The history of the creation of the palace here, surrounded by an oasis of man-made nature, is connected with the names of two august persons – Empress Catherine II and her grandson, the future Emperor Alexander I, as well as the architect Giacomo Quarenghi. In the northern part of the picturesque Alexander Park, a magnificent building was erected — the New Tsarskoye Selo (later Alexander) Palace. It was laid down in 1792 by order of Catherine II and was being built for the wedding of her beloved grandson, Grand Duke Alexander Pavlovich (the future Emperor Alexander I), with Grand Duchess Elizabeth Alexeievna.

At first, Catherine II entrusted Quarenghi with designing a palace for Alexander in Saint Petersburg, and in 1791 the architect proposed a building with three enclosed courtyards. The central courtyard in this version was separated from the street by a two-row through colonnade, as if drawing the wings of the palace together. Such a colonnade was eventually realized in reality, but already in a park setting.

In 1792, Catherine II changed her mind and decided to build the palace in her favorite residence – Tsarskoye Selo. Quarenghi altered the project, leaving only one, but extensive courtyard, and interrupted the monotonous rhythm of the colonnade by placing an open domed rotunda in its center – here it was planned to arrange an open park-facing “Salon for dancing, dining, and enjoying life,” conveniently connected to both vestibules.

However, the architect realized in time: he remembered that Russia is not Italy, and a large open hall in the northern climate was not very practical. Quarenghi kept the colonnade but abandoned the airy rotunda. The architect proposed a project of two U-shaped buildings, the smaller enclosed within the larger. The colonnade extended the full height of the building and connected the ends of the inner, smaller building. The snow-white columns are reflected in the calm surface of the pond. The opposite facade of the palace, accented in the center by a semicircular risalit, faces the shady park.

The construction of the palace was not without scandal. In 1792, Quarenghi sent an angry letter to Prince P.I. Turchaninov, manager of the Hofintendant’s Office, which oversaw all construction and economic matters of the Imperial Court. The architect complained about the improper behavior of the manager of the Tsarskoye Selo construction office, General Aristarkh Kashkin, who “expelled with insults” the stone master chosen by Quarenghi, Geronimo Rusca, from the construction site and ordered the foundation to be laid without informing Quarenghi about the start of these works. The architect was outraged, refused to “intervene” in the construction under such circumstances, and then Kashkin threatened to “beat” Quarenghi if he appeared at the site! “After that, no one spoke to me about this building anymore, as if I no longer existed and was no longer the architect,” Quarenghi marveled, worried about the quality of the foundation laying.

The conflict was resolved, but now the architect was forced to carry out the stalled work at a frantic pace. In 1794, he noted in a letter to one of his correspondents: “You cannot imagine how much time and peace this new palace for the imperial couple takes from me; it must be completely ready with the arrival of favorable good weather, but in recent weeks it was not covered, and the gallery wall still needs to be finished, and everything lies on me; but worse is that I have to demolish part of the wall to strengthen the rest due to theft and poor materials used on the construction, in which I did not want to participate, and all difficulties are now on my neck…”

Despite the difficulties, in the spring of 1796 the palace was completed, and on June 12 of that year Grand Duke Alexander Pavlovich and his wife Elizabeth Alexeievna moved into their new country home. “The Grand Duke and Grand Duchess were very pleased with their palace,” assured lady-in-waiting Countess V.N. Golovina. The young newlyweds were immediately “visited” by Empress Catherine II. “The Empress announced to them as Their Imperial Highnesses that she would visit them in their new residence after lunch. A wonderful dessert was prepared in the colonnade, which represented something like an open living room, limited on the garden side by two rows of columns. From this place, an extensive and beautiful view opens up,” Countess Golovina reported the details of this highest visit to us.

