On August 6, 2024, the Worldwide St. Petersburg Club, the Organizing Committee of the International Golden Trezzini Awards for Architecture and Design, and the Peterhof Museum-Reserve held a symposium dedicated to the completion of the restoration of the Upper Garden in Peterhof.
The theme of the symposium was «Inventing the Garden: Regular Parks of Russia and Europe.» The event celebrated the completion of the restoration of the Peterhof Upper Garden — a unique piece of garden art and engineering thought from the first quarter of the 18th century. Created during the reign of Emperor Peter the Great, the Upper Garden has survived three centuries, retaining its main features to the present day.
To restore the Upper Garden to its 1770s appearance, the Peterhof State Museum-Reserve carried out a comprehensive restoration that took four years, from July 2020 to May 2024. The restoration project was based on rare archival documents and historical evidence, primarily an axonometric plan of Peterhof made by P.A. de St. Hilaire.
The symposium participants included members of the Worldwide St. Petersburg Club, guests and partners of the Golden Trezzini Awards, as well as the Peterhof Museum-Reserve representatives. Among the honored guests were Dimitrios Sparos, Consul General of Greece in St. Petersburg; Marina Antipova, Deputy Director General of the State Hermitage Museum; Marina Shaposhnikova, Chief Curator of the Mariinsky Palace; Konstantin Chamilovich, General Director of Ostrov Fortov organization; Alexander Smirnov, Director of Monrepos Park Museum-Reserve and Svetlana Fedorova, Deputy Director of Pavlovsk Museum-Reserve.
The event began with a tour of the Upper Garden. Afterward, the audience moved to the «Big Greenhouse» pavilion in the Peterhof Lower Park to discuss the challenges of creating, preserving, and restoring historical gardens and parks in Russia and Europe.
Roman Kovrikov, General Director of the Peterhof State Museum-Reserve; Natalia Sidorkevich, Chairlady of the Board of the Worldwide St. Petersburg Club; and Pavel Chernyakov, Chairman of the Organizing Committee of the Golden Trezzini Awards, welcomed the speakers and audience.
The plenary session featured presentations by:
Olga Cherdantseva, Head of the Competences Centre for Formation of Comfortable Urban Environment of the Committee for City Improvement of the Government of St. Petersburg;
— Andrey Reiman, Chairman of the Council for Landscape Architecture of the Union of Architects of St. Petersburg and member of the English Gardens History Society (GHS);
— Alexandra Alexeeva, Chief Curator of Gardens of the State Russian Museum;
— Olesya Chaynikova, Deputy Head of the Service for Restoration, Reconstruction and Overhaul of the Peterhof Museum-Reserve;
— Veronika Voronina, landscape architect of the Peterhof Museum-Reserve;
— Anastasia Kalita, Development Director of the Ficus Bureau.
Oleg Dmitriev, Director of the CORE.XP branch in St. Petersburg and Deputy Chairman of the Organizing Committee of the Golden Trezzini Awards, moderated the symposium.
The organizers expressed their gratitude to the them of the Peterhof State Museum-Reserve and personally to Roman Kovrikov for the warm welcome and flawless organization of the event.
Photos by Igor Bakustin. Title photo provided by the Peterhof State Museum-Reserve.
More news of the Golden Trezzini Awards:
https://goldtrezzini.ru/en/news/
Follow us on social media:
https://www.facebook.com/trezziniawards/
https://www.instagram.com/trezziniawards/