Alexander Park / Alexandrovsky Park, Saint Petersburg, Russia, 196605
The Llama Pavilion was built between 1820 and 1822 by architect Adam Menelas to house llamas. The llamas were gifted to Emperor Alexander I by the President of Peru and brought to Tsarskoye Selo as early as 1816, but they lived together with two turtles near the Upper Greenhouses. The appearance of these exotic animals in Russia marked a successful beginning of Russian-American trade relations. The Llama Pavilion’s appearance resembles Italian medieval buildings, while details such as decorative arches at the top of the facade, shelves above the windows, and window frames with “Gothic” tracery are more characteristic of English neo-Gothic structures. The central feature of the building is a three-tiered brick tower in the eastern corner, nearly 16 meters tall, decorated with a battlement parapet and rusticated corners (rusticated stones were used on the building’s corners to give them a formidable and impregnable look). The constructed complex, arranged in a closed square, had a single cobblestone-paved inner courtyard and consisted of interconnected buildings — stables, a forage shed, an arena, and apartments for the attendants.
For the animals, stables, an arena, a forage warehouse, as well as apartments for the service staff with formal rooms were built. The dominant feature of the complex was the three-tiered tower in a pseudo-Gothic style, which housed living quarters. All these buildings were connected and together with the enclosed inner courtyard formed a unified square-plan complex. The tower rose above the building, to the opposite corner of which Monighetti added a Photographic Cabinet in 1860. For some time, photographer Bergamasco and the grand dukes used it as a photo laboratory. The tower contained a library and a small lounge for the highest dignitaries, furnished in the Empire style and decorated with engravings depicting scenes from the life of Central and South America.
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