Project of Restoration and Reconstruction of General Staff’s Eastern Wing Presented

On 11 July, 2003, journalists were presented a program of restoration and reconstruction of the former building of Civil Ministries (Eastern Wing of the General Staff, 6-8 Palace Square), proposed by the Greater Hermitage Project. The program is financed by the World Bank of Reconstruction and Development and the Government of the Russian Federation.

The Greater Hermitage Project is designed to reconstruct most of the historical buildings around Palace Square, which will then accommodate exhibition halls and entertainment facilities. It has been approved by the Government and Ministry of Culture of the Russian Federation and the Governor of St. Petersburg.

One of the project’s key aspects is the reconstruction of the Eastern Wing and Arch of the General Staff, including five storeys and five courtyards covering in total 38,200 m2. After the General Staff’s Eastern Wing is reconstructed, restored and rebuilt, it will accommodate exhibition halls, education center and shops. Underground vestibule, passages and parking area will also be built.

The General Staff was designed by Carlo Rossi and built in 1820-30 for the Ministries of Finance and Foreign Affairs, ministerial apartments, hospital and other institutions.

In 1989, the Historic Heritage Preservation Office of Leningrad handed the Eastern Wing of the General Staff over to the Hermitage.

It is planned to display there an exhibition of art of the 19th-20th centuries whose core will be Impressionist and Post-Impressionist paintings, alongside the Hermitage collection of porcelain, the Arsenal collection and Museums of Russian Guards and Private Collections.

This new project is quite different from the previous proposals. The ground floor will be cut through by passages connecting the Moyka Embankment with Palace Square and Bolshaya Morskaya Street, with shops, restaurants and Internet cafes.

Exhibition halls will be situated in the first and upper floors, accessed by the central staircase. Isolated courtyards will be connected into a suite of rooms. Authors of the project took the Small Hermitage as their staring-point, deciding to imitate its Big Suite alternating gardens and big exhibition halls. The exhibition’s upper level will be a terrace under the courtyards’ glass roofing, topped by a circuit gallery from which the city’s panorama may be viewed.

The general designer is Studio 44. Restoration was designed by Mikhaylov Architecture Studio, construction, by SILKO Design Bureau, engineering works, by ZAO Petro Engineering. The project team headed by O.I. Yaveyn included V.I. Lemekhov, P.S. Sokolov, V.V. Khmeleva, I.V. Golysheva, D.P. Kosov and O.V. Shorina.

Oleg Yaveyn, leader of the project team

Press conference

Press conference in the Hermitage Theater

Director of the State Hermitage Museum Mikhail Piotrovsky presenting the project