About Montferran brief biography

Montferrand Auguste Montferrand Auguste Montferrand Auguste was born on the outskirts of Paris on January 23 of the year - this is all that is known about the childhood and youth of the future great architect. We know that at twenty years he enters the royal school of architecture, but was not destined to finish it for the young man - war and Montferrand, like tens of thousands of his peers, were burning in Europe in Europe, Napoleon Bonaparte was being called into the army.

In one of the battles he was injured, and after recovery, he gets the opportunity to return to a peaceful life and continue his training. In the year, the emperor again call on Sergeant Montferrand to weapons. After Napoleon’s abdication, the cavalier of the Order of the Legion of Honor, Auguste Montferrand, who was distinguished in the battles, returns to Paris again.

He participates in the construction of the Church of La Madeline, works in the workshop of the main Napoleonic architects P. Fontaine and Sh. After the final fall of Napoleon, there was very little work in Paris, and the architect decides to turn to the Russian emperor Alexander I, taking advantage of his presence in the French capital. Montferrand presents the Russian emperor a folder with his projects, and as a result receives an invitation to serve in Russia.

Immediately upon arrival in the Russian Northern capital, the French architect took part in the competition of projects of the St. Isaac's Cathedral. They were presented simultaneously twenty -four projects in different styles, the emperor’s choice fell on one of them - a five -headed cathedral in a classic style. The project was approved on February 20. Since that time, the construction of this cathedral has become the matter of the whole life of Auguste Montferrand.

Forty years of his life in Russia, the architect dedicated to this temple.

In the same period, he builds houses for private customers: the house of Lobanov -Rostovsky according to Admiralteysky Prospekt, the house of Demidov on Bolshaya Morskaya, 43, the house of Princess Gagarina on Bolshaya Morskaya, in the year the architect was engaged in the improvement of the Yekaterinhof Park, and in the year - the alteration of the interiors of the Winter Palace.

But the most famous, after the cathedral, the creation of the brilliant Frenchman was the Alexander column installed on Palace Square. For its creation, Montferrand was awarded a prize in thousand. For this money, the architect acquired a house on the Moika embankment, as for the St. Isaac's Cathedral, 40 thousand was granted for his work. However, the architect could no longer take advantage of the granted privileges.

There were rumors that Montferran was predicted by death after the end of the construction of Isaac. In the decor of the cathedral, among the saints with the Dalmatian heads respectfully inclined to Isaac, the sculptural figure of the architect himself with the layout of the cathedral in his hands was also. Seeing this sculpture at the consecration ceremony of the cathedral, and even with his head proudly raised, Emperor Alexander II was indignant.

He did not thank the architect, passed by without giving his hand without saying words of gratitude. Montferrand was very upset, left until the end of the ceremony, and a month later, on June 28, died. He asked to bury himself in the cathedral that he gave most of his life, but Alexander II did not give permission to this burial. The only thing that was allowed to the family of the deceased was to conduct a panachid in the cathedral and embrace a coffin with the body of an architect around the Cathedral building.

The architect’s widow took his body to Paris, where he was buried.