ventilation system Emile Gille to its design and calculation. This build­
were integrated into the main building. The palace’s ing could not be located; it is presumed to have been
winter garden was converted into a convention hall demolished. However, it was documented in detail,
(Figure 5). A stepped semi-circular theatre was intro­ and its structure can be precisely reconstructed. The
duced between the peripheral columns. This addition entire structure sat upon rows of isolated footing
dismantled the original architectural image. How­ foundations. The exterior walls and the roof were
ever, this project was used as an advertisement by double-walled elements stiffened by beams. The
the company in Zodčij magazine. 11 m wide nave was topped by a clerestory, which
Another remarkable ČSO construction was the was supported by columns. The whole structure was
church and canteen at the Baltic Shipyard, which was divided into four parts by dilatation joints.
completed in three months’ time in 1907 (Figure 6). The civil engineer Henri Hirszson (1857 - ?), who
This is one of the first buildings in the RE to be hailed from Poland, was active in RC construction

347

Figure 6. The canteen and church at the Baltic Shipyard
(Trockij 1907).
work in SPb. He took part in local professional meet­
ings and was known to have participated in congresses
held abroad. He was involved in the application of RC
in SPb from the very beginning. Hirszson worked with
Julius von Hueck’s trading house and later employed
the Monier system. In 1904 he founded his own con­
struction company—Tovarišestvo Železo-Beton. He
employed the Hennebique system and other techniques
in industrial and residential buildings, as well as
bridges and tramway depots. One of his most remark­
able structures is the Our-Lady-of-Lourdes Church. Its
unique nave covered by 17 m wide vault was com­
pleted in 1909 (Figure 7). The vault is stiffened by
superior rafters, which give the structure unique inter­
ior appearance.
The German construction company Wayss &
Freytag (previously referred to as AG für Monier­
bauten) also established a branch in SPb. An
employee of the company, Swiss engineer Jakob
Wyrsch (1883 - 1940), served as the SPb liaison.
Wyrsch was responsible for the construction of sev­
eral important buildings in the city.
The Trade House of the Guards’ Economic Society,
which was completed in 1909, was widely discussed
at professional meetings in SPb, and its construction
Figure 7. A photo of the rafters that stiffen the vault
(Tovarišestvo Železo-Beton 1911).
348
process is well documented. It has a skeletal structure
that supports seven floors. The structure is composed
of columns, beams, slabs, and arches above the
atrium. The spaces between the arches are filled by
metal structures and glass (Figure 8).
1910 saw the completion of another remarkable
structure: The Sporting Palace. The skeletal structure
of the stadium had a nave and peripheral arcades on
two levels. The nave was covered by a vaulted shell
structure stiffened by exterior ribs. Three skylights
were integrated into the shell (Figure 9). The space
between the ribs was closed with wooden boards and
covered with roofing. During the Soviet period, the
building was heavily renovated. Today, only a small
part of the original vault structure can be seen.
There are at least five other buildings in SPb in
construction of which Wyrsch might have been
involved as an employee of Wayss & Freytag. In 1912
Wyrsch decided to leave the German company and to
establish his own with a partner—engineer Herzberg
Boris Leopol’dovič (1883 - ?). They had constructed
mainly industrial buildings in and around SPb. Evi­
dence suggests that they constructed several buildings
for Red Triangle Factory complex during this period.
In 1912, a well-known Swiss engineer, Robert
Maillart, came to SPb for work at the invitation
of his former classmate from Zurich. Maillart
introduced his own system of mushroom columns
at an AG Gerhard & Hey warehouse (Figure 10).
Maillart constructed further structures in SPb, Riga,
Figure 8. The atrium of the department store (Zodčij
1910).

Figure 9. The interior of the Sporting Palace (Photograph
Bulla 1911).
Figure 10. The upper floor of the AG Gerhard & Hey
warehouse (Billington 1997).
and Charkov. The political tensions in Russia,
inflamed by the October Revolution, forced Mail­
lart, Wyrsch and many other European specialists
to leave the RE.
4 DISCUSSION
This research contributes to the wide research field
concerning knowledge transfer from Europe to the
RE. The transfer of European knowledge and par­
ticularly the contribution of European specialists
349
played a significant role in the local development of
RC in the RE. However, the introduction of this
knowledge was only made possible by the existence
of favourable local preconditions. The availability of
necessary construction materials, the technical skills
of the local construction workers, and the lingual
and scientific capabilities of local engineers led to
the rapid adoption of this new construction method.
At first, the introduction of the Monier and Hen­
nebique systems occurred outside of SPb. After
these systems were approved by the proper author­
ities, they spread also in the capital. This leads to an
assumption that any barriers to the use of RC outside
the capital were less significant.
This paper names only the most influential Euro­
pean engineers and describes a limited selection of
their representative buildings. These descriptions
were mainly based on material available in the litera­
ture and in archival documents. Scheduled in-situ
investigations would illuminate the construction pro­
cesses used at remaining buildings. Additionally,
such investigations would allow revealing the differ­
ence between the building designs and their resultant
structures.
REFERENCES
Billington D. P. 1997. Robert Maillart: Builder, Designer,
and Artist, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
Black Sea Building Society. 1906. Reinforced concrete sys­
tems Hennebique. St. Petersburg: Printing house of
A. O. Bashkov.
Grigoriev M. A. 2005. St. Petersburg of the 1910s. Walking
into the past. Saint-Petersburg: Russian Institute of Art
History.
Ivanov V. F. (ed.) 1962. History of construction equipment.
Leningrad-Moscow: State Publishing House of Litera­
ture on Construction, Architecture, and Building
Materials.
Joint-stock company for the production of concrete and
other construction works. 190-. An album of some of the
works performed. Moscow: without publishing house.
Ludwig G. M. (ed.) 1962. Materials on the history of con­
struction equipment. Moscow: State Publishing House
of Literature on Construction, Architecture, and Build­
ing Materials.
P. L. 1910. House of the Guards Economic Society, Archi­
tect 48: 471–473.
Partnership of G. Girshzon & К⁰. 1911. List of the most
important works produced by the partnership “Ferrocon­
crete”. Sankt-Peterburg: Partnership of G. Girshzon & К⁰.
Pravdzik B. K. 1899. Calculation and construction of
a vaulted roof made of hollow concrete stones. Builder
Magazine: 161–180.
Trotsky I. 1907. Reinforced concrete building for workers
of the Baltic plant. Proceedings of the Society of Civil
Engineers 5: 165–167.
 Reconstruction and Restoration of Architectural Heritage 2021 – Sementsov, Leontyev & Huerta (Eds)
© 2021 Taylor & Francis Group, London, ISBN 978-0-367-68296-5

Contribution to the studio of the Moscow Manege Deck

I.F. Menendez Pidal
Fundación Juanelo Turriano, Madrid, Spain

P. Busca Fernández
Escuela de Ingenieros de Caminos, Canales y Puertos, Universidad Politécnica de Madrid, Madrid, Spain

ABSTRACT: Agustín de Betancourt joined the Russian military service on November 30, 1808. In the less
than 16 years that destiny granted him in his new homeland, Betancourt built exceptional architectural com­
plexes and undertook engineering works in numerous cities - large and small - of Russia. The Manezh of
Moscow is the only work of the great engineer in the City of Moskva River, it was not only an architectural
monument, but also a unique masterpiece of 19th century engineering. The work contributes to analysing the
problems that existed in the roof of the building and the repair carried out by Bauza, analysing it with the
current means of calculating structures. The objective is to be able to model the problems found in the joints
by Betancourt and solved with the Bauzá structural solution.

1 INTRODUCTION A plan was designed to convert the areas reduced

According to the grey stone memorial plaque located
on the main facade, the Manezh building was built on
the fifth anniversary of the victory of the Russian
people in the Patriotic War of 1812. Archives of the
time suggest that the Moscow fire was expressly
ordered by Count Fyodor Vasilyevich Rostopchin (­
1763–1826), governor-general of the city (Mikaberidze
2014). It was the essential factor in the victory over the
French army. It is known that the Russian army left
Moscow on 14 September 1812 and, along with
troops, most of the civilian population marched some
180,000 people (Mikaberidze 2014). Overall, the
population of Russia’s first capital in early 1812 did
not exceed 250,000 (Egórova 2019).
Napoleon Bonaparte (1769-1821), emperor and
great military leader of France, waited from the Rus­
sian Tsar Alexander I (1777-1825) the proposal to
negotiate peace. According to the memoirs of some of
the participants in the campaign, Moscow greeted wel­
comed the French with “the silence typical of deserts”
and a large number of fires (Mikaberidze 2014). In just
four days the flames devoured approximately three
quarters of the city. Of 9,158 habitable buildings, more
than 6,500 were consumed, depriving the invaders of
adequate accommodation to spend the winter (Kurz
Muñoz 1995).
Shortly after the victory against the army com­
manded by Napoleon, in February 1813, Alexander
I Tsar of Russia, created a commission for the recon­
struction of the City of Moscow (Yegorov & Timofeev
2012).
to ashes into a comprehensive architectural complex.
Among the new buildings to be erected would be
included the Moscow Manezh, whose origin is there­
fore directly linked to the fire of 1812.
1.1 Building description
The first document about the imminent construction of
the Exercise Hall of the Cavalry Guard in Moscow, is
kept in the State Military Historical Archive of Russia
and dates from the end of 1816 (Yegorov & Timofeev
2012). This document indicates that Alexander
I initially chose a place next to the Borovitski bridge
(Yegorov & Timofeev 2012). But shortly after the
Tsar himself would change his mind so that the new
construction did not affect the image of the Kremlin.
In order for him to examine another possible loca­
tion, the general-governor and military commander of
Moscow, Alexander Petrovich Tormasov (1752-1819)
(Yegorov &. Timofeev 2012), by provision dated
December 9, 18166, commissioned Major General
Liev Lvovich Carbonier (1770-1836), Inspector Gen­
eral of the Council for Communication Routes, to
travel to Moscow (Yegorov & Timofeev, 2012). Car-
bonier was entrusted with the task of directing all the
hydraulic and earth-moving works that preceded the
construction of the new Equestrian Exercise Hall. At
the same time, Tormasov also commissioned him to
“design the plan and the façade for the future exerzier­
haus so large that an entire battalion could move
freely inside it.”
The Mahanez reached almost 7,500 square meters
in area and could accommodate more than two

DOI: 10.1201/9781003136804-68

350
thousand people. According to witnesses at the time,
the building due to its magnificence, architecture and
roof design had, without a doubt, no analogues in
Europe.
In his report to Tormasov dated 26 May 1817,
Liev Lvovich Carbonier, states that General Betan­
court had informed him of His Majesty’s will that the
exerzierhaus be built according to the new project
drawn up by him, with a length, as had already been
said, of 78 sazhen (166.5 meters), with 1 sazhen
being 2,1336 m (Cardarelli 2004), with 1 sazhen
being 2,1336 m and a width of 21 sazhen (49 meters),
between its walls (Yegorov & Timofeev 2012).
The project envisages that the building is sur­
rounded by columns and, consequently, its founda­
tion is much larger than the previous one, the walls
are thicker, and the bulkier the work to be carried
out. The sidewalls were evenly dissected by a series
of columns tasked to transmit the effort of the
wooden trusses to the foundation.
In building the Mahanez, Agustin de Betancourt
tried to rule out all the risks that may arise in the
future, such as the possibility of flooding due to the
location near the Moscow River. To this end, he
ordered to delve deeper into the foundations, built on
Lytkarin sandstone (Osipov, 2009), by four meters,
and make the walls wider at the base.
It also considered the possible precipitation of
snow on the roof of the building, very common in
the Muscovite winters. Therefore, he designed the
roof taking into account a possible asymmetrical
load that could be produced by a layer of snow of
different thicknesses on the gloomy and sunny sides
of the roof.
The construction of the building was entrusted to
General Carbonier and was executed by a special
group of engineers and architects subordinate to
him. Karl Ivanovich Lamoni (1783-1844) was
appointed as the main architect of the construction
(Yegorov &Timofeev 2012). From the beginning of
the work, Lieutenant-engineer A. Kashperov, who
would play a notable role in the later history of the
building, joined the work (Budylina, 1952).
Figure 1. Detail of the structure and foundation.
351
In fact, Betancourt and Carbonier were in Saint
Petersburg and were directing the construction of the
Equestrian Exercise Hall by correspondence
(Yegorov & Timofeev 2012).
2 ORIGINAL BETANCOURT COVER
2.1 Cover description
Special emphasis was placed in the unusual combin­
ation of wood and metal, which gave the entire con­
struction solidity and simplicity. Betancourt
designed some original metallic connection elem­
ents, thanks to them, in their joints, the truss pieces
did not come into direct contact with each other.
This gave them some mobility and considerably
reduced the risk of joint damage. Each truss weighed
17 tons (Yegorov & Timofeev 2012).
In the illustrated report that Betancourt made on the
works of the Equestrian Exercise Room, he describes
the structure of the roof, including the connecting
elements (Figures 2-3). On the report, he offers explan­
ations about the pictures, noting that (Betancourt
1819):
“Tie AB (Figure 2), whose two ends would rest on
eight-foot-thick walls in the final project, was 160
feet long and consisted of two eleven-inch-thick
beams, arranged one above the other to form
a single 22-inch by 11-inch (55.88 x 27.94 cm)
beam. Each beam intended for coupling was made
up of a row of pieces of wood joined together with
Jupiter beam splices and with one-inch diameter
bolts, between which spaces of three feet were left.”
It also highlights the importance of cast iron
heads:
Figure 2. Truss detail.
Figure 3. Detail of the iron drawers.

Figure 4. Detail of the crossings of St. Andrew.
“The most remarkable aspect in the test trusses
and in the final cover is the presence of cast iron
heads”.
For the construction of the deck of the Mahanez,
those triangular wooden frameworks shaped like the
cross of Saint Andrew were manufactured and used
for the first time in Russia.
2.2 Problems with the original cover
Unfortunately, the result of the building, postponed
for the summer of 1818, was not carried out because
in the second half of July 1818 two trusses showed
cracks in the wood. In a letter dated August 2 sent to
Alexander I from Nizhny Novgorod, Betancourt
tried to show that the mishap was because the haste
and the lack of sufficiently long logs he had been
forced to modify the initial construction of the
trusses (Yegorov & Timofeev 2012).
In the initial idea seven uprights were foreseen and
in the new version, nine. Faced with this situation,
Betancourt considered that the only adequate solution
was to replace the trusses following another plan. On
February 24th, 1820, he informed the general-
governor and military chief of Moscow, Prince Dmitri
Vladimirovich Golitsyn (1771-1844), that the sover­
eign “had given his consent to rebuild the roof of the
‘Exerzierhaus’ in Moscow to prevent damage detected
in the trusses due to the haste with which the building
had been built” (Yegorov & Timofeev 2012).
3 BAUZA INVOLVEMENT
3.1 Rafael Bauzá
In 1816 he was in Russia, where Agustin de Betan­
court, who lived there since 1809, had attracted him
to San Petersburg to consolidate in the body of com­
munication track engineers a group of Spaniards.
Between them, Bauzá (Mallorca, Balearic Islands,
1778 – Russia, 1828), egressed engineer from Civil
Engineering School of Madrid arrived (Sáenz
Ridruejo, 1990). Tsar Alexander I allowed Betan­
court to hire any foreign specialist if necessary.
Thus, Rafael Bauzá (1778–1828), a Spaniard born in
Mallorca, was called by Betancourt, and arrived in
Russia in November 1816. Before, in Spain, he had
befriended the Canary engineer, of whom he was
a student at the Escuela de Caminos y Canales in
Madrid. From 1817 Bauza intervened in the project
352
and construction of the Nizhny Novgorod Fair. For
about twelve years Bauzá worked in this large fair­
ground, first as an engineer-builder, and after Betan­
court’s death, from 1824 to 1828, leading the
Construction Commission of the Fair, with the rank
of colonel of engineers. He moved to Nizhny Nov­
gorod, but died unexpectedly in May 1828, when he
was preparing extensive urban plans for the develop­
ment of that city (Sáenz Ridruejo 1990).
As Godoy himself pointed out in his famous
memoirs, “Betancourt and Bauza were sought to
adorn Russia, just as in the ruins of a great city scat­
tered by the barbarians are later interscorned by
lovers of the arts mutilated and fallen statues” (La
Parra & Larriba 2008).
3.2 Technical report
After the breakage of several trusses in which cracks
began to appear in the wood, the roof was reformed.
To do this, the Spanish engineer Rafael Bauza was
entrusted with the task, as assistant of Agustín in the
construction of the original roof and was therefore
a great connoisseur of the structure.
After carrying out the reconstruction, Rafael
Bauza carried out a technical document that is tran­
scripted because of its interest:
“To His Excellency the Lord General-Governor
and Military Chief of Moscow, General of Cavalry
and Knight, Prince Dmitry Vladimirovich Golitsyn,
Colonel engineer Bauzá.
Report:
By the 4482 provision of Your Excellency, dated
9 October, and at the request of the Lord Chief of the
General Staff, His Imperial Majesty, on the sound­
ness of the deck of the Exerzierhaus in Moscow, the
reconstruction of which was entrusted to me by the
late Lieutenant General Betancourt on 19 Febru­
ary 1823, I consider myself obliged to inform you in
detail about the work carried out under my direction,
as well as the modifications I have made to perfect
such a bold and extraordinary splice of its trusses,
something entirely new.
Having taken the appropriate measures to assem­
ble all the components of the roof according to their
intended purpose and assemble them with the great­
est solidity, I have not even the slightest doubt about
the absolute reliability of the new trusses, even if the
current width of the building, which is 150 English
feet, were increased to 210 feet.
At the beginning of September last year, after
assembling the scaffolding to shore up the old roof,
General Betancourt examined with me the deform­
ation of the armor and discovered that it was not so
much due to faults in their construction, but because
the trusses in its supports did not have adequate
solid support over the walls, at the ends of the lower
double straps, ordered me to study in depth all the
peculiarities of the building and proceed, without
loss of time, to assemble new trusses, whose con­
struction I knew perfectly well since 1817, when the
project had been designed by General Betancourt.
Seeing that it was necessary to prolong with pieces
the trusses for the delivery of these in the walls,
I proceeded to work on the new beams, with the
main objective in mind to make them resistant, with­
out departing from their original design.
In order not to err, which would give an unfavor­
able opinion of the worthy inventor of this important
design, and after carefully considering all the details
of it, I calculated the actual measurements of the
bars and all the iron pieces to make the new trusses,
with a length of 150 feet between supports, free light
inside the walls, and without increasing the height of
the pediments and preserving the current position of
the outside cornice.
The trusses were assembled in September
last year, and of the 45 that made up the new roof,
24 were installed at their site before 30 December;
his seat was almost imperceptible.
In order to explain the method of construction
adopted, which is completely different from the pre­
vious one, I consider it necessary to expose the order
followed.
They were rethinked1 on the esplanade attached
to the building, which was built for this purpose,
with the current correct dimensions, to facilitate
assembly and so that the 45 trusses were the same
size in their mullions, sleepers, and other parts, and,
using precise patterns, which were made with thin
boards separately from all the elements, with great
comfort, several trusses were assembled at once.
With such a large layout on a flat surface, some of
its components could not be assembled at the same
time, as the experience establishes. In this case, the
assembly of each piece was done in situ, when each
truss, by its own weight, adopted its final position by
settlement, if it had not been so, even if great care had
been taken if it was very careful, it would have caused
a misalignment of the bars proportional to the care
taken in joining them together; therefore the bars
could only be fixed by bolts already mounted in their
final position; when the previous deck was built it was
not done like this, so as a result of the settling the bolts
were deformed in various ways and were so embedded
in the beams that in some places they could not be
removed and it was necessary to cut the bars. The
main awkward one was that, for the same reason, it
was very difficult to fix the bolts during wood drying.
When the trusses were numbered and joined and,
before anything else, the lower joints two by two were
installed and at a distance of 12 and a half feet a pair
from each other, allowing the assembly of other elem­
ents from temporarily installed light scaffolding.
The lower double joints3 were placed firmly on
special plinths, independent of other scaffolding, and
taken to their proper position by leveling and using
wedges, thus, all beams reached the required 14-and
-a-half-inch need with respect to the ends on the
wall supports.
With these joints properly installed, all of them
horizontally along the length of the building the
353
installation of bars and sleepers, as well as the
installation of cast iron drawers, in which the starts
of the bars were connected, for the perfect joining of
their ends. When all the truss by its own weight
reached the proper position, drilling holes and
inserting bolts began, all of which was executed with
extreme care; straps and struts were also mounted,
after which, for the final finish of the trusses, the
lower joints were fastened with iron plates and bolts.
To avoid excessive setlling4 that usually occurs in
the knots of similar trusses, seven temporary vertical
struts were intentionally placed on each of these
trusses, connected to all the truss bars and the lower
joint for a perfect assembly, leaving the struts in load
until the final assembly so that, once the installation of
all the bars has been completed, the struts could be
removed and the truss can be left in load of its own
weight until the completion of the joint below with the
supports of the iron flanges supporting the lower joint.
The trusses, free of the struts and under their own
weight, adopted their natural position and all the parts
tested firmly on their joints; in the event of a seat the
connection could be raised or lowered with the help of
the wedges. Thus, by adopting the lower joints the
appropriate curvature with the seven vertical supports,
the metal flanges began to be fixed, which were secured
reluctantly with bolts, leaving the truss under its own
weight without causing any settlement.
Following this order all the trusses were placed.
Major Kashperov, who was commissioned during my
absence in Nizhny Novgorod to build the deck, con­
tinued with great accuracy the assembly of several
trusses.
When the connections were completely tightened
and fastened with iron clamps, the scaffolding was
disassembled and, finished completely covered and
its parts, all the load rested on the trusses, such as
the web of slats, the roof, the sloping windows and
the iron cover, and produced the same deformation
in all the one-inch and six-line trusses, although half
of them were installed in winter and the others in
summer, which justifies the order of construction
adopted to build such a brave roof structure and
gives credit to its resistance.
Colonel Engineer Bauzá.
At 24 days in October 1824, Moscow.”
4 METHODOLOGY OF THE CALCULATION
PERFORMED
4.1 Objectives of the study
The objectives are to check the cover with current
regulations (Eurocode 1: Actions in structures, Euro-
code 05: Project of wooden structures) and carry out
a sensitivity analysis, studying the original solution
adopted by Agustin de Betancourt, and comparing it
with the reform carried out by Rafael Bauza.
And finally a study the innovative solutions carried
out during the construction of the Manege, such as the
constructive precamber carried out during the place­
ment of the main truss straps, such as wrought iron ca-
jets used in the union of the wooden bars of the trusses.
4.2 Calculation methodology
Before starting with the problem, must define
a number of main items, such as, materials, dimensions
of the truss and cover, acting loads, choice of Software,
software limitations and finally the studied model.
4.2.1 Materials
In the construction of the trusses of the Manége was
mainly used wood of European L.E. To find the
tough class of the wood, the UNE-EN 338 standard
has been used. Considering that the elk has an aver­
age density of 560 kg/m3, a class D18 is obtained.
For the study of the second main material, iron, by
not possessing sufficient data to be able to define it
precisely according to the iron used by Betancourt in
1817, the mechanical properties of iron have been
used, i.e., high hardness and great fragility.
4.2.2 Dimensions of the truss
To carry out the sizing of the truss, the roof plans
were used original drawings collected by the magni­
ficient work of Olga Vladímirovna Egórova
(2019),”El picadero de Moscú obra de Agustín de
Betancourt” (The Moscow Mahanez, by Agustin de
Betancourt).
The sizing of the truss has been done with bars of
28 x 28 cm. considering that the lower strap of the
truss is composed of two bars such that its final
dimension is 56 x 28 cm.
4.2.3 Operating loads
The following values have been obtained, after
applying Eurocode 01: Actions in Structures.
Specific weights are considered with a value of
5.7 kN/m3 for wood, and 71.0 kN/m3 for iron
foundries.
Overload: The cover can be classified as an
inaccessible cover except for normal maintenance
and repair. It will therefore be category H, according
to Eurocode 01.
The overload values for this type of cover in
material load and snow load are 3.14 kN/m2 and
4.12 kN/m2 respectively)
Was carried out a calculation taking in account
symmetrical and asymmetrical load and, finally,
wind load for this region and emplacement.
4.2.4 Choice of software
Structural analysis has been performed through
CypeCad 3D software. It is an agile and effective
program designed to perform the calculation of
structures in three dimensions of concrete bars,
steel, concrete and steel mixed, aluminum, wood,
or any material, including the sizing of joints
(welded and bolted of double T laminated and
reinforced steel profiles and tubular profiles) and
354
that of its foundation with anchor plates, shoes, and
brushes.
Wooden, steel or aluminum bars; and reinforced
concrete pillars and beams can be sized by the pro­
gram. Mixed concrete and steel pillars can be tested
by the CYPE program.
4.2.5 Software limitations
The structure consists of wooden bars with iron
reinforcements at the joints. Therefore, CypeCad 3D
allows us to size and check the structure relatively
easily.
The most important limitation is the definition of
knots, in the face of the impossibility of being able
to manually define their mechanical characteristics.
CypeCad 3D forces to fix the dimensions of the
knots, in this project these dimensions are fixed by
the edge of the bar that is 28 cm. Since the iron
head, represented in the model by the knot must
encompass that dimension.
In addition, it has the limitation that it does not
allow to describe the mechanical behavior of the
knot automatically. For this reason, when conducting
the study, it has been considered an effort equivalent
to a mechanical spring in the knots, which in turn
equates to the mechanical effort generated by iron
sheds.
Finally, it should be noted that the construction
precamber has been considered in the models, rais­
ing the knots of the lower strap an amount equivalent
to that countershaft.
4.2.6 Models studied
Two models were considered. First model is the one
corresponding to the original cover, with reinforce­
ments in the knots, construction of the trusses without
precamber and with a total of 30 trusses and a second
model, the one corresponding to the reform of Bauza,
construction of the trusses with precamber, with
reinforcement in the knots and with a total of 45
trusses.
5 RESULTS
Checking structures in CypeCad results in very even
results for both structures at first glance.
Figure 5. First model checked, in red bars that don´t
comply with the regulations.
 In both cases, the bars that are responsible for
joining the trusses in the longitudinal direction of the
cover do not comply with the current regulations as
shown in the following images:
Figure 6. Second model checked, in red bars that don´t
comply with the regulations.
In the case of the model corresponding to the
Betancourt cover, first model, the strength of the
shoulder straps located at the top of the trusses, i.e.,
the bars that join the highest knots of two contiguous
trusses, exceeds by 358% its resistant capacity. In
addition, there are three checks that are not met on
these bars:
– Bending resistance on the y-axis.
– Shear resistance on the z-axis.
– Combined bending and axial tensile strength.
In this model there are knots that experience
a descent on the z-axis of the bar, i.e., they acquire an
arrow of almost 1mm. These values are permissible
since 1 mm compared to the 48 m of the truss are
almost insignificant. And they also comply with cur­
rent regulations.
For the Bauza reform model, second model, the
same bars continue to fail as the previous model. But
in this case the mechanical strength of the bar is
exceeded by only 54.68%. As in the previous case, the
most demanded bars remain those that join the knots
with the highest level of the truss. The same checks as
in the previous model are still not met, although this
time the values are closer to the regulatory limit
values.
For this model, the maximum offset that occurs in
the z direction of the bar is lower in all cases 0.2 mm
well below the limit arrow set in the project. In the
case of the lower strap this arrow takes a value close
to 0.001 mm. Therefore, through the construction
precamber it is possible to remove the movements
from the lower strap of the truss. Which was one of
the main problems of Betancourt’s original cover.
Different mechanical values of iron have been
tried, to analyze the benefits of this engineering
355
solution on the structure knots. Coming to the next
conclusion that from the stiffness value K=100,000
kN/m, as much as the stiffness value is increased
does not increase the resistant capacity of the bars.
That is, at the end, as much as the knots are stiff­
ened, this rigidity does not bring benefit to the
structure.
6 CONCLUSIONS
A simple structural calculation has been made on the
structure of the roof of the Moscow Equestrian Hall.
The dimensions of the original cover and the Bauza
modifications have been taken as faithfully as possible.
The conditions of the materials and the loads acting on
it have been assumed. In this work, which is only
intended to be a very brief summary, it is shown that
the solution provided by Bauza improves the structural
capacity of the roof and solves stability problems.
A more detailed investigation would shed light on
more aspects of the roof.
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siglo XIX, Madrid. Madrid: Colegio de Ingenieros de
Caminos, Canales y Puertos.
Cálculo de estructuras 3D con barras de madera, acero,
aluminio o de cualquier material. En cype.es.
La Parra, E & Larriba, E. (2008). Memorias de Manuel
Godoy. Valencia: Universidad de Alicante 2008.
 Reconstruction and Restoration of Architectural Heritage 2021 – Sementsov, Leontyev & Huerta (Eds)
© 2021 Taylor & Francis Group, London, ISBN 978-0-367-68296-5

