Giacomo Quarenghi

Giacomo Quarenghi ( born September 20, 1744 Rota d' Imagna, Bergamo Province, .. † 18 Februarjul / March 2 1817greg in Saint Petersburg ) was an Italian architect and painter who lived and worked in Russia. As one of the most renowned Russian architect and master builder of the late 18th century he created a number of famous buildings until today especially in St. Petersburg and Moscow.

Biography

Quarenghi was born in the province of Bergamo in Lombardy and came from a local noble family. He studied painting in Rome, where among his teachers, among others, Anton Raphael Mengs. Later Quarenghi studied architecture, where he was inspired mainly by the ancient architecture and masters such as Andrea Palladio. To Quarenghi early works ( including the Church of St. Scholastica in Subiaco, who refashioned from the inside in the classical style Quarenghi the early 1770s ), but also in Monaco and Vienna are several other buildings in his hometown.

1779 Quarenghi went to Russia after he was appointed there as one of the many Italian builders who were involved in the construction, which was founded in 1703 new imperial capital Saint Petersburg. There he first worked in the old capital of Moscow and built the ( no longer extant today ) Palace of Catherine the Great to the river Jausa. The previous building of the Upper Trading Rows on Red Square is also attributed to Giacomo Quarenghi.

From 1781 lived and worked Quarenghi in Saint Petersburg, where he first plurality of representative building was commissioned by Catherine the Great, including the no longer extant English Palace ( 1781-1794 ) in Peterhof, the Hermitage Theatre ( 1783-1787 ) and the building the Imperial Russian Academy of Sciences ( 1783-1785 ). Also the most important monuments Quarenghi the reign of Catherine the Great is one of the Alexander Palace (1792-1796) in Tsarskoye Selo and a side wing of the Catherine Palace.

Even under Catherine's successor, Paul I, and later under his successor Alexander I created Quarenghi a number of important buildings. Mention should be made, especially the building of the Smolny Institute ( 1806), originally for poor people provided Marienkrankenhaus (1803 ), the Maltese Church ( 1798-1800 ) ( Paul I was Grand Master of the Order of Malta ) and the Cabinet of His Imperial Majesty before the Anitschkow Palais. Except in capital Quarenghi had in several provincial towns contracts: So built partially preserved until today striking houses and palaces including in Kursk, Voronezh and Surasch and in Latvian Mežotne and in Siberian Irkutsk were built to his designs.

Quarenghi was an honorary member of the St. Petersburg Academy of Arts. After his death in 1821 his son was in Milan out a full list of Quarenghi designs, which appeared under the name Fabbriche e Disegni di Giacomo Guarenghi.

Giacomo Quarenghi is still considered one of the forerunners of the later classicism in the architecture of Russian cities, where his works were partly inspired by ancient architecture. Even as a painter Quarenghi has left distinctive marks: So many to use his watercolors with views of the city of Moscow and St. Petersburg have been preserved.

263911
de