moulds and profiles of the building facades of st. petersburg of the 18th century

Abstract

In the article the author underlines the importance of details (moulds and profiles) for the architects of previous times. The architects of the 17th-19th centuries expressed their creative and filosofic position choosing some concrete example of the great theorists of the past when constructing moulds and orders. We should note that the negative attitude to Classicism theory reasoned in the lack of investigations of the architectural details of the buildings of the 18th-19th centuries, in particular the ones in Saint Petersburg. At the present moment the interest to studying the architectural theories and forms is reappearing both in Russia and in Europe. The article considers the architectural moulds of the eighteenth century buildings of St. Petersburg, examples of their construction in each stylistic period. The analysis shows the significant differences of the Russian moulds drawings from the recommendations of classical treatises of the Renaissance and educational counterparts. The author offers the basic analysis of the characteristic features and data elements for each stylistic period in the architecture of St. Petersburg of the 18th century, as well as a unique handwriting of the architects who worked in that era.