Exile of Spanish engineer Agustín de Betancourt to Russia during the

Spanish political crisis of 1807-1808
M.J. Pozas
Deusto University, Bilbao, Spain

ABSTRACT: In this work I will simply explore how the Spanish political crisis of 1807-1808 influenced
the life of the distinguished Spanish engineer Agustín de Betancourt, whose events would precipitate the dra­
matic decision he had to make: to exile definitively to Russia, which would become his adopted homeland,
and where he carried out numerous works throughout the Russian Empire both civilian and military; in add­
ition to important architectural and urban planning projects, being the brightest point of his career; he also
reached high military positions and in the administration of the Russian Empire. In the words of former Presi­
dent of the Soviet Union Mijaíl Gorbachov became “the most illustrious collaborator Russia has ever had.”

1 INTRODUCTION to the invention of the optical telegraph that was

The objective of this analysis is to seek the explana­
tory reasons for the exile of the illustrious engineer
Agustín de Betancourt who was born in Puerto de la
Cruz on the island of Tenerife (Spain) in 1758, he
belonged to a family of the Canary nobility, and
ended his days in 1824 in St. Petersburg (Pozas
Pozas 2019). He made an extraordinary career in
Madrid, he highlighted on engineering where he
acquired a great prestige, especially on the mechan­
ical side. On the other hand, he obtained the protec­
tion of the ministers of Charles III and Charles IV,
the Counts of Aranda and Floridablanca who sent
him as a pensioner of the Spanish government, first
to France, and then to England the cradle of the
Industrial Revolution, to improve his engineering
knowledge and the most prestigious engineer in
Europe. I would like to mention the important con­
tacts he had throughout his life with his English and
French colleagues in particular with his French part­
ner Abraham Louis-Breguet, with whom, among
other collaborations, designed in 1800 the optical
telegraph between Madrid and Cadiz, although he
only reached Aranjuez for lack of economic this
invention was monitored by the Inquisition, as this
circumstance was conducive to proceeding against
Betancourt, since the Holy Office carried a genuine
crusade against reformism and the Enlightenment,
and against those who were considered the highest
representatives in the governments of Carlo III and
Charles IV (Roura & Aulinas 2002). Certainly, the
Enlightenment showed a growing interest in Betan­
court’s work as an engineer, and its vision of science
and technology with distrust. Hence, they argued as
a satanic device: Sending words through the air over
long distances is a curse typical of the devil himself,
and “the authors of such devices should be sent to
prison or the bonfire” (Kuznetsov 2018).
From a cultural point of view it can be said that
Betancourt experienced the sunset of the reformist
stage of the illustrated Bourbons – Ferdinand VI,
and Charles III – it was the end of a great illusion
and provoked frustration in the national conscious­
ness; also, in the early years of the nineteenth cen­
tury there was a general awareness of the Old
Regime crisis in public opinion (Artola 1974). The
reign of Charles IV marked the beginning of the
illustrated absolutism crisis, and in the last years of
his reign increased the opposition to the interior and
foreign policy of the King, of his ministers and in
particular of the Prime Minister and valid Manuel
Godoy (Seco Serrano 1978).
It is important to note how Betancourt had to live
in extraordinary and bellicose international contexts
such as the French Revolution, the fight for colonial
domains and the Napoleonic Empire.
It is also necessary to underline the dynamics of
European events from 1789 which was to be a clear
priority of international affairs in the politics of the
Spanish monarchy. The set of wars between 1790
and 1808 had important economic consequences. To
which we must add the hegemony of the privileged
states and the combative role of the clergy especially
against Godoy by the confiscation of ecclesiastical
goods (Santana Pérez 2004).
During the Godoy government it can be said that
from the Treaty of St. Idelfonso of 1796 there was
a capitulation of Spain before France, which it was

DOI: 10.1201/9781003136804-69

356
intensified with the signing of the Treaty of Fon­
tainebleau in 1807, the cause of the invasion of
Spain by Napoleonic troops and the Independence
War. This latest event warned Betancourt of the con­
venience of leaving Spain (Egido 2015).
2 THE REASONS FOR EXILE
We must not ignore the strong reasons that unsettled
Betancourt, nor is it surprising that from the first
five-year period of the nineteenth century several cir­
cumstances brought Betancourt’s decision to go into
exile with his family. As the environment offered all
the ingredients so that social tensions could gain sig­
nificant prominence because of the political, social
and economic events of 1807 and 1808, which influ­
enced Betancourt’s decision to opt for exile. In 1807
the “Conspiracy of Escorial” was discovered, in
which Fernando, the heir son of Charles IV who
intended to overthrow his father; however, those
prosecuted in the process that were part of the “Fer­
nandino party” were acquitted for lack of evidence
and banished from the Court, the Crown Prince
obtained royal pardon (La Parra 2008). On the other
hand, there was the “courtly party” that supported
King Charles IV and Godoy, which made Betancourt
fear that a civil war would be triggered because of
the confrontation between the “Fernandino party”
and the “courtly party” or that a revolution would
break out, as he expressed in a letter addressed to his
brother José residing in Tenerife, written from
St. Petersburg on 15th September 1814: Since
I observed the enmity that reigned in Spain between
the Prince of Asturias (now Ferdinand VII) and
Godoy, I assumed that there must be a revolution in
Spain, and that in that case it was necessary, so as
not to perish with my family, to seek asylum in
a foreign king in which to put her safe, and it
seemed to me that Russia must be the most appropri­
ate (Cullen 2008).
After this explicit text, it wouldn´t be surprising
that Betancourt made the decision to go into exile,
one cannot underestimate the fear he felt for his own
life and his family. In addition, he had lived closely
with the French Revolution and it did not do well;
so, he must have perceived with unease the clouds
that were closing in his surroundings. To all this it
should be added that since 1806 Napoleon con­
sidered the invasion of Spain (Varela Suanzes-
Carpegna 2008).
At the same time Betancourt experienced other
effects during the reign of Charles IV, as were eco­
nomic crises, a first inflationary phase begins at the
end of the eighteenth century, and reaches until
1804, and a second phase extends from 1806 to 1812
(Vicens Vives 1979). These crises coincided with
Spain’s wars against England since 1796, as Spain
had restarted its alliance with the Revolutionary
France. Consequently, it entered in a period of con­
traction caused by the English blockade of the
357
Atlantic, which affected Betancourt’s business, as
was the case with the Royal Avila Cotton Factory
which he had bought to the Crown in 1799 (Martín
García 1989), and which he had to end up finally
selling to the Crown in 1807 because it was not com­
petitive; it also came with a time when he was short
of money, although he had always little money
throughout his life (Volosyuk 2019).
To all that has been said, we must add the insidi­
ous things he had to endure and the clear purpose of
discrediting him by his enemies, especially by the
powerful Godoy who pursued Betancourt the point
of pushing him into exile. As is well known Godoy’s
ineptitude not only had serious consequences on the
internal situation in Spain, but he must be considered
guilty, with its uncertainty and passivity of the devel­
opment of the invasion of Napoleonic troops in
Spain (La Parra, 2002).
In any case, Betancourt’s relationship with Godoy
was not exactly peaceful, especially since 1803.
They reached a confrontation because of discrepan­
cies over a runway works of the River Genil passing
through the Roman farm located in the Vega de
Granada owned by Godoy, which had been given to
Godoy by King Charles IV in 1795, the Betancourt´s
situation was complicated from this conflict, as it
must be noted that Godoy’s pre-eminence was abso­
lute; he withdrew his confidence in 1805; so “luck
was cast.” As a result, Betancourt began to consider
exile once again (Camarero 2019).
Meanwhile, Spain’s political and social situation
during the biennium of 1806-1807 was disturbing. It
should be emphasized that Betancourt had been pro­
tected by the powerful ministers of Charles III and
Charles IV, Counts of Aranda and Floridablanca, it
was not the case of Godoy, and that among the favor­
ites of kings he can be considered of those of the
worst kind. It is clear that Godoy could not stand by
his side superior men of his culture, this was pre­
cisely the main cause of the pressure he exerted on
Betancourt as it had happened with other politicians,
this was the case of Jovellanos, the most enlightened
minister of the reign of Charles IV (Vicens Vives
1979).
All these reasons put forward caused Betancourt
to leave Spain forever. Even though he had a strong
position as Director of the Royal Machinery Cabinet
that had founded in 1792 becoming the first Museum
of Science and Technique of the word (Rumeu de
Armas-Payen 1990). He held the positions of
Inspector General of Roads and Channels and Dir­
ector of the Engineering School of Road and Canal
of Madrid that he had founded in 1802 following the
model of l’Ecole des Ponts et Chaussés of Paris, of
which he was director until 1807.
As we have pointed out, Napoleon had his eyes
set on invading Spain, while the ideals of the
Enlightenment had lost strength and they turned to
Enlightened Absolutism. We also know Betancourt
was experiencing economic difficulties as we have
noted above. In the light of these events, in
a convulsive world he considered his future; so, in
1807 he asked King Charles IV for permission to
travel with his family to Paris in order to acquire
new parts for the Royal Machinery Cabinet (Kuznet­
sov 2018). This episode is reflected in the aforemen­
tioned letter of September 18th, 1814 from
St. Petersburg, and which we will mention again for
being a first-hand testimony, which projects light on
Betancourt’s vital journey, these are his words: I was
observing the storm and then Napoleon asked for
troops from Spain, and they gave him the ones led by
the Marquis de la Romana, it seemed to me that it
was time to get out of there; and as at that time
every individual who enjoyed some consideration
was leaving the Court, I was granted a license to
travel at the instant that I requested it (Cullen 2008).
To all this we must add the decision to appoint his
friend Abraham Louis-Breguet who resided in Paris
administrator of his property, and in mid-December
1807 he traveled to St. Petersburg to know the situ­
ation better, days after the assault of French troops
on the Pavilion of the Good Retreat in Madrid,
which housed the Royal Machinery Cabinet (Rui-
Wamba 2007).
3 THE ROUTE TO EXILE IN RUSSIA
The confrontation between Godoy and Betancourt is
centered around 1803, at which point Betancourt ser­
iously considered his departure from Spain, for
which it was important the relationship with the Rus­
sian ambassador in Madrid Muravyov-Apostol
(1802-1805), who had met Betancourt and whom he
described as “the wisest mechanic not only in Spain
but in Europe” (Volosyuk 2019). Negotiations
between Betancourt and Muravyov-Apostol were
fruitful, and acceptable the conditions for putting
themselves at the service of Emperor Alexander
I. Betancourt made the decision to go abroad after
having visited for more than thirty years countries
such as Spain, France, England, Holland and Ger­
many. He finally decided on Russia after reaching an
advantageous agreement with Emperor Alexander I.
Betancourt’s march to Russia seemed like the best
option, even if he had preferred England, but at the
time it was not possible because in 1796 the English
government, which was at war with Spain, had
expelled him from the country accusing him of
industrial espionage, the subject of which has not
been documentary proven, and in my opinion is part
of the “Black Legend” of which the English have
been masters. On the contrary, Betancourt was part
of the process of the so-called “transmission of
knowledge”, which constituted one of the principles
of the Enlightenment and should not be confused
with espionage (González Tascón 1996).
While it is true that Betancourt could have settled
in France where he had good friends and illustrious
colleagues; however, this was impossible due to pol­
itical circumstances, as France was at war with
358
Spain, and had become either a traitor or a hostage
and another possibility was to end up as prisoner in
the castle of Vincennes, so that he had only the way
to Russia; on the other hand, it was a way to get
away from Napoleon’s territorial ambitions; which
Betancourt never thought that Napoleon would end
up invading the Russian empire in 1812.
Betancourt had settled in Paris in May 1807 with
his wife Anne Jourdain and four children from
where he made the first exploratory trip to Russia in
October 1807 invited by Foreign Minister Nikolai
Petrovich Rumiantsev; in December he was received
in private audience by Emperor Alexander I in
St. Petersburg, who knew Betancourt’s patents and
works through his minister Rumiantsev (Sharife
2020). During the first quarter of 1808 Emperor
Alexander I and his minister Rumiantsev invited
Betancourt to visit the country’s main industries.
The job proposals in Russia were very good, but
Betancourt decided to return to Paris under the pre­
text of consulting his family. He describes the
reasons for this trip in his aforementioned letter of
15th September 1814 written from St. Petersburg;
that is, seven years later than the facts it relates; in it,
he sets out the reasons that led him to Russia and
which I collect in the words of the protagonist him­
self: I came here as they say to feel out the situation,
and I was perfectly received from the Emperor, who
made me very advantageous propositions if I wanted
to enter to serve him. However, nothing I admitted
or refused and taking the pretext of wanting to con­
sult with my family returned to Paris (Cullen 2008).
Returning to Paris he was aware of the Mutiny of
Aranjuez that took place on 18th March 1808 in the
city of Aranjuez (Madrid). It was a popular uprising,
which would result in the destitution of prime minis­
ter and valid Godoy, and the abdication of King
Charles IV in his son Ferdinand VII and was the
prelude to the War of Independence with the uprising
against the French of Madrid people on 2nd
May 1808 (Esdaile 2002).
Thus, Betancourt described the consequences of
the Mutiny of Aranjuez and how this event was the
ultimatum that precipitated him to the final decision
to serve Alexander I. Let´s hear it from Betancourt
in the same letter of 15th September 1814: I knew it
when I arrived (to Paris) the abdication of the
Crown of Charles IV and the coming to Bayonne of
Ferdinand VII. After the famous meeting was formed
in which this one was stripped him the Crown, not
wanting to be exposed to serve the intruder King
I took the party of coming here with my family, com­
posed of my wife, three daughters and a son, whose
individuals I keep in the day. The Emperor and all
the people of the imperial family welcomed me with
distinctions that I could neither pretend nor wait
(Cullen 2008).
In relation to Betancourt’s second and final trip to
Russia, it was developed as follows. On his return
from St. Petersburg to Paris in late May 1808 Betan­
court took the opportunity to leave the
administration of his property again in the hands of
his friend and partner Breguet before leaving for
Russia with his wife and children. He already knew
the outbreak of the War of Independence in Spain
against the French; their situation was compromised
when they were at the time in an enemy country; so
in September 1808 he went with his family to the
German city of Erfurt, where the Congress of the
same name was held in which the meeting between
Emperors Napoleon I and Alexander I would take
place, in an attempt to reaffirm the alliance between
France and Russia following the previous Treaty
of Tilsit, which ended the war of the Fourth
Coalition. The Russian ambassador in Paris had
informed Emperor Alexander I of the possible
meeting with Betancourt, as the Emperor had
devised a plan to modernize Russian land and
river roads and needed foreign specialists. On the
other hand, Emperor Alexander I had unbeatable
references of Betancourt by the aforementioned
Ambassador Muravyov-Apostol, the Russian min­
ister Nikolai Petrovich Rumiantsev, and the
French Academy of Sciences had written him
a letter in which was said that “there is no more
wise man in the world than Betancourt to organ­
ize his vast Empire”. Finally, the Emperor
received Betancourt and accepted his conditions
incorporating him into the service of Russia with
the rank of Major General (Kuznetsov 2018).
At last Betancourt and his family arrived in
St. Petersburg on November 28th, 1808 to work in
the Department of Aquatic Communications.
It will be listed below the positions held by Betan­
court in the sixteen years he served Emperor Alexan­
der I:
In 1808 as Field Marshal.
In 1809 Lieutenant General.
In 1809 Inspector of the Institute of Communica­
tion Ways Corps or Military College to instruct
engineers.
Director General of Internal Communication
Engineers Corps.
In 1816 Director of the Constructions and
Hydraulic Committee Works.
In 1819 he held the position of Director General
of Russian Communication Roads.
In February 1824 he presented to the Emperor
the resignation of all his posts and died in
St. Petersburg according to the Julian calendar on
July 14th, 1824 and according to the Gregorian
on the 26th, at his last residence on 19 Bolshaya
Morskaya Street, very close to St. Isaac’s Cath­
edral, his great work in St. Petersburg. At the
time of his death, he was accompanied by his
family and friends, and the two Murillo painting
(Sharife 2020) sent by his family from Tenerife
a few years ago, and those he had painted of his
dear mountain of Teide. He always remained
attached to his Canarian Island homeland. He is
buried in the Russian National Celebrity Pantheon
at Lazareski Cemetery in St. Petersburg.
359
4 CONCLUSIONS
Betancourt must highlight his extraordinary intelli­
gence, his honesty, and to be a good patriot. He was
enlightened and held liberal positions, he was
a person coherent with his ideas, and never
renounced the illustrated principles. On the other
hand, he was not a flattering courtier, for his illus­
trated mentality he was always considered an inde­
pendent man.
Betancourt revolutionized engineering, architec­
ture, science and technology, and he is considered
the father of civil engineering. He had a European
vocation and built bridges between Europe and
Russia through scientific knowledge put at the ser­
vice of society.
When it comes to taking an overall account of
Betancourt’s life and work, it can be said that he was
a character full of impetus, insight, and clairvoyance.
He accomplished great and exceptional things, as the
Roman poet Horace would say he possessed a quid
divine, and he got a halo of distinction; however, he
also suffered the envy and insidious of his enemies.
He never recovered from Spanish exile, and later
the fall into disgrace with Emperor Alexander I, it
caused him deep suffering in the last years of his
life. Consequently, it could be noted that in a sense
Betancourt is part of the select club of the “losers of
history”.
At last, it should be noted that he transformed the
Russia of the Tsars, and he drew the urban lines of
St. Petersburg to make it one of the most beautiful
cities in the world with exceptional significance. The
spirit of Betancourt remains in the light of
St. Petersburg. Finally, Betancourt probably fol­
lowed in his life this Maximum of the Roman
Emperor Marcus Aurelius: We must have the cour­
age to change what can be changed, the serenity to
accept what cannot be changed and, above all, the
intelligence to know in which of the two situations
we find ourselves.
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Gran Canaria: Domibari Editores.
Egido, T. 2015. España en el reinado de Carlos IV. Madrid:
Ediciones 19.
Esdaile, Ch. 2002. La Guerra de la Independencia: una
nueva Historia. Barcelona: Crítica.
González Tascón, I (Dir.) 1996. Betancourt. Los inicios de
la ingeniería moderna en Europa. Madrid, MOPyMA.
Kuznetsov, D. 2018. Betancourt. Ingeniero por excelencia.
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La Parra López, E. 2002. Manuel Godoy, la aventura del
poder. Barcelona: Tusquet.
La Parra López, E. 2008. En vísperas de la guerra: el tri­
unfo de Fernando VII en el Escorial y Aranjuez. Revista
general de marina. (255):201–215.
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la etapa final del Antiguo Régimen. La Real Fábrica de
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arquitectura y al urbanismo del ingeniero español Agus­
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 Reconstruction and Restoration of Architectural Heritage 2021 – Sementsov, Leontyev & Huerta (Eds)
© 2021 Taylor & Francis Group, London, ISBN 978-0-367-68296-5

Influence of European styles on the country houses architecture of Saint

Petersburg
M.V. Rybalchenko
Saint Petersburg State University of Architecture and Civil Engineering, Saint Petersburg, Russia

ABSTRACT: This article examines the wooden country architecture of the eclectic surroundings of
St. Petersburg in the second half of the XIX century in order to identify the sources of borrowing decorative
elements and compositional forms, on the basis of which the assumption is made about the presence of three
dominant style varieties at the end of the XIX century: “Russian”, “constructive wooden” styles and “chalet
style”. The analysis of Russian and foreign sources of that time devoted to wooden architecture, as well as
projects of country houses in the vicinity of St. Petersburg, allows us to identify the main prototypes that
architects turned to for borrowing details. The first group includes Russian traditional architecture: peasant
wooden architecture and stone architecture of the XVII century, the second group includes Western European
styles: “chalet style”, “neo-Gothic” of Victorian architecture, and “half-timbered style” of German histori­
cism. The latter had the greatest influence on the wooden architecture of this period.

