Pella Palace

Avedutafromc.1796

Pella Palace(Пеллинский дворец) was a summer residence built during the reign ofCatherine II of Russiafor her grandson, future emperorAlexander.It was situated on the left bank of theNeva River,30 km (19 mi) east ofSaint Petersburg,where the town ofOtradnoyenow stands. If completed, it would have been Russia's largest imperial palace.Pella, partially built in 1785–1789, has been razed to the ground by Catherine's son,Paul I of Russia.Not only the buildings disappeared, but very few images of it survived theBattle of the Palaces:existing knowledge of Pella relies on a few facade elevations and watercolors byGiacomo Quarenghiand an elaborate drawing on Catherine's fan, also based on Quarenghi's drafts.

Beginning

Extremely fond of her grandsonAlexander,the Empress liked to think of him as the newAlexander the Great.In November 1784 she purchased the estate of Pallila (also called Ivanovskaya Myza) from the heirs ofIvan Neplyuev.Ivanovskaya had already been a well-appointed estate with a two-storey wooden manor, four guest houses and various services. The park contained a pool, connected to the river Neva by a canal, and was modestly adorned with statues andfollies.Catherine stayed in the manor occasionally before major construction commenced.

In 1785 Ivanovskaya was renamed toPella,an allusion to the birthplace of Alexander the Great and theillustrious future envisioned for Alexander.In April 1785 Catherine wrote toMelchior Grimmthat she planned to set up an Englishlandscape parkaround Pella; in fact, earlier, on March 13, 1785, she authorizedIvan Starov's draft for a spacious, proper imperial palace.Groundbreakingceremony was celebrated on July 17, 1785 when work was already underway.

Execution

Giacomo Quarenghi's copy ofIvan Starov's design for the palace

Potemkin's favorite architect,Ivan Starov,was instructed to recreate the palace of the ancient rulers of Macedon in theNeoclassicalstyle and to suitably adorn the residence with antiqueobjets d'art.Giacomo Quarenghiprovided regular consultancy to Catherine, liaising with Starov; English gardener John Bush was appointed to do the landscaping in 1787.

In order to accomplish the task, Starov obtained copies ofÉtienne-Louis Boullée's grandiose designs for rebuilding theVersailles Palace.His design for Pella, modeled on Boullée's unexecuted project, pleased the Empress so much that she declared to her European correspondents: "all my summer residences are mere huts if you compare them with Pella, which rises like Phoenix from ashes". Catherine called Pella "risingphoenix",alluding to Alexander's ascension to power after her own death.Pella, designed byIvan Starov,was the largest Russian imperial palace of the period, and more complex in composition than anything in Russia.According to the design, the core palace was to be encircled with eight auxiliary residences and sixteen smaller service buildings inPalladian style,connected with double-colonnaded galleries.

The Empress invested 823 thousandroublesbefore theRusso-Turkish War of 1787–1792broke out and construction works were suspended (on 3 November 1789). By this time, nine core buildings and two of five connecting galleries were completed; the service buildings had not been started. The project consumed 25 million bricks, 1,383 cubicsazhenof granite cladding; palaces have already been equipped with 350 heating ovens and furniture made byDavid Roentgen.

Destruction

Post station in Pella

The palace shell, with a riverside frontage stretching for 500 metres (1,600 feet), remained in place until December 1796, when Catherine's successorPaul,eager to obliterate the memory of his mother's undertakings, ordered the palace to be demolished and materials to be reused for construction ofSaint Michael's Castlein St. Petersburg. Demolition, authorized by Paul on December 7, 1796 actually commenced in May 1797, starting with connecting galleries. By January 1801 six of nine building were completely demolished, three other were razed during Alexander's reign.

The surviving post office building that was built by Starov in 1780s, was not part of the palace proper.It was designed to mirror Pella layout in a smaller scale, with curvilinear galleries and service building flanking the mainrotundahall. In the 19th century most of these galleries were demolished; the main hall was deformed by installing new chimneys and new window openings.

Sources

• Shvidkovsky, Dmitry(2007).Russian architecture and the West.Yale University Press.ISBN978-0-300-10912-2.
• Voronov, Victor (2008).Ivan Starov (Иван Старов)(in Russian). Saint Petersburg: Iskusstvo-SPB.ISBN9785210015112.

Online references

• (in Russian)Palaces and Manors of the Ladoga Region