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Domeniko JilardiArchitect, prominent master of the Empire style, one of the creators of the new appearance of Moscow after the fire of 1812.
Date of Birth: 04.06.1785
Country:  Switzerland |
Content:
- Domenico Gilardi
- Shift to Architecture and Studies in Italy
- Early Architectural Career in Moscow
- Post-War Restoration and Reconstruction
- The Reconstruction of Moscow University
- The Gilardi Style
- Rebuilding of the Widows' Home and Catherine School
- P.M. Lunin's Estate
- Inspiration for Post-Fire Moscow
- The Guardianship Council of the Foundling House
- Interior Decoration
- Role of Afanasy Grigoriev
- S.S. Gagarin's House
- Work in the Moscow Suburbs
Domenico Gilardi
Early Life and EducationDomenico Gilardi was born on July 15, 1785, in Montagnole, Switzerland. His father, Giovanni Battista (Ivan Dementievich) Gilardi, was an architect who had begun working in Russia in 1787. The Gilardi family of architects lived and worked in Russia for an extended period, holding government positions and building for both private individuals and the state.
In 1796, at the age of eleven, Domenico traveled with his mother to Russia to join his father. There, he became known as Dementiy Ivanovich. Despite his architectural surroundings, Domenico did not initially pursue a career in the field. He aspired to become a landscape painter.
In 1799, Domenico's father sent him to St. Petersburg to study drawing and painting under the artist Ferrari. He later transferred to the studio of Portoo, and in 1800, he joined the historical painter Carlo Scotti, with whom he trained for three years. During this time, he received a government scholarship with the support of the widowed Empress Maria Feodorovna.
Shift to Architecture and Studies in Italy
In 1803, Gilardi was sent to the Milan Academy of Arts in Italy to continue his painting studies as a government scholar. After a brief stay in Montagnole, he arrived in Milan in the summer of 1804. Initially, he focused on painting, but his true calling lay elsewhere.
After a critical analysis of his abilities and potential, Gilardi, influenced by his professors and his contemplation of his future career in Russia, abandoned painting in favor of architecture. This decision proved to be a testament to his artistic sensibility.
From painting and landscape, Gilardi had acquired a keen understanding of the surrounding environment and nature, which he would later incorporate into his architectural works. He developed a subtle ability to combine architecture with the specificities of a landscape or urban plan.
After completing his studies at the Milan Academy in 1806, Gilardi spent four years honing his knowledge by studying the art and architecture of various Italian cities, including Rome, Florence, and Venice. In June 1810, he returned to Russia.
Early Architectural Career in Moscow
In January 1811, Gilardi was appointed an assistant to his father in the Moscow Foundling House. He remained closely associated with the Foundling House throughout his subsequent architectural practice.
Following the invasion of Moscow by Napoleon's army in 1812, Gilardi and another assistant at the Foundling House, Afanasy Grigoriev, fled with the population to Kazan. They returned to Moscow in the late autumn.
Post-War Restoration and Reconstruction
In the aftermath of the Patriotic War, Gilardi was heavily involved in the restoration of Moscow's buildings. He worked on the reconstruction of the Foundling House buildings alongside his father and designed a new pharmacy and laboratory for the institution.
From 1813 onward, Gilardi participated in the Kremlin Buildings Commission, where he played a role in the restoration of damaged Kremlin structures, notably the belfry and bell tower of Ivan the Great.
The Reconstruction of Moscow University
Gilardi's architectural genius was fully revealed in his work on the reconstruction of Moscow University (1817-1819), which had suffered fire damage. He displayed his skills as an urban planner, considering the building's location within the ensemble of Moscow's center, as an artist, as a structural engineer, and as an organizer who managed to complete a project of such magnitude in just two years.
Under Gilardi's direction, extensive construction work was carried out. The building's volume, the layout of the main halls, and the treatment of the courtyard façade were left unchanged. However, Gilardi significantly altered the main facade, giving it a more majestic and heroic appearance.
The Gilardi Style
In his reconstructed buildings, Gilardi sought to convey the triumph of science and the arts. He achieved this through an organic integration of architecture, sculpture, and painting.
In July 1817, Gilardi's father retired due to ill health. Domenico succeeded him as the architect of the Foundling House the following year.