1 INTRODUCTION 2 MATERIALS AND METHODS

Wooden country houses architecture of the second
half of the XIX century is represented by a wide var­
iety of compositional solutions and decorative
details, the appearance of which indicates borrowing
from both traditional Russian architecture and West­
ern European national styles. With the apparent evi­
dence of the presence of traces of the influence of
many directions on a particular object, the search for
specific prototypes of the details of this object is dif­
ficult due to the lack of information on this topic.
Meanwhile, without knowing the prototypes of the
parts, it is difficult to carry out the country sit restor­
ation, when analogs of the lost elements are required.
The abundance of techniques and ways to combine
them complicates the definition of the style direction
of construction, and the lack of style classification
does not allow us to present a picture of the develop­
ment of suburban construction in full.
The architecture of the XIX-XX centuries was
considered in detail in their works by art historians
Lisovsky V. G. (2000), Kirichenko E. I. (1982),
Pechenkin I. E. (2015), Nashchokina M. V. (1999),
and other authors. The main focus of the scientists
was on the analysis of key objects and literary, philo­
sophical, and social theories that influenced the
architects of that time. The suburban development of
the environs of St. Petersburg became the subject of
research by Bravo A. E. and Travina E. M. (2016),
but the central place in their work is occupied by the
history of the owners and the way of country life.
By the end of the XIX century, a large number of
stylistic varieties were observed in the wooden archi­
tecture of the surroundings of St. Petersburg, which
manifest themselves in two manifestations: in the
projects of country houses of Russian architects of
that time and in the literature devoted to trends in
modern architecture at that time. Analysis of these
sources indicates that in the second half of the XIX
century, Russian eclectic architects resorted to all
kinds of decorative elements, but when designing
wooden country houses, they most often turned to
Russian traditional architecture and to certain West­
ern European national styles that became prototypes.
The image of Russian traditional architecture in
this period was embodied in the wooden peasant
architecture and stone architecture of the XVII cen­
tury, the active study of which began in the 1850s, as
described in detail by V. G. Lisovsky. The goal of
numerous expeditions to study ancient monuments
was not only to preserve their images and descrip­
tions for history but also to create a database of sam­
ples of decorative details for architects to use when
designing buildings in the “Russian style”, as the sci­
entists themselves noted (Lisovsky 2000).
The Western European styles that have had the
greatest influence on wooden country houses archi­
tecture include the “chalet” style, “neo-Gothic” is an
offshoot of Victorian architecture, and the” half-
timbered style “ common in German-speaking coun­
tries. Despite the fact that the elements of the latter

DOI: 10.1201/9781003136804-70

361
are included in the concept of “neo-Gothic” and 3 RESULTS AND DISCUSSION
“chalet style”, “half-timbered style” is separated into
a separate group, since German works on architec­ By the end of the XIX century, in the vicinity of
ture played an important direct role for Russian spe­ St. Petersburg, with a large number of different styles
cialists. This is indicated by the presence of of varieties, among those that appealed to the national
a considerable number of copies of foreign drawings architecture of different countries, it is worth high­
in Russian books, which is more relevant to the lighting three main ones: “Russian”, “chalet” and
works of German authors. Kraut T. and Meyer Fr., “constructive wooden” “styles” (Figure 1). If the first
a book published in Leipzig in 1891, was translated two are fairly well-known, the latter is less specific,
into Russian a few years later under the title “ Car­ since it combines many Western European trends. In
pentry and carpentry in the interior decoration of the book “Architectural forms: stone, brick, wooden”
buildings “(Kraut, Meyer 1901). Durov A. I used this term when describing objects
Many drawings from another book by the same whose general style features were very popular in the
foreign authors (1893) became illustrations of the period under study in Russia (Durov 1904), which
work of Durov A. (1904) Decorative details of Kraut allows us to distinguish such buildings into a separate
T. and Meyer Fr. there are in the” Architectural style variety.
Encyclopedia of the XIX century “by Baranovsky Style varieties. In the projects of the “Russian”
G. V. (1904), there are also drawings of wooden and “constructive wooden” styles, the decorative
elements by the German architect Dorschfeld R. The
projects of the cottages of Christiansen Ol. are
placed on the pages of the” Atlas of projects of
wooden country houses” by Papengut A. F. (1904).
The principle of copying is also observed in the draft
master plans of country houses plots: the drawings
of Hempel K. (1894) were referred to in their works
by P. N. Steinberg. and Andreev P. (1912). Projects
of European cottages in the “Victorian style” and in
the “ chalet style “could also be found on the pages
of the encyclopedia of Baranovsky G. V. (1904), in
some issues of the magazine” Architect “(Bernhard
V. 1900), and in the “Album of architectural Draw­
ings”, compiled by students of the Construction
School (1853).
The work of Tilinsky A. “Country houses architec­
ture abroad” became in some way a catalog of Euro­
pean cottages in the “Victorian style” with plans and
sections (1913). Russian architects were well
acquainted with the foreign trends of that time in the
field of suburban architecture from primary sources,
to which they probably turned for samples of decora­
tive details and compositional solutions in the design.
Most of these Russian books belong to the beginning
of the XX century, although there is also an album of
1853, which means that the experience of turning to
European works in terms of national styles took place
already in the middle of the XIX century.
Many projects of St. Petersburg architects at the
end of the XIX century combined elements of vari­
ous architectural trends, but depending on the details
of which prototype was present more, it was
revealed that the object belonged to a particular style
direction. The definition of prototypes in this work is
based on the analysis of foreign and Russian literary
sources of that time, as well as the search for charac­
teristic details and techniques for different architec­
tural trends. A comparison of the decorative
solutions of the studied country houses in the vicin­
ity of St. Petersburg with the elements of prototypes
among Russian traditional architecture and Western Figure 1. Stylistic varieties that prevailed in the suburban
European national styles suggests possible borrow­ architecture of St. Petersburg in the second half of the XIX
ing from them by Russian architects. century.

362
decoration of the facades played a decisive role, horses, not typical of traditional Russian stone and
since their three-dimensional composition most wooden architecture, where the gable of the nail-less
often did not depend directly on the prototype and roof was completed with a carved fust, and the nail-
was built according to several common schemes less one was completed with a cross of vergeboard
(Figure 2): extensions or a peak, while the same detail is
depicted in the book of German authors Kraut T. and
• a building without a high-rise dominant; one or Meyer Fr.(1893). A gable canopy with vertical elem­
more gables acted as the compositional centers of ents and filling the frame wall of the gable with
the facades, the dynamics of the composition was
a number of planks with pointed ends were common
created due to the nuanced ratio of the gables by techniques of German architects, who also decorated
mass; the facades of the house of Buturlin D. P. (Figure 3).
• a building with one high-rise dominant-the tower, The carving of tables and fences of objects of “Rus­
which had a compositional connection with the sian” and other specified style varieties often had
main gable; common decorative solutions, which are based on
• a building with several high-rise dominants. the form of a classical balustrade, so the search for
These schemes are typical for objects of both influences from national styles in such cases does
“Russian” and “constructive wooden” styles, their not make sense.
difference was determined only by the decorative “Constructive wooden” style. The buildings of
solution and the form of the wedding of high-rise the “constructive wooden” style were created under
dominants. the influence of the “neo-Gothic” and the German
“Russian” style. “Russian” style buildings were
influenced by the following architectural trends:
Russian wooden architecture, Russian stone architec­
ture of the XVII century, and the German “half­
timbered” style. The cottages of the late 19th cen­
tury, made in the “Russian” style, differed from the
model houses of K. Rossi and other masters of the
first half of the 19th century: their prototype was not
peasant huts, but boyar mansions (Lisovsky 2000).
The principle of decorating the facades was close to
the examples of stone architecture of the XVII cen­
tury with their richness of decoration and fine div­
ision of forms. With all the variety of details,
common techniques were used, many of which
could be seen on the facades of the house of Buturlin
D. P., built-in 1871 on Kamenny Island by the archi­
tect Sobolshikov V. I. The influence of wooden
architecture is seen in the presence of bargeboards,
towels, and the open surface of a log cabin, which
were found on almost every object of the “Russian”
style.
The stone architecture of the XVII century was
probably the source of such techniques as inter-story
draughts, metal checkers, the decorative ridge on the
ridge, and window framing in the form of two col­
umns on the sides of the opening, on which
a triangular pediment with a central right-angle rest.
No less influence is observed from the German
“half-timbered” style: the gable of the house is
crowned with a wooden detail with figures of two

Figure 2. Compositional solutions prevailed in the suburban

architecture of St. Petersburg in the second half of the XIX Figure 3. Comparison of decorative elements of the house
century. of D. P. Buturlin and possible prototypes.

363
“half-timbered” style. A striking example of the
objects of this direction was the country house of
W. Tilmans in Pargolov in 1899 by the architect
Levi Z. Ya. The windows with pointed fragments,
the pattern of the carving of the wooden fence, and
the pillars with arches were elements of the “carpen­
ter Gothic” of Victorian architecture (McArdle
et al.1978). The “half-timbered” style is primarily
indicated by the gable pattern, the carving of the
rafter legs with a characteristic undulating curve at
the end, and the gable canopy. Krauth T. and Meyer
Fr. cite in their book’s possible schemes of gable
canopies (Krauth, M. 1893), among which there are
through structures-connections, close to the variant
of the house of Buturlin D. P., and solid canopies
with a complex contour, as on the country house of
W. Tillmans (Figure 4). Other details of the “half­
timbered” style, which are common in the vicinity of
St. Petersburg, but are absent in the project
Levi Z. Ya., include wooden posts with brackets,
Figure 4. Comparison of decorative elements of country houses and their possible prototypes.
364
rafters, and fences. Their carvings were distin­
guished by a strict hermetic ornament with detailed
detailing.
“Chalet” style. If the buildings of the “Russian”
and “constructive wooden” styles are characterized
by the same compositional schemes, then the country
house in the “chalet” style, first of all, differed in the
three-dimensional solution. It was matched by one
or two simple volumes sometimes with a low sec­
ondary turret, sloping gable roofs with large over­
hangs on the brackets, and bypass galleries around
the perimeter of the building. The decorative decor­
ation of country houses also included elements of
the “chalet” and the German “half-timbered” style.
The Country house of the poor young inmates of the
Children’s Home named after Gromov V. F. and
Gromov I. F. at Engels Avenue, built according to
the drawings of Peterson M. F. in 1873, clearly
reflected these influences. The form of cutting the
edge of the rafters ‘ legs was probably borrowed

Figure 5. Comparison of details of a 1950s house in the
Leningrad region (left) and images from the book by Kraut
Th. and Meyer Fr. 1893.
from the works of German architects since it is not
common for “chalets”, but German books contain
many identical examples.
The “chalet” style is indicated by the far-
projecting brackets formed from the releases of logs
with a sinuous contour and the window openings,
which had a characteristic style of framing and pro­
portions with a predominance of rectangular forms
of the horizontal direction. A special role in the
architecture of the “chalet” was played by
a decorative ornamental belt running along the per­
imeter of the building, often picking up the line of
fences of balconies and galleries, which could be
seen on the facade of the country house of the poor
young inmates of the Children’s Home.
The crowning “gable flower” was not a common
element of the Alpine buildings themselves, which are
the prototypes of the “chalet” style, but the country
houses of the historicist era related to it were often dec­
orated with such an element: it could be located on
a ridge or hang from it. Many images of the “gable
flower” can be found on the pages of foreign books
about the architecture of the “chalet” (Gladbach 1913).
The objects considered in some cases were built
earlier than the books with the details that are refer­
enced were published, but the fact that these details
are present in these books is more important. Dec­
orative techniques of Western European national
styles were obviously known to Russian architects
earlier from other foreign works. Some decorative
elements, which are more characteristic of Western
European styles than of traditional Russian architec­
ture, were so widely used in the country construction
of the St. Petersburg environs of the second half of
the XIX – early XX centuries that they became an
integral part of the widespread decorative solution of
a country house in the second half of the XX century
and in our time. These include a belt of vertical
elements with pointed ends (Figure 5), window
frames with a wavy contour, and patterned carved
fascia, which are found on many houses of the 50s
of the XX century in the Leningrad region (Russia).
4 CONCLUSION
1. By the end of the XIX century, three main styles
were distinguished in the wooden country
365
architecture of the St. Petersburg environs: “Rus­
sian”, “chalet” and “constructive wooden” styles.
2. The considered examples of these stylistic trends
demonstrate the importance of the influence of
Western European national styles on the suburban
architecture of the environs of St. Petersburg. It
manifests itself in the presence of decorative
elements and forms of the German “half­
timbered” style, “neo-Gothic” Victorian architec­
ture, and “chalet style” in the projects of Russian
architects. Possible borrowing from which is con­
firmed by the presence of a large number of
copies of drawings by foreign masters in the Rus­
sian literature of that time. In addition, the proto­
type of decorative details was Russian traditional
architecture: peasant wooden architecture and
“pattern” of the XVII century.
3. The greatest influence is observed from the
German “half-timbered” style, which was mani­
fested in all three described architectural trends
of the second half of the XIX century, and is pre­
sent today.
REFERENCES
Andreev P. 1912. Motifs of elegant gardening.
St. Petersburg: Soikina P. P.
Baranovsky G. V. 1904. Architectural Encyclopedia of
the second half of the XIX century. Saint Petersburg:
Stroitel’.
Bernhard V. R. 1900. Construction art. Architect.
St. Petersburg: Gradonachal’stvo.
Bravo A. E., & Travina, E. M. 2016. Zelenogorsk, terijoki:
dacha life a hundred years ago. Saint Petersburg:
T︠S︡entr Sokhranenii︠a︡ Kulʹturnogo Nasledii︠a︡.
Cieraad I., 2018. Bringing Nostalgia Home: Switzerland
and the Swiss Chalet, Architecture and Culture, 6 (2):
265–288.
Dana, W. S. B. 1913. The Swiss chalet book. Moscow:
Ripoll Classic.
Durov A., 1904. Architectural forms: stone, brick, wood.
Moscow: Brothers Gretsov and Zaitsev.
Hampel C. 1894. Hundert kleine Gärten: Plan, Beschrei­
bung und Bepflanzung: entworfen und bearbeitet für
Gärtner, Baumeister und Villenbesitzer. Berlin: Parey P.
Kirichenko E. I., 1982. Russian architecture of the 1830s­
1910s. Moscow: Art.
Kraut T. & Meyer Fr., Gogina L. (Ed.), 1901. Carpentry
and carpentry work in the interior decoration of build­
ings. St. Petersburg: Golstena G. V.
Krauth Th. & Meyer Fr. S. 1893. Die Bau- und Kunstzim­
merei: mit besonderer Berücksichtigung der äusseren
Form. Leipzig: Seemann E. A.
Lisovsky V. G. 2000. “National style” in the architecture
of Russia. Moscow: Sovpadenie.
McAlester V. S., 1984. A Field Guide to American Houses:
The Definitive Guide to Identifying and Understanding
America’s Domestic Architecture. New York: Knopf
McArdle A., McArdle D. B., Hamilton F. L., 1978. Car­
penter Gothic: nineteenth-century ornamented houses
of New England. New York: Whitney Library of
Design.
Naschokina M. V., 1999. Moscow Art Nouveau. The prob­
lem of Western European influences. Moscow:
Bioinformservice.
Papengut A. F. 1904. Atlas of projects of wooden houses,
household services and structural details for them.
St. Petersburg: Technology, crafts and agricultural
architecture.
Pechenkin I. E. (2015). On the question of the term “Neo-
Russian style”. The experience of understanding. Dec­
orative art and the subject-spatial environment. Bulletin
of the MGHPA, (1): 138–145.
366
Punin A. L., 1990. The architecture of St. Petersburg in the
middle of the XIX century. Leningrad: Lenizdat.
Tilinsky A., 1913. Country architecture abroad: cottages,
villas and mansions: facades and plans of stone and
wooden buildings in new styles. St. Petersburg: Strakuna
M. G.
Zink C. W. 1987. Dutch Framed Houses in New York and
New Jersey. Winterthur Portfolio, 22(4): 265–294.
Zwerger K. 2012. Wood and wood joints: building tradi­
tions of Europe, Japan and China. Berlin: Walter de
Gruyter.
 Reconstruction and Restoration of Architectural Heritage 2021 – Sementsov, Leontyev & Huerta (Eds)
© 2021 Taylor & Francis Group, London, ISBN 978-0-367-68296-5

Study of colonnade structures of St. Isaac’s Cathedral in St. Petersburg

P. Shchedrin
Saint-Petersburg State University of Architecture and Civil Engineering, Saint-Petersburg, Russia

ABSTRACT: Investigation of the problems of leaks in the colonnade of the stylobate of St. Isaac’s Cath­
edral, located at St. Petersburg, St. Isaac’s Square, 4. Study of previous studies over the past 120 years. The
purpose of the survey was to identify the causes of the destruction of the marble facade of the stylobate and
waterlogging of the brickwork under the columns of the drum. The survey of the structures of the colonnade
of St. Isaac’s Cathedral was carried out by designers and a group of restorers of stone architecture in 2019 ­
2020 in connection with the planned restoration repairs.

1 INTRODUCTION which he attached sculptures and ornamental orna­

The construction of St. Isaac’s Cathedral in
St. Petersburg lasted from 1818 to 1858. In its scope, it
surpassed this kind of work not only in St. Petersburg
but also in all of Russia. Over 40 years, it was attended
by almost 500,000 people: stonemasons, carpenters,
stone cutters, sculptors, blacksmiths, sculptors, and
painters (Butikov & Khvostova 1979).
The renovation of the 3rd St. Isaac’s Cathedral
was ordered by a rescript of Emperor Alexander
I dated February 20, 1818. This work was supervised
by a special commission chaired by Count
N. N. Golovin, a member of the State Council.
First, the western part of the old cathedral was
dismantled. In July 1819, a bronze gilded plaque
with a text about the renovation of the temple was
laid under the future structure.
The construction of the 4th St. Isaac’s Church
began with the construction of the foundation.
Assuming to minimize the consequences of the
future uneven precipitation of the grand structure.
Montferrand designed a solid foundation laid under
the entire cathedral. This was a rare case even for
St. Petersburg, with its shaky, swampy soil.
At the same time as the foundation was laid, gran­
ite monoliths were prepared for the columns of the
cathedral in a quarry on the shore of the Gulf of Fin­
land, in the town of Puterlaks (near Vyborg).
The columns were raised vertically with the help of
scaffolding of the original design of engineer
A. Betancourt (Butikov & Khvostova 1979). The next
stage of construction work was the construction of
vaults, the thickness of which reaches 1.25 m. In add­
ition to the structural brick vaults, Montferrand
arranged decorative vaults (on an iron frame), to
ments. Between these vaults, there is a free space with
a height of about 30 cm, which guarantees the safety
of the decor even if the structural vaults are damaged.
The work was carried out with great haste. The
masons worked the masonry until it was very dark.
Brickbats were constantly being carried up high
ladders. People were tired to such an extent that after
finishing work, they often fell asleep right there on
the scaffolding.
In the estimate for 1835, it is planned to: “Extrac­
tion, cutting in the pipe, as well as delivery to the
structure of 24 solid granite columns for a large
dome. “(Russian State Historical Archive, f.1311,
inv.1, cas. 874, p.17). The cost of these works was
192,000 rubles (Russian State Historical Archive,
f.1311, inv.1, cas. 874, p.28).
By the autumn of 1837, not only the vaults
were erected, but also the base of the dome
drum, in the thickness of which two vaulted gal­
leries were arranged one above the other to
facilitate it.
To install 24 columns around the drum, each of
which weighs about 48.52 tons (Central State Arch­
ive of Literature and Art of St. Petersburg, f. 598,
inv. 1, cas. 28) and has a height of more than 13 m,
it was necessary to use ingenious devices. In the
center of the building was built a wooden platform
(Figure 1) and an inclined plane that rose to the level
of the base of the columns.
There were mobile scaffolding and 12 capstans.
After placing the column on a cart, it was lifted using
capstans on a platform and an inclined plane to
a platform located at a height of 43 m. Then, using
mobile scaffolding, they put the column in its place
(Figure 2). The installation of all the columns was

DOI: 10.1201/9781003136804-71

367

Figure 1. Lithography. Lifting the columns on the drum of
the cathedral (de Montferrand 1845).
Figure 2. Plan of scaffolding for lifting columns on the
drum of St. Isaac’s Cathedral (de Montferrand 1845).
carried out within two months (Figure 5) with the par­
ticipation of 300 workers, who acted truly heroically
since the slightest miscalculation threatened them with
death (Kolotov 1964).
For the first time in construction practice, columns
of this weight and size were raised to a height of
more than 40 meters (Figure 6).
2 MATERIALS AND METHODS
As part of the study, measurements and observations
were made of the brickwork under the bases of the
columns of the colonnade of St. Isaac’s Cathedral,
the marble facing of the stylobate under the roof to
identify the causes of the destruction of the marble
facade of the stylobate and waterlogging of the
brickwork under the columns of the drum of
St. Isaac’s Cathedral.
368
3 RESULTS
By making measurements, as well as observations in
dry and rainy weather, it was possible to make
a correct judgment about the causes of flooding of
the brickwork under the bases of the columns of the
colonnade (Figure 3). All bases are bent to the center
of the columns, and water flows into the seams. The
catchment area is very large. Rainwater at this height
is pressed by the wind against the column and flows
down it to the baseboard (Figure 4). Water stains are
also visible through the seams of the marble lining
located below the bases.
The condition of the marble facing of the stylo­
bate under the roof indicates the presence of water
leaks, which flows out, and abundantly, judging by
the lime stains on the facade. Many cracks and
inserts on the marble surface indicate frequent
repairs. And this is not due to wind erosion and the
climate at an altitude of 43-47 meters above ground
level. The characteristic destruction of the marble
cornice is located exactly under the bases of the col­
umns (Figure 4).
This made it possible to more accurately deter­
mine the cause of the destruction and flooding of the
masonry. The nature of the flooding of the masonry
is also determined by the depth of water penetration
into the thickness of the brick under the columns.
The exits of the effluents are observed in circular
Figure 3. Section of the colonnade fragment obtained
during the autopsy in 2018 (drawings by author): 1. ­
Marble facing; 2.- Copper inserts on the cornice; 3. ­
Drilled core to determine the condition of the masonry.

