Alexander (Karl)
Lavrentyevich Vitberg

Student of the Academy of arts in 1802 1809

Received 1 gold medal for the program "Andromache mourning Hector". Was assistant Professor Ugryumova in the life class at the Imperial Academy of arts. In 1812, the title of academician of painting. The author of the project of the temple of Christ the Savior on Sparrow hills in Moscow in memory of 1812, approved in 1816, in 1826 work began on the building was terminated. According to his project, built the Cathedral in Vyatka.

(Kondakov)

Russian architect and artist, one of the founders of romanticism in Russian architecture; famous for his ambitious project of a memorial Church on the Sparrow hills in Moscow. Swedish in origin, Vitberg was born in St. Petersburg 15 (26) January 1787, in the family of craftsman-"lakierowanie" who came to Russia in 1773. Originally trained at the mining cadet corps. In 1802-1809 studied painting at the St. Petersburg Academy of arts under G. I. Ugryumova, examine yourself. Wrote a number of paintings in the spirit of academic classicism (the Product of the Apostle Peter from prison, 1806, Tretyakov gallery, Moscow; etc.), played a lot of expressive pencil portraits, among which the most famous portrait of A. I. Herzen (1836, Museum of Literature, Moscow), as well as graphic landscapes and architectural fantasies. Originally lived in St. Petersburg, where he was received in the house of A. F. labzina, who, apparently, devoted young artist in Freemasonry.

In 1815 Vitberg took part in the competition for the project of the temple of Christ the Savior, which was to be built in Moscow to commemorate the victory in the Patriotic war of 1812. His impressive large-scale project attracted the favorable attention of Alexander I, and he became the winner of the competition. In 1817 on the Sparrow hills, a solemn laying of the building, and soon after that the architect was baptized in the Orthodox Church, receiving the name Alexander. The temple of Vitberg was intended to become the tallest building in the world, exceeding in its height from the foot of the mountain to the cross (237 m) and the Church of St. Peter in Rome, and Ivan the Great bell tower in Moscow. Its three pyramidal parts arranged underground, deep in mountain and dimly lit, the middle (in his plan – in the form of a Greek cross), and upper (light dome rotunda) was, according to the author, to represent the triple temple "body, soul and spirit" or the path of human consciousness, sequentially (from the bottom up and from darkness to light) which becomes revelation. The whole composition was solved in a classic, massive Empire forms, but the idea itself – where the main role is played not stylistic Canon, and lofty political and philosophical ideas (military victory, the unity of the nation and finally, spiritual enlightenment) is evidence of the fact that the era of romanticism, suggesting free variation style depending on the content of the image, engulfed and Russian architecture.

The construction, however, was interrupted at an early stage. In conflict with the authorities and unjustly accused of financial irregularities, Vitberg was removed from the leadership of the building condemned with confiscation of property, and in 1835 banished to Vyatka (the temple of Christ the Savior was later erected in a particular place and in a different project of K. A. ton). In Vyatka, he was able to begin construction of the most significant of his architectural images – Alexander Nevsky Cathedral (1839-1864, completed by I. T. Solovinymi; destroyed in the 1930-ies); for the latter, according to the principle of romantic raznolikosti, was elected to the Gothic style. Here, the disgraced wizard became friends with Herzen, adictiva him his Note describing the purpose of the Church, is first published in the "Russian antiquities" (1872), they are included in the 1st volume of the Complete works of Herzen (1954). In Vyatka Vitberg designed gate, grill and two gazebos garden city (1835-1839). In 1840 he was allowed to return to St. Petersburg.

Vitberg died in St Petersburg on 5 (17) July 1855.