Guards Corps Headquarters, Corps des Gardes
(Guards Corps Headquarters, Gardes, Palace Square, Здание штаба гвардейского корпуса, Sankt-Petersurg, Saint Petersburg, Saint Petersbourg, St. Petersburg, Санкт-Петербург) . Russian words and phrases are in Cyrillic Windows encoding. External links open in new window.
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The building of the Headquarters of the Guards Corps occupies the eastern part of the Palace Square and is an architectural partition that visually limits the expanse of the square.
The classicist building had several illustrious predecessors. In the early 18 century, the mansion and possibly gardens of Andrei Nartov (Nartoff, Nartow) stood on this very spot. Andrei Nartov could be well described as a Renaissance type of man, for his range of interests and his competence was vast, he was a mechanic, engineer, writer and sculptor. Later the property was acquired by Alexander Bruce, son of Jacob Bruce (Яков Брюс), a major figure of Petrine Russia who once served as the governor of both St. Petersburg and Moscow. In 1786 the treasury purchased the building and under Paul I it was demolished and a new structure, that of military exercise house, was designed and then built by Viktor (Victor) Brenna.
In 1828 a new state competition was announced to rebuild the eastern section of the Palace Square. Several notable architects, among them Auguste Montferrand, Konstantin ((Constantine) Ton (Tohn), Vasili Stasov and Karl Rossi submitted their proposals but a design by Alexander Briullov won the contest (Bryulloff, Briulloff, Brullov, Brulloff, Brullow, Brjullow, Брюллов). The Headquarters you see today was built in grand, neoclassical, then popular, Pompeian style. Perhaps coincidentally, the brother of the architect, Karl Brullov (Brullow or Brulloff) is a remarkable master of academic painting, who became perhaps most famous for his work the Last Day of Pompeii.
I’ve never had an opportunity
to see the (no doubt) beautiful interiors of the building, because it happened
that some sort of state institution always occupied it. The Hermitage Museum
is about to take possession of the old Headquarters of the Guards Corps. With
this acquisition (or perhaps it could be better termed a takeover) the entire
Palace Square will become Hermitage’s own, - giant interior courtyard. The building
will house a new museum of the Russian Guards Corps (1700-1917) to be created
under Hermitage auspices. Pedestrian tunnels underneath the Palace Square will
connect the building to the Winter Palace and the Hermitage, the General Staff
building across and the planned Guggenheim Museum St. Petersburg.
Address: 2 Dvortsovaia Ploshchad
(Дворцовая площадь, 2)
Subway/Metro: Nevsky Prospekt, then walk north or take one of trolley-buses
or regular buses running along Nevsky.
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