Grilles (entry)

Categories / Architecture/Architectural Monuments
GRILLES. St. Petersburg boasts a number of unique metal grilles, created in the course of three centuries. Wrought grilles of bars with (sometimes gilded) decorative figures made from flat iron bars (the grille of the Ekaterininsky (Catherine) Palace made to the designs of F. Rastrelli) are characteristic of the Baroque style. One of the first cast-iron grilles of the late 1750s is at the Vorontsovsky Palace in Sadovaya Street. At the end of the 1780s the "cast-iron pattern" appeared, as demonstrated but the grille of Moika and Fontanka rivers embankments, Ekaterininsky (nowadays Griboedov) Canal and others. In the epoch of Neoclassicism the grille pattern acquired geometrical clearness and simplicity. The masterpiece of this period is the Nevsky grille of the Summer Garden, featuring 36 granite columns (1771-1784, architect Y. M. Felten). The grille of the Marble Palace (1780-1788, architect P.E. Egorov) featuring bars with gilded pikes and lockets is similar in its design. The grille of the Tauride Palace (1792-1793, architect F.I. Volkov) consists of crossing circular bars; cast-iron vases stand on the granite columns. The grille in front of the eastern facade of Kazan Cathedral is characteristic of the Empire style (1811-1812), with a rich ornamental decorative pattern it was cast from iron at the plant of K.N. Berd to the drafts of the architect A.N. Voronikhin. Following the drafts of the architect K.I. Rossi the grille of Anichkov Palace (1817-1818) with eagles and wreathes on pikes and the grille of the front yard of the Mikhailovsky Palace with pikes and poles in the shape of fasces (1819-1825) were executed. The grille of the Summer Garden from the side of the Moika River (1826, engineer P.P. Bazen, architect L.I. Charlemagne) is decorated with shields with Gorgons on columns. The grille of Smolny Cathedral (see Cathedral of the Renewal of the Jerusalem Holy Resurrection Temple) created by architect V.P. Stasov are particular with tracery posts and ornamental patterns in the Baroque manner (1832-35) and the grille of Holy Transfiguration Cathedral, made from barrels of captured Turkish guns and chains (1829-32). The Baroque motives are stylised in the grille of Sheremetev Palace (1844, architect I. D. Corsini), Nikolaevsky Palace (1850s, architect A.I. Stakensсhneider) and the Cabin of Peter the Great (1852). The grille of Kushelevka Manor at 40 Sverdlovskaya Embankment, made of chains supported by 29 cast-iron lions is unique for the middle of the 19th century. The simple wire netting grille is typical of the second half of the 19th century. The grille of the public garden of the monument to Catherine II (1873) and Alexandrovsky Garden in front of the Main Admiralty (1874, not preserved) followed such a design. The samples of Neo-Baroque devices in Art Nouveau designs are the grille of Mikhailovsky Garden from the side of the Holy Resurrection Cathedral (Spas-na-Krovi) (1903-1907, architect A.A. Parland) and Winter Palace, moved in 1925 to the Garden of the Ninth of January on Stachek Avenue (1899-1901, architect R.F. Meltzer). They feature a combination of heraldic emblems and splendid ornamental plant patterns. Among bridge grilles there is the cast-iron grille on Anichkov Bridge (1841, architect A.P. Bryullov following the drawings of K. Schinkel) and Blagoveschensky Bridge (1850, architect A.P. Bryullov; nowadays Lieutenant Schmidt Bridge) with mermaids and sea-horses; the one with the St. Petersburg coats of arms on Liteiny Bridge (1875-1879, architect K.K Rachau). The Troitsky Bridge railing (1897-1903) has plant motives typical of the Art nouveau. After October 1917, grilles were mainly utilitarian, however, in the architecture of the 1930s to the beginning of the 1950s the so-called Stalin Classicism demanded careful pattern elaboration of each separate grille. The combination of metal and concrete in the railing of the first residential building of the Lensoviet House on the Karpovka River Embankment is worth special mentioning (1931-35, architect E.A. Levinson, I.A. Fomin); Soviet heraldry is introduced into the pattern of the Dvortsovy Bridge (1939, architect L.A. Noskov, sculptor I.V. Krestovsky); the rich symbolism distinguishes the grille pattern of Piskarevsky Memorial Cemetrey (1960, architect A.V. Vasilyev, E.A. Levinson).

References: Памятники архитектуры Ленинграда. 4-е изд., перераб. Л., 1975; Мосты и набережные Ленинграда / Сост. П. П. Степнов; Авт. текста Ю. В. Новиков. Л., 1991.

Y. M. Piryutko. Bazen Peter Petrovich
Bird Karl (Charles) Nikolaevich
Bryullov Boris Pavlovich
Catherine II, Empress
Charlemagne Ludwig Iosifovich
Corsini Jeronim Domenikovich
Egorov Peter Egorovich
Felten Yury (Georg Friedrich) Matveevich
Fomin Ivan Alexandrovich
Krestovsky Igor Vsevolodovich
Levinson Evgeny Adolfovich
Meltzer Roman (Robert-Friedrich) Fedorovich
Noskov Lev Alexandrovich
Parland Alfred Alexandrovich
Peter I, Emperor
Rachau Karl Karlovich
Rastrelli Francesco de
Rossi Carl Ivanovich (Carlo Giovanni)
Schinkel Karl Friedrich
Stakensсhneider Andrey Ivanovich
Stasov Vasily Petrovich
Vasilyev Alexander Viktorovich
Volkov Fedor Ivanovich
Voronikhin Andrey Nikiforovich
Fontanka River Embankment/Saint Petersburg, city
Griboedova Canal Embankment/Saint Petersburg, city
Karpovka River Embankment/Saint Petersburg, city
Moika River Embankment/Saint Petersburg, city
Sadovaya St./Saint Petersburg, city
Stachek Ave/Saint Petersburg, city
Sverdlovskaya Embankment/Saint Petersburg, city, house 40
Памятники архитектуры Ленинграда. 4-е изд., перераб. Л., 1975
Мосты и набережные Ленинграда / Сост. П. П. Степнов; Авт. текста Ю. В. Новиков. Л., 1991 Catherine Palace (Town of Pushkin)
Marble Palace
Tauride Palace
Kazan Cathedral
Anichkov Palace
Mikhailovsky Palace
Cathedral of the Renewal of the Jerusalem Holy Resurrection Temple
Holy Transfiguration Cathedral
Sheremetev Palace
Nikolaevsky Palace (Palace of Labour)
Cabin of Peter the Great, museum
Kushelevka, manor
Catherine II, Monument to
Admiralty
Holy Resurrection Cathedral, (Spas-na-Krovi)
Winter Palace