Gatchina Palace -and - Park ensemble, the

Subject / Architecture/Palaces
The Gatchina Palace -and - Park ensemble. It is an architectural sight and garden-and -park monument of the 18-19th centuries of federal importance. The ensemble is included in the State Palace-and-Park and Art-and-Historic Culture Preserve "Gatchina". The culture preserve includes palaces, pavilions, bridges, sculpture and other decorative and monumental buildings located on the territory the Palace and Priorate parks. The ensemble creating was started since 1765 when Count G.G. Orlov was the owner of the estate. From 1766 to 1781 the architect A. Rinaldi was building the Grand Palace, its romantic silhouette was determined with two towers (the Signal Tower and Watch Tower, they delimit the central block. The palace central block and two service wings (Building of the Arsenal and Building of the Kitchen) are connected with semicircular galleries. The refind interior decoration (rococo, early classicism) is contrasted with the restrained decoration of facades that are tiled with local Pudost stone. Marble statues are placed by entrances: on the park façade there are statues "Peace" and "War"; from the meadow side (afterwards the meadow was remade as the parade ground) there are statues "Vigilance" and "Wisdom" (sculptors I. Morleyter and D. Markiori). At the same time on the shores of Beloye (White) and (Serebryanoye) Silver lakes the English Garden was laid out by gardenrs D. Bush, D. Geket and others. For the first time in Russia the natural landscape planning was used in Gatchina. It was the latest word in the gardening of that time. Artificial small islands were made on Beloye Lake, the shore line was cut with picturesque bays, alleys and clearings were laid in the park. First decorative structures: "Eagle" column, Chesmensky obelisk, grotto "Echo" decorated the underground passage from the Grand Palace to Silver Lake were created in the English Garden in the 1770s and become its natural part. Since 1783, when Grand Duke Pavel Petrovich (since 1796 - Emperor Pavel I) became the owner of Gatchina, considerable changes had occurred. New plots were connected to the park. They were laid out in the regular style: with cut espalier, decorative marble sculptures, geometrical planning of pathes and lawns: they were at the Palace Gardens (the Private Garden, Upper Holland Garden, Lower Holland Garden), the Botanic Gardens, Silvia Grove. A water labyrinth, the artificial Carp Pond, several bridges, park gates (Admiralty Gate, Birch Gate, Sivia Gate) were created. Among pavilions appeared in the park there was the wooden Pavilion of Venus on the Island of Love, "Birch House" (the artist F. Violye) in the form of a pile of logs decorated with the 16-column Portal "Mask", the Temple or "Eagle" Pavilion, stone Greenhouse. On the Long Island (it is an archipelago of small islands divided White Lake) the Great Terrace - pier was built. In vista it looks like the socle of the Grand Palace. Rebuilding and changing the interiors of the Grand Palace and park structures were made according to the projects of V. Brenna in the 1790s. On the shore of Black Lake in 1797-1799 the Priorate Palace, "Earth Monastery", which is the unique object of monumental rammed-earth construction, was built on the project of the architect N.A. Lvov. At the same time the landscape Priorate park was laied out by gardenings D. Geket and F. Gelmgolts. Territories of two parks are separated with Bolshaya Porkhovskaya doroga (Great Prkhov Road) (now it is the prospekt of 25 October) on which bridges: the Three-arched Lion Bridge and the Admiralty Bridge with a stone balcony and guard sentry-boxes, the Connetable square with 32-metre colimn (by the craftsman K. Plastilin were constructed. These constructions and the Grand Palace form the ensemble. The parade ground in front of the western façade of the Grand Palace is encircled with the bastion wall and ditch, in Yekateringof (now Krasnoarmeysky) prospekt stone Palace stable were built. In 1800 on the Long Island the Venetian Humpbacked Bridge was constructed by A.D. Zakharov's project. Somewhat