The halls of the Parade enfilade, lined with artificial marble, were located along the garden facade of the palace. In the center of the enfilade was a hall divided into three parts by wide arches. Its middle part was called the Semicircular Hall, to which the Portrait Hall adjoined on the east side, and the Billiard Room (or Marble Drawing Room) on the west. On the left side, the Parade enfilade was closed by the Hall with a Slide, from which one could enter the Library rooms and further into the Corner Drawing Room; in the right corner, under the last owners, was the palace Church (under Nicholas I — the Bedroom). In the right wing of the palace were the Concert Hall, directly adjoining the Corner Drawing Room, and a number of living rooms.

While Alexander I preferred to stay in the Great Tsarskoye Selo Palace during his visits to Tsarskoye Selo, his successor Nicholas I was very fond of the Alexander Palace and paid special attention to its improvement.

For Nicholas I’s grandson, Grand Duke Alexander Alexandrovich, the future Emperor Alexander III, the Alexander Palace was a grand ducal residence (his apartments were located in the left wing of the building), but after becoming emperor, Alexander III preferred the Gatchina Palace among the summer palaces.

From 1904, the Alexander Palace became the permanent residence of Emperor Nicholas II, who was born here in 1868 and had a special affection for Tsarskoye Selo. Here passed the last 13 years of the Russian emperor’s reign; from here on the morning of August 1, 1917, the imperial family was sent into exile in Tobolsk.

At the beginning of the 20th century, almost all important events related to Russian state life took place in the Alexander Palace: receptions of ambassadors and foreign dignitaries, celebrations of anniversaries — the 300th anniversary of the Romanov House and the 200th anniversary of Tsarskoye Selo.

In 1918, the Alexander Palace was opened to visitors as a state museum. The exhibition included historical interiors on the first floor in the central part of the building and the residential apartments of the Romanov family in the right wing of the palace. Later, the left wing housed a rest home for NKVD employees, and on the second floor of the right wing, in the place of the closed rooms of Nicholas II’s children, was the Children’s Home named after the Young Communards.

In the first months of the Great Patriotic War, chandeliers, carpets, some pieces of furniture, marble and porcelain items of the 18th century were evacuated from the Alexander Palace museum. The main part of the palace property was left in the halls. During the occupation of the town of Pushkin, German and Spanish military units were stationed in the Alexander Palace; the square in front of the palace was turned into a Nazi cemetery.

After the war, the palace was conserved and in 1946 was handed over to the USSR Academy of Sciences for storing the collections of the Institute of Russian Literature and for housing the exhibition of the All-Union Museum of A. S. Pushkin. In connection with this, restoration work began in the palace in 1947–1951, during which it was planned to restore the surviving interiors of D. Quarenghi and the surviving fragments of decoration, as well as to recreate the interiors of the times of Emperors Nicholas I and Nicholas II. However, during the work many elements of the decoration of the Maple and Rosewood Drawing Rooms of Empress Alexandra Feodorovna, as well as the Dressing Room (Moorish) of Nicholas II, were destroyed. These palace halls were restored according to the project of architect Bezverkhy (1908–1963) “in accordance with the architectural norms of the Quarenghi and Pushkin period.”

In 1951, by government decree, the Alexander Palace was transferred to the Navy Department, and the palace collection, which was part of the evacuated items in the Central Storage of Museum Funds of suburban palace museums, was transferred to the Pavlovsk Palace Museum. In 1996, a grant from the World Monuments Fund (WMF) was received for the restoration of the Alexander Palace, and work began on repairing the building’s roof. A year later, in the right wing of the building, where the personal apartments of Nicholas II and Alexandra Feodorovna were previously located, a permanent exhibition “Memories in the Alexander Palace” was created, prepared by the Tsarskoye Selo Museum-Reserve from items in the museum collection. This exhibition, in partially preserved historic interiors and halls that lost their artistic decoration during the war, presents furnishings and personal belongings of the last Russian emperor and his family.

Sources:

https://tzar.ru/objects/alexandrovsky

https://xn--c1acndtdamdoc1ib.xn--p1ai/fan-zona/statii/dvorets-dlya-lyubimogo-vnuka/

Chepel Alexander Ivanovich, Candidate of Historical Sciences: Palace for the Beloved Grandson