Figure 4. The direction of water leakage along with the
column base plate. Top view (drawings by author).
Figure 5. St. Isaac’s Cathedral. Plan and horizontal section
of the large dome. Blueprint (painted in watercolor) of the
1952 copy of the drawing (Scientific and Technical Library
of the St. Petersburg State University of Railways and
Communications, f. 4 No 189, sh. 189, drawing 1839).
galleries under the colonnade below 8.0 meters from
the level of the bases of the columns.
4 DISCUSSION
Earlier, the design institute had already conducted
studies of the colonnade, but then the experts could not
determine the cause of the flooding of the masonry
(St. Petersburg Design Institute for the Restoration of
369
Figure 6. A fragment of a photo. General view of the colon­
nade of the cathedral in 1859 (Gautier 1861).
Historical and Cultural Monuments “Lenproektrestav­
ratsiya” 2013). Also, the problem of leaks was not
noted by Professor P. Preobrazhensky in 1894 (Preo­
brazhensky 1894). Professor Nikitin also did not notice
problems with leaks, although he observed the building
for more than 20 years (Nikitin 1939).
According to the records of Academician Saba­
neyev (Sabaneev 1905), most often the destruc­
tion on the marble facing was repaired by cutting
down the destroyed marble and installing a new
piece. The very cause of the destruction was not
eliminated. Architect Mesmacher tried to work to
eliminate leaks from the roof for the marble
lining, but this work was carried out briefly,
point-by-point and with interruptions in work
(Tyzhnenko 1984).
5 CONCLUSION
Judging from the field survey, we can conclude the
construction features of the colonnade and the
causes of leaks:
- The columns were installed vertically on a prepared
pastel made of granite slabs. On which the bronze
base of the columns was installed, consisting of
a plinth and a fillet. From above, a column was
inserted into the base and its weight pressed the
base against the granite pastel.
- When squeezing out the solution located between
the column and the pastel, there was also a vertical
compression of the column base, while the upper
horizontal part of the plinth was pushed with
a slope to the axis of the column.
- It is difficult to notice this slope without a level.
- Rainwater falling on the plinth plane of the base,
flowed under the shavings and fell into the
masonry of the cathedral.
- This leak remained invisible for many years
because the marble facings were hidden from the
human eye.
- And as a result of these leaks, the brickwork of
the walls was flooded and the marble lining was
destroyed. Recommendations
In the future, it is necessary to develop a project
to eliminate leaks and restore the colonnade struc­
tures. The difficulty lies in the fact that it is neces­
sary to preserve the bases of the columns in the form
in which they have come to us, but also to carry out
a number of measures to eliminate leaks for many
years to come.
REFERENCES
Butikov G. P. & Khvostova G. A. 1979. State Museum-
monument of St. Isaac’s Cathedral. Leningrad: Artist of
the RSFSR.
de Montferrand A. R. 1845. Église cathédrale de Saint-Isaac
: description architecturale, pittoresque et historique de
370
ce monument: ouvrage dédié a sa majesté l’empereur de
toutes les russies. F. Bellizard et Company.
Gautier, T. 1861. Tresors d’art de la Russie ancienne et
moderne. Paris: Gide.
Kolotov M. G. 1964. St. Isaac’s Cathedral. Publishing
House of the Construction Literature. Leningrad;
Moscow: Stroyizdat.
Nikitin N. P. 1939. Auguste Montferrand: Design and con­
struction of St. Isaac’s Cathedral and the Alexander
Column. Leningrad: Leningrad Branch of the Union of
Soviet Architects.
Preobrazhensky, P. 1894. St. Isaac’s Cathedral: The history
of the construction of the temple, its sanctuaries and art­
istic attractions. Moscow: MO Wolf.
Sabaneev E. A. 1905. Repair of the building of St. Isaac’s
Cathedral. III Congress of Russian Architects.
St. Petersburg: Economic Typolithography.
St. Petersburg Design Institute for the Restoration of His­
torical and Cultural Monuments “Lenproektrestavrat­
siya”. 2013. The project of adaptation of metal ladders
for the ascent to the observation deck of St. Isaac’s
Cathedral and descent from it. Approved project
07.11.2013 Reg. no 3–9491. 8 to the Committee for
State Control, Use, and Protection of Historical and Cul­
tural Monuments.Saint-Petersburg.
Tyzhnenko T. E. 1984. Maximilian Mesmacher. Leningrad:
Lenizdat.
 Reconstruction and Restoration of Architectural Heritage 2021 – Sementsov, Leontyev & Huerta (Eds)
© 2021 Taylor & Francis Group, London, ISBN 978-0-367-68296-5

Augustine Augustinovich Betancourt in Russia

S.V. Sementsov
Saint Petersburg State University of Architecture and Civil Engineering, Saint Petersburg, Russia

ABSTRACT: The article considers the main moments of the life and work of the famous Spanish and
Russian engineer, statesman Augustine Augustinovich Betancourt based on a parallel study of the pub­
lished biographical and official service data. His work has been investigated as the Chief Director of
the railways (in a current way - Minister of Railways), Inspector of the Institute of the Corps of Rail­
way Engineers (founder and director of the Institute of Railway Engineers), Director of the “Committee
for the Improvement of all Buildings and Hydraulic Works in St. Petersburg and the places connected
with it”, “Committee for the Transfer of the Makaryevskaya Fair to Nizhny Novgorod after the fire”,
member of the “Committee on the Construction and Maintenance of High Roads in the Russian
Empire”, project developer and builder of factories in St. Petersburg, Tula, and other cities, the author
of the reconstruction of the largest land and water routes in European Russia, the creator of unique
engineering mechanisms, including mechanisms for lifting columns for St. Isaac’s Cathedral and the
Pillar of Alexandria, the world’s first steam dredger, etc.

1 INTRODUCTION 2 MATERIALS AND METHODS

The biography and work of the famous Spanish and
Russian engineer and statesman Augustine Augusti­
novich Betancourt (Augustine Jose Pedro del
Carmen Domingo de Candelaria de Betancourt y
Molina) always attracts the attention of researchers
and admirers. He was born in Tenerife (Spain) in
1753 and died in St. Petersburg (Russia) in 1824 at
the age of 55. He lived and worked in Spain and for
many years studied not only in Spain, but also in
France and England, and then held high positions in
Spain, but was forced to leave during the Spanish
Civil War of 1808. first to Paris, then to St.
Petersburg.
For 16 years he lived and worked in Russia in
St. Petersburg, Moscow, Nizhny Novgorod, and
Tver. He went from being one of the major-
generals of His Imperial Majesty’s Retinue to the
Chief Director of Railways (in fact, the Minister
of Railways), showing a unique organizational
talent everywhere. Although he is better known
as the Inspector of the Institute of the Corps of
Railways (the founder and director of the modern
Institute of Railways), the designer of St. Isaac’s
Cathedral, the Pillar of Alexandria, the creator of
many factories and factories, bridges, engineering,
mechanical and structural structures. But many
pages of his life and creative biography are not
yet fully disclosed and known.
The article examines the life and work of the famous
Spanish and Russian designer and engineer, statesman
Augustine Betancourt, on the basis of published docu­
ments and materials, as well as considering the
author’s research. In Russian literature, you can find
many biographical articles about the life and work of
A. A. Betancourt (Bogolyubov et al. 2020, Budylina
1952, Zhitkov 1899, Pavlov 1993ab, Rezimon 1826).
But his life path and work require detailed study, so
this article will present both well-known and little-
known stages of his biography.
3 RESULTS
In 1808, A. A. Betancourt arrived from France in
Russia. His biography before arriving in Russia can
be briefly described as follows: on February 1, 1758,
he was born in the Spanish town of Puerto de la
Cruz in Tenerife (Canary Islands) in a family des­
cended from a French (Norman) nobleman who
arrived in the islands in 1417 and declared himself
king of the Canary Islands. Augustine was born in
the family of a lieutenant colonel in the Spanish ser­
vice and was baptized a Catholic. The boy and the
young man received an excellent education: he stud­
ied in 1779-1780 at the Royal School of
St. Nicholas. Isidore and drawing at the Academy of

DOI: 10.1201/9781003136804-72

371
Fine Arts in Madrid, studied in the 1780s in Paris,
and in the 1790s in engineering in England, paying
special attention to the construction of canals, ship­
ping, and steam systems. Since 1798, in Spain, he
was engaged in the organization of the optical tele­
graph between Madrid and Cadiz. At the same time,
he was assigned to the organization of the Spanish
Corps of Railway Engineers. In 1800, Betancourt
was appointed Inspector-General of the Corps, from
1803 - Quartermaster of the army and Chief Director
of the Post offices. He already had a European repu­
tation as a construction mechanic. He spoke Spanish,
German, English, and French.
But, in 1808, he was forced to leave Spain. As
you know, after the treaty of San Ildefonso (1796)
between Spain and France, in which the require­
ments were formulated for Spain to come to the aid
of Napoleon’s France against the English fleet and
the English army, Spain tried to put its forces at the
disposal of France. But the defeat of the remnants of
the Spanish fleet at Trafalgar (October 20, 1805) and
the transfer of the Spanish crown to Joseph Bona­
parte (the elder brother of Napoleon I, King of
Naples in 1806-1808, Jose I Buonaparte-King of
Spain in 1808-1813) led from May 2, 1808, to the
beginning of a popular revolt in Madrid, to the
famous guerrilla war. All the adherents of France
were declared Enemies of the Fatherland. Betancourt
went to Paris, and from there in the same 1808 to
St. Petersburg.
On November 30, 1808, by the supreme decree of
Emperor Alexander I, Augustine Augustinovich
Betancourt (as is known, when applying for Russian
residence and switching to Russian service, all per­
sons changed their names, often traditionally numer­
ous, to Russian with patronymics) was accepted into
the Russian service with the rank of Major General
and appointed to the Retinue of His Imperial Majesty
as a general for special assignments. From that time
on, he performed a variety of tasks very effectively.
In 1809, he prepared a project for the reconstruc­
tion of the Tula Arms Factory, designed new weap­
ons machines for the plant (Hamel 1826).
In 1810-1812, to deepen and clean the riverbeds
and channels, the waters and fairways of the Gulf of
Finland, and especially the Kronstadt harbors, he
developed the world’s first steam dredger with
a capacity of 15 horsepower, which was built accord­
ing to this project at the Admiralty Izhorskiye
Zavody. A steam engine with two shafts was
mounted on a wooden barge, its buckets scooping up
sand, clay, debris, and rocks from the bottom, tipping
everything into boats and scows. And it had
a performance 50 times higher than the best dredging
machines in Europe at that time. The dredger
worked in the Kronstadt ports in 1813-1819.
In 1812, in Kazan, he developed and built
a foundry and gun factory (“foundry house”).
On August 30, 1809, A. A. Betancourt received
the rank of Lieutenant General. And from 1809 he
began to serve in the Department of Water
372
Communications (from 1810 in the Main Depart­
ment of Water Communications). And, while already
in the Russian service, as one of the first things he
did in 1809, he presented a project for a significant
reconstruction of all three main water systems lead­
ing to St. Petersburg: the Vyshnevolotsk, Tikhvin,
and Mariinsky. Their transformations were carried
out in the 1810s-1820s, considering this project.
Including measures taken in 1810-1811 to protect
Tver from floods.
On April 18, 1809, His Imperial Highness Prince
George of Holstein-Oldenburg was appointed Chief
Director of the “Department of Water Communica­
tions” instead of Count N. P. Rumyantsev, as well as
Governor-General of the Novgorod, Tver, and Yaro­
slavl provinces (as provinces through which the
most important communications in the direction of
St. Petersburg passed). He remained Director until
his death from a fever on December 15, 1812, and
through his efforts, the Department of Water Com­
munications was transformed into the Department of
Railways, with the location in Tver – in the center of
Russian water communications (and from 1816 ­
transferred to St. Petersburg). And first of all, the
Department’s attention was drawn to the main state
highway St. Petersburg-Sosninskaya Pier (on the
Volkhov River) - Novgorod-Tver-Moscow, as well
as to the rivers and channels of the three water sys­
tems leading to St. Petersburg: the Mariinsky, Tikh­
vin and, in particular, as the most important-
Vyshnevolotskaya (Ministry of Railways and Com­
munications 1898).
By the report submitted by Prince George on the
Supreme Manifesto of His Imperial Majesty Alexan­
der I of November 20, 1809, the entire railway
system in Russia was divided into 10 districts. The
Corps of Engineers of Water and Land Communica­
tions was created “On military status” (from
August 11, 1810-the Corps of Railway Engineers),
and the Institute of the Corps of Railway Engineers
was created to train personnel for the Corps.
The Directorate of the Institute should include “A
Director (Inspector), Professors of applied and con­
struction mathematics, a professor of hydrography
and rivers in the State and statistics related to this,
Professors of drawing art and architecture,
a Caretaker of all workshops…” (Sokolovsky 1859).
With instruction in Russian and French: “In the first
two years in Arithmetic, Algebra up to the third-
degree levels, including progressions, Logarithms,
Geometry, Plane Trigonometry, Local Position Map­
ping, and Leveling, Drawing Art and Architecture…
In the third and fourth year, they are taught stereom­
etry, cutting and laying stones, carpentry, conic
cross-section, brood vaults, the basics of mechanics
and hydraulics, the rules of work, to make projects
and estimates for the materials of calculation, as well
as the rite of production of cases and accounts in
public buildings… “(Sokolovsky 1859).
As you know, since 1809, the 1st District of rail­
ways has been defined with the placement of the
Board in Novaya Ladoga. In 1812-1818, after the
death of Duke George of Holstein-Oldenburg, the
Director of the Main Department (Chief Director) of
the Corps was Pavel Pavlovich Devolant (De-
Volant), in 1818-1822 was Augustine Augustinovich
Betancourt, after him, in 1822-1832, Duke Alexan­
der of Württemberg became. In 1820-1832, the
Department was called the “General Directorate of
Railways”.
The leadership of the General Directorate was
still far away, and now, by the Manifesto of Novem­
ber 20, 1809, A. A. Betancourt became an Inspector
of the Institute of the Corps of Engineers of Land
and Water Communications, responsible for organiz­
ing the educational and economic part. Almost at the
same time, he turned to the Director of the Paris
School of Roads and Bridges, Lesage, with a request
to send specialists to Russia. In response to this
request, the Chief Director of Bridges and Roads of
France, Count Molay, recommended the engineer
Fabre, the geometer Bazin, the graduates of the
School of Pottier and Destrem. They arrived in
Russia and were “divided” into training in
St. Petersburg-Fabre and Pottier, and in Kherson
under the Kherson Governor-General, the Duke De
Richelieu-Bazin and Destrem (Ministry of Railways
and Communications 1898). In parallel with the
leadership of the Institute, he gave lectures on engin­
eering there. In 1810, for the Institute, the house of
the Real Privy Councilor Prince Yusupov (on the
Fontanka River, near the Obukhov Bridge) was pur­
chased for the treasury for 350,000 rubles in bank­
notes, in which the departmental apartment for the
Inspector of the Institute was arranged. Information
about admission to the Institute was distributed not
only in both capitals, namely in St. Petersburg and
Moscow but also throughout Russia. Already in Sep­
tember 1810, 62 candidates of different ages (15-23
years) arrived for the exam, including those who
received training in various institutions, up to Uni­
versities, as well as those who were in the Civil Ser­
vice. Initially, it was supposed to accept only 30
people, but 8 more applicants were added to them,
with the right to listen to lectures and attend classes,
although without the right to wear uniforms. Among
the first-time students who were admitted were
(according to the degree of ranking for the
answers): 1) Semyon Panteleev, 2) Fyodor Rer­
berg, 3) Vasily Berkov, 4) Pavel Lavrov, 5) Friedrich
Ott, 6) Baron Sergei Stroganov, 7) Alexander Lams­
dorff, 8) Baron Alexander Stroganov, 9) Baron Niko­
lai Stroganov, 10) Franz Canobio, 11) Andrey
Gotman, 12) Sergey Muravyov-Apostol, 13) Peter
Varentsov, 14) Karl Rosenkampf, 15) Pavel Wilhel­
mov, 16) Andrey Poltaratsky, 17) Stepan Makar­
enko, 18) Gustav Gastfort, 19) Sergey Likhardov,
20) Alexander Bogdanov, 21) Boris Sumbulov, 22)
Rened Gonzago, 23) Stepan Krotkov, 24) Alexander
Prudnikov, 25) Lazar Lazarev, 26) Matvey Mura­
vyov-Apostol, 27) Alexey Kraskoi, 28) Vasily Golo­
vin, 29) Ivan Evreinov, 30) Ivan Bogdanov. At the
373
suggestion of A. A. Betancourt, military disciplines
were also introduced into the training program at the
Institute: fortification, artillery, physics and chemis­
try, military exercise, and rifle techniques. After dis­
cussion with the participants of the subjects of study,
fortification, physics, and chemistry were
introduced.
A. A. Betancourt became the inspector of the
Institute from 1809, the French citizen Senover
became the director of the Institute, Remizon, the
academician of mathematics Viskovatov, and Trom­
bard became professors. The grand opening of the
Institute was held on November 1, 1810.
In parallel with the activities of the Inspector of
the Institute, A. A. Betancourt was involved in other
large-scale works. Since 1810, he was actively
engaged in bridge construction in the area of
St. Petersburg. In 1810-1812, according to his
designs, wooden bridges were built across the Sla­
vyanka River and the Bolshaya Izhora River on the
Moscow Highway. In 1811-1813, he designed the
first seven-span arched wooden bridge in Russia on
stone abutments and wooden supports in the align­
ment of Kamennoostrovskaya Street, leading from
St. Petersburg Island to Kamenny Island (now
Kamennoostrovsky Ave.). The bridge became
known as Kamennoostrovsky Bridge. The builders
of the bridge were the best of the students at the
Institute - A.D. Gotman and S. O. Panteleev (Step­
nov & Novikov 1991).
During the Patriotic War of 1812-1814,
A. A. Betancourt remained in St. Petersburg, continued
to train railway officers. Moreover, his best students
Panteleev and Gotman supervised the construction of
the Kamennoostrovsky Bridge, Kanobio was involved
in the work in Tsarskoye Selo, Rerberg 1st was left at
the Institute to teach descriptive geometry.
After the death of the Duke of Holstein Olden­
burg, the Corps of Railway Engineers was trans­
ferred to the leadership of Engineer-General De
Volant, but the Emperor personally determined him­
self to be the head of the Institute (as the Main Dir­
ector). Thus, in the Supreme Decree of
December 25, 1812, Alexander I wrote: “To
Mr. Engineer General De Volant. Having received
the sad news of the death of His Imperial Highness
Prince George of Holstein of Oldenburg, I continue
to entrust you with the management of all matters
concerning the Railways. The Institute of Railways
will be under my direct care. The original is written
in His Imperial Majesty’s own hand taco: ALEXAN­
DER” according to Decree No. 25.296 a. dated
December 25, 1812, “Nominal, given to Engineer-
General de Volant” on the assignment to him of the
post of Chief Director of Railways and on the exist­
ence of the Institute of Railways, under the direct
care of His Imperial Majesty” (Complete Collection
of Laws of the Russian Empire 1st Collection
volume XXXII No. 25.296b). And from that time
on, A. A. Betancourt, as an Inspector of the Institute,
became a direct subordinate of Emperor Alexander I.
 In 1816, several significant events were directly
related to A. A. Betancourt. Activity on the construc­
tion of roads and communications was resumed,
after the interruption in 1812, a special “Committee
on the construction and maintenance of large roads
in the Russian Empire” was formed. This Committee
ranked roads in Russia into 4 categories: 1st cat-
egory-the St. Petersburg - Moscow highway, 2nd cat­
egory-general highways that go from the capitals to
the borders of Russia, as well as connecting provin­
cial cities, 3rd category-roads connecting provincial
cities, 4th category - country roads. Highway, the
road of the 1st category had to be made with a stone
embankment (Ministry of Railways and Communi­
cations 1898).
In 1818-1822, A. A. Betancourt participated in
the design and construction of the main highway in
Russia-St. Petersburg - Sosninskaya Pier (on the Vol­
khov River) - Novgorod - Tver - Moscow. This well-
established route between Moscow and
St. Petersburg since the 1740s was quite spontan­
eously formed from two large sections, as well as
a fragment connecting them. The Moscow - Tver ­
Novgorod highway was one of the oldest roads and
has been known since the time of the Moscow state.
And the Sosninskaya Pier highway on the Volkhov ­
St. Petersburg River was a remnant of a huge unique
straight highway, which was built by the decree of
Peter I in 1705-1716 from Moscow to the emerging
St. Petersburg, cutting through long straight glades,
arranging wooden bridges and earthen embankments
through channels, filling up deep swamps and
ravines, creating crossings over huge multi-
kilometer river floods (as when crossing the Volkhov
River). On this straight road (as it was then called
“proshpektivoy”) with a length of about 700 km, 18
post stations were founded and operated from 1717­
1718 (for changing horses, resting passing, repairing
individual sections of the route, etc.). But by the
1740s, this road (the longest and straight as an arrow
road in Europe) fell into disrepair, began to require
repair. According to the original decree of Empress
Elizabeth Petrovna, they tried to put the road in
order but failed and it was abandoned. And instead
of this single highway, they formed a common road
from three fragments: 1) the ancient road Moscow­
Tver-Novgorod; 2) the connecting road on the left
bank of the Volkhov river Novgorod-Sosninskaya
pier; 3) the remainder of the “proshpektivoy” on the
segment Sosninskaya pier - St. Petersburg.
Almost simultaneously, on May 3, 1816, by the
Supreme Decree of Emperor Alexander I,
a “Committee was formed in St. Petersburg to bring
all the buildings and hydraulic works in
St. Petersburg and the places connected with it into
better order”. A. A. Betancourt was appointed Chair­
man of the Committee (he was Chairman in 1816­
1824). The Committee in those years included
P. P. Bazin, A. A. Mikhailov, A. K. Moduy,
P. P. Melnikov, K. I. Rossi, V. P. Stasov, V. Tretter
(Belova et al. 1992).
374
In this committee, which existed until 1842,
a gigantic work was carried out on the radical recon­
struction of the whole of St. Petersburg. To create
the most important ensembles of the city and sur­
rounding areas, to build the main buildings of the
capital city. For example, we know little about the
grandiose scandal that accompanied the discussion
of the initial disastrous design and construction solu­
tions of the French watercolorist O. Montferrand,
which lasted in 1818-1825. Almost all the architects
of the Committee took part in this very temperamen­
tal and professional discussion: Mikhailov 1st,
A. A. Mikhailov 2nd, A. Moduy, A. V. Beretti,
A. P. Melnikov, V. P. Stasov, P.-D. Bazin, who
forced the stubborn O. Montferrand to radically cor­
rect an obviously unsuccessful project. And this dis­
cussion ended with a completely new design
solution, implemented in the very center of
St. Petersburg (Nikitin 1939).
During the construction of the Cathedral, grandi­
ose works were carried out on the arrangement of
squares around it and the construction from 1819 to
November 1821, according to the project of
A. A. Betancourt, of a unique St. Isaac’s plashkout
bridge with stone abutments and 15 closed plas­
hkouts, the bridge builder was V. von Tretter. But
during the flood of 1824, the bridge was destroyed
by the elements (Bunin 1986).
Almost simultaneously, in 1816-1818, in
St. Petersburg, he designed and built the complex of
the Expedition for the preparation of state papers (on
the Obvodny Canal). Some of the most important
machines were developed and created for the com­
plex (Shcherbakova 1988).
At the same time, in the autumn of 1816,
A. A. Betancourt was appointed Chairman of the
Committee for the Transfer of the Makaryevskaya
Fair to Nizhny Novgorod after the all-encompassing
fire. In 1817, he significantly refined the complex
project of creating the Nizhny Novgorod Fair, devel­
oped by A. Zakharov in 1804. At the same time, the
entire Volga territory on the Arrow of the Oka River
at its confluence with the Volga River, given over to
the construction of the fair complex, was drained,
the level of the daytime surface was raised by 3.5 m,
a huge horseshoe-shaped channel was built around
the central part (called the Betancur’s Canal), drain­
age ditches for sewage were built throughout the
Fair, the first underground vaulted sewer in Russia
and Europe (the length of each branch is 640 m,
with the dimensions of the passages 2,1x2.5m), cre­
ated a system of bridges over the river Oka. The
entire hydraulic system of the Nizhny Novgorod Fair
was grandiose and comparable to the hydraulic
system of Peterhof. The central part of the Fair is
united by the Living Courtyard, which includes 60
buildings with 2530 shops and a huge central square.
Along the banks, another 40 large commercial and
warehouse brick buildings were built. The work con­
tinued until 1822, when the fair was officially
opened on July 15 in the brick Gostiny Dvor. The
total area of the fair was almost 8 km2 (Shumilkin
1979).
This grandiose construction left a deep impression
on the soul of A. A. Betancourt. As you know,
every year, in the summer until 1823, he made trips
to Nizhny Novgorod, directing construction work.
Near the village of Gordeyevka, three brick factories
operated to ensure the construction of high-quality
bricks, producing 3 million pieces of bricks annually.
In front of the Fair, an “engineering house” was even
erected for construction managers and employees. In
1819, the efforts of A. A. Betancourt also developed
a project master plan for the coastal zone of the
R Oka with the territory of the Fair and the future
part of Nizhny Novgorod, which included the rules
for building brick and wooden buildings.
In July-November 1817, according to his project,
an Exercise House (Manege) in Moscow was built
on the site of burned merchant shops, with a length
of 166 m and a unique span of 44 m without internal
supports, which was intended for the drill training of
troops numbering up to 2000 people (guards’ regi­
ment) (Budylina 1952).
On April 1, 1819, he was appointed Chief Dir­
ector of Railways, while remaining an Inspector of
the Institute. And he continued to build and recon­
struct the main land and water routes around
St. Petersburg: the Moscow - Novgorod ­
St. Petersburg highway, water systems (including the
Ladoga Canal), and roads in the Peterhof,
St. Petersburg, Shlisselburg, and Tsarskoye Selo
counties of the St. Petersburg province. At the same
time, he saw even more clearly the obvious shortage
of trained professional personnel for road construc­
tion in Russia. And according to his report submitted
to Emperor Alexander I on April 17, 1819, in the
country, along with the Corps of Railway Engineers,
which included only those who had received special
training at the Institute, a Construction detachment
was created, which could include people sent from
other departments and received other non-special
practical education and knowledge. And according
to the report of May 1, 1820, and Highly approved
in St. Petersburg, two schools were founded, in
which they began to train middle-level specialists as
the first stage of training road construction person­
nel. These schools were Military Construction and
Conductor schools, located in special buildings in
St. Petersburg (Ministry of Railways and Communi­
cations 1898). As Chief Director, he inspected the
condition of Russian roads and waterways and in
August - November 1820 made a trip on the route
St. Petersburg-Volga Region-Caucasus-Crimea. And
in 1821, according to his report to Emperor Alexan­
der I, steamship traffic was introduced on the Volga
River. The first steamship owner was the landowner
Evreinov, who bought the privilege from the French­
man Puadebar and built on its basis the first Russian
and Volga steamship “Volga”, which could carry
passengers and be a tug for barges, scows, and
sheds. The result of this was the awarding of
375
Evreinov, on the initiative of A. A. Betancourt, with
the Order of St. Vladimir of the 4th degree, unique
for landowners (Ministry of Railways and Commu­
nications 1898).
On August 2, 1822, A. A. Betancourt, due to
a health disorder, was dismissed from the post of
Chief Director of railways, but with the preservation
of his duties as an Inspector of the Institute. At the
same time, he continued to engage in design and
construction practice. In 1823, according to his pro­
ject, a wooden single-span arched Paper bridge was
built in the alignment of Liflyandskaya Street near
Ekaterinhof in St. Petersburg, where a Paper Mill
was located and operated since the time of Peter the
Great. On February 4, 1824, A. A. Betancourt was
dismissed from the post of Inspector of the Institute.
And this activity as an Inspector of the Institute
during the period from 1810 to 1824 led to the
organization in Russia of 12 graduates of qualified
road construction engineers: 225 engineers, includ­
ing 76 ensigns and sub-lieutenants, 149 lieutenants.
Until his death, he lived in a mansion rented by his
family at St. Petersburg, Bolshaya Morskaya str., 19
(Broitman & Krasnova 2005).
Augustine Augustinovich Betancourt died on
July 14 (26), 1824 in St. Petersburg. In 1824, he was
buried at the Smolensk Evangelical Cemetery. In 1979,
his ashes and tombstone were moved to the Lazarevs­
koye cemetery of the Alexander Nevsky Lavra.
Many of his design solutions were used after his
death. Designed by A. A. Betancourt, the mechan­
isms for lifting the grandiose monolithic granite col­
umns of all four porticos of St. Isaac’s Cathedral
were used during the lifting of the columns in the
period from March 20, 1828, to August 11, 1830.
Two years later, on August 30, 1832, a 600-ton gran­
ite monolith of the Pillar of Alexandria was quickly
installed on the composite axis of the Palace Square
within 1.5 hours.
Since 1825, also after the death of
A. A. Betancourt, the publication of the “Journal of
Communication Routes” conceived by him was
started.
Historical information:
Family: French wife Anna Ivanovna Jourdain
(died no earlier than 1818). Children: Alphonse
(1796-December 12, 1815, St. Petersburg); August­
ine (died in 1863), since 1855 was a lieutenant gen­
eral; Caroline; Adelaide; Matilda.
Awards: On July 16, 1789, he was awarded the
Spanish Order of St. Nicholas. In September 1813,
he was awarded a Gold snuffbox with diamonds and
a portrait of His Imperial Majesty under the Highest
Rescript for the construction of the Kamennoos­
trovsky Bridge in St. Petersburg.
Memory of A. A. Betancourt: In Betancourt’s
hometown of Puerto de la Cruz, there is a bronze
bust of Betancourt. In his honor, many objects are
marked in St. Petersburg and in other cities of
Russia. In Nizhny Novgorod, a street is named after
him. In St. Petersburg, a memorial plaque is installed
on the facade of the historic building of the Corps of
Railway Engineers. On June 24, 2003, in the square
on Obukhovskaya Square in front of the main build­
ing of the St. Petersburg State University of Railway
Engineers (although built in the late 1940s), a bust
of A. A. Betancourt (sculptor V. E. Goreva, archi­
tects V. V. Popov & Yu.A. Nikitin) was unveiled. On
March 29, 2018, the new bridge built across the
Malaya Neva was given the name “Betancourt
Bridge”.
Thus, even after his death, his creative activity was
preserved in the activities of the innovations he started
and in the activities of his followers. A short official
biographical sketch and materials that were prepared
based on the official track record, biographical
sketches, and encyclopedic data are presented in the
official reference book of D. N. Shilov (Shilov 2002).
4 DISCUSSION
The material presented in the article allowed us to
combine and re-analyze, first of all, the published
materials, to clarify the unbalanced and previously
inconsistent aspects and facts of the life and work of
A. A. Betancourt. Many aspects remain undiscov­
ered and require additional archival research. And in
parallel in different archive collections.
5 DISCUSSION
The article examines the diverse creative, administra­
tive, and state activities of the outstanding Spanish
and Russian professional Augustine Augustinovich
Betancourt (Augustine Jose Pedro del Carmen Dom­
ingo de Candelaria de Betancourt y Molina), Lieuten­
ant General of the Russian Army, Chief Director of
the Railway, Inspector of the Institute of the Corps of
Railway Engineers. He made a huge contribution to
the development of architectural, construction, and
engineering art in Russia during 1808-1824. Many
aspects of its activities in St. Petersburg, Moscow,
Nizhny Novgorod, and Tver are considered.
6 RECOMMENDATIONS
The article is intended for historians of architecture,
urban planning, engineering, and construction art,
dealing with the problems of the development of
architecture in the XVIII century. Especially for
Spaniards and Russians who study the processes of
mutual influence of national cultures on the Euro­
pean continent.
376
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Shumilkin S. M. 1979. Architecture of the Makaryevskaya
Fair. In Notes of Local historians:113–122.
Sokolovsky E. M. 1859. The fiftieth anniversary of the
Institute and the Corps of Railway Engineers. Historical
essay. St. Petersburg: printing house of
S. Strugovshchikov, G. Pokhitonov, N. Vodov, and Co.
Stepnov P. & Novikov Yu. 1991. Bridges and embankments
of Leningrad. Leningrad: Lenizdat.
Zhitkov S. M. 1899. Institute of Railway Engineers of
Emperor Alexander I: historical essay. St. Petersburg:
Printing house of the Ministry of Railways.
 Reconstruction and Restoration of Architectural Heritage 2021 – Sementsov, Leontyev & Huerta (Eds)
© 2021 Taylor & Francis Group, London, ISBN 978-0-367-68296-5

