Last updated 09/07/24: Online ordering is currently unavailable due to technical issues. We apologise for any delays responding to customers while we resolve this. For further updates please visit our website: https://www.cambridge.org/news-and-insights/technical-incident
We use cookies to distinguish you from other users and to provide you with a better experience on our websites. Close this message to accept cookies or find out how to manage your cookie settings.
Published online by Cambridge University Press: 27 January 2017
The calamitous fire which destroyed Moscow in 1812 precipitated a momentous urban renewal, which took on special architectural significance because it made Moscow one of Europe's foremost classical cities. To a greater degree than London, Edinburgh, Berlin, or Vienna, Russia's old capital acquired a “neoclassical” look despite the reappearance in it of much that was traditional and wooden. The purpose of this article is to stress the significance of the fire as a watershed in the city's history, noting those planning and building antecedents that gave rise to the new city after 1812.
1. The term romantic classicism was first used by Geidion, Sigfried in Spätbarocker undromantischer Klassizismus (Munich, 1922).Google Scholar Kimball, Fiske introduced it in English in “Romantic Classicism in Architecture,” Gazette des Beaux-Arts, 25 (1944): 95-112.Google Scholar Henry-Russell Hitchcock has explored its meaning and development in Architecture: Nineteenth and Twentieth Centuries (Baltimore, 1967), pp. xxi-xxix and 1-19. I am also very much indebted to S. Frederick Starr for his perceptions of romantic classicism and its Russian linkage.
2. Kimball, emphasizes the English garden origins (“Romantic Classicism,” p. 99); the quotation is from Fritz Baumgart, A History of Architectural Styles (New York, 1970), p. 259.Google Scholar
3. Quoted from Kaufman, Emil, Three Revolutionary Architects: Boulée, Ledoux, and Lequeu. Transactions of the American Philosophical Society, n.s., vol. 42, no. 3 (Philadelphia, 1952), p. 471Google Scholar.
4. For Moscow's early development see Sytin, P. V., Istoriia planirovki i zastroiki Moskvy, 2 vols. (Moscow, 1950-54) and Tverskoi, L. M., Russkoe gradostroitel'stvo do kontsa XVII veka (Moscow, 1953), pp. 39-43.Google Scholar
5. Alexander, John T. admirably shows Catherine's distate for the city (see “Catherine II, Bubonic Plague, and the Problem of Industry in Moscow,” American Historical Review, 79 [1974]: 637-71).Google Scholar
6. The main corpus of the palace covered 11.12 acres, or an area of one and a half million cubic meters. This was twice the area covered by Zakharov's Admiralty in St. Petersburg and four times its cubic capacity. A wooden model of this classical Kremlin may be seen in the architectural museum in the Donskoi Monastery (Moscow). Voyce, Arthur, The Moscow Kremlin: Its History, Architecture, and Art Treasures (Berkeley, Calif., 1954), pp. 59-63Google Scholar provides a survey of this topic.
7. For the best and most detailed acount of Moscow planning see P. V. Sytin, Istoriiaplanirovki. For Moscow planning in the context of Russian planning see Shkvarikov, V., Ocherk istoriiplanirovki i zastroiki russkikh gorodov (Moscow, 1954).Google Scholar For the plan of 1775 specifically see M. Budylina, “Planirovka i zastroika Moskvy posle pozhara 1812 goda (1813-1818 gg.),” Arkhitekturnoe nasledstvo, 1 (1950): 135-74 and S. A. Zombe, “Proekt plana Moskvy 1775 goda i ego gradostroitel'noe znachenie,” Ezhegodnik instituta istorii iskusstva (Moscow, 1961), p. 55.
8. The Kamennyi prikaz is discussed in Sytin, Budylina, and Zombe; its role in architectural education is the subject of M. V. Budylina, “Arkhitekturnoe obrazovanie v kamennom prikaze (1775-1782),” in Arkhitekturnoe nasledstvo, 15 (1963).
9. Sytin, Istoriia planirovki, 2:481.
10. Ibid., pp. 481-82.
11. Zombe, “Proekt plana Moskvy,” pp. 53-54, 96.
12. The architectural works mentioned below as well as other notable works are described in N. I. Brunov et al., Istohia russkoiarkhitektury (Moscow, 1956); I. E. Grabar'et al., Istoriiarusskogo iskusstva, 12 vols. (Moscow, 1953-61), vol. 8, Iskusstvo vtoroi poloviny XVIII veka (1961); and, most recently, Kathleen Berton, Moscow: An Architectural History (New York, 1978).
