St. Petersburg Scientific Center of the Russian Academy of
Sciences (SPbSC RAS) is an association of scientific institutions of
the Russian Academy of Sciences (RAS) in St. Petersburg and the
Leningrad Region.
It was founded on February 17, 1983 as the
Leningrad Scientific Center (LNC of the USSR Academy of Sciences).
It continues the scientific traditions established by Peter I at the
beginning of the 18th century.
Academician I. A. Glebov
became the first chairman of the Scientific Center. From 1989 until
his death on March 1, 2019, the Presidium of the Center was headed
by academician, Nobel Prize winner in physics Zh. I. Alferov.
The desire of the Academy of Sciences to have at its disposal a
sufficient amount of space necessary to accommodate all of its
scientific and auxiliary departments throughout the entire 18th century.
encouraged both architects and scientists themselves to develop and
propose various projects for new buildings and even entire architectural
complexes for consideration by the Academy's leadership. None of these
projects came to fruition, usually due to a lack of funds. In 1767,
together with the Commission on St. Petersburg Construction, the issue
of transferring the land between the buildings of the Kunstkamera and
the Twelve Collegia to the Academy of Sciences for the construction of a
new stone building was considered. On the perspective plan of St.
Petersburg in 1764-1773. in this place a light contour of the building
plan is drawn, in its configuration close to the plan of Praskovia
Feodorovna's palace. However, until the mid-1770s. the issue of
construction was not raised. The lack of premises and the dilapidated
state of the academic buildings were especially acute during the
celebration of the half-century anniversary of the Academy of Sciences
in 1776. The Academy's leadership was forced to once again raise the
issue of building a house for academic departments and housing for
employees.
In September 1777, the director of the academy, S. G.
Domashnev, presented the plan of the new academic building to the
scientific assembly. This plan has not come down to us, but from the
description it is known that the building was supposed to be
three-story, 32 fathoms long and 8 fathoms wide. It planned a vestibule
with a large front staircase, a conference hall measuring 10 sazhens in
length and 6 sazhens in width, a Russian library, a large auditorium for
reading public lectures with a foyer, a bookstore with a book warehouse
and an apartment for a bookseller.
In July 1778, a building
permit was obtained, and Domashnev asked scientists to provide
information about the necessary premises and equipment. A few days
later, Academician S.K. Kotelnikov and adjuncts P.B. Inokhodtsev and
M.E. Golovin proposed to the director "a program for building a new
house for the academy." The note suggested that the premises of the old
house of the Academy of Sciences (the former palace of Tsaritsa
Praskovya Fedorovna. - I. Shch.) be used as housing for academic
employees, since scientists recognized "it is indecent to be living
quarters in the main building." The new building was supposed to house
the “Printing House, the Figure Chamber, a bookshop and a commissioner's
board; also a commission, an auditorium, a hall for public meetings with
an antechamber, a hall for a friendly interview of academicians, the
Geographical Department, the Engraving and Punching Chambers and a
mechanical laboratory, and, finally, a library. A detailed
floor-by-floor list was presented for the premises planned for academic
departments, indicating the areas required for them. (SPF ARAN. F. 1.
Op. 2 (1778). D. 5. L. 2-3). However, this project suffered the same
fate as the previous ones.
Only Princess E. R. Dashkova, who
headed the academy in 1783, managed to build a new building. Being an
energetic person and having great connections at the imperial court, she
achieved the final transfer of the land plot between the Kunstkamera and
the Twelve Collegia to the academy and managed to procure from Catherine
II necessary for the construction of the amount of 106 thousand rubles.
In the report of the Commission on the construction in Moscow and St.
Petersburg, submitted to Catherine II on March 23, 1783, it was reported
that the new building was intended for an "academic store (warehouse. -
I. Shch.), a bookshop and other chambers for the premises of ministers,
who now live in wooden chambers. The design was entrusted to the Italian
architect J. Quarenghi, who recently arrived in St. Petersburg.
The project presented by the architect, especially the solution of the
internal space of the building, did not quite suit E. R. Dashkova, who
wanted to give the new building a more formal look. At her insistence,
the large central hall, which was planned on the middle floor, was
divided into two spacious apartments by a ceiling. The middle floor was
supposed to house a bookstore, above it in the same room on the top
floor - the Conference Hall, and next to it - several front rooms.
