Hermitage Kitchen

For Russian manor and country architecture of the 1760s–1770s, there was a fascination with the forms of Gothic and Chinese art. The romantic garden was meant to create the illusion of a "journey" through different countries. 

The earliest monuments of neo-Gothic style in Tsarskoye Selo are the Tower-Ruin and the Admiralty complex, built in the early 1770s. In the early 1780s, Catherine II began a large-scale reconstruction of the Tsarskoye Selo park and ordered the old kitchen to be demolished and a new one built in its place. The construction was overseen by architect Neelov, who dedicated his entire life to building the Tsarskoye Selo palace and parks. At one time, he traveled to England to study park culture, which is why the spirit of English Gothic is present in many of his buildings, including the Hermitage Kitchen.

The construction of the Hermitage Kitchen had two purposes – to serve receptions held in the Hermitage and to decorate one of the main entrances to the Tsarskoye Selo garden, which is why it is also called the Red Gate. The gates face Sadovaya Street. Passing through them, visitors enter the Hermitage (wild) grove. Planted with firs, alders, and birches, it covered an area of 11 hectares in 1721.

The architectural concept of the Hermitage Kitchen is connected with the canal construction started in 1774 along the border of the Old Garden. Replacing the old solid stone fence with a canal and embankment was part of a broad program to reorganize the Catherine Park.

In the 18th century, the building had a dual purpose — it served not only as a kitchen but also as a gate for entry into Catherine Park. Therefore, the pavilion was often called the Red Gate. From the Gothic buildings of England, the building inherited rough brick walls with whitewashed joints, a characteristic battlement parapet, and rectangular and triangular teeth above the first and upper tiers of the tower. Nevertheless, it is a monument of early classicism, as evidenced by the simple and strict facades, white niches, heavy decorative vases at the corners, garlands on the windows, and modillions in the cornice treatment.

In plan, the Hermitage Kitchen is an elongated rectangle with two projections on the park side. The building is crowned by a round two-tiered tower. In the decoration of the pavilion’s facades, Neelov used the motif of semicircular niches, which housed decorative vases, sometimes called "cubes" in the 18th century due to their geometric shape, massiveness, and heaviness.

Other techniques typical of early classicism are also used in the decoration of the Hermitage Kitchen, in particular, the treatment of walls with panels and garlands of molded towels above the gate arch. The "Gothic" character is given to the building by the battlement parapet, rectangular and triangular teeth above the first and upper tiers of the tower, as well as pyramids topped with spheres located at the corners of the building. In imitation of English Gothic buildings, the walls of the Hermitage Kitchen were left unplastered, while the joints between bricks, molded details, niches, and panels on the facades were whitewashed.

Currently, restoration work is being completed in the pavilion.

Sources:

https://pushkin.spb.ru/encycl/parks/ermitazhnaya-kuhnya.html

https://www.tzar.ru/objects/ekaterininskypark/regular/hermitagekitchen