Maximilian Messmacher

Maximilian Messmacher
Максимилиан Егорович Месмахер
Born	(1842-03-21)March 21, 1842 Saint Petersburg Art and Industry Academy
Awards

Maximilian (von) Messmacher (Russian: Максимилиан Егорович Месмахер, Maximilian Yegorovich Messmacher; 1842–1906) was a Russian architect of German ancestry.

He attended the School of Painting of St. Petersburg Society for the Encouragement of Arts and thereafter the

Messmacher was born in Saint Petersburg in 1842. He attended a high school in Saint Petersburg from 1850 to 1857 and thereafter the School of Painting of St. Petersburg Society for the Encouragement of Arts. Finally, in 1866 he graduated from the Imperial Academy of Fine Arts, receiving the gold medal for his graduation project.

He visited Italy and old Russian towns as a retainer of the Academy of Fine Arts He brought back over 200 watercolors from this trip, which are preserved at the

His main activities are however related to architecture and interior decoration. He engaged in the architecture and interior decoration of palaces of the members of the imperial family and of the mansions of aristocrats. Messmacher's most significant works in St. Petersburg are: the palaces of the Grand Duke Alexei Alexandrovich and of the Grand Duke Mikhail Mikhailovich as well as the interior decorations of the palaces of Grand Duke Vladimir Alexandrovich, of Grand Duke Pavel Alexandrovich as well as of the Anichkov Palace. He also worked on the Palace of Tsar Alexander III in Massandra, Crimea, which was finished after the tsar's assassination. Messmacher's works are distinctive due to a refined expressiveness of the silhouette, grandeur and diversity of artistic and decorative techniques for the facades and for the interiors. Eclecticism.^{[2][3][4][5][6][7]} Part of his work also concerned the design and decoration of churches, Messmacher was in charge of the restoration of Saint Isaac's Cathedral and in 1882 was appointed the chief architect of the church), One of Messmacher's last works is the interior of the St. Peter's Lutheran Church (1895–97).^[8]

After 1897, Maximilan Messmacher moved to Germany and worked mostly there. He died in 1906 in Dresden, Germany and is interred at the Lutheran cemetery Johannisfriedhof, Dresden.^[9]

Main projects

• Interior decoration of the residence of Prince Gagarin (1873–1874) on Bolshaya Morskaya Street Nr.45
• Icon screen of the Smolny Convent (1873–1875)
• Church of Saints Kosma and Damyan at the Guards Battalion on Kirochnaya Street Nr. 28a (1876–1879)
• Reconstruction of the Building of the Society for the Encouragement of Arts on Bolshaya Morskaya Street Nr. 38 (1877–1878)
• Restoration of Saint Isaac's Cathedral (1877–1888)
• Decoration of the private chapel of Count Stroganov on Tchaikovsky Street Nr. 11 (1878–1879)
• Interior decoration of the Vladimir Palace on Dvortsovy Embankment Nr. 26 (1882–1885)
• Moika
  Embankment Nr. 122 (1882–1885)
• Building of the State Archives on Millionnaya Street Nr. 36
• Building of
  Central School of Technical Drawing
  on Solyanoi Lane Nr. 13 (1885–1886)
• Palace of Grand Duke Mikhail Mikhailovich on Admiralty Embankment Nr. 8 (1885–1888)
• Building of the
  Stieglitz Museum
  on Solyanoi Lane Nr.15 (1885–1896)
• Interior decoration of the
  Nevsky Prospekt
  Nr. 39 (1886–1887)
• Manege and stables of N.M. Polovtsov on the Kryukov Canal Embankment Nr. 12 (1887)
• Interior decoration of the Palace of Grand Duke Pavel Alexandrovich on Angliyskaya Embankment Nr. 68 (1888–1892)
• Interior decoration of the Palace of Grand Duke Vladimir Alexandrovich (1888–1892)
• Interior decoration of the residence of Alexander Alexandrovich Polovtsov on Bolshaya Morskaya Street Nr. 52 (1888–1892)
• Massandra Villa of Tsar Alexander III in the Crimea
  (1892–1900)
• Interior decoration of St. Peter's Lutheran Church on
  Nevsky Prospekt
  Nr. 22-24 (1896–1899)

• List of Russian artists

References