Sobor Kazanskoy Bogomateri

The drum and dome; Built in honour of the miraculous icon of the Virgin of Kazan'. A scheme had already been drawn up by Giacomo Quarenghi, but this was now abandoned. The Emperor [Paul I ] wanted the architect to recreate St Peter’s, Rome, by the side of the Nevsky Prospekt. To ensure that ritual orientation was preserved, Voronikhin sited his Latin cross plan--itself unusual for an Orthodox church--parallel to the Prospekt, its east end facing towards the Yekaterininsky (now Griboyedov) Canal. Two Bernini colonnades, each of 136 Corinthian columns, were planned to reach out from the north and south transept entrances; only one, towards the Nevsky, was actually built. Inside, the nave, transepts and chancel are flanked by double rows of granite columns, with gilt bronze bases and capitals, which support a coffered barrel vault via a deep entablature. Voronikhin’s colonnade (unlike Bernini’s) is the same height as the cathedral and its portico, which are brought down to the level of the adjacent buildings, thus promoting their integration into the urban grain; the transparency of the colonnade (whose columns repeat the rhythm and spacing of those inside) contrasts with the walls of the ambient buildings and their even grid of fenestration. Despite the cathedral’s Roman overtones, many details, including the exiguous crossing piers supporting the drum and its iron dome, together with the general proportions, recall the Panthéon in Paris. Source: Grove Art Online; http://www.oxfordartonline.com/ (accessed 12/16/2008