Montferrand A.A. (1786-1858), architect

Categories / Architecture/Personalia
MONTFERRAND Auguste Augustovich (Henri Louis Auguste Leger Richard) (1786-1858, St. Petersburg), architect, actual state counsellor (1858), honorary associate of the St. Petersburg Academy of Fine Arts. In 1803-13, studied (interruptedly) in Ecole de Speciale (architecture school) in Paris. In 1806-14, rendered military service in the army of Emperor Napoleon I, after Napoleon’s downfall, resigned. In 1814, in Paris presented Emperor Alexander I with an album of his architectural projects and was invited to Russia. In 1816, he moved to St. Petersburg, and was appointed court architect and the Chief of the Drafting Committee for Constructions and Water Works (worked under the supervision of A.A. Bethencourt). The construction of the mansion of Lobanov-Rostovsky (1817-20) and St. Isaac's Cathedral (1818-58, inaugurated a month prior to Montferrand's death), which immensely contributed to the development of the architectural appearance of the capital' s centre, followed the design of Montferrand, as well as the construction and new adornment of the Kochubey House at the Fontanka River Embankment, Montferrand erection of a number of amusement facilities in Ekaterinhof (1820s, not preserved). In the 1830s-40s, Montferrand rebuilt houses Nos.43 and 45 on Bolshaya Morskaya Street, the mansion of Count Litta on Angliiskaya Embankment, Lerkh's house on the Moika River Embankment and his own house (86-88 Moika River Embankment). In 1830-34, he designed the Alexander Column, which was erected on the Palace Square. In the 1830s, he directed the construction of the staircase and the Rotunda Hall in the Hermitage, ornamenting of the Memorial Room of Peter the Great, Field Marshall’s and Malachite halls of the Winter Palace, he had also designed the monument on Bethencourt 's grave at the Smolensky Lutheran Cemetery (1824) and the monument to Emperor Nicholas I on St. Isaac's Square. The last years of his life were taken up with designing the reconstruction of the central squares of St. Petersburg (not implemented). Montferrand's work has gone down in history as one of the brightest manifestations of the late Neoclassicism (Empire), he also employed techniques of Neo-Gothic architecture, Renaissance motives, in fact, becoming the progenitor of the so-called early Eclecticism in Russian architecture. The collection Cabinet of architect Montferrand is now reposited in the Russian State Historical Archives.

References: Никитин Н. П. Огюст Монферран: Проектирование и стр-во Исаакиевского собора и Александровской колонны. Л., 1939; Огюст Монферран: К 200-летию со дня рождения: Кат. выст.: (Из фондов Эрмитажа). Л., 1986; Чеканова О. А. Огюст Монферран. СПб., 1994.

O. A. Chekanova. Alexander I, Emperor
Bethencourt Avgustin Avgustinovich
Kochubey Viktor Sergeevich, Duke
Lerche
Litta Yuly Pompeevich
Montferrand Auguste Augustovich (Henri Louis Auguste Leger Ricard de)
Napoleon I Bonaparte, Emperor
Nicholas I, Emperor
Angliiskaya Embankment/Saint Petersburg, city
Bolshaya Morskaya St./Saint Petersburg, city, house 45
Bolshaya Morskaya St./Saint Petersburg, city, house 43
Dvortsovaya Square/Saint Petersburg, city
Fontanka River Embankment/Saint Petersburg, city
Moika River Embankment/Saint Petersburg, city, house 86
Moika River Embankment/Saint Petersburg, city
Moika River Embankment/Saint Petersburg, city, house 88
St.Isaac's Square/Saint Petersburg, city
Никитин Н. П. Огюст Монферран: Проектирование и стр-во Исаакиевского собора и Александровской колонны. Л., 1939
Чеканова О. А. Огюст Монферран. СПб., 1994
Огюст Монферран: К 200-летию со дня рождения: Кат. выст.: (Из фондов Эрмитажа). Л., 1986 Academy of Arts
Academy of Arts
Lobanov-Rostovsky, House of
St. Isaac's Cathedral
Alexander Column
Hermitage
Hermitage
Winter Palace
1819