Rebuilding of the Widows' Home and Catherine School
In 1818, Gilardi was entrusted with the rebuilding of the Widows' Home in Kudrino and the Catherine School on Catherine Square. In reconstructing the Catherine School, which was located deep within its plot, Gilardi "concealed" its fragmented facade behind a monumental ten-column portico raised on a high arcade of the ground floor. During the major reconstruction and expansion of the building in 1826-1827, he added strongly projecting wings, creating a deep ceremonial courtyard.
P.M. Lunin's Estate
Another significant work by Gilardi, undertaken between 1814 and 1822, was the reconstruction of P.M. Lunin's estate near the Nikitsky Gate. Gilardi redesigned the estate's composition, pivoting the main house towards the street by building a new wing on the existing building's gable end.
The main building's facade featured a contrasting juxtaposition with the wing's facade. The spatial arrangement of the wing was contrasted with the emphasized solidity and monolithic character of the main building's volume. Despite the differences in their facades, the two buildings were united into a coherent composition through the horizontal lines of the overall façade, including the colonnades.
The interior layout of the main building was typical of grand residential mansions, featuring a suite of state rooms on the piano nobile, service rooms on the first floor, and living quarters on the upper floor. Of particular beauty and grandeur was the large dance hall, which connected the suites of rooms along the longitudinal and transverse axes of the house. Its semi-circular vault, decorated with grisaille, and the treatment of the end walls with semi-circular arches supported by paired Ionic columns demonstrated Gilardi's enduring affinity for such spatial arrangements.
Inspiration for Post-Fire Moscow
The facade of Lunin's main house, with its Corinthian colonnade and loggia, was published in the "Album of the Commission for Buildings in Moscow" in 1832. Its unusual composition for a residential house became a model for construction in post-fire Moscow.
The Guardianship Council of the Foundling House
The construction of the Guardianship Council building for the Foundling House (1823-1826) marked a significant stage in Gilardi's career, influencing his creative pursuits for years to come. This was largely due to the fact that the Guardianship Council was the only major public building Gilardi designed where he was not constrained by the need to use existing structures, allowing him to fully express his ideas.
Occupying a central location in Solyanka, designed for maximum urban impact, the Council building presented as a traditional classical system of cubic volumes when viewed from the front. However, this impression belied the actual shape of the buildings, which extended deep into the courtyard. The functional purpose of the building conflicted with the logic of the architectural form, which Gilardi could not overcome given the limitations of the artistic approaches of classicism.
Interior Decoration
The color scheme of the Council building's interior was particularly noteworthy. The Hall of Presence was decorated with an exquisite palette, its walls covered in silk fabric with gilded moldings, its pilasters clad in artificial marble, and its windows adorned with white linen curtains. The vaults of the other halls were painted, the walls finished in green or yellow paint, and the walls and vault of the main staircase were decorated with paintings.
Role of Afanasy Grigoriev
Just as in the reconstruction of the Widows' Home and Catherine School, Afanasy Grigoriev played a significant role in the construction of the Guardianship Council building. A student of Ivan Gilardi and a former serf who only gained his freedom at the age of twenty-two, Grigoriev was close to the Gilardi family.
S.S. Gagarin's House
Concurrently with the Guardianship Council building, Gilardi constructed one of his most accomplished works, the house of Prince S.S. Gagarin on Povarskaya Street. A distinctive feature of this building's facade was Gilardi's use of an arched window with a wide archivolt and a two-column insertion supporting an entablature, rather than the traditional columned portico. Three such windows occupied the entire space of the main facade's central projection. The arches were recessed into the wall, which, by enhancing the interplay of light and shadow, accentuated the architectural and sculptural elements of the composition.
The building was positioned back from the building line, creating a small ceremonial courtyard that made it stand out from the surrounding streetscape. In organizing the building's interior space, Gilardi employed contrasting approaches: from a low vestibule with four pairs of Doric columns supporting the ceiling beams, a narrow staircase diverged in two directions, leading to a grand, encircling gallery covered, like the Guardianship Council, by high sail vaults with central skylights. Magnificently designed arches with a sculptural group of Apollo and the Muses on the entablature adorned the walls on all four sides of the gallery.
The interiors of the Guardianship Council and Gagarin's house, created almost simultaneously, were among the finest of Gilardi's works.
Work in the Moscow Suburbs
Gilardi also designed and built in the Moscow suburbs. His most famous suburban structures were
