PROCEEDINGS | Scientific Symposium
The authority of Italian masters has been highly valued in Russia for 850 years . Back in the XII century , unknown Lombard masters in Vladimir Rus built churches for Prince Andrei Bogolyubsky , compared with the churches of San Michele in Pavia or the Duomo in Modena . The first “ Italian ” wave , which introduced motives of the early Italian Renaissance into Russian architecture , is associated with the names of the Milanese Pietro Antonio Solari , the Bolognese Aristotele Fioravanti and the Tuscan Pietro Annibale . According to their projects , the Moscow Kremlin , Arkhangelsk and Uspensky cathedrals , the Faceted Chamber were completed in the 15th century ( Figure 1 ). During the ‘ second ” wave in the 18th century , Francesco Bartolomeo Rastrelli , Giacomo Quarenghi and Carlo Rossi became the authors of palaces and streets of St . Petersburg and its environs . The recognition of Italian architectural practice was so high that even our Nikolai Lvov , the Russian “ Leonardo da Vinci ” of Catherine ’ s times , translated “ Petrarch ” and the “ Four Treatises on the Architecture of Andrea Palladio ” and built “ Italian ” estates between Moscow and St . Petersburg . So Italy is like a native to us .
Fig . 1 - The Faceted Chamber in the Moscow Kremlin . Pietro Antonio Solari , 1492
The border of the 19-20 centuries can be called the period of the decline of classicism in Russia . By this time , the techniques and principles of classicism ceased to meet the functional requirements and aesthetic tastes of society , a clear order system was replaced by eclecticism and art nouveau , free of canons , and only in the 1910s did interest in classicism reappear . But neoclassicism ( or retrospectivism ) that appeared in Russian architecture during this period became more of a formal “ bearer of style ”, manifesting itself not in the structural composition of facades , but in the plastic decor used : acanthus leaves , sinks , mascarons , flowerpots on the roof parapets , garlands with embossed , antique figures .
And only in the late 1930s , the heritage of ancient Greece and Rome again attracted the close attention of Soviet architects . This period was characterized by the search for a new “ Big Style ”. Architects were trying to re- ’ study ” the canons of classical architecture style and comprehend the basics of compositional construction of the facades laid by A . Palladio in his treatise ( Figure 2 ).
The first example of a new understanding of the classical canons was the Mossovet residential building ( Mokhovaya St ., 13 , Moscow , 1934 , arch . I . Zholtovsky ). The appearance of the house was determined by a circle of architectural ideas and techniques emanating from the artistic system of the “ High Renaissance ”. The composition of the facade is inspired by the facades of two palaces of Andrea Palladio in Vicenza - the Palazzo del Capitaniato and the Palazzo Valmarano ( Figure 2 ). Both palazzos were three-story : two floors - a two-story colonnade ( or pilasters ) and an attic floor . Zholtovsky was able to solve the grandiose art-compositional problem by stretching these facades to the height of a seven-story building : five floors were the height of a column with a capital , one floor at the entablature level and another floor at the attic level . Zholtovsky created an incredible Corinthian order in height and shape . But it was so harmoniously drawn that the first impression of its huge size was replaced by the enthusiastic acceptance of this unusual giant . The house on Mokhovaya has become a key monument in the development of Soviet palladianism - “ neoclassicism ” ( Figure 3 ).
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