Quarenghi had to additionally design a front three-flight staircase
leading from the hallway of the middle floor to the front rooms of the
upper floor (which was never built in this form), as well as a porch in
front of the portico.
Construction continued in 1783-1789. In
1787, due to a conflict with Dashkova, who constantly intervened in the
construction process, Quarenghi stepped down from the leadership of the
construction of a new academic building. In 1788 the building was
roofed. The interior decoration of the service and residential premises
of the basement and middle floors was completed by the summer of 1789
without the participation of Quarenghi. The decoration of the front
rooms of the upper floor and the arrangement of the main staircase
remained unfinished.
Already in 1788 the building began to
function. An academic bookshop, equipped with cabinets made by carpenter
Johann From, took its place in the central large hall of the middle
floor. Part of the premises in the western wing of the same floor was
given over to bookstores. In December 1788 - February 1789. the new
"bookstores" were filled with Russian and foreign books transported on
103 wagons from two barns of port customs, which the academy rented to
store books for several years. In the eastern wing of the house,
apartments for academicians were arranged. The basement housed the tool
and locksmith workshops and living quarters for numerous artisans. The
originally planned transfer of the academic printing house with the type
foundry to this building was not carried out. The printing house "with
all accessories" remained in the old House of the Academy of Sciences
(the former palace of Praskovya Fedorovna) and by the 1820s. occupied it
almost completely.
In the side wings of the upper floor of the
new building by the beginning of the 19th century. housed the
Chancellery (since 1804 - the Committee of the Board) of the Academy of
Sciences with an archive and living quarters for scientists.
In
1795-1799. the final redevelopment and decoration of the front rooms of
the upper floor was carried out. The work was carried out by the master
Bernardin under the general supervision of the architect A. Porto. Three
rooms now adjoined the Conference Hall directly, creating a semblance of
an enfilade. This enfilade was closed by a rather spacious room in the
southeast corner of the building, which, according to some documents,
began under the Physics Office. The appearance of the Conference Hall
has also undergone some changes. Its western main wall was replaced by
four columns of the Corinthian order. A semi-circular niche arranged
behind them was connected by a passage to a small service room. The
walls of the hall were decorated with artificial marble. The interior
was decorated with a stucco frieze by the sculptor F.-K. Goffert, with
the image of eight remarkable events of the reign of Catherine II and
the decorative painting of the padugs, made by the painter Moskovin. The
same period includes the construction of a single-span front staircase
leading to the premises of the upper floor. The walls of the staircase
in the 18th century, as well as the rest of the front rooms of the upper
floor, were also painted by Moskovin.
In 1825-1827. the building underwent a thorough renovation in
connection with the preparations for the celebration of the 100th
anniversary of the Academy of Sciences. Repair and finishing work was
carried out under the guidance of the architect D. E. Filippov. The
spacious room in the southeast corner of the top floor of the building
was repaired and painted by the artist F. Richter for the anniversary.
Since that time, it has housed the Small Conference Hall. In subsequent
years, regular meetings of scientists were held there. In the Big
Conference Hall, only ceremonial events were held. By the anniversary,
the floors in the Great Conference Hall were strengthened and the
ceiling was repaired, Richter painted the ceiling. Decorative painting
of the late 18th century was destroyed. Twelve stucco desuports with
eagles, made by F. Kalugin, completed the decoration of the hall. The
space above the fireplace was decorated with a large mirror ordered from
the court mechanic G. Gambs. The “frame with gilding” for him, by order
of President S. S. Uvarov, was made by master K. Kuznetsov.
By
the anniversary Meeting of Academicians, scheduled for December 10,
1826, not all the planned decoration of the Conference Hall was
completed. In order to be in time for the solemn event, the sculptor S.
Madern was forced to make a plaster bust of Peter I on a wooden pedestal
and paint it like marble. Already after the celebration of the
anniversary of the academy in April 1827, Madern replaced the plaster
statue with a bust of "colossal size" made of Carrara marble and
installed it on a marble pedestal. In 1827, at the direction of S. S.
Uvarov, a painting portrait of Empress Catherine I was restored. In the
same year, by order of Nicholas I, three portraits were transferred from
the Hermitage to decorate the Great Conference Hall: Empresses Elizabeth
Petrovna and Catherine II and Emperor Paul I. Master K. Kuznetsov made
large gilded frames for these paintings. In the same 1827, the Big
Conference Hall was decorated with two more portraits: full-length
portraits of Emperors Nicholas I and Alexander I, commissioned by S. S.
