Narva Triumphal Gate
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On the 19th-century postcard. |
The
Narva Triumphal Gate was erected in the vast
Narva Square (known as the Stachek Square in Soviet years),
St Petersburg, in
1814 to commemorate the Russian victory over Napoleon. The wooden structure was constructed on the Narva highway with the purpose of greeting the soldiers who were returning from abroad after their victory over Napoleon. The architect of the original Narva Gate was
Giacomo Quarenghi. The program was meant to respond to the
Arc de Triomphe in Paris, originally erected to celebrate Napoleon's victory over the Allies at
Austerlitz, but the material used was a weather-resistant plaster that was never intended to be permanent.
Between
1827 and
1834 Vasily Stasov redesigned and rebuilt the gate in stone.
A similar gate, also by Stasov, was erected on the road leading to
Moscow. A sculptor
Vasily Demut-Malinovsky was responsible for the gate's sculptural decor. As has been conventional since Imperial Roman times, sculptures of
Fame offering laurel wreaths fill the
spandrels of the central arch. The main
entablature breaks boldly forward over paired
Corinthian columns that flank the opening and support
colossal sculptures.
Nike, the Goddess of Victory surmounts the arch, in a triumphal car drawn by six horses, sculpted by
Peter Clodt von Jürgensburg, instead of the traditional
Quadriga.
A small military museum was opened in the upper part of the arch in
1989.
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Photos and other data on the gate
