Reviews for Architecture of Croatia

The average rating for Architecture of Croatia based on 2 reviews is 3 stars.

Review # 1 was written on 2012-04-16 00:00:00 Jeffery Martin This book mostly consists of photographs of the incredible sights of St. Petersburg - art, architecture, gardens, bridges, and so forth - along with a historical overview as to how the city was founded and why it means so much to Russians. The Russians had to fight the Swedes in the 18th C to seize territory around St. Petersburg that was being colonized by Sweden, and thereby gain access to the Baltic Sea, rather than remaining a landlocked country. Naval power was deemed essential to a country aspiring to be a great power. Unfortunately, St. Petersburg is ice-bound over the winter months - which is why Russia was so anxious to regain control of the Crimea, since it has naval bases there, which it did not want to possibly share if Ukraine did join NATO. Although Russia wants to be a naval power - or has always wanted to be one - geography makes it very difficult for Russia to be one. If everything hinges on Crimea, Russia will never be able to challenge the US with respect to global naval power. Russia is a huge country, but it does not have many ice-free naval bases. Even so, the focus since the time of Peter the Great - has been on building up a powerful navy. Although the text is rather stilted and sometimes confusing, it's straight-forward in describing historic buildings, and so forth. The book truly is dazzling - some of the palaces and churches have been restored after being ravaged or turned into warehouses during the Soviet period. The level of decoration reminded me of the excesses of other palaces in W. Europe - especially Versailles. That so much money was lavished on one palace or magnificent cathedral after another, while the Russian masses were left uneducated, poverty-stricken, and in serfdom, explains why the Russians, like the French, finally had enough and overthrew the monarchy back in 1917. Wouldn't one royal residence have been enough? The country was going nowhere under the monarchy - after the Revolution, society was turned upside down. Perhaps that was a good thing, given that WW2 was just around the corner - and Russia had not been able to stay together under the Czar in WW1. If the Czar hadn't been overthrown, do you really think Russia would have done any better in WW2 than it did in WW1? I only have one quote from the book: "The Hermitage [which is in the Winter Palace] has been recorded the Guinness Book as the largest picture gallery in the world." St. Petersburg has so many palaces and mansions, it's a monument to the monarchy. Imagine if the monarchs had instead invested in their own people rather than in paintings or bibelots? Reviewing the book, we learn that Prince Alexander Nevsky (1221-1263) is venerated - in fact, was sainted - because he defeated the Swedes at age 19 in he famous battle on the Neva River, which flows through St. Petersburg. In 1478, the lands that Nevsky won back from the Swedes were annexed by the Muscovy to become part of a unified early Russian state. Unfortunately, the lands changed hands as Sweden re-occupied them and cut off Russia from the Baltic Sea. The area became known as Ingermanland or Ingia under Swedish rule. This was in the late 16th- early 17th Century. Obviously, the Russians wanted the land back and that was when Peter the Great began the war vs. Sweden in 1700, leading an attack on Ingria in 1702. To strengthen his position, he had a fort built on the Neva. That was the beginning of St. Petersburg. In 1709, Russia won a crucial victory vs. the Swedes at Poltava. Peter decided to build the new capital on the Baltic Sea coast at the mouth of the Neva, to ensure Russia's access to the Baltic henceforth. Peter hired architects from W. Europe - and soon enough St. Petersburg's palaces, churches, fortresses, and so forth - began to take shape. Two centuries of effort led to the glittering city that still survives despite invasions, the siege during WW2, flooding, fires etc. Two notable empresses of the 18th C - Elizabeth, a daughter of Peter, and Catherine the Great - pursued the further development of the capitol city; between them, they ruled for 50 years. In the 19th C, St. Petersburg continued to grow; it was during this century that the Admiralty ensemble of buildings was constructed. The golden spire above the Admiralty building is crowned with a weather-vane in the form of a sailing ship, that has since become the symbol of the city. Architecture in St. Petersburg followed prevailing European trends in addition to the characteristic Russian style most famously used in spectacular church buildings. In St. Petersburg, many of the buildings of the past centuries have been preserved. In the 20th C, things began to fall apart. Russia suffered a defeat in the Russo-Japanese War and then disintegrated in WW1, which set the stage for the Russian Revolution, once the provisional government, which was democratic, was deemed ineffectual. Russian must have had enough with the nobility, their lands, privileges, palaces, and titles and so decided to do away with the entire rotten structure, exactly the way it had been smashed in France, and within a year or two, in Germany and Austria-Hungary too. These countries had to modernize to survive in the modern world, society had to be reformed, so that innovation and social mobility could tackle social problems. Even though the Soviets took power in Russia, the impulse to do away with fossilized social structures that had hindered social and economic progress, was the same in all countries that went through Revolutions or the peaceful dissolution of the monarchy system at that time (China, Germany, Austria-Hungary, Turkey). The bourgeoisie was ascendant - or its equivalent under communism in countries that adopted the communist system. Unfortunately for Russia, the Revolution was co-opted by dictators. Lenin had said communist revolution would result in a dictatorship of the proletariat, but that was a figurative turn of phrase - what he meant was that the proletariat would be in control, not the ruling class. He (or Marx) also predicted (or possibly promised) that the entire state would wither away, but that depended on worldwide transition to communism. Marx was certain this would happen, but it didn't, and so Russia was stuck with the difficult conundrum of trying to implement an egalitarian system, and