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Imperial Parks: Pavlovsk

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Pavlovsk Park is a unique monument of landscape art from the late 18th to early 19th century. Together with the Pavlovsk Palace, it forms a unified artistic palace and park ensemble. Its history begins with the founding of Pavlovsk in 1777. Initially, it was forest land used for royal hunts. With the appearance of the first modest wooden palaces, Paullust and Mariental, small gardens began to be created around them on the hilly banks of the Slavyanka River. Gazebos, bridges, ruins, and flower beds were typical features of a Russian estate. The transformation of the forest into a park began with the arrival of Charles Cameron, who created a project for a new landscape park on the banks of the Slavyanka River, which serves as the park’s connecting artery. It was in the second half of the 18th century that the fashion for landscape parks appeared in Europe. It first took hold in England, which is why such parks are called English parks. Using Pavlovsk as an example, Cameron was the first to develop the ideas and principles of the new landscape architecture. Since the future park was a forested area, work began with clearing glades. Under Cameron, almost all the main park compositions emerged — the Palace District, the Great Star, the Slavyanka River Valley, the Menagerie, and the White Birch. A large, wide clearing, which was designed as the Triple Linden Alley, became the defining feature of the Palace District adjacent to the palace. Here, Cameron employed the technique of formal planning, a vivid example of which is the Private Garden and the Aviary Section. Later, architects V. Brenna, A.N. Voronikhin, and K.I. Rossi, without changing Cameron’s plan for these districts, made their own additions and enriched their overall character. https://pavlovskmuseum.ru/about/park/

Jermaine Jermaine

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