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Andrey Stakenschneider (1802-1865) was a Russian architect, often credited for turning Russian architecture to Romanticism. Born into a prosperous family, Andrey Stakenschneider was trained at the Academy of Fine Arts, helping Auguste de Montferrand to supervise the construction of St. Isaac’s Cathedral.
In the late 1830’s, Stakenschneider emerged as the chief court architect of Emperor Nicholas I. For this monarch and his children he designed the Mariinskiy Palace on St. Isaac’s Square, Nicholas Palace on Truda Square, New Michael Palace on the Palace Embankment He also designed the Beloselskiy-Belozerskiy Palace on Nevskiy Prospect and overhauled some interiors of the Winter Palace. In Peterhof Stakenschneider was responsible for the Farm Palace, the Belvedere Palace and numerous garden pavilions.




Andrey Voronikhin (1759-1814) was a Russian architect and painter, one of the founders of monumental Russian Empire style. He was born in the Perm Region to a family who were the serfs of Count Alexander Stroganov, a President of the Imperial Academy of Arts. The talents of his youth attracted Stroganov’s attention, and in 1777 the Count sent Andrey Voronikhin to study in Moscow. After 1779 Voronikhin worked in Saint Petersburg.
In 1785 Andrey Voronikhin was liberated. From 1786 through 1790 he studied architecture, mechanics and mathematics in France and Switzerland. From the beginning of the 19th century he taught at the Academy of Fine Arts.
Voronikhin’s main creation was the Kazan Cathedral on Nevskiy Prospect. The construction began on March 27, 1801 and work was finished in 1811. On the occasion of renovating the temple, Andrey Voronikhin was granted a pension and the order of Saint Anne of the second degree.
A number of other works by Voronikhin were the building of the Mining Institute on Vasilevskiy Island, the Voronikhin Colonnades in Peterhof, palace and park structures in Pavlovsk, Gatchina, Strelna.




Antonio Rinaldi (1709-1794) was an Italian architect, representing transition from Baroque to Classical style in architecture. In 1751, during a trip to England, Antonio Rinaldi was summoned by hetman Kirill Razumovsky to decorate his residences in Ukraine. Rinaldi’s first important commission in St. Petersburg was the Novoznamenka Castle of Chancellor Vorontsov. In 1754 he was appointed chief architect of the future Emperor Peter III and Empress Catherine the Great, who resided in Oranienbaum. In that town he executed his best-known Baroque designs: the Palace of Peter III, the Chinese Palace and the Sliding Hill Pavilion.
In the 1770’s Antonio Rinaldi served as the main architect of Count Orlov, who was Catherine the Great’s prime favorite and the most powerful man in the country. During this period he built the Marble Palace on the Palace Embankment and the Gatchina Palace, which was subsequently remodeled. He also designed several monuments in Tsarskoe Selo, including the Orlov Gates, Kagul Obelisk and the Chesma Column. Among Antonio Rinaldi’s last works was the Cathedral of Prince Vladimir on Petrogradskaya Side.




Auguste de Montferrand (1786-1858) was a French Empire style architect who worked primarily in Russia. In 1814, in Paris, Auguste de Montferrand presented Emperor Alexander I with an album of his architectural projects and was invited to Russia. In 1816 Montferrand moved to Russia and settled in St. Petersburg. Here he was commissioned to design the new St. Isaac’s Cathedral, whose golden dome today dominates the skyline of St. Petersburg. He oversaw the cathedral’s project from 1818 until completion in 1858. He also designed the Alexander Column in the Palace Square, the Lobanov-Rostovsky House, Field Marshals’ Hall and Memorial Hall of Peter the Great in the Winter Palace.
Auguste de Montferrand died in St. Petersburg in 1858, the year St. Isaac’s Cathedral was completed. His wife had his body returned to France where he was buried.




Bartolomeo Rastrelli (1700-1771) was an Italian architect, who played a decisive role in developing the Russian Baroque style. He came to St. Petersburg in 1716 with his father, the sculptor Carlo Rastrelli. He began his studies under his father, and then spent considerable time in France and Italy continuing them. After his return to Russia in about 1730 he received his first commission from the Empress Anna Ioannovna. Under the Empress Elizabeth he was the court’s most active and influential architect, also accepting commissions from private clients. He was responsible for many exceptionally splendid buildings in and around St. Petersburg. His major works, including the Winter Palace, the Catherine Palace in Tsarskoe Selo, the Stroganov Palace, the Vorontsov Palace are famed for extravagant luxury and opulence of decoration. He also greatly enlarged the Imperial palace in Peterhof.
Bartolomeo Rastrelli’s last and most ambitious project was the Smolnyy Convent, where Empress Elizabeth intended to spend the rest of her life. Elizabeth’s death in 1762 prevented Rastrelli from completing this grand design.
With the accession of Catherine the Great, who disliked the Baroque style, Rastrelli’s career suffered an irreversible decline. He died in 1771 in St. Petersburg.




Carlo Rossi (1775-1849) was an Italian Empire style architect, who worked major part of his life in Russia. Carlo Rossi was born in Naples and was brought to Russia in his childhood when his mother, a well-known ballerina, was invited into Russia to perform. Rossi started his training in the studio of Vincenzo Brenna, broadening his experience with a stay in Italy from 1801 to 1803. Subsequently he was employed mainly in Moscow, only entering the service of the St. Petersburg court in 1816. In the years that followed he was responsible for many superb buildings and architectural ensembles in St. Petersburg and its suburbs, namely the Yelagin Palace, Michael’s Palace (now the Russian Museum), General Staff Building, the buildings of the Senate and Synod, the facade of the Russian National Library that faces Ostrovskiy Square, the pavilions of Anichkov Palace, the Aleksandrinskiy Theater and the street behind it, which was later named after Rossi. In Pavlovsk Carlo Rossi built the palace library.