The calculation of wooden log structures of the Transfiguration Church in

Kizhi
K.G. Shashkin
Georekonstruction Institute, Saint Petersburg, Russia

ABSTRACT: The theory and practice of calculating wooden log structures currently remains undeveloped due,
obviously, to their lack of demand, since such structures are usually small and do not need to be calculated.
There are, however, unique log structures – such as the Church of the Transfiguration of the Lord with a height
of 40 m on the island of Kizhi, for the modern restoration of which such a calculation was very relevant. The
article presents the results of numerical calculation analysis and comparison with full-scale measurements for the
most problematic part of the structure construction. The most structurally responsible part of the structure needed
to be calculated – a transitional structure made in the form of a quad, transferring loads from the middle octag­
onal frame to the lower one. The estimated estimation of the forces in the wooden elements was complicated by
the inaccuracy of analytical solutions due to the complex geometry of the log structure, as well as the lack of
proven approaches to modeling log elements in numerical solutions. The article presents the basics of the
approach to the modeling of log elements and the results of calculations of the complex coupling of log structures
of the church by the finite element method. Based on the calculations, the most rational solution for strengthening
the quadrangular frame structure was identified and the conditions for its implementation were proposed.

1 INTRODUCTION during the restoration, where hundreds of thousands

of tourists come to see every year. (Figure 1).
The Church of the Transfiguration of the Lord on the In this article, the authors would like to focus
island of Kizhi is a world-famous masterpiece of Rus­ only on one (although extremely important) aspect
sian wooden architecture (Opolovnikov 1976, 1989). of this colossal work, namely, the calculation of the
At the end of 2019, the grandiose restoration of the most important part of the monument’s design.
temple was completed. This work was given 20 years
of life by the outstanding architect-restorer Vladimir
Stepanovich Rakhmanov (1950-2019). “Our Russian
Parthenon”, – so Rakhmanov called this monument
(Tiunov & Shashkin 2020). A detailed and detailed
story about the unique methodology of the restoration
of the church will be found in the book “Kizhi.
Transfiguration” (Tiunov & Shashkin 2020).
The concept of the monument reconstruction
assumed successive restoration of all wooden elem­
ents from the bottom up. The possibility of such
method was provided by an internal metal frame
where upper structures were hung during the restor­
ation (Figure 1). Series of wooden structure came
into the carpenter’s center, where the most damaged
parts of the historical logs were carefully replaced.
The chosen concept made it possible to quickly
return the historical logs of the log house to their
place; in case of long storage they would receive Figure 1. Church on Kizhi Island (2017) during the pro­
deformations, which would significantly complicate cess of restoration: the entire building is suspended on
a metal frame, the lower part of the building has been
their re-inclusion.
restored, the middle tier is under restoration in the Car­
The selected sequence of works also made it pos­ penter’s Center, the upper (not restored) part is sup­
sible to preserve the general appearance of the church ported by a metal frame.

DOI: 10.1201/9781003136804-73

377
2 MATERIALS AND METHODS
The construction of the monument. The subject of
the study is the complex log structure of the
temple, and the research method is numerical
modeling of the three-dimensional work of
wooden structures.
The pyramidal shape of the temple with twenty-two
domes extending into the sky is created by several vol­
umes placed on top of each other with decreasing
dimensions in the plan. The lower part is an octagonal
frame with a wooden addition to a building forming
a cross-shaped outline in the plan. The octagonal
frame continues above the wooden addition to
a building, and on top of it is a second octagonal
frame, smaller in size, and above it is a third, even
smaller, topped with a central dome. The three octag­
onal frames would fit into each other like nesting dolls,
if not for the special transition structures (Figure 2).
They consist of so-called quadrangular frame beams,
the ends of which rested on the walls of the lower
octagonal frame (Figure 2). On top of the logs of the
quadrangular frame, the so-called lining logs were laid
(Figure 3) and a smaller octagonal frame was placed
above.
The quadrangular frame structure consists of
logs laid with distances across one log. Such
transitions from one octagonal frame size to
another in the Transfiguration Church are per­
formed twice. The greatest problem in terms of
ensuring mechanical safety is the most loaded
lower quadrangular frame. According to the
results of measurements of the already recreated
restored structure, the span of logs of the quad­
rangular frame from support to support is from
Figure 2. Transition structure (lower quadrangular frame)
that supports the middle octagonal frame on the lower one.
378
Figure 3. Coupling of the lining logs and the logs of the
lower quadrangular frame. The gaps between the quadran­
gular frame beams and the lining logs in two directions are
shown.
9.29 to 9.54 m. The logs are supported on the
walls by cutting into the walls of the lower quad­
rangular frame. There are no cuttings at the inter­
section of the quadrangular frame beams, and the
area of support of the beams on each other is
sufficiently uncertain.
On top of the logs of the quadrangular frame,
the lining logs are laid, and part of the lining
logs (on two sides) rests on the logs of the quad­
rangular frame, and part (on the other two sides)
transmits the loads through the diagonal logs of
the octagonal frame of a smaller size, between
the lining logs and the logs of the quadrangular
frame there is a gap (see Figure 3). On top of
the lining logs, there is a log structure of the
octagonal frame smaller size, the rigidity of
which also largely depends on the deformations
of the quadrangular frame beams.
3 RESULTS AND DISCUSSION
Features of the calculation of log structures. In the
modern world, high-rise buildings are not built from
logs, large- Small buildings are created from log
cabins. The Transfiguration Church on Kizhi Island
is an exception. This is a log structure with a height
of 40 m, a real skyscraper, which recently (in 2014)
turned 300 years old. The weight of this structure is
500 tons. The load on the lower crowns is such that
the historical logs were crumpled and got an ellip­
tical shape in cross-section, and the search for wood
for their replacement and prosthetics led to the
knowledge of a simple truth: global warming began
not now, but two or three centuries ago. Since then,
the annual rings on the cut of the tree have become
wider, and the wood has lost its former strength. It
was very difficult for the restorers to find relict pine
forests with dense annual rings in the north and get
permission to prepare logs for the restoration of the
architectural symbol of northern Russia.
Despite the simplicity and archaic nature of log
structures, the method of their calculation leaves many
theoretical and practical questions. In log construction,
unlike beams and trusses, woodworks simultaneously
for compression across the fibers and for bending. At
the same time, the spatial stability of the log structure
is provided by the conjugation of logs in the corners of
the walls. In the middle part of the log house (between
the corners), the stability of the log house wall is pro­
vided due to the bending rigidity of the logs.
The contacts between the logs are also very import­
ant for understanding the operation of the quadrangular
frame, which transmits loads to the lower octagonal
frame. Obviously, the support logs resting on the logs
of the quadrangular frame allow you to slightly redis­
tribute the stresses and transfer the loads closer to the Figure 4. Test problem for illustrating the contact inter­
supports of the quadrangular frame beams (this applies action of bodies: a-finite element grid, given a horizontal
to the sides of the quadrangular frame, along which the movement along the upper face; b-deformations during
support logs are placed on the quadrangular frame engagement; c-deformations in the absence of friction
without gaps). The rigidity of the octagonal frame on between the bodies.
top of the quadrangular frame beams also plays a role,
preventing the development of uneven deformations of An example of a test problem of body contact
the quadrangular frame beams. with rigid engagement and with slippage is shown in
For several decades, the works of outstanding Figure 4. In both cases (both with and without con­
domstic researchers have been devoted to the issues of tact friction), vertical normal stresses are transmitted
calculating the quadrangular frame of beams: through the contact zone.
L. A. Novozhilov (2009), Yu. V. Piskunov (1999), To verify the proposed calculation method, the
E. N. Serov (2013), I. K. Rasha (2016) and even for­ model problem of cantilever loading of two beams is
eign scientists, among whom, first of all, we should solved. The diameter of the beams is assumed to be
mention J. Kickler. Their authors mainly applied ana­ 30 cm, the length l =10 m, the load at the end P =10
lytical approaches to the analysis of the design oper­ kN for each beam. The theoretical value of the deflec­
ation. However, it should be recognized that analytical tion in the absence of interaction between the beams is:
solutions for the very complex construction under con­
sideration have very limited possibilities.
The possibility of numerical calculation of the
Transfiguration Church arose because the general
In the solution, taking into account the engagement
designer of the monument restoration – the Georekon­
between the beams, the deflection is 0.606 m
struction Institute - is a developer of its own software
(Figure 5a). When calculating with the special contact
FEM-models and IEE Clouds (Ulitsky et al. 2015),
material without the transmission of tangential stres­
which is quite competitive with Western software
ses, the displacement is 0.817 m (Figure 5b), which
products (Ulitsky 2014, Shashkin 2019). Within the
differs from the analytical solution by only 2.5% (the
framework of these programs, we created a physical
difference is due to the insignificant bending work of
model of a wooden element-a log, and mathematically
the bulk finite elements).
described the behavior of wood under various
Thus, the solution of the test problem shows that
influences.
the volume elements surrounding the beam (rod)
To model the features of log structures,
elements do not make a significant error in the
a numerical method is used, which allows us to take
into account the various features of the interaction of
logs with each other to the greatest extent.
The work of the logs on the bend was taken into
account by the beam (rod) elements located along
the axis of each log. When calculating the bending
stiffness of logs, the modulus of deformation of the
wood along the fibers was considered, which was
assumed to be equal to 10000 MPa (the highest pos­
sible value according to rulebook no 64.13330). To
ensure the operation of logs across the fibers around
the rod elements, a volume of three-dimensional
volume elements (tetrahedra) is arranged.
The logs are interfaced with each other through
special contact elements that allow for either rigid Figure 5. Test problem on the interaction of cantilever
contact of the logs with each other without slipping, beams during bending: a-taking into account engagement;
or sliding of the logs in the horizontal direction b-taking into account slippage. The deformed scheme and
when transferring the load in the vertical direction. isolines of vertical displacements are shown.

379
Figure 6. General view of the design scheme for calculating
the reinforcement of quad beams.
bending operation when logs slip and have
a noticeable effect in the absence of slippage.
Results of the calculated analysis. The calculation
scheme for analyzing the operation of the lower
quadrangular frame is shown in Figure 6. The calcu­
lation includes all significant structures in the vicin­
ity of the considered quad. Outside of the work area
of the quadrangular frame, the structures at the
bottom are replaced by anchoring, and the structures
at the top are replaced by loading. To assess the add­
itional fit of the walls of the lower octagonal frame,
the model takes into account the shaped structures of
the coating (Figure 6). A fragment of the design
scheme without these structures is shown in Figure 2
The weight of the lower fragment of the octagonal
frame in the program is considered automatically, for
the considered task of working with the quadrangular
frame beams, it does not matter in principle. The
weight of the quadrangular frame and part of the upper
octagonal frame is also considered automatically by
the program and is 86.5 and 186.6 kN, respectively.
The total regulatory load from the structures above the
pictured fragment is 288.4 kN. The total regulatory
load on the quad is 186.6 + 288.4 = 475 kN. The
design load with a margin factor of 1.2 is 475*1.2 =
570 kN.
The results of the calculations were disappointing:
the vertical movement of the quadrangular frame of
the logs reaches 10 cm (Figure 7), the deflection of
Figure 7. Vertical movements of quad beams (m) when cal­
culated for full loads without taking into account the fric­
tion between the logs.
380
Figure 8. Results of the calculation of the quad beams.
a-vertical displacements of the quad beams (m); b-dia­
grams of moments (kNm) in the quad beams (numbering
from bottom to top).
the upper log (minus the movements of the supports)
is about 6 cm (Figure 8a). With this deflection, the
moment in the quadrangular frame beams reaches
26.8 kNm (Figure 8b), and the stress in the cross-
section is 12.1 MPa (based on the diameter of the
quadrangular frame logs of about 30 cm and the
moment of resistance of the cross-section of
2651 cm3). It should be noted that these values reflect
the results of the calculation for standard loads. When
calculating with the load reliability factor 1.2, the cal­
culated value of the maximum torque is 32.2 kNm,
the calculated value of the maximum voltage is
14.5 MPa. Wind loads increase the bending moments
in the beams to 37.4 kNm, while the stresses increase
to 16.9 MPa. For round wood, the calculated resist­
ance according to modern standards (Table 3 accord­
ing to rulebook no 64.13330) is only 12.8 MPa.
Therefore, the voltage is 30% higher than the max­
imum permissible. In accordance with the require­
ments of the standards, it is necessary to strengthen
the structures.
To ensure the operability of the historical struc­
ture, it is enough to make all the logs of the quadran­
gular framework together. This can be achieved by
the device of two squeezes on each wall of the quad­
rangular frame and metal puffs (Figure 9). For the
reliable perception of loads, the squeezes are
arranged with metal supports with a girth of logs.
This design allows you to combine the work of the
quadrangular frame beams. At the same time,
Figure 9. A fragment of the design scheme with the
reinforcement of logs quadrangular frame with a sprengel
structure.