expecting the population to sacrifice to achieve it, while the rest of the world developed under capitalism and eventually outstripped Russia with respect to economic development. If Russia was the demonstration project for communism, its failure to sufficiently modernize or at least modernize to the extent that it had the support of the masses, meant that communism failed as an economic blueprint. But that may have been the case because communism did not become a world-wide system; instead, capitalism persisted as the worldwide economic system. Russia suffered under the cruel dictator Stalin, yet Stalin was able to marshal the country to resist Hitler and eventually crush the Nazis, with American material help (if not financial) and thereby save Russia from conquest. Stalin was a cruel dictator though - and so Russia had a very costly in terms of lives, 20th Century. The bleeding mostly ended upon Stalin's death in the mid-20th Century - but unfortunately, Russia has not been able to take off economically post the collapse of the USSR. Why couldn't Russia go the path of China - remain under communist party rule, yet allow capitalist joint ventures and even Russian entrepreneurial activity. China is very different from Russia - is it possible that China made the right move in not giving up on its communist party when the rest of the communist world mostly gave up on the communist economic system? The Chinese communist party structure and certain elements of communism were retained - and so economic development in China isn't entirely due to capitalism. Why did the collapse of communism in Russia and E. Europe not prove to be wildly successful, as the adoption of some aspects of capitalism in China has proven. Have any of the former E. bloc states achieved a GDP like that of China since the reforms? I don't know about E. Europe, but I do know that Russia went bankrupt post the collapse of the USSR, and that its population began to nosedive, as people left the country, and others engaged in self-destructive behavior (alcoholism, violence) - signs that things did not go well in Russia once the communist party lost control. But, back to the history and architecture of St. Petersburg: We've arrived at the 20th C. The book, which is geared toward tourists, doesn't say much about Lenin, although a few sentences describe how the revolution unfolded in St. Petersburg - as the Bolsheviks arrested the Provisional Government members meeting in the Winter Palace. In March 1918, the Bolsheviks shifted the capitol to Moscow. That change devastated St. Petersburg (which had been patriotically renamed the more Slavic-sounding Petrograd in 1914). In January 1924, after Lenin's death, the city was renamed Leningrad, and the authorities did everything they could to erase the city's glittering past. The 20th C was unkind to St. Petersburg/Petrograd/Leningrad. But its citizens withstood the siege and Russia was one of the victors of WW2. After the collapse of the Soviet Union, the city was renamed St. Petersburg on 1 October 1991. Since then, St. Petersburg has re-opened the churches to worshipers, and refurbished/restored palaces, and landmarks, such that the city has become a magnet for tourism, and continues to be a vital cultural center. I doubt if the capitol of Russia will ever be relocated back to St. Petersburg, though, since Moscow is more centrally located, and crucially, south of St. Petersburg. Some notable monuments or buildings: The Rostal Columns - commemorating the Russian Navy, these columns are also lighthouses - and feature representations of ships' prows sticking out of the columns, supposedly ripped from ships that were beaten. The Singer & Co. Building - an Art Nouveau edifice on Nevsky Prospekt - it even contains an American-style eagle on its cornice among its sculptural decorations. The Yeliseyev Brothers Trade House on Nevsky Prospekt - an Art Nouveau palace of commerce that features a glass facade and ornate lighting fixtures and decor. The Smolny Convent - An 18th C Russian Baroque gem, built by Empress Elizabeth. It was never used as a convent, and today's it's a museum. The Summer Gardens were laid out in 1704, under the Tsar's supervision. The Church of the Resurrection - built in the 19th C, it is Russian in style, extravagantly decorated - built on the spot where the Emperor Alexander II was assassinated on 1 March 1881 by a terrorist of the People's Will organization. Its interior is covered in magnificent religious decorations - icons etc. The Admiralty - build in the early 19th C, it has the tall golden steeple and ship weather-vane that became the symbol of St. Petersburg. It's a stunning monumental building. The Winter Palace, built in the 18th C - an incredible palace that contains the Hermitage museum. The Naval Cathedral of St. Nicholas and the Epiphany, built in the 18th Century - sacred to the Navy, as St. Nicholas is considered the patron saint of sailors. The blue and white Elizabethan Baroque building contains a stunning iconostasis (icon screen) and interior decorations. Peterhof - conceived by Peter the Great as early as 1705, but under construction for about 100 years, contains incredible outdoor golden sculptures, water features, fountains, and is linked by canal to the Baltic Sea. The immense palace is perfectly preserved - with gilded decorations etc. Tsarskoye Selo Palace - a dream-like Baroque palace complex built in the mid 18th C by Empress Elizabeth. The palace has a group of 5 golden onion-shaped domes, a golden enfilade (series of state rooms with elaborate gilded decoration) and an unbelievable Amber room, completely covered in amber decoration as well as Florentine mosaics works of art. The room was ravaged by the Nazis but has since been restored. The palace complex also contains a Turkish bath pavilion, a marble (Siberian or Palladian) bridge, the Cameron Gallery in the Catherine Park, which is a roofed terrace atop a building that leads to a double curved staircase to another long flight of stairs -- leading visitors down a hillside in the lush gardens. These are just a few of the unique sights of St. Petersburg. The book does fulfill its function -- probably intended as a publication a tourist could pick up, almost like a series of postcards with explanatory text --of providing an overview of the notable architectural and artistic sights of Russia's former capital, St. Petersburg.

Review # 2 was written on 2020-05-16 00:00:00 Patrick Mcbride Nice book