Charles Cameron (1743–1812) was a British Classical architect, creator of integrated building and landscape compositions that brought English aesthetic ideas to the Imperial court of Catherine the Great. Charles Cameron was apprenticed as a carpenter by his father, a builder, but in the early 1760’s he was hired by Isaac Ware to check Palladio’s Roman baths measurements. This led to Cameron’s invitation to Russia in 1779 when Catherine the Great sought expertise for creating a Roman-style baths complex at Tsarskoe Selo. He was chief architect to Catherine the Great at Tsarskoe Selo, making many additions to the palace and park ensemble, including the colonnaded Cameron Gallery, the Cold Baths, the Agate Pavilion, the private apartments and the Church of St. Sophia. He also designed and built the Palace in Pavlovsk for the Grand Duke Paul, as well as many other buildings there, including the theater, the temples in the English Park, the Temple of Friendship.
Cameron fell from favor after Catherine the Great’s death, and was replaced as chief architect to the Imperial court by his pupil Vincenzo Brenna. However, he remained in Russia and worked for several patrons. In 1800 he again was working in Pavlovsk, where he designed the Pavilion of the Three Graces. In 1803 he designed various buildings at the Imperial Naval Base of Kronshtadt, including the barracks and hospital.




Domenico Trezzini (1670-1734) was a Swiss Italian architect who laid the foundation for the development of Petrine Baroque architecture in Russia, changing the traditional Byzantine style that dominated the country for nearly a thousand years. Born in Switzerland, Domenico Trezzini was trained as an architect in Italy, and contracted to work for the Russian court in 1703, the year St. Petersburg was founded by Peter the Great. There Domenico Trezzini dedicated thirty years of his life and work as an architect, substantially contributing to St. Petersburg’s most representative buildings. The Peter and Paul Cathedral in the Peter and Paul Fortress, the original Winter Palace, the Twelve Colleges Building, as well as Peter the Great’s Summer Palace in the Summer Garden and the Annunciation Church in the Alexander Nevskiy Lavra count among his major achievements. He also designed the city’s roads and overall concept of the residential buildings.




Giacomo Quarenghi (1744–1817) was an Italian Classical architect. He was born in Rota d’Imagna near Bergamo to an Italian noble family. In 1779 Giacomo Quarenghi was invited to Russia and appointed to the post of Catherine the Great’s court architect. Quarenghi’s first important commission in Russia was the English Palace in Peterhof. A number of other works of this period include the Collegium of Foreign Affairs on the English Embankment, the Hermitage Theater, the Academy of Sciences, the Assignation Bank on Sadovaya Street, the Silver Rows on Nevskiy Prospect, the Raphael Loggia in the Winter Palace, the Alexander Palace and park pavilions in Tsarskoe Selo, the Maltese Chapel at the Vorontsov Palace.
Emperor Paul I disliked everything that was dear to his mother, and Giacomo Quarenghi’s architecture obviously fell into this category. With the enthronement of Emperor Alexander I, Quarenghi was again at the height of his individuality and fashion. Between 1803 and 1816 he designed the Imperial Cabinet of the Anichkov Palace, the Smolnyy Institute for Noble Ladies, the Horse Riding Manege on St. Isaac’s Square, the Anglical Church on the English Embankment. In 1814 Giacomo Quarenghi was granted Russian nobility and the Order of St. Vladimir of the First Degree.




Vincenzo Brenna (1747–1820) was an Italian Classical architect and painter, who was the house architect of Emperor Paul I. Vincenzo Brenna was hired as interior decorator by Paul and his spouse Maria Fedorovna during their trip to Poland in 1781-1782, and by the end of 1780’s became the couple’s leading architect. Brenna worked on Pavlovsk and Gatchina palaces, also creating many park pavilions there, and most notably created St. Michael’s Castle. Most of his architectural works were created during Paul’s brief reign (1796-1801). Soon after Paul was murdered in a palace coup, Vincenzo Brenna retired and left Russia.




Yuriy Felten (1730–1801) was a representative of Classical style in architecture. Born into a family of German immigrants in Russia, Yuriy Felten studied architecture first in Germany and then in the Russian Academy of Arts in St. Petersburg.
From 1752 to 1762 Felten worked as assistant for architect Bartolomeo Rastrelli during the construction of the Winter Palace and other buildings in St. Petersburg. During the 1760’s and 1770’s he designed the complex ensemble of the Palace Square, the wing of the Hermitage building on the waterfront, worked on the winter garden on the roof of the Old Hermitage, as well as extended the museum galleries.
Yuriy Felten enjoyed trust and respect from the Empress Catherine the Great. She commissioned him many works at the Catherine Palace and park in Tsarskoe Selo. He also designed a number of churches, namely the Armenian Church on Nevskiy Prospect, the St. Catherine Lutheran Church on Vasilevskiy Island, the Chesma Palace and Church.
Felten was also a reputable inventor and engineer. He built a heavy-lifting machine that moved the enormous granite rock that was the pedestal of the Bronze Horseman monument.
It may be argued that his best-known work is not a building but an iron-cast grille of the Summer Garden.

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