Ekaterina Yu. Stanyukovich-Denisova
(St. Petersburg State University, Russia)

Exemplary projects in House Building of the 1730s-1760s in St. Petersburg: Typology and Modifications

The new principles of building, including the building of exemplary town houses, were introduced in Russia in the time of Peter the Great. These new principles ensured the regular structure of St. Petersburg that was considered a model milieu,’ Paradise’, as it was called by Peter the Great, for forming an innovative society of European type. The next stages of town planning fall on the late 1730-s, when the Commission of St. Petersburg Building proposed, inter alia, the updated projects of one and two-storey exemplary houses, and on the late 1760-s, characterized by the activities of the Commission for Moscow
and St. Petersburg Stone Building. Broad variety of samples of facade decoration limited only by the given compositional scheme relieved the monotony of the uniform town building. Analyzing the Saint-Hilaire axonometric plan of St. Petersburg and the architectural drawings from the National museum of Stockholm, the author traces the development of typology and modifications of the exemplary houses in Petersburg in 1730-1760s and comes to the conclusion that the policy of state regulation of the town building in the 18th c. resulted in forming the architecturally integral and functional city structure.