earlier in Silvia Grove on the North-West from the English Garden the pavilion "Poultry-yard" was built on the project of the architect A.D. Zakharov. On the boundary of Silvia Grove the earth structure Amphitheatre, near the pavilion "Poultry-yard" the cascade "Naumakhia", the pavilion "Farm" were built. Amphitheatre and "Naumakhia" were built on the project of the architect N.A. Lvov. The pavilion "Farm", the pavilion of Venus, the Palace stable and some others were built on architectural models that Paul I saw in Chantilly, the estate of Princes de Conde. During the 19th century there were not considerable changes in the ensemble. New Iron bridges, brick sentry-boxes at the entrances into the parks were built in the 1880s on the project of the architect L.F. Shperer. Repair works were acrried out in the Grand Palace, in the 1859s new wings - the Arsenal and the Kitchen were built on the project of the architect R.I. Kuzmin, the monument to Paul I was stood on the parade ground in 1851 on the project of the sculptor I.P. Vitali. After the Revolution of 1917 country residences were declared as palaces-museums, parks were used for different types of cultural work among the masses. In contrast to the Palace park that is connected with the museum complex, the Priorate Palace and park had lost their museum significance before the World War II, an excursion centre and recreation centre were placed there (after the war the city pioneer centre was placed in the palace; later till 1982 in the palace the Local History Museum was placed there). During the time of the German occupation if Gatchina town from 1941 till 1944 the ensemble had extensive damage. In January 1944 thee fire destroyed interiors of the Grand Palace and other constructions. The Priorate Palace was mined by fashists but came off unhurt. The majority of park constructions (with the exception of several exploded bridges) were unharmed. During the last years restoration works were carried out in the parks. In 1976 the pavilion Birch House (according the project of the architect A.A. Kedrinsky) was restored. The Arched Bridge, "Eagle" column and pavilion, marble statues on the Great Terrace-pier: "Painting", "Architecture", "Mathematics" (two statues were lifted from the bottom of White Lake in 1971; now they are on the museum exhibition of the Grand Palace). In the 1990s the Admiralty bridge, Lion bridge and Carp bridge with cascade were restored. First restored halls of the Grand Palace opened in 1985. In 2005 the overhaul restoration of the Priorate Palace that became a part of the State Palace-and-Park and Art-and-Historic Culture Preserve "Gatchina" was completed. But a lot of constructions that were restored in the 1950s-1970s during last years were destroyed by modern vandals. Piryutko, Yuri Minayevich
Brenna, Vikenty (Vincenzo) Frantsevich
Bush, Joseph (John)
Geket, James
Helmholtz, Fyodor
Kedrinsky, Aleksandr Aleksandrovich
Kuzmin, Roman Ivanovich
Lvov, Nikolay Aleksandrovich
Lvov, Nikolay Aleksandrovich
Markiori, Giovanni
Morleyter, Johann-Maria
Orlov, Grigory Grigoryevich, Count
Paul I, Emperor
Plastinin, Kiryan
Rinaldi, Antonio
Schperer, Ludwig Frantsevich
Violie, Francois-Heinrich
Vitali, Ivan Petrovich
Zakharov, Andreyan (Adrian) Dmitriyevich
Leningrad Oblast, the/Gatchina District/Gatchina Town/25 Oktyabrya Prospekt (25 October Prospekt)
Leningrad Oblast, the/Gatchina District/Gatchina Town/Beloye Lake (White Lake)
Leningrad Oblast, the/Gatchina District/Gatchina Town
Leningrad Oblast, the/Gatchina District/Gatchina Town/Krasnoarmeysky Prospekt (Red Army Prospekt)
Topographical landmarks/Serebryanoye Lake
Макаров В.К., Петров А.Н. Гатчина. Изд. 2-е. СПБ., 2006
Минкина Г.А., Мамаев К.К. Гатчинский парк. Л., 1956
Пирютко Ю. М. Гатчина: Художественные памятники города и окрестностей. 2-е изд., испр. и доп. Л., 1979
Елкина А.С. Гатчина. – Л.: Художник РСФСР, 1980.
Кючарианц Д. А., Раскин А. Г. Гатчина: Худож. памятники. СПб., 2001
"Gatchina", the State Museum-Reserve
Palace Park (the town of Gatchina)
Priorate Palace, the
Priorate Park (the town of Gatchina)
"Silvia", a park (the town of Gatchina)