Neoclassicism with a British Accent: Edwardian and Georgian Reflections in Russian Architecture of the 1900s–1910s

Abstract

The article is dedicated to one of the stylistic trends of architecture of the Russian Empire in the early decades of the 20th century, namely neoclassics. The repertoire of classical architecture as such is cosmopolitan, but the very idea of arousing the classics at the beginning of the last century, marked by the appearance of Art Nouveau and the beginnings of modernism, turned out to be equally close to Great Britain in the Edwardian era and Russia during the time of the last emperor. This unanimity in the rejection of stylistic innovations is interesting as a phenomenon and undoubtedly deserves special study. At this stage, it can be stated that in Russian neoclassicism there was also a place for Anglomania, which was expressed, however, not in formal echoes of the Edwardian style, but in an interest in the history of the British classical tradition (primarily, the architecture of the Georgian era). The Edwardian idea of reviving the noble style of the past was embodied in Russia both in direct appeals to the legacy of Charles Cameron, who, serving the order of Catherine the Great, was an agent of Georgian architecture, and in an appeal to English scholars, who provided rich material on ancient Roman archaeology. The English influence in Russian neoclassicism is traced in the article from the very beginning (i. e. the moment when the Mansion of the Racing Society in Moscow, considered the first building of this stylistic movement, was designed by Ivan Zholtovsky in 1903) through the programmatic “Cameron-style” architecture of the Prince Sergey Shcherbatov’s house in the same place, created by Alexander Tamanyan, to those “Georgian” apartments inside the Palace on the Moika river embankment that were designed by Andrey Beloborodov for Prince Felix Yusupov, one of the most famous Anglomaniacs of St. Petersburg. “Georgian” reflections are also found in the Moscow mansion of Gavriil Tarasov built by Zholtovsky. Its exterior contains some references not only to Palladio’s Palazzo Thiene (Vicenza), but also to London’s Burlington House designed by Colen Campbell. Thus, the British “accent” in Russian neoclassicism of the 1900s–1910s sounds no less obvious than the Italian one.