Figure 10. Effect of the sprengel reinforcement system.
a – vertical displacements of the quad beams (m); b – dia­
grams of moments (kNm) in the quad beams (numbering
from bottom to top).
reliable transmission of forces to the support nodes
in the walls of the lower octagonal frame is
provided.
The solution that implements this idea, developed
by I. K. Rasha (2016.), provides the mechanical
safety of the object required by modern standards.
With this reinforcement, as numerical calculations
show, the deflection of the quadrangular frame
beams decreases from 6 cm to 2.7 cm, i.e. more than
2 times (Figure 10a), the bending moments fall to
18.9 kNm (Figure 10b). The maximum stresses, in
this case, are 8.5 MPa (when calculated for standard
loads) or 10.2 MPa, considering the load reliability
factor 1.2. These stresses do not exceed the strength
limit of wood according to modern standards (rule­
book no 64.13330). Thus, we can conclude that the
proposed reinforcement is effective and allows us to
ensure the mechanical safety of the object required
by modern standards. At the same time, the quadran­
gular frame beams work more uniformly, respect­
ively, the transfer of forces to the support nodes on
the lower octagon is carried out evenly.
About monitoring as a tool for deciding on
strengthening. So, from the point of view of the
designer, it is necessary to unconditionally perform
the reinforcement. However, during the restoration
and its accompanying monitoring, it was recorded
that the real deflections of the logs of the quadrangu­
lar frame when they are included in the work after
Figure 11. Vertical movements of quad beams (m) when
calculated for full loads, considering the friction between
the logs.
381
the restoration are significantly less than the calcu­
lated values and are about 1.5 cm. As the calculated
analysis showed, this effect is explained by the fric­
tion between the upper logs, on which the upper
octagon directly rests. In this case, the movement of
the upper log of the quad by calculation does not
exceed 2 cm. This movement was well consistent
with the observed (in November 2018) condition of
the logs, on which no noticeable bends were traced.
Nevertheless, it is obvious that the friction force
between the logs, which is not caused by any struc­
tural measures (cuttings, nagels, etc.), is very unreli­
able insurance against deflections. The reduction of
friction forces will occur over time due to wind
influences, seasonal changes in the humidity of logs,
creep of the wood material. The residual value of the
friction forces, in this case, is unknown, for reliable
accounting of it in the calculations, large-scale stud­
ies are necessary, which have never been carried out
for log structures. Therefore, there is no reason to
refuse the reinforcement.
The choice of a technical solution to strengthen
the historical structure met with traditional objec­
tions due to the 300-year history of the monument,
which survived both hurricane winds and intense
snowfalls. However, Discussions and compromises
that are appropriate in the architectural and artistic
environment, which are so familiar to any restor­
ation, are completely out of place when dealing with
mechanical safety issues. Building mechanics is
based on the laws of nature, and therefore mechan­
ical safety must be ensured without any discounts on
the status of the monument.
In such an ambiguous situation, monitoring comes
to the rescue (Ulitsky & Shashkin 2017, Shashkin &
Glybin 2017), which a design engineer can make as
a forced compromise. The reinforcement structure
can be prepared in advance and mounted on the
monument, and its inclusion in the work must be car­
ried out immediately if monitoring indicates an
increase in the deflection of the structure.
At the same time, monitoring is organized in such
a way that it allows you to record negative trends at
the very beginning of their manifestation when they
have not yet had time to harm the monument and
there is time to activate the reinforcement system.
Monitoring consists of the usual components,
such as monitoring the deformations of the structure
(precipitation, rolls, deflections) using geodetic
measurements, periodic visual inspection of all
elements of the object. To do this, all the nooks and
crannies of the internal volumes of the church are
provided with the possibility of access.
Since geodetic measurements carried out with
a certain frequency (for a given object – at least once
a month) are a discrete type of control, to ensure the
continuity of obtaining information about the technical
condition of the building, a continuous type of tracking
of deformations is also necessary. It is carried out with
the help of automatic inclinometers (also called inclin­
ometers), which perform measurements continuously.
Given the considerable height of the structure and
its “openness to all winds”, the automatic measure­
ment system also necessarily includes sensors for
monitoring vibration parameters.
Finally, another necessary component of monitor­
ing is the control of the humidity of wooden struc­
tures and the humidity of the air outside and inside
the church. As long as the wood elements are venti­
lated, the wood will retain its building properties. As
soon as there is stagnation, prolonged excessive
moisture-the process of destruction of wood will
begin. Humidity sensors are also automated.
Continuous data transmission from all automated
sensors to the operator’s console allows for constant
monitoring of the technical condition of the
monument.
To exclude the influence of the so-called “human
factor”, simply put, so that the operator does not miss
the occurrence of a negative trend. The monitoring
program prescribes in detail the so-called “alarm sig­
nals”, which are received not only by the operator but
also by the responsible persons of the operating organ­
ization. As such an alarm signal for quad beams, an
increment of their deflection by 10 mm should be
considered.
The monitoring system can be likened to traffic
light signals. As long as the green light is on, there
are no problems. The appearance of an alarm signal
(yellow traffic light) notifies of the occurrence of
a negative trend that cannot be ignored. In this case,
you should immediately find out what is wrong.
There is still enough time to normalize the situation.
The red light is a signal-a harbinger of an emergency
condition. If the monitoring service works correctly,
and the user is responsible for monitoring signals,
you can be sure that the red light will never light up.
Restorers-architects, designers, and contractors
have done their job, everything in our power to pre­
serve the unique monument of wooden architecture
for many decades. Now let’s see if the maintenance
service is up to the mark.
4 CONCLUSION
The creation of a tool for numerical calculation of
wooden log structures made it possible to analyze in
detail the work of the most complex part of the
Transfiguration Church, namely, the transition
system of quadrangular frame beams designed to
transfer the load from the middle octagonal frame to
the lower octagonal frame.
As a result of calculations, it was found that
the presence of friction forces between the logs
of the log house makes a significant contribution
to the deflection of the quadrangular frame
beams. Over time, a decrease in the friction
forces will lead to multiple increases in the
382
deflection, the occurrence of significant bending
moments, and stresses exceeding the limit values
for wood. Therefore, it is necessary to provide
for the reinforcement of the structure, which is
advisable to implement in the form of two metal
clamps on each wall of the quadrangular frame
and metal puffs. This “sprengel” design allows
you to combine the work of the quadrangular
frame beams while ensuring reliable transmission
of forces to the support nodes.
The quadrangular frame beam reinforcement
system must be assembled on-site, and it should be
put into operation immediately if monitoring indi­
cates a tendency to increase the deflection of the
structure.
REFERENCES
Novozhilov L. A. 2009. Restoration of the Transfiguration
Cathedral in Kizhi. Moscow: ALEV-V
Opolovnikov A.V. 1976. Kizhi. Moscow: Stroyizdat.
Opolovnikov A.V. 1989. Treasures of the Russian North.
Stroyizdat.
Piskunov Yu. V. 1999. The project of strengthening the
Transfiguration Church on the island of Kizhi. Actual
problems of research and rescue of unique monuments
of wooden architecture in Russia: 99–105.
Rasha I. K. 2016. Unfinished history of the restoration of
the Transfiguration Church on the island of Kizhi. Saint
Petersburg: COSTA
Serov E. N., Serov A. E., Mironova S. I. & Ruban D. A.
2013. Options for strengthening the beams of the lower
quadrangular frame of the Transfiguration Church on
Kizhi Island. In V International Conference on Actual
Problems of Architecture and construction, SPbGASU,
July 25-28, 2013: 433–439
Serov E. N., & Serov A. E. 2013. Proposals for strengthening
the beams of the lower quadrangular frame of the Transfig­
uration Church on Kizhi Island. News of higher educa­
tional institutions. Forest Journal, 3 (333): 143–151.
Shashkin V. A. & Glybin L. A. 2017. Diagnostics of the
technical condition of the Exchange building on the spit
of Vasilievsky Island. Industrial and Civil Engineering,
(12): 68–76.
Shashkin A. G. & Ulitsky, V. M. 2017. Ensuring the mech­
anical safety of cultural heritage sites. Herald. Architect.
21st century, (2): 104–111.
Tiunov O. V. & Shashkin A. G. 2020. Kizhi. Transform­
ation. Saint Petersburg: Georekonstruction.
Tiunov O. V. & Shashkin A. G. 2020. The Transfiguration
Church in Kizhi and the Parthenon: conservative
restoration. Bulletin of Civil Engineers. 5 (82): 20–32.
Ulitsky V. M. & Shashkin A. G. 2017. Preservation of
architectural monuments and ensuring their mechanical
safety. Industrial and Civil Engineering, (7): 31–39.
Ulitsky V. M., Shashkin A. G., Shashkin K. G. &
Shashkin V. A. 2014. Fundamentals of joint calculations
of buildings and foundations. Saint Petersburg:
Georekonstruction
Ulitsky V.M., Shashkin A.G., Shashkin K.G., Shashkin V.
A. & Lisyuk M.B. 2015. Soil-structure interaction
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 Reconstruction and Restoration of Architectural Heritage 2021 – Sementsov, Leontyev & Huerta (Eds)
© 2021 Taylor & Francis Group, London, ISBN 978-0-367-68296-5

Methodological approaches to the restoration of wooden architecture

monuments: God Transfiguration Church on Kizhi island
O.V. Tiunov
Renaissance-Restoration JSC, Saint Petersburg, Russia

ABSTRACT: The article highlights the features of the monuments of wooden architecture in the North of
Russia. Understanding the principles of construction and shaping is the foundation of restoration. The features
of folk architecture are listed. It is proposed to get acquainted with the experience of the methodological
approach to the restoration of the unique object of the 40-meter, 22-chapter wooden church on the island of
Kizhi. The estimated parameters for the restored elements and methods of working with them are listed.

1 INTRODUCTION the building for performing rites “embellished and

The restoration of architectural monuments is a very
broad topic for knowledge and discussion. The revival
of monuments of wooden architecture is the most diffi­
cult and at the same time the most interesting task for
an architect-restorer. Wooden building culture, which
has its roots in the depths of centuries, was created
over several generations by hard work and creative
search. Wooden architecture is, first of all, folk archi­
tecture, lively, multi-faceted, and talented. How to
approach the restoration of monuments of folk wooden
architecture?
2 MATERIALS AND METHODS
The wooden architecture is characterized by simpli­
city, consistency, and reliability of the design. The
form reflects nature: it is practical and expedient. Our
ancestors always combined function with reliability
and beauty. “Utility + constructiveness + aesthetics”
is the formula of the trinity, clearly expressed in
wooden architecture. The concept of “building” is
both about the unity of the body, soul, and spirit, and
about the combination of utility, strength, and beauty.
Russian people have always had a sense of beauty.
From the point of view of our ancestors, the temple
building is an image of the universe. There was still
a pre-Christian tradition of creating a separate and at
the same time unified sacred space with the surround­
ing world. Throughout our history, up to the second
half of the XVII century, churches were cut down,
repeating in the main features the techniques of old
and long-established. Churches were usually built very
high and it was the tent that made it possible to make
amazing”.
Tent churches were cut “round” to give the main
part of the temple the largest capacity. The area of
a log house made of logs of the same length, four-
sided in terms of shape, and an octahedron differ by
4.8 times. Also, the octagonal log house allowed
quite constructively to attach side chapels to the
temple. With this form of plan, it was possible to
give the main part of the temple a very significant
height. The most natural covering for the octagonal
walls was a tent, tapering upwards most often in an
octagonal pyramid, with a bulbous dome at the end.
The tent becomes the semantic completion of the
entire building, creating with its lines a powerful
image of movement upward, up to the mountain. For
all its incredible height, the interior space of the
church was much smaller than its external volume ­
the ceiling was often just flat or a specially built
domed “sky” in the central part of the temple.
Understanding the principles of structural construc­
tion and external shaping and the purpose of buildings
not only on the functional but also on the mental level
gives the architect-restorer reliable support in his cre­
ative path. The Transfiguration Church of the Kizhi
Churchyard also appears before us as the embodiment
of a tent temple in the form of three octagonal log
cabins successively erected on top of each other.
Two different beginnings are united in the monu­
ment: the stability of the pyramid and the rapid rise of
the domes. The three-dimensional solution of the
monument is characterized by a tiered structure. By
the beginning of the XVIII century, wooden architec­
ture had already developed the experience of creating
multi-headed step churches, which was perfectly
embodied in the Transfiguration Church. It is the

DOI: 10.1201/9781003136804-74

383
embodiment of the consistent development of the
native folk architectural and construction culture. The
construction of the Church of the Transfiguration dates
back to the beginning of the XVIII century and was
built on the site of a tent church that burned down in
1694. It stretches to the sky to a height of almost
40 m and measures 20.6×29 m in the plan. The church
is made of round pine logs “in oblo” and “in paw”
(altar).
The basis of the planning structure of the structure
is an octagonal log house (octagon) with four log
cabins, creating an 18-wall volume (Figure 1). The
altar block is cut down in the form of a pentagon.
The Transfiguration Church belongs to the so-called
summer or cold churches according to its purpose and
structural structure. The log house of the church is
built “dry”, without laying grooves with moss or
oakum, there are no winter frames and double doors,
there is no insulated floor and ceiling. Airing and
drying of all rooms, parts, and structures take place
through holes, cracks in the log cabin, ceilings, open­
ings, and roofs allows you to get rid of the main
enemy of wood – dampness and makes the structure
more durable. The higher the air is drawn in the” pipe
“of the pillar of the church, the better and faster the
wood dries and the less possibility for the appearance
of rot, dangerous fungi, and insects. Thus, with the
height of the cold churches, their service life
increases. The height of the Transfiguration Church as
a force of emotional impact is organically combined
with the practicality of its purpose for summer use.
From 1982 until the beginning of restoration work
in 2009, the monument existed, figuratively speaking,
in the form of a log shell (with the complete elimin­
ation of its internal component), resting on a power
metal frame designed by N. I. Smirnov. All the
Figure 1. Sketch project of restoration, author Rakhmanov
V. S. 2000.
384
ceilings and even some of the connecting elements
were dismantled, and the iconostasis was also disman­
tled. But at the same time, the state of the preserved
structures of the church based on the data of the con­
ducted observation was characterized as stable, satis­
factory, the activation of the destruction of wood or
emergency deformation of the monument was not
noted, since it was fixed and supported on a power
metal frame.
The works Suslov V.V. (1889), Krasovsky M.V.
(1916), Zabello S. (1942), Gabe R.M. (1941),
Aschepkov E.A. (1950), Grabar I. E. (1953), Usha­
kov Yu. S. (1974), Milchik M. I. & Ushakov Yu.
S. (1981), Orfinsky V. N. (1982), Krasnorechev
L. E. (1996), Opolovnikov A.V. & Opolovnikova
E. A. (1998), Gnedovsky B. V. (2002), Bode
A. B. (2019), Brumfield W.C. (2015) devoted to the
research and restoration of wooden architecture
monuments allow us to fully understand the peculiar­
ity of the wooden architecture of the Russian North.
3 RESULTS
The main tasks of the restoration of architectural
monuments are structural and technical strengthen­
ing, along with the restoration of the original artistic
image. At the forefront should be the provision of
a satisfactory technical condition and the preserva­
tion of the original elements of the building.
There are three main approaches to the restoration
of wooden architecture monuments: the first is to
preserve and summarize the material to the greatest
extent possible to the prototype, the state in which
the structure was at the initial period of construction;
the second is to preserve the image of the monument
that has come down to our time with all its recon­
structions and layers; the third is to restore the
monument to the period of its highest heyday, but
taking into account some of the later alterations, to
present it in the collective form of layers with the
maximum justification of each architectural element
and design.
These or other layers are characteristic of all
ancient monuments. Our ancestors, for various
reasons, sometimes deviated from the forms of
their predecessors. New artistic and constructive
techniques were born. The next generation could
bring it is own-improved or decorated-addition
and change, which restorers call layering. The
historical structure that has come down to us was
formed during several construction periods and
combined its original foundation with several late
layers of different times into a single whole.
These “clothes” are, on the one hand, an integral
history of the development of the monument, and,
on the other hand, sometimes structurally insepar­
able part. It is important to understand and pre­
serve the traditional shaping techniques on the
monument. However, layers made in architecture
and construction by traditional forms are also
valuable. Such layers are preserved and restored.
Of course, to distinguish traditional and alien
layers from all the elements of the monument,
you need to know the traditions of wooden archi­
tecture well. The reliability of the restoration is
the main criterion for the compliance of the
restored elements with the lost ones.
The restoration project summarizes the research,
fixation, and knowledge of the specifics of wooden
architecture in this case.
The monument waited for its largest and most
authentic restoration until the XXI century. A bold
and thoughtful restoration project was developed,
and an unprecedented scale and complexity of engin­
eering tasks were carried out. The church was care­
fully hung on the power scaffolding, a new
foundation was built, after which a sequential
bottom-up tiered disassembly began with a thorough
element-by-element restoration of each tier. This
masterpiece of wooden architecture experienced
such a large-scale rebirth for the first time in three
hundred years of its life. The general approach was
a continuation and development of the restoration
technique born by V. A. Opolovnikov (1976).
In the works Opolovnikov A. V. (1976), Opolov­
nikov A. V. (1974), Novozhilov A. L. (2009), Rasha
I. K. (2014), Kovalchuk A. L. (2019), Tiunov
O. V. & Shashkin A. G. (2019), Kisternaya M. V. &
Nezvitskaya T. V. (2020) reflects the direct methodo­
logical approaches to restoration of wooden
architecture.
4 DISCUSSION
In 2000, the institute “Spetsproektrestavratsiya”
(St. Petersburg) in the workshop of the architect-
restorer Rakhmanov Vladimir Stepanovich created
a “Comprehensive draft project of restoration”,
which was designed to solve the following tasks:
• restoring the normal operation of the monument-
strengthening overstressed historical structures,
eliminating dangerous deformations that threaten
the stability of the building;
• including and improving the reliability of all
structures: foundations, log walls, a system of his­
torical beams and links must reliably perform
their work;
• the most complete preservation of the original
elements of the monument is the artisan restor­
ation of the log elements;
• bringing the architectural appearance of the build­
ing by its historically justified and reliable
appearance;
• restoration of the interior decoration;
• ensuring the possibility of studying the monu­
ment after the restoration is completed: preserv­
ing not only the original elements but also, if
possible, the layers of the XIX century and the
previous restoration period;
385
• the use of the existing internal metal frame in the
production of works, followed by its dismantling.
According to the project, the architectural appear­
ance of the monument as a whole was proposed to
remain unchanged, supplemented by the lost south
porch and the reconstruction of the rotted salary
crowns of the log house. Restoration of the planking
of the log house was not provided, except for the
level of the upper, third octagon.
In 2004, the Kizhi Museum began to produce
a set of preparatory measures for the subsequent
work on the preservation of the monument: the con­
struction of a production base, the arrangement of
places for storing material, harvesting, and storage
of wood. Restoration work directly on the site based
on approved documentation was started in 2009. By
the methodology of modern standards, the working
documentation was clarified and detailed in the
course of the work.
In general terms, the restoration process of the
monument included: a three-tiered lifting of the
entire building based on the existing metal frame of
1982 and additional new multiple metal structures,
the construction of a reliable foundation,
a sequential bulkhead of structures from bottom to
top along with seven technological belts, the recon­
struction of lost structural elements with their
strengthening, and the restoration of the interior
decoration.
Each original element of the Transfiguration
Church has its own historical value and has
a specific function in the overall design of the monu­
ment (Figure 2). To decide on the restoration or cre­
ation of an exact copy of the log house element, if it
is impossible to preserve it, it is advisable to evaluate
the restored element according to the following main
parameters: 1) physical wear and tear; 2) historical
value; 3) design features; 4) operating loads; 5) aes­
thetic appearance; 6) maintainability during
operation.
Physical wear of the material is an unavoidable
and permanent phenomenon, which ultimately
affects the stability of the entire structure of the
monument. According to this criterion, all elements
that were lost over time, such as the completely
rotted lower logs of the monument, were included in
the category of elements with 100% physical wear.
In this case, according to the restoration project,
their exact copies were made: 2-3 (depending on the
relief) crowns of the church were recreated. The
element whose physical wear is in the range of 40­
45% is considered to be repairable. In other cases,
a copy of it is made.
One of the main tasks of restoration is to preserve
as much of the original as possible.
The historical elements of the church carry certain
information – a trace of time that we have not yet
fully learned to read. With a competent approach,
the architect can understand the history of construc­
tion, repairs, and alterations based on the historical

