History of St. Petersburg in architectural styles

Route and content of the tour

In program

This excursion is somewhat reminiscent of a time machine: we will travel through time and space from the Peter the Great era to Soviet Russia.

Having set off from the Peter and Paul Fortress, we will learn what the Egyptian triangle is, the tops of which are the Peter and Paul Fortress, the house of Peter I and his Summer Palace.

In the Peter and Paul Fortress, we will get acquainted with the monuments of the Petrovsky Baroque - basically, this style is associated with the names of the architects Leblon, Trezzini, Schlütter. By the way, Schlütter took an active part in the construction of the Summer Palace of Peter I.

Next, we will gently move on to the High Baroque, with which Peter's youngest daughter, Empress Elizabeth, was simply obsessed.

With the arrival of the European enlightened Ekaterina Alekseevna, buildings such as the Bolshoi Gostiny Dvor appear - this is early classicism.

Classicism - existed in the Northern capital for about a hundred years and ended with the Empire style. This is the apogee of classicism, and it is associated with the victories of Russian weapons - primarily in the war with Napoleon. A striking example of this style is the Mikhailovsky Palace, where the Russian Museum is now located.

The next stage of architectural development is called eclecticism. Everything that had already been invented before was mixed in it. Different styles with the prefix "neo" belong to this period: neo-renaissance, neo-baroque, neo-russian style.

The beginning of the XX century - of course, modern! The Singer House, the Mertens House and the Eliseevsky store are vivid examples of this style, and we will also look at some interesting apartment buildings near the Gorkovskaya metro station.

And finally, here, on the Petrogradskaya side, we will see architectural monuments of the young Soviet regime - constructivist buildings. These are the House of Political Prisoners, built in the early 1930s as an example of a "new way of life", the Palace of Culture of the Promcooperatsii (now the Palace of Culture of the Leningrad City Council) and several other buildings characteristic of the first decades of the Soviet era.