Uvarov by the painter Dow. Two more portraits of Nicholas I were painted
by Dow to decorate the Small Conference Hall and the Board Committee.
In preparation for the anniversary, the building built by Quarenghi
was finally assigned the status of the main building of the Imperial
Academy of Sciences.
Over the following years, the purpose of
different rooms of the main building of the Academy of Sciences changed.
In 1828, by order of President S.S. Uvarov, the rooms of the western
wing of the middle floor of the building, where the apartment of the
Commissar of the Book Store Meyer had previously been located, were
converted into the Physics Office of the Academy of Sciences. This
institution, transformed in 1912 into the Physical Laboratory, and then
in 1921 into the Physics and Mathematics Institute, by 1934 (the time of
its transfer to Moscow) occupied almost all floors of the western wing
of the house. In 1829, several rooms next to the Physics Cabinet, which
housed a book warehouse, at the request of the head of the cabinet,
Academician E. I. Parrot, were converted into an apartment for him and
his assistant, physicist E. Kh. Lenz. In the 1850s Academicians K. M.
Baer, L. E. Stephani, and F. I. Ruprecht lived in state-owned apartments
in the main academic building.
At the beginning of the XX
century. a vast room on the middle floor, where from the end of the 18th
century. there was a Bookshop, it was divided by partitions into several
small rooms. Three of them housed a bookstore. Five rooms were occupied
by the Office of the Conference and the office of the Permanent
Secretary. The eastern wing housed the apartments of academician A. A.
Shakhmatov and academic employees. In the basement, in addition to the
workshops of the Physics Laboratory, there was a laundry room and living
quarters for single and family lower ranks of academic employees.
In 1905-1918. The main building of the Academy of Sciences housed
the collections and library of the Pushkin House.
Since September
1914, on the initiative of scientists, an infirmary for the wounded
lower ranks of the Russian army was opened in the front rooms of the
upper floor. 40 beds were placed in the Large Conference Hall. The walls
of the adjacent oval Alexander Hall were covered with boards, and an
operating room and a dressing room were equipped in this room. Other
services of the infirmary: rooms for sisters of mercy and orderlies, a
bath, a kitchen and a laundry room are located in adjacent rooms and
rooms on the ground floor. Concerts and other recreational activities
for the wounded were held in the Small Conference Hall. The infirmary
was supported by donations from members and employees of the Academy of
Sciences, members of the imperial family, statesmen, urban national
communities. The President of the Academy of Sciences, K.K. Romanov,
decided to allocate all his maintenance for the duration of the war to
the needs of the institution. The infirmary operated until December
1916.
In 1925, in connection with the preparation of the 200th
anniversary of the Academy of Sciences, repairs were carried out in the
main building. A specially created Construction Subcommittee conducted a
thorough study of the building and developed a concept for repair work.
By decision of experts, the facade of the main building was repainted in
a grayish-lilac color with white rods and columns. Changes were made to
the walls of both Conference Rooms and the adjoining State Rooms. In the
Big Conference Hall, A. A. Rassadin restored the stucco frieze. On the
upper landing of the main staircase there is a panel "Poltava battle",
made in the mosaic workshop of M. V. Lomonosov on the cardboard of the
painter K. L. Khristinek.
Over the years, from 1920 to 1934, the
main building housed the Secretariat, the Office of Affairs, the Sector
of Work Supply, the Commission on Bases, the Secret Section, the
Military Desk, the Economic Department, the Local Committee, the Local
Bureau of the Section of Scientific Workers, the Committee for
Scientific Consultations and Promotion of Scientific Achievements ,
Planning and Organizing Commission, Permanent Seismological Commission,
repository of duplicates of the Museum of Anthropology and Ethnography.
A number of rooms in the western wing next to the Physics and
Mathematics Institute were provided to the Demographic and Japhetic
Institutes. The fourth mezzanine floor, after the founding of the
Postgraduate School at the Academy of Sciences in 1929, housed an
auditorium and several apartments for graduate students.
In the
first third of the XX century. academicians S. F. Oldenburg, V. P.
Volgin, A. N. Krylov lived in the house.
Since 1934, after the
transfer of the Presidium of the Academy of Sciences of the USSR and a
number of academic institutions to Moscow, the Leningrad Administrative
and Economic Department was located in the main building for many years.