13. The best accounts of Kazakov and his ideas are E. A. Beletskaia, Arkhitekturnye al'bomy M. F. Kazakova (Moscow, 1956) and A. I. Vlasiuk et al., M. F. Kazakov (Moscow, 1957).
14. Thomas James, John, Journal of a tour in Germany, Sweden, Russia, Poland, during the years 1813 and 1814, 2 vols. (London, 1817), 1:404.Google Scholar
15. Budylina, “Planirovka i zastroika,” p. 156.
16. The best accounts on the rebuilding of Moscow after the fire are ibid.; A. A. Fedorov-Davydov, Arkhitektura Moskvy posle otechestvennoi voiny 1812 goda (Moscow, 1953); I. E. Grabar', S. A. Zombe, T. P. Kazhda, “Arkhitektura Moskvy,” in Grabar’ et al., Istoriia russkogo iskusstva, 8:142-60; and L. Chernozubova, “Iz istorii zastroiki Moskvy v pervoi polovine XIX veka,” in Arkhitekturnoe nasledstvo, 9 (1959): 15-26; and P. E. Gol'denberg, Staraia Moskva (Moscow, 1947).
17. For background on Hastie see Miliza Korshunova, “William Hastie in Russia,” Architectural History, 17 (1974); V. I. Piliavskii, “Gradostroitel'nye meropriiatiia i obraztsovye proekty v Rossii v nachale XIX veka,” in Arkhitekturnaiapraktika i istoriia arkhitektury, 21 (1958): 75-108 and passim; and Albert J. Schmidt, “William Hastie, Scottish Planner of Russian Cities,” Proceedings of the American Philosophical Society, 114, no. 3 (1970): 226-43.
18. See in particular Budylina, “Planirovka i zastroika,” p. 145.
19. The spokesman for the commission estimated that realization of Hastie's plan would cost the treasury nearly nineteen and a half million rubles; these fourteen squares alone were estimated at 4,021,772 rubles (see Budylina, “Planirovka i zastroika,” p. 146).
20. See footnote 7.
21. See Beletskaia, E., Krasheninnikova, N., Chernozubova, L., and L. Ern, “Obraztsovye“proektyv zhiloizastroike russkikh gorodov XVIII-XIX vv. (Moscow, 1961)Google Scholar; Piliavskii, “Gradostroitel'nye meropriiatiia“; and Chernozubova, “Iz istorii zastroiki Moskvy.“
22. Indeed, he added that “it would not be amiss if a few of our architects were to pay a visit to the two capitals of Russia which certainly contain structures that deserve to be more generally known at present” (William Rae Wilson, Travels in Russia, 2 vols. [London, 1828], 1:52-53).
23. Cf. Pokrovskaia, Z. K., Arkhitektor O. I. Bove (Moscow, 1964)Google Scholar. No satisfactory biography of Giliardi exists. For a brief summary of his work, see Grabar'et al., Istoriia russkogo iskusstva, 8:207-36. See also E. Beletskaia, “Vosstanovlenie zdanii Moskovskogo universiteta posle pozhara 1812 goda,” Arkhitekturnoe nasledstvo, 1 (1950): 175-90. For Grigor'ev see A. G. Vvedenskaia, “Arkhitektor A. G. Grigor'ev i ego graficheskoe nasledie,” Arkhitekturnoe nasledstvo, 9 (1957): 106-16 and E. A. Beletskaia, Arkhitektor Afanasii Grigor'evich Grigor'ev, 1782-1868 (Moscow, 1976). V. I. Piliavskii has written Stasov Arkhitektor (Leningrad, 1963); however, Stasov's role in Moscow was a lesser one than that of Bove, Giliardi, and Grigor'ev. E. V. Nikolaev, Klassicheskaia Moskva (Moscow, 1975) also discusses these architects.
24. See Khripunov, D., Arkhitektura Bol'shogo Teatra (Moscow, 1955).Google Scholar
25. Lyall, Robert, The Character of the Russians and a detailed history of Moscow (Moscow, 1823), p. 525.Google Scholar
26. See Beletskaia, “Vosstanovlenie zdanii Moskovskogo universiteta.“
27. Descriptions of important architectural monuments may be found in Brunov, Istoriia russkoi arkhitektury; Grabar'et al., Istoriia russkogo iskusstva, vol. 8; and N. F. Gulianitskii, “O kompozitsii zdanii v ansamblevoi zastroike Moskvy perioda klassitsizma,” Arkhitekturnoe nasledstvo, 24 (1976): 20-40.
28. See Kirichenko, E. I., “Arkhitekturnye ansambli Moskvy 1830-1860-kh,” Arkhitekturnoe nasledstvo, 24(1976): 3-19.Google Scholar
