Acta Universitatis Agriculturae et Silviculturae Mendelianae Brunensis (Jan 2007)
Development of the garden design of 18th century in Sankt Petersburg and comparison with main European patterns
Abstract
The 18th century was the period when the Russian empire started to open to the western culture. The economic and cultural development of this country started after the reforms of the emperor Petr I. Large number of the imperial palaces where built after the foundation of Santk Petersburg in 1703. Peter I was a big admirer of the western culture, his knowledge about it increased during two visits through Europe. Therefore, the formal gardens and baroque palaces built during the reign of Peter the Great are called Peter’s baroque.Until 1715 were all Russian gardens influenced by the Holland pattern like the palaces built by William of Orange in Holland – Het Loo and in England part of the Hampton Court. The first garden laid out in formal style in Sankt Petersburg was the Summer Garden – located in the architectural heart of the city. Gardens of this period were characteristic by small closed ground plan surrounded by water canals, an absence of using terrace as a symbol of majesty and highest point of view and finally by modest architecture. After the second visit of Peter I to Europe, he started to use all principles of the French formal gardens based on Andre Le Notre work. Palaces like Petrodvorets, Strelna and residence of first minister Alexander Menshikov in Oranienbaum were laid out on a natural terrace overlooking the Gulf of Finland. During the reign Elizabeth Petrovna started a huge expansion of palaces Petrodvorets, Hermitage and Tsarskoe Selo by the Italian architect Francisco Bartolomeo Rastrelli, whose combinations of rich ornaments, soft unusual colours and white columns are symbol of Russian baroque of the middle of 18th century. Moreover, F. B. Rastrelli also rebuilt some garden pavilions giving a new dimension of composition between buildings and garden. His sense of buildings soft colours in contras to the dark colours of north nature was very important and helped to improve Russian garden design of this time.After the start of reign Catherine II in 1761 begun new period of architectural style – Classicism and English Landscape School. At first was rebuilt a part of the formal gardens in Tsarskoe Selo for which was used the composition of the famous Stowe Park as a pattern. Others built landscape parks were Pavlovsk, Gatchina and Alexandrowski Park. In the process of creating those imperial residences were used principles of the work of William Kent, with antique temples, also Lancelot Brown’s famous nature scenery. Moreover, the compositions of landscape parks are good examples of oriental and neo-gothic pavilions. Russian formal gardens and landscape parks are inseparable part of European art in 17th and 18th century. They composition content basic characteristic of French baroque and English landscape school together with different elements originated as a adaptation to the specific climatic conditions of this region.
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