Figure 2. The restoration process, the hanging of the
church. Photo by Tiunov O. V. of 2013.
features of the log elements. But there is still some­
thing difficult to catch-v for the past centuries. When
performing work, the carpenter-restorer must under­
stand the significance of historical traces and, if pos­
sible, preserve them, and make copies only in the
most unfavorable case. Original elements with
a large amount of information of historical value, if
it is impossible to restore them, should be preserved
as artifacts, and replaced with exact copies in the log
cabin. Traces of unprofessional repairs and restor­
ations, as practice shows, are sometimes haphazard
and violate the structural integrity of the monument.
It happens that they are performed in a different
technology, do not have clear contact with the histor­
ical (original) elements, and therefore the replace­
ment of such elements is even advisable.
Under the design features, first of all, it means the
work of nodes, connections, and cuttings. For
example, if the cuttings are severely destroyed or
even fell off, there is a dangerous situation of lack of
communication in the corners of the walls. Such
elements are subject to mandatory restoration, up to
complete replacement. When making decisions on
the restoration of the structural component of the
element, it is also necessary to consider its position
in the log house, so as not to get a situation where
the same decision is repeated on adjacent logs. The
boundaries of the connection of the old and new
parts of neighboring logs should not line up in one
vertical line on the wall. The joints on the wall
386
panels should be placed “in a staggered order”, if
possible, make the joints “equally strong”.
Since each element of the monument is affected by
different loads, it is necessary to understand the stress
state of the entire site to be restored. Problems begin
after the element is exposed to extreme loads. For
example, the diagonal walls of the church at the level
of the basement had crushed logs. This crumpling
took place over a very long time - the logs changed
their shape from the original round to the shape of an
ellipse, actually split into two halves. Such
a crumpling is likely to occur after a complete bulk­
head of the log cabin. This circumstance had to be
considered when deciding on the restoration or
replacement of the logs of the lower crowns. In the
elements of the upper octagon, the logs are much less
loaded and the restorer has a better chance of preserv­
ing the original parts of the monument in its place.
Elements that are underloaded and loaded within
the normal limits are not affected by the estimated par­
ameter “active loads” and other criteria are included in
the work. Elements that fail in the high-load zone are
subject to complete replacement, and other estimated
parameters are not even considered. The situation
when the elements are loaded beyond the norm but
are in working condition is “borderline” and the most
difficult to make decisions. In this case, it is recom­
mended not to arrange the restoration of the elements
by installing crowns, inserts, and prostheses.
If necessary, restoration measures can be carried
out with the use of such solutions that do not destroy
the element under load. If there is still a high risk of
destruction of the element under heavy load, prefer­
ence is given to its complete replacement. For the
sake of objectivity, it is worth noting that there are
no clear visible boundaries between elements loaded
within the normal range and elements loaded beyond
the normal range.
The most subjective evaluation parameter is the
“aesthetic appearance”, based on the perception of
the picture as a whole. According to this criterion,
the elements can be classified as follows: “pleasant
to the eye”, “eye cuts” or the element is outside the
visual perception zone. For example, for an aesthet­
ically comfortable perception, it is recommended to
arrange no more than four parts made of new mater­
ial on the restored element.
Ideally, all restored elements should be repairable
during operation. Therefore, when carrying out
measures to restore the element, it is necessary to
take this factor into account and consider regular
subsequent repair work directly during operation as
a mandatory component of ensuring the preservation
of the monument. It is advisable to avoid collisions
when certain deferred solutions can be implemented
with great difficulties or corrected only at the next
complete bulkhead of the log house.
Direct restoration of the elements of the log house,
like surgical intervention, should be carried out with
knowledge and understanding of the “anatomy” - the
location and role of the element in the construction of
the monument. The main restoration work on the elem­
ents of the log house can be divided into three degrees
of intervention in the historical material: conservation,
restoration, and replacement (reconstruction). Conser­
vation involves clearing, sealing small damage, and
minor adjustments to the geometry-drawing.
Restoration of historical elements is already a real
operation-the addition of the destroyed part to the
historical form and functionality by replacing the
destroyed or lost part with a prosthesis, insert,
crown. Restoration is carried out from old or new
(dried) wood, similar in physical and mechanical
properties to the restored element. Replacement, that
is, making a copy of the historical element, as
already mentioned, is subject to parts that are signifi­
cantly destroyed or lost.
The restoration of the historical element may be of
varying degrees of completeness and complexity.
According to the methods of restoration of historical
wooden elements, the following types of work were
laid down in the project and subsequently implemented:
insert, crown, prosthesis, extension, splice, filling, cut
the sapwood. Insert – this is a minor addition to the
restored element to the original form, with a volume of
no more than 1/5 of the part. Insert is placed in the
unloaded zone or the compression zone of the element.
A crown is an addition in an unloaded area along with
the restored element with a cross-section of usually 20­
30% (in rare cases up to 70%), the length can be equal
to the length of the entire log. A prosthesis is
a replacement of a destroyed or lost part of an element
with the restoration of the original shape. The cross-
section of the prosthesis can reach 100% of the cross-
section of the element, and it can work in a loaded
area. The connection and joint work with the restored
element are provided structurally, it is possible to use
nagels and reinforcement. Extension-restoration of the
lost part of the element to the original length by pros­
thetics. Splice-the connection of sawn (broken) histor­
ical elements, or the connection of elements with
prostheses. Filling-restoring the continuity of the voids
formed during the destruction of the element. The seal­
ing of cracks, that is, the filling of surface cracks, it is
desirable to replace the drainage holes, which provide
the removal of moisture from the inner planes. Cut the
sapwood - it can be used with a small (up to 3 cm)
thickness of removal from the surface of the log.
5 CONCLUSION
During the restoration of the Transfiguration Church,
the authors of the project sought to solve the prob­
lem of ensuring the long-term preservation of the
monument mainly by strengthening the structures
and strengthening them only when necessary.
387
6 RECOMMENDATIONS
I hope that this experience of working on an out­
standing monument of folk wooden architecture
will be interesting and even useful for architects-
restorers when designing and conducting restor­
ation work.
REFERENCES
Aschepkov E. A. 1950. Russian wooden architecture.
Moscow: State Publishing House of Architecture and
Urban Planning.
Bode A. B., Zinina O. A., Kosenkov A. Yu. & Popov V. A.
2019. Traditional wood construction and carpentry
skills. Moscow: Heritage.
Brumfield W.C. 2015. Architecture at the end of the earth.
Durham and London: Duke university press.
Gabe R. M. 1941. Karelian wooden architecture. Moscow:
Academy of Architecture of the USSR.
Gnedovsky B. V. 2002. Monuments of Russian wooden
architecture in open-air museums. Moscow.
Grabar I. E. 1953. History of Russian art. Volume I.
Moscow: edition I. Knebel.
Kisternaya M. V. & Nezvitskaya T. V. 2020. Restoration of
the Church of the Transfiguration of the Lord on the
island of Kizhi. Petrozavodsk: Kizhi.
Kovalchuk A. L. 2019. Restoration of elements of histor­
ical wooden monuments. Methodological recommenda­
tions. Petrozavodsk: Kizhi.
Krasnorechev L. E. 1996. Research and restoration of
wooden architecture monuments. Novgorod.
Krasovsky M. V. 1916. Course of the history of Russian
architecture. Wooden architecture. Petrograd: partner­
ship of R. Golike and A. Wilborg.
Milchik M. I. & Ushakov Yu. S. 1981. Wooden architecture
of the Russian North. Leningrad: Stroyizdat.
Novozhilov L. A. 2009. Restoration of the Transfiguration
Cathedral in Kizhi. Moscow: Alev-V.
Opolovnikov A.V. & Opolovnikova E. A. 1998. Wood and
harmony. Moscow: Opolo.
Opolovnikov A.V. 1974. Restoration of monuments of folk
architecture. Moscow: Stroyizdat.
Opolovnikov A.V. 1976. Kizhi. Architectural monuments.
Moscow: Stroyizdat.
Orfinsky V. N. 1982. The logic of beauty. Petrozavodsk:
Karelia.
Rasha I. K. 2014. About the Transfiguration Church on the
island of Kizhi and not only. Notes of the restoration
participant. Saint Petersburg: Costa.
Suslov V. V. 1889. Essays on the history of Ancient Russian
architecture. St. Petersburg: Printing House of
A. F. Marx.
Tiunov O. V. & Shashkin A. G. 2019. Kizhi. Transfigur­
ation. Saint Petersburg: Georekonstruction.
Ushakov Yu. S. 1974. Wooden architecture of the Russian
North. Leningrad: Znanie.
Zabello S. Ivanov V. & Maksimov P., 1942. Russian
wooden architecture. Moscow: State Architectural Pub­
lishing House of the Academy of Architecture of the
USSR.
 Reconstruction and Restoration of Architectural Heritage 2021 – Sementsov, Leontyev & Huerta (Eds)
© 2021 Taylor & Francis Group, London, ISBN 978-0-367-68296-5

The invisible legacy of Augustine Betancourt in Saint Petersburg

monuments of the first half of the XIX century
V.M. Ulitsky
Emperor Alexander I St. Petersburg State Transport University, Saint Petersburg, Russia

A.G. Shashkin
Georekonstruction Institute, Saint Petersburg, Russia

ABSTRACT: The legacy of A. Betancourt can be traced not only in the monuments of construction art that
he left behind, and not only in the machines he invented and built. The authors of the article seek to demon­
strate that the impetus given by Betancourt to the development of the construction business continued to oper­
ate after his death. This was facilitated by the formation and development of the Russian engineering school,
which we owe in many respects to this outstanding son of the Spanish people and a Russian statesman, as well
as the work of this man at the head of the construction department – the Committee of buildings and hydraulic
works. In the article, to confirm this thesis, two examples are given, two very different monuments. One of
them is a fortification that can withstand any artillery of its time. The other is a wooden theater, miraculously
preserved in the fire of wars and revolutions. They are united only by one circumstance: the solution of tech­
nical problems in each of them did not do without the involvement of the knowledge and technologies that the
domestic construction art owes to Betancourt. To this day, his legacy remains the Russian engineering school.

1 INTRODUCTION Betancourt (of course, with the highest support)

Today, the name of Augustine Augustinovich Betan­
court, a Russian lieutenant general and the founder of
the Russian engineering school, has emerged from the
shadows, from undeserved semi-oblivion, which was
in the post-revolutionary years, when the history of sci­
ence was dominated by the attitude in all aspects of the
country’s development to seek mainly Russian roots.
This publication is not intended to clarify the biog­
raphy of this great son of the Spanish people and an
outstanding Russian statesman. This work has already
been largely carried out by Russian and Spanish
researchers (Kuznetsov 2013, Pavlov 2008, Nikolsky
2008, Dolores Romero Munoz & Sanz 2008, Ridruejo
2008, Alvarez 2008). It is now known that the
Moscow Manege owed its wide span to the original
wooden trusses designed by Betancourt. That Betan­
court gave many years to the development of the
Nizhny Novgorod Fair. That he not only designed the
building of the Expedition for the preparation of state
Papers on Fontanka, but also invented most of the
machines capable of producing paper with secret
signs.
However, the most important result of Augustine
de Betancourt’s activity in Russia is the fact that the
deep turn that the construction business has under­
gone thanks to him. This turn was made by
thanks to two major achievements. First, he created
the first engineering higher school in Russia – the
Institute of the Corps of Railway Engineers. And sec­
ondly, on his initiative, the “Committee for Bringing
All Buildings and Hydraulic Works into Better
Order” was founded in 1816 in St. Petersburg, where
Betancourt took the position of chairman. Betan­
court’s educational and administrative-organizational
activities have contributed to such a strong and deep
root in the Russian soil that there is hardly any struc­
ture that is distinguished by its technical complexity,
where the contribution of this remarkable person
would not be manifested in one form or another.
Let us illustrate this statement by the example of
two St. Petersburg monuments, which in recent
years had to be investigated by specialists of the
Institute “Georekonstruction”.
2 MATERIALS AND METHODS
It is known that Betancourt designed and built the
first steam dredger in Russia at the Izhora plant (the
British even tried to accuse him of industrial espion­
age). We believe that the modern reader would be
curious to evaluate its performance. This opportunity

DOI: 10.1201/9781003136804-75

388

Figure 1. The modern view of the fort “Alexander I”.
is provided by the study of the history of the con­
struction of the fort “Alexander I” (Figure 1).
Fort “Alexander I”, one of the 17 forts and batter­
ies included in the defense system of the Kronstadt
Fortress, was built in 1838 -1845 in the form of
a bean with dimensions of 90 m in length (on the
east-west axis) and 60 m in width. The fort was
located in the waters of the Gulf of Finland, where
the depth reached 4.5 m.
The construction of the fort is associated with the
names of specialists who were somehow connected
with the brainchild of Betancourt-the Institute of the
Corps of Railway Engineers. The author of the first
project of the fort was L. L. Carbonniere (1770­
1836), an associate of Betancourt during the con­
struction of the Moscow Manege, inspector General
of the Corps of Railway Engineers (since 1811).
There is evidence that he also took part in the instal­
lation of the “Pillar of Alexandria” on Palace Square
(which was carried out, according to official infor­
mation, by O. Montferrand on the basis of Betan­
court’s developments).
After the death of Carbonniere, Colonel Engin­
eer Lebedev, a graduate of the Institute of the
Corps of Railway Engineers in 1816, was
appointed the builder of the new fort on the
Kronstadt roadstead, and the main supervision of
the work was entrusted to Professor
M. G. Destrem (1787-1855), Lieutenant General
of the Corps of Railway Engineers.
In the surviving report of Destrem, we can see
a variant approach to finding a design solution: “In
view of the discovery of layers of weak soil in the
ground, it is proposed to fence the entire space of the
fort around the perimeter with sheet piling and
strengthen the ground with a pile base; or, having
fenced everything around the perimeter with sheet
piling, choose the ground to the mainland, and
instead fill up to 10 feet below the ordinary 3000
cubic fathoms of sand or concrete, and then make
a bed of large slabs of granite and build the
389
foundation of the fort on this plate” (Defensive
structures…).
A specially created committee for the construction
of the fort decided to combine both options, i.e., to
replace the weak soil with sand, and to arrange a pile
foundation. To extract the weak clay soil, steam
dredgers of 30 horsepower each with a capacity of
about 80 m3/day were used, created according to the
project of A. Betancourt (Guzevich & Guzevich
2008).
Thanks to N. Beznoshchenko, who published
a detailed article in the “Engineering Journal”, No 5
for 1863, we have very interesting information about
the work of this technique during the construction of
the fort: “In the month of May, 1837, a step-up
dredger was introduced into the space fenced with
ryazhami, and it was excavated weak soil… The
removed earth was dumped in the plashkouts
brought to the cars and they were taken away from
the construction site… The excavation was carried
out day and night for 148 working days; a total of
1,200 cubic fathoms (11,650 m3) of land was
removed and transported) … On average, 10.4 cubic
fathoms (100.5 m3) of earth were taken out by
a steam engine per day, and 5.3 cubic fathoms (51.2
m3) by a step.””.
Note the considerable performance of the his­
torical dredging equipment: with the power of
the machine only 30 hp (i.e. 50% of the power
of the well-known passenger car VAZ 2101), in
the summer it was possible to extract a volume
of soil per day, which would be enough for 10
modern “Kamaz” with a body capacity of
10 m3.
An idea of the construction of the artificial base of
the structure is given by historical drawings –
a cross-section of the fort, shown in Figure 2.
Thus, the design of the system of defensive struc­
tures of Kronstadt, which was so useful in the Cri­
mean War (1853-1856), we owe much to the
technology built by Betancourt.
Figure 2. Image of the fort “Alexander I” in the section
(RGAMVF, F. 326, Op. 1, d. 6345. 1843): 1-ripples;
2-granite slabs; 3-concrete preparation; 4-a sand cushion
that replaced the natural soil extracted by the Betancourt
dredger.
3 RESULTS AND DISCUSSION

One of the most famous creations of Betancourt is the

Moscow Manege, the first large-span building in
Russia, covered with thirty wooden trusses with
a length of 44.86 m (Figure 3) (Egorova & Timofeev
2012). In the trusses, special fasteners were used,
wooden beams were connected by a complex system
of metal rods, the tension of which was regulated by
special nuts.
The history of the construction of the arena is inter­
esting to us not only by the search for new bold solu­
tions but also by the ability to work on mistakes.
When two trusses cracked at the end of July 1818, and Figure 4. Replica of Betancourt farms made of glued
several other elements cracked the following summer, wood.
in 1819, Carbonnier, the construction manager, modi­
fied the design of the trusses, adding two more to the
seven posts in each of them. However, Betancourt pro­ Lukomsky G. K., 1914). Betancourt had already
posed a different solution – he increased the number of passed away, but his business was still alive. In the
trusses from 30 to 45, thereby reducing the step from wooden theater, trusses were used, very similar to the
5.5 m to 3.66 m, and, consequently, the loads that fall design of Betancourt trusses, although their span
on each of them (Egorova & Timofeev 2012). reaches only 20 m (Figure 5).
The Manege owed its origin to the Moscow fire of There was a legend that the theater was built in
1812, and its death to another fire that occurred in just 40 days. A detailed analysis of the theater struc­
our time, on March 14, 2004. Until now, we have to tures during the restoration, carried out according to
meet in the description of the recent history of the the project of the Institute “Georekonstruction”
arena remarks that, they say, the causes of the fire are (Dementieva et. al. 2012, 2014), supplemented by
still not really named, the city defenders even sus­ data from historical and archival materials, dispelled
pected the presence of malicious intent. Meanwhile, this legend. The theater was built at the same time
the authors of this article, having found themselves in by a large number of workers and its structures were
the building just a day before the fire, at a conference prepared in different places in stages by different
held in a fenced-off compartment, witnessed welding teams according to a single plan of the builder-
work, which for some reason (clearly not related to
the repair of the building) was carried out casually
behind a light partition, causing suffering to the audi­
ence (they produced a fair amount of noise and
smoke). With such an operation of the monument, it
remains to be surprised not that it burned down, but
that it survived until 2004. Today, in the Moscow
Manege, we can only see the stylization of historical
farms made of glued wood (Figure 4).
But there is a wooden building in St. Petersburg,
which was spared both the fires of the revolution and
the cold, terrible days of the blockade. This is the
Kamennoostrovsky Theater, built in 1827 by the archi­
tect Smaragd Shustov (Vityazeva V. A., 1991;

Figure 5. An engraved project of A. Kavos: a-cross sec­

Figure 3. Drawing of the construction of the Moscow tion; b-longitudinal section of the theater building. Repro­
manege according to the preserved historical drawings duction from the book “Atlas du Traite de la Construction
(Egorova & Timofeev 2012). des Theatres par Albert Cavos”. Paris, 1847.

390
architect, after which they were brought to the site
and assembled. In the construction of the walls and
the truss system, there are recycled elements from
the dismantling of old buildings.
Another legend related to the theater was that the
theater was completely rebuilt in 1855 by the main
theater architect of the capital, A. Kavos. In fact, it
turned out that the building, despite all the numerous
repairs and reconstructions, was never disassembled
and preserved the original structures of 1827. Par­
ticularly noteworthy is the carefully and profession­
ally executed truss system, made of logs cut with an
ax, edged on four sides (Figure 6). Traces of the use
of a saw on the elements of the truss system, erected
in 1827. and repaired in 1855, not observed. All the
metal elements that hold the rafters together were
forged in 1827 and 1855. (on some forged metal
elements, stamps with dates have been preserved).
The concept of the restoration of the wooden build­
ing of the theater assumed the maximum preservation
of all the original elements. It is described in detail in
the book (Dementieva et. al. 2014). Specialists during
the restoration work marked, processed, and restored
every element of the log filling of the walls, preserved
from the beginning of the XIX century. As a result of
the restoration of the theater building, at least 80% of
the original wooden elements were preserved.
Particularly difficult was the restoration of nodes
damaged by moisture and woodworm beetle, which
could not be disassembled due to the design features,
but, nevertheless, it was necessary to restore their
load-bearing functions (Figure 7).
Each element of the wooden structure was exam­
ined, cleaned, treated with antiseptic agents to pre­
vent the destruction of the fungus. After analyzing
the technical condition of the historical element,
a qualified specialist made a decision to carry out
a particular restoration event: conservation (clearing,
sealing small damage, fire, and biosecurity) or pros­
thetics. The latter means the process of restoring the Figure 7. Prosthetics of load-bearing wooden elements of
historical form and functionality of the restored trusses without dismantling the structure.
element by replacing the destroyed or lost wood
with a structural element (prosthesis) made of old

(similar in physical and chemical properties to the

Figure 6. View of the truss system of the Kamennoos­
trovsky Theater and historical elements of theater equip­
ment before restoration.
391
restored element) or from new (dried) wood.
With the help of a hand tool, the prosthetic zones
on the restored element were prepared. Then, struc­
tural prostheses were made from specially selected
wood using templates and fitting in place. Then the
joints of the prosthesis and the historical element
were treated with antiseptic solutions. And only after
that, the connection of the restored element and the
prosthesis was made using oak nagels, and to
increase the strength of the lock joints, an additional
glue of vegetable or animal origin was used with the
installation of clamps to create the necessary pres­
sure at the junction.
As a result, the trusses were returned to their oper­
ational properties and they still perceive the load that
the coating is supposed to bear in our climate zone.
Figure 8. Trusses of the Kamennoostrovsky Theater, designed by S. Shustov in 1827, in the design solution of which there
is an analogy with the Betancourt trusses: a drawing of the truss with the design of the central chandelier attachment.
Figure 9. A three-dimensional image of the stage part.
Unfortunately, they are hidden from the viewer in
the attic space, inaccessible to the ordinary visitor,
which deprives the reader of the opportunity to see
firsthand the similarity of these farms to their
famous Betancourt predecessors. To at least partially
compensate for this drawback, we present the draw­
ings of these trusses made during the development
of their restoration project (Figures 8, 9).
4 CONCLUSION
The search for material evidence of Augustine de
Betancourt’s contribution to Russian architecture, as
we can see, is by no means limited to the objects
known from his biography. The legacy of Betancourt
is much broader – it has entered the flesh and blood
of the domestic construction art.
His influence can be seen throughout the subsequent
history of the construction business. He laid down an
effective algorithm for the development of Russian
construction science and practice. And just as all Rus­
sian literature, according to Dostoevsky’s apt definition,
came out of Gogol’s “Overcoat”, so we, today’s civil
engineers, came out of Betancourt’s general overcoat.
392
REFERENCES
Alvarez, E. R. (2008). Spanish engineering of the late 18th
century. Augustine de Betancourt y Molina. Izvestiya
Peterburgskogo universiteta putnykh sosheniya, (Special
Issue).
Defensive structures. Kronstadt Fortress. Fort “Alexan­
der 1”. Iconography, 1843. In the Russian State
Archive of the Navy. Foundation 326, Inventory 1,
Case 6345.
Dementieva V. A., Rakhmanov V. S., Shashkin A. G. 2012.
The revival of the Kamennoostrovsky Theatre: synthesis
of scientific achievements of restoration and geotech­
nics. St. Petersburg: Stroyizdat, Georekonstruktsiya.
Dementieva V. A., Rakhmanov V. S., Shashkin A. G. 2014.
Kamennoostrovsky Theater: synthesis of restoration and
geotechnical achievements. St. Petersburg:
Georeconstruction.
Dementieva V. A., Shashkin A. G., Rakhmanov V. S. &
Bulygin V. L. 2010. Kamennoostrovsky Theater. Restor­
ation and modern adaptation.Saint Petersburg: Kraski
goroda.
Egorova, O. V., & Timofeev, G. A. (2012). Engineer Betan­
court’s playpen. Vestnik MGSU, (4): 6–16.
Golant I. A. 2021. Information from the Unified State
Register of Cultural Heritage Objects (Historical
and Cultural Monuments) of the Peoples of the
Russian Federation. Open data portal, 46: 3.1.5–
1.29.1
Kuznetsov, D. I. (2013). Betancourt. Moscow: Veche.
Lukomsky G. K. 1914. Old theaters of St. Petersburg. Cap­
ital and estate: 7–15.
Munoz, D. R., & Sanz, A. S. (2008). A Spanish engineer in
the service of the two crowns. Betancourt. The begin­
nings of modern engineering. Izvestiya Peterburgskogo
universiteta putnykh sosheniya, (Special Issue).
Nikolsky, D. V. (2008). Augustine de Betancourt. Scientist
and power. Izvestiya Peterburgskogo universiteta put­
nykh sosheniya, (Special Issue).
Pavlov, V. E. 2008. Augustine Betancourt. Between the
past and the future. Izvestiya Peterburgskogo universi­
teta putnykh sosheniya, (Special Issue).
Riedrueho, F. S. (2008). Augustin de Betancourt, Spanish
scientist, and engineer. Izvestiya Peterburgskogo univer­
siteta putnykh sosheniya, (Special Issue).
Vityazeva V. A. 1991. Stone Island. Leningrad: Lenizdat.
 Reconstruction and Restoration of Architectural Heritage 2021 – Sementsov, Leontyev & Huerta (Eds)
© 2021 Taylor & Francis Group, London, ISBN 978-0-367-68296-5

Augustin de Betancourt: One life – two disfavors

O. Volosyuk
National Research University Higher School of Economics, Moscow, Russia

ABSTRACT: The life of the “Russian Spaniard” – Agustin de Betancourt – was split into two parts
between Spain and Russia. New data obtained from Russian archives and other documentary sources
clarifies the unexplored moments in the biography of one of Spain’s best mechanical engineers, explains
the reasons for his hasty departure from Spain and move to St. Petersburg, traces the development of
his career in Russia and helps to understand the reason why the contribution of one of the most talented
engineers of his time and one of the most important participants in the construction of the new “Alex­
andrian” Russia was diminished by those who accidentally or deliberately erased the memory of him
from future generations.

