ABSTRACT
Concurrently with work on the Church of Christ the Savior, Nicholas initiated the rebuilding of the Great Kremlin Palace, which had been severely damaged in the 1812 occupation and subsequently repaired. In 1838 Konstantin Ton assumed the project, which provided a imposing facade for the Kremlin above the Moscow River, and created a stylistic link with the Terem Palace, the Faceted Chambers, and the Annunciation Cathedral within the interior of the Kremlin. The stylization was most closely related to the ornate but uniform window surrounds of the seventeenth-century Terem Palace, which Ton repeated on a much larger scale. For the design of the interior of the Great Kremlin Palace, Ton was joined by the court architect Friedrich Richter, who combined neoclassical, baroque, gothic, and medieval Russian motifs. As an “archaic,” historical device Ton freely used elaborate barrel and groin vaults for the main halls, of which the grandest is the two-storied Hall of St. George, in honor of recipients of the highest Russian military honor.
