The previous St Isaac’s churches
The first St Isaac’s temple was erected in 1707 on the orders of Peter I to honor the venerable St Isaac the Dalmation, the tsar‘s patron saint. The church was remodeled out of the drawing barn adjacent to the Admiralty. In this temple, the wedding ceremony of Emperor Peter I and Empress Ekaterina Alexeevna took place.
The second stone cathedral was erected by the architect G.I. Mattarnovy on the waterfront of the Neva River.
Construction of the third church began in the reign of Catharine II based on the design of Antonio Rinaldi and was completed by V. Brenna in a simplified version under Paul I. The church appeared out of place in the grand surroundings of the northern capital and Emperor Alexander I announced a contest for the best design to rebuild it. Many celebrated architects of the time applied, but they failed to fulfill the tsar’s main wish – to retain the altar of the old church in the new one, in remembrance of the great ancestors. The tsar entrusted this task to Auguste Montferrand, a young French architect. His design for the church rebuilding received the royal approval.
The Fourth St Isaac’s Cathedral
The grand structure as conceived by Montferrand required reliable solid foundations. To this end, pine piles were driven into the foundation site and then granite slabs and quarry stones were placed on top of them.
The Cathedral’s four facades are decorated with porticos of monolithic granite pillars quarried at Pyuterlaks and then transported by water to the building site. The installation of the pillars caused admiration among the public – they were raised manually by means of wooden scaffolding. In the same way, the columns of the domed drum were brought up from ground level to a height of 43 meters.
The construction of St Isaac’s spanned four decades and provided a testing ground for new technologies, many of which were employed for the first time. These include: the railway, the light metal dome, and an extensive use of galvanoplastic technique for the interior decoration.
The opening and dedication ceremony for the Cathedral was held on May 30, 1858, attended by Emperor Alexander II, members of the imperial family and the choir of 1,200 singers. St Isaac’s became the principal cathedral church of Russia.