1 INTRODUCTION of State. The post of Secretary of State corresponded

“Mr. Betancourt, like all people who have feelings, is
disappointed with what is happening in this country
[Spain],” wrote Ivan Muravyov-Apostol, Russian
Plenipotentiary Minister to the Court of Madrid, on
January 1, 1805, in a dispatch to the Minister of For­
eign Affairs of Russia, Adam Czartoryski, (AVPRI
1804. 7501: 175). What had caused Betancourt’s dis­
appointment and why did the Russian diplomat
become interested in this? Why did the Spaniard
move a year later to France, and then to Russia, where
he remained until the end of his days? The answer to
this question can be found in these new documents:
the memoirs of Philippe Vigel, Betancourt’s secretary,
reports of Ivan Muravyov-Apostol from the Archive
of Foreign Policy of the Russian Empire and the cor­
respondence of Muravyov-Apostol with his wife from
the State Archives of the Russian Federation.
2 SPAIN: FLORIDABLANCA Y GODOY
The passion for changing places could be explained
by Betancourt’s origins: his remote ancestor, the
French knight Jean de Bettencourt, was famous for his
discovery of the Canary Islands in 1402-1405 (Kri­
vushin 2005, Krivushina & Krivushin 2009: 20). The
descendants of the famous navigator settled in the
Canary Islands. It was from there that young Agustin
de Betancourt sailed in 1758 to “discover” peninsular
Spain, and later France, England and Russia.
After completing his education at the Royal Col­
lege of San Isidro and the Royal Academy of San
Fernando, Betancourt came to the attention of José
Moñino, Count de Floridablanca, Spanish Secretary
to that of Prime Minister, and Floridablanca had
under his purview and as his main burden the Depart­
ment of Foreign Affairs. At the same time, as Stepan
Zinoviev, Russian Plenipotentiary Minister to the
Court of Madrid, informed St. Petersburg in 1786,
“his favorite activities are projects for improving
roadways, digging canals, in one word, various works
aimed at the prosperity of the kingdom” (Volosyuk
et al 1991: 342). According to Zinoviev, it was pre­
cisely that area where Floridablanca was particularly
active. In one of his dispatches, the Russian envoy
reported on the beginning of “the construction of
ports on large and small rivers, which are numerous
in Spain” (AVPRI. 414: 103). In 1774, the construc­
tion of an irrigation canal began in Murcia, and in
1785, that of the Aragonese Canal, «the building of
which had begun many years ago, but which under
the previous reign had not advanced at all due to lack
of funds. At present, thanks to the concern of the
Count de Floridablanca, it is being implemented with
great success. Navigation along this canal is possible
all the way to Zaragoza, in the vicinity of which
anyone can enjoy already the advantages of irrigation.
According to the project, this canal should reach
Navarra…” (AVPRI. 351: 147; 426: 60-61). In this
regard, in April 1783, the Minister decided to send
engineers there to survey the area. Among them was
the young Agustin de Betancourt (Rumeu de Armas
1980: 32-34). Betancourt compiled a “memorandum”
on the project. Ramon Pignatelli, curator of the con­
struction, accompanied the document with such
a favorable report, that the Count de Floridablanca
decided not to lose sight of the young scientist.
Floridablanca favored the talented engineer until
the end of his duties as Secretary of State. In

DOI: 10.1201/9781003136804-76

393
July 1783, the Minister offered Betancourt his first
independent work: to prepare a report on the state of
the mercury mines of Almadena. Betancourt visited
the mines and compiled three memoranda, revealing
deep expertise, a brilliant literary style and remark­
able artistic talent: the drawings he attached were
accurate and very precise. In addition to describing
the state of the mines and the work performed there,
the most hazardous of which was carried out by con­
victs, Betancourt’s reports contained interesting pro­
posals for improving the labor process. The first
dealt with the pumping of water from the mines,
the second – with techniques for extracting the
mined element, the third – with the metallurgical
processes used in Almadena, and the methods of
packaging mercury raw materials for transportation
to the Americas in order to use them in the silver
amalgamation process (González Tascón & Fernán­
dez Pérez 1996: 55-69). In another endeavor, the
young man designed a hot-air balloon of almost two
meters in diameter, and at the end of the same year –
1783 – at the country residence of the Infant Don
Gabriel in the presence of the King and the entire
Royal Court, he demonstrated how the balloon could
soar through the air (Utrilla Navarro 1996: 49-54).
A few months later, in March 1784, Betancourt
went to Paris. Based on the evaluation of the project
in Almadena, he was awarded a scholarship to study
geometry and the technology of ore mining. In
August 1785, Floridablanca rewarded Betancourt
with a new scholarship to study hydraulic structures
at the École de Ponts et Chaussés in Paris. Betan­
court remained there until 1791, and was forced to
return to Madrid due to the development of revolu­
tionary events in France (Rumeu de Armas
1980: 55).
Even the dismissal of the Count de Floridablanca,
his benefactor, did not prevent Betancourt from
advancing his career: professionals with a technical
education were highly valued in Spain. In 1802, he
founded the School of the Corps of Civil Engineers
and spent the next few years organizing the work of
the School and of the General Inspection of Roads
and Canals. He participated in the most important
projects of the time, such as the construction of the
Castile Canal and the arch dam in Lorca, the project
on re-routing the river-beds of the Genil and Cubillas
rivers in the Granada Valley. The implementation of
the latter project caused a conflict between Betan­
court and the new Secretary of State of Spain,
Manuel Godoy, Duke de Alcudia.
The royal residence of Soto de Roma was situated
on the Genil river, about three miles downstream
from Granada. In September 1795, King Charles IV
transferred the ownership of Soto to Godoy, who
supported a project consisting of cutting down the
local forest in order to free up land for farming. Mas­
sive deforestation of the valley of Granada, in gen­
eral and in Soto in particular, was the result. In
a region with no man-made hydrographic construc­
tions this in turn led to frequent floods, washing
394
away crops. In January 1803, Godoy sent Betancourt
to Granada ordering him to rectify the problems in
the shortest possible time. However, they soon
started having differences of opinion. Godoy did not
agree with the overall concept of the project, as well
as with Betancourt’s proposals, which led to changes
in the management of engineering works in the
region: in October 1805 he discharged him from the
project and handed over its implementation to mili­
tary engineers (Volosyuk & Camarero Bullón 2018:
619-620).
The disfavor of the First Minister, who enjoyed
the special graces of Queen Marie Louise and
wielded more power in Spain than Charles IV him­
self, in reality meant the end of Betancourt’s profes­
sional career in his homeland. Taking into account
that back in 1792 the Queen had succeeded in dis­
missing the “irreplaceable” Minister Floridablanca,
it would be “child’s play” for her to ruin Betan­
court’s life and career. This is what Muravyov-
Apostol meant when he reported from Madrid that
Betancourt was “disappointed with what was hap­
pening in this country”.
During this period of troubled relations with
Godoy, Betancourt was introduced to the Russian
diplomat. At the end of 1804, he again met Mur­
avyov-Apostol to clarify the details of a possible
move to Russia. In the spring of 1805, before
leaving Spain, the Russian envoy wrote to Czar­
toryski in one of his reports: “If everything
works out, this will be the only good cause that
I have done in Spain. Pulling a talented person
out of nowhere and relocating him to my country
will always be an object of glory and consolation
for me” (AVPRI 1804. 7501: 174). In 1807,
Betancourt went to France, but did not stay there
long. From the correspondence between Mura­
vyov-Apostol and his wife, who in those years
lived with their children in Paris, it appears that
Betancourt was not going to stay in France: he
was preparing to move to Russia, something that
he finally managed to do in 1808 (GARF.
1002-1.2.)
3 RUSSIA: FAVORS AND DISFAVORS OF
ALEXANDER I
The talented engineer was favorably received by
Emperor Alexander I, who gave him full carte
blanche. Betancourt worked on his projects together
with the leading architects of the time - Auguste
Montferrand, Joseph Bové, Carlo Rossi and others.
In 1809, he established the Institute of Engineers of
Communication Routes, which he directed practic­
ally until the last years of his life. The Institute was
intended for preparing erudite professionals for the
Corps of Engineers of Communication Routes,
which included specialists in water and land commu­
nication routes. The Duke of Oldenburg, Director (in
the rank of Minister) of the Imperial Main
Directorate of Communication Routes, also headed
the Corps of Engineers.
Betancourt’s concept of building a new
St. Petersburg was the one that Alexander
I eventually supported, completely and uncondition­
ally trusting the Spanish engineer. In 1809, he was
promoted to the rank of Lieutenant-General. In 1811,
the Emperor awarded Betancourt the Order of
St. Alexander Nevsky, one of the highest decorations
of the Russian Empire. This was particularly import­
ant given the fact that, in Russia, there was no trad­
ition of granting Orders to scientists, writers, artists;
this sign of monarchical favor was much more often
bestowed on military officers (Fortunatov 2008).
Russian monarchs honored foreigners with the high­
est state awards to an even lesser extent. In
May 1816, Alexander I appointed Betancourt to
head the Committee on Buildings and Hydraulic
Works, which was the sole authority in formulating
urban planning policy in St. Petersburg and Russia.
However, whereas in Spain “favor” and “dis­
favor” in Betancourt’s life were associated with the
transition of First Ministers, in Russia they turned
out to be dependent on the mood swings of a single
person - the autocratic Emperor. Betancourt’s open­
ness, independence and European democratic style
impressed the young Russian Emperor at the
moment when he met the Spanish scholar and gave
him guarantees of building a career in Russia and of
his favorable Imperial attitude towards the imple­
mentation of his engineering plans. After the victory
over Napoleon and his participation in the post-
Napoleonic settlement of Europe, the views of the
Russian Emperor became much more conservative,
and his temper worsened. According to Philippe
Vigel, Betancourt’s secretary, “he [Betancourt] saw
no boundaries in either the Tsar’s confidence in him,
or the obedience of top officials to the Emperor, and
considered everything to be permissible. He did not
consider it necessary to make acquaintances, which,
in difficult times, could somehow serve to support
him” (Vigel 1865: 41).
Young, intelligent and well-educated, Philippe
Vigel was appointed Betancourt’s Secretary at 1816.
The Spanish engineer, fluent in English and French,
did not know a word of Russian. In St. Petersburg at
the beginning of the 19th century, in the position that
he held, this was not particularly necessary: Betan­
court’s entourage, his subordinates and higher digni­
taries freely spoke French. However, the
professional documents that went to Betancourt’s
department were often written in Russian. Vigel had
to deal with their translation into French. Working
alongside Betancourt almost every day, he, better
than anyone, realized what led to the sudden dismis­
sal of his patron.
In addition to Betancourt’s independent character
and his unwillingness to find protectors [“The
number of Betancourt’s enemies in the highest gov­
ernmental circles, aggrieved by him, increased
every day” (Vigel 1865: 41)], as well as the
395
evolution of the political views of the Russian
Emperor, Vigel names another, rather common,
reason – envy. According to the secretary of the
Spanish engineer, “the architects hated Betancourt
because of Montferrand, the engineers detested him
because of Rand [another assistant to Betancourt],
all the nobles were jealous of the distinction which
he enjoyed; many saw him as a foreigner who des­
pised their homeland, and everyone rebelled against
a kind person, who was only blinded by his suc­
cesses” (Vigel 1865: 20).
There was not a single project in the implementa­
tion of which Betancourt did not succeed. He was
never even accused of embezzlement. Alexander
I admired his creative ideas. The discord between
them began in 1820. In 1819, Augustine Betancourt
became a member of the Cabinet of Ministers and
Director of the Imperial Main Directorate of Com­
munication Routes, as well as head of the Corps of
Engineers. The Directorate was responsible for con­
structing new roads and maintaining the condition of
existing ones. In his new high position, Betancourt
went on a working trip around the country. He
visited the Caucasus, Georgia and the Crimea: in
Sevastopol, Kerch and Feodosia, he inspected the
ports of the Black Sea. The engineer inspected
canals and roads, designed locks and wharves. After
returning to St. Petersburg, he prepared a report for
the Emperor, in which he noted the unsatisfactory
condition of the means of communication - both
land and water. The Emperor was offended by such
sharp criticism of the state of affairs in his domain,
but at first did not show it.
Betancourt’s numerous opponents, who, being
aware of the Emperor’s favorable attitude towards
him, had earlier been afraid of criticizing him in
front of the Sovereign, seized the moment. Betan­
court was let down by crooked subordinates and an
unwillingness to delve into financial matters. His
enemies found an opportune moment to write an
accusation addressed to the Emperor. This denunci­
ation was supported by Alexei Arakcheev, the Chief
of the Imperial Chancellery, Emperor Alexander’s
favorite. “Arakcheev, whose patronage he [Betan­
court] had neglected, was keeping an eye on every­
thing,” wrote Vigel, “. He was not hostile, but not
too affectionate toward him” (Vigel 1865: 41).
The seeds fell on fertile soil. According to Alex­
ander’s aide-de-camp, at an audience requested by
Betancourt, the Emperor expressed dissatisfaction
with the fact that Betancourt had not been able to
fulfill the tasks required in the position entrusted to
him. Nevertheless, he stated that he understood
Betancourt’s difficulties, speaking about “the many
enemies that he, as a foreigner, had in Russia, and
announced that he had invented a means to give him
strong support” (Vigel 1865: 43). This “support”
materialized in the form of a German Duke – Alex­
ander Württemberg – uncle of the Emperor and
brother of his mother, Maria Feodorovna. The Queen
Mother had a great influence on her son and did not
count Betancourt among her favorites. The Emperor
offered the Duke the post of Director of the Imperial
Main Directorate of Communication Routes. This
was an absolutely machiavellian decision, given that
this position had previously been held by the Spanish
engineer himself.
This is how the Russian “Manuel Godoy”
appeared on Betancourt’s horizon. The Duke of
Württemberg and the Duke de Alcudia were similar
in many ways. Both were from the poor and rose
through the ranks. The Spanish Duke entered gov­
ernment service in 1784. At the age of 18, he rose to
prominence, and later became rich. This was essen­
tially due to his acquaintance with Marie Louise,
Queen of Spain. The German Duke was originally
from a small German state. After the marriage of his
older sister to Tsarevich Pavel, Catherine II pro­
moted him – at the age of 11 – to the rank of Brigad­
ier in the Russian army. In 1800 he was accepted
into Russian military service with a rank of Lieuten­
ant-General. In 1816, when his niece, Catherine, the
younger sister of Alexander I, married King Wilhelm
I, the Russian Imperial family became even closer to
the Württembergs.
Württemberg showed demonstrative disrespect
for his predecessor. He refused to meet with Betan­
court, appropriated, in his absence, all documents
from his office, expelled Betancourt and his family,
along with the entire Institute of Engineers of Com­
munication Routes, from the Yusupov Palace. The
Spanish engineer was forced to rent an apartment
near the new building of the Institute. In response to
Betancourt’s complaint, the Emperor told him that in
order to rid him of his dependence on Württemberg,
he would release him from the position of Director
of the Corps of Engineers and of the Institute. Betan­
court remained only as head of the Committee on
Buildings and Hydraulic Works. He also oversaw the
construction of St. Isaac’s Cathedral and the Nizhny
Novgorod Fair (Vigel 1865: 41). The situation was
fundamentally different from the events in Spain 16
years ago. Betancourt could not leave Russia: there
was no Muravyov-Apostol at the Russian Court in
1822, who could plead for him before the monarch
of another state. His age did not allow him to travel.
Betancourt could not abandon his children and his
unfinished “pet projects” in Russia. In the summer of
1823 Caroline, his daughter, died. In February 1824,
broken by grief and disfavor, Betancourt resigned
from all his posts, a request which the Emperor
accepted. Less than six months later, in July 1824,
“Europe’s most knowledgeable mechanic” was gone.
Disfavor, however, pursued him even after his
death. Although the Duke of Württemberg allowed
the employees of the Institute to convene for
a funeral service, and the Emperor issued a decree
on continuing financial assistance to Betancourt’s
wife and children, some of his colleagues tried to
appropriate his scientific achievements and destroy
the memory of him as of one of the greatest engin­
eers of his time. Auguste Montferrand was one of
396
these, as evidenced by Vigel. The young secretary,
who was constantly at the Spanish engineer’s side
and who was present at the origin of many engineer­
ing and architectural solutions discussed by Betan­
court and his colleagues, unreservedly recognized
the technical talent of his patron. When mentioning
the construction of St. Isaac’s Cathedral in
St. Petersburg, he wrote: “General Betancourt was
appointed a member of this commission for the man-
made part, that is, as a real constructor; but it was
Montferrand, an architect by chance, who was hon­
ored with the title of constructor” (Vigel 2019: 162).
Pointing to the genius of the engineering solutions
during the construction of the Alexander Column on
Palace Square in St. Petersburg, he very figuratively
wrote: “Betancourt needed to be a genius of mechan­
ics to lift such a weight and stick it in the ground in
front of the building like an ordinary twig”. And
then Vigel continues, emphasizing the unseemly role
of the French architect. “The machines invented by
him [Betancourt] served as a great help to Montfer­
rand, and after his death they became his [Montfer­
rand’s] legacy” (Vigel 1865: 20).
4 CONCLUSION
This was written decades after the death of Betan­
court. To this day these words are an important testi­
mony to the skills and achievements of the Spanish
engineer, to the proper attribution of the technical
inventions created by him, they are a recognition of
his unique engineering talent and his contribution to
creating the contemporary image of St. Petersburg.
The diplomatic and personal correspondence of
Ivan Muravyov-Apostol turned out to be an important
source not only for understanding Russian politics in
the early 19th century, but also for clarifying import­
ant details of the biography and professional career of
the “Russian Spaniard”, Agustin de Betancourt.
REFERENCES
Arkhiv Vneshney Politiki Rossiyskoy Imperii (AVPRI).
Fond. Snosheniya Rossii s Ispaniyey. Delo. 342, 351,
414, 426.
Arkhiv Vneshney Politiki Rossiyskoy Imperii (AVPRI).
Fond. Kantselyariya. 1804. Delo. 7501.
Fortunatov, V.V. 2008. General Betankur i rossiyskaya elita
v pravleniye Aleksandra. Izvestiya PGUPS. Yanvar-fevral.
González Tascón, I. & Fernández Pérez, J. 1996. Agustín
de Betancourt y las minas de mercurio de Almadén. In:
I. González Tascón (ed.), Betancourt. Los inicios de la
ingeniería moderna. Madrid: CEHOPU: 55–80.
Gosudarstvennyy Arkhiv Rossiyskoy Federatsii (GARF).
Fondy lichnogo proiskhozhdeniya. Fond. 1002- 1.2.
Krivushin, I. V. 2005. Zhan de Betankur, pervyy koloniza­
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 Reconstruction and Restoration of Architectural Heritage 2021 – Sementsov, Leontyev & Huerta (Eds)
Author index
Akhmedova, E.A. 153, 237
Akulova, N.A. 115
Alonso-Rodriguez, M.Á. 64
Antuña, J. 3
Aubakirova, I.U. 279
Bakusov, P.A. 297
Baulina, Е.N. 139
Beloyarskaya, I. 8
Bianchi, F.L. 284
Bobrova, D.M. 159
Bredikhina, A.V. 163
Brioschi, M.S. 210, 284
Busca Fernández, P. 350
Cardaci, A. 168
Cassinello, P. 14
Chainikova, O.O. 174
Cheban, A. 179
Chechel, I.N. 188
Chechel, I.P. 188
Chernyakevich, E.Yu. 183
Costa, S. 268
Cullen Salazar, J. 335
Dashko, R. 193
Demionov, I.N. 274
Dertimanis, V. 210
Devyatova, J.A. 128
Diakonov, N.P. 308
Drizhapolova, N.M. 199
Dubrovina, N.P. 20, 45
Evseev, N.A. 204
Fatkullina, А.О. 139
Fedorov, O.P. 274
Fedotova, G.O. 25
Ferrari, R. 210
Fridman, T.S. 216
Girón, J. 339
Golovina, S.G. 317
Gorshkov, A.G. 30
© 2021 Taylor & Francis Group, London, ISBN 978-0-367-68296-5
Gubinskaya, K.Yu. 308
Gudkov, A.А. 34
Han, Y. 145
Huerta, S. 39
Iakhina, E.P. 221
Kalach, F.N. 254
Kaloshina, L.L. 45
Karelsky, A.V. 54
Kharitonov, A.M. 279
Khoroshenkaja, E. 326
Kolesnikova, L.I. 263
Kondratiev, S.O. 297
Koptyaev, V.V. 54
Korensky, V. 345
Kormiltseva, O.M. 226
Kozyreva, E. 50
Kubetskaya, L.I. 231
Kudryavtseva, N.O. 231
Kuznetsov, I.V. 153,
237
Ladik, E.I. 263
Lavrov, L. 59
Leontiev, A.G. 226
Loginova, J.A. 242
Lokhmatikov, G. 193
López-Mozo, A. 64
López-Ulloa, F.S. 248
Makarov, S.V. 69
Mangushev, R.A. 254
Martín-Talaverano, R. 64
Menendez Pidal, I.F. 77,
350
Mikhailov, A. 83
Mirabella Roberti, G. 168
Mueller, O.V. 259
Nadyrova, K.N. 87
Nemtseva, Y.A. 263
Nikiforova, A. 312
398
Nikolsky, A.V. 102
Novokhodskaya, N. 59
Oblasov, Yu.A. 92
Osokin, A.I. 254
Perkova, M.V. 188, 263
Petukhova, N. 96
Pinheiro-Alves, M.T. 268
Plaksieva, D.A. 274
Platonov, I. 326
Pozas, M.J. 356
Puente Martín, C. 331
Pukharenko, Yu.V. 279
Rabasa-Díaz, E. 64
Radzyukevich, A.V. 102
Ramos, N. 268
Rizzi, E. 210
Ronzoni, M.R. 284
Ryadova, M.N. 106
Rybalchenko, M.V. 361
Saenz Ridruejo, F. 110
Sementsov, S.V. 69, 115,
371
Shabanov, V.A. 153, 237
Shangina, N.N. 279
Shashkin, A.G. 290, 297,
388
Shashkin, K.G. 204, 377
Shashkin, M.A. 297
Shashkin, V.A. 204, 290
Shchedrin, P. 367
Shevyakov, I.D. 308
Shuvaeva, E.Yu. 121
Silnov, A.V. 125
Skhodnova, M.M. 317
Supranovich, V.M. 128,
199
Surovenkov, A. 59
Teryagova, A.N. 153, 237
Tiunov, O.V. 383
Ulitsky, V.M. 388 Versaci, A. 168 Yudina, A. 323, 326
Volkov, A.V. 308
Vardanyan, E.G. 133 Volosyuk, O. 393 Zhou, Q. 145
Vasenin, V.A. 204 Voronova, N. 312
Verkhovskaia, I.I. 303 Vozniak, Е.R. 139, 317

399