Emperor Nicholas I and duality in Russian architecture of his time

The Russian architecture of the first half of the nineteenth century was dominated by a combination and complex coexistence of two opposing elements - classic normative ideal and romantic ideal, characterized by the desire for freedom of creativity, implemented in polystylistics of early eclecticism. The emergence and development of the phenomenon of duality in the architecture of the Nicholas I era was facilitated by the authoritarian form of government in Russia during the first half of the nineteenth century. It can be stated that the main state customer in architecture of the period of transition from Classicism to eclecticism was Russian Emperor Nicholas I. Because of the political orientation of the Soviet period in arts history architectural aesthetic inclinations of Nicholas I were not considered, or, as a rule, the attention was paid to the negative impact of the monarch on the creativity of the architects. Aesthetic preferences of the Russian Emperor Nicholas I contributed significantly to the translation of progressive creative solutions to multi-faceted and contradictory Russian architecture of that period. Russian architecture of the Nicholas I era was twofold in its development. Often criticized by the contemporaries, such as N. Gogol, P. Chaadaev, it was, on the one hand, the normative and regulative classical architecture, which is characterized by symmetry and order composition of office buildings, geometric arrangement of the plans of cities, towns and settlements, typical projects in mass architecture. However, on the other hand, during the reign of Nicholas I was opened the way for new architectural quest in the spirit of the romantic interpretation of the ancient ideal, freedom of choosing of the historical artistic analogue, new creative principles of Russian architecture were developed. During the reign of Nicholas I late classical architecture existed simultaneously with the romantic freedom in neogothic and eclectic architecture erected for the royal family. During the era of Nicholas I Russian national architectural style was born. The emperor himself legitimized the official national style in Russian architecture, he implemented progressive architectural undertakings related to the future direction of development of Russian architecture during the second half of the XIX century. The article deals with the origins of the formation of aesthetic and artistic views of the future emperor in the field of architecture and construction activity, in which in the years of his reign he took an active part.

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