Charles Cameron

Charles Cameron ( – 19 March 1812) was a Scottish architect who made an illustrious career at the court of Catherine II of Russia.

Cameron, a practitioner of early neoclassical architecture, was the chief architect of Tsarskoye Selo and Pavlovsk palaces and the adjacent new town of Sophia from his arrival in Russia in 1779 to Catherine's death in 1796. Cameron concentrated exclusively on country palaces and landscape gardens. Twice dismissed by Paul of Russia during the Battle of the Palaces, Cameron enjoyed a brief revival of his career under Alexander I in 1803–1805. All his indisputable tangible works "can be encompassed in a day's tour". According to his first biographer Georgy Lukomsky, "Cameron remains one of the greatest exponents of British taste and British Art abroad, and if he has been so completely forgotten in his own country, it would seem only right to rectify this omission". Apart from the well-researched Catherinian period (1779–1796), Cameron's life story remains poorly documented, not in the least due to Cameron's own efforts to shake off the bad reputation he had earned in the 1770s in London

Early life

Details of Cameron’s origins are uncertain. He was probably the son of Walter Cameron, a London carpenter. However, he claimed descent from the Camerons of Lochiel, a Scottish clan deeply involved in the Jacobite rising of 1745. Researchers also disagree on the exact year of Cameron's birth, which may be either 1743, 1745 or 1746. He spent 1767 in London, preparing prints of works by Andrea Palladio, and arrived in Rome in 1768. These Italians, Giacomo Quarenghi and the relatively unknown , arrived in Russia after Cameron. Catherine also wrote that Cameron was raised at the Roman court of James Francis Edward Stuart ("James III and VIII") and that he was a nephew of Jean Cameron of Glendessary. Peter Hayden suggested that Cameron learned the trade from his father-in-law, John Busch (anglicised Bush), who worked in Tsarskoye Selo since 1771.

Tsarskoye Selo

In 1780–1784 he redecorated the formerly Rococo halls of the main Catherine Palace built by Bartolomeo Rastrelli in the 1750s;

Catherine had another specific task for Cameron: she envisaged a new, relatively modest Neoclassical building in Tsarskoye Selo near the older Rococo Catherine Palace. Clerisseau, Catherine's first choice, produced drafts for a gigantic and expensive Roman structure based on the Baths of Diocletian, that were rejected out of hand but later influenced Quarenghi and Cameron. In 1782 Cameron started his first standalone building, the Cold Baths, a two-story bathhouse in mixed Italian-Greek classicism with luxurious interiors (notably the Agate Pavilion). it was expanded with a two-story gallery (Cameron's Gallery), mixing natural stone Roman ground floor with a lightweight, snow-white upper floor gallery marked with unusually wide spacing between columns. The gallery, adorned with statues of foreign poets and philosophers, became Catherine's favourite promenade for years. It was flanked with a formal garden on one side and an English landscape park on the other.

In the beginning of the Gallery project Cameron himself acted as Catherine's recruiter, hiring fellow Scotsmen to work in Tsarskoye Selo. 73 craftsmen, including William Heste and Adam Menelaws, The number was too high for Cameron, and the Scots eventually dispersed to other projects; Menelaws became assistant to Nikolay Lvov.

Sophia Sophia Ascencion cathedral near Tsarskoye Selo was built as an allegory of Hagia Sophia. It is attributed jointly to Cameron and Ivan Starov.

Sophia, a model town, was built near Tsarskoye Selo to Cameron's plan. It was designed to be viewed from the walkways of Cameron's Gallery and represent Constantinople, the coveted target of Catherine's Greek project; the name of the town and its cathedral clearly alluded to Hagia Sophia. The streets were brightly lit at night when Catherine was present at Tsarskoye.

More historical allegories were scattered in the park: the lake with Rinaldi's rostral column represented the Black Sea; These follies, scattered along the road to Catherine Palace, doubled as the setting for triumphant procession for visiting dignitaries. Another direct quote from Stowe is the Pyramid Tomb over the grave of Catherine's three Italian Greyhounds; it survived to date but the Temple of Memory was razed by Paul of Russia in 1797. is attributed to a succession of architects, starting with Cameron and ending with Carlo Rossi.

The Temple of Friendship was the first building in Pavlovsk, followed by the main palace.

Conflicts between Cameron and Paul and Maria date back to the couple's Grand Tour of Europe (1781–1782). Maria complained about Cameron's delays since 1782. Constrained financially, Paul and Maria closely watched Cameron's progress and regularly curbed his far-reaching, expensive plans. Cameron also displayed signs of aversion to their management since 1782, but court intermediaries downplayed the conflict for a while. By 1785 it became public: Cameron quarreled with Paul over costs of Pavlovsk Between 1786 and 1789 Cameron's duties in Pavlovsk passed to an Italian, Vincenzo Brenna, hired by Paul in 1782. Dismissed by Paul, Cameron continued working on Catherine's own projects until her death in 1796.

Retirement Upon ascension to power in 1796, Paul fired Cameron from all his contracts and deprived him of his house in Tsarskoye. being "proud, aloof and difficult",

In 1784 Cameron married Catherine Busch, daughter of the imperial gardener John Busch. They had a daughter, Mary, however, her birth has not been evidenced by church records. By 1839 the Granges had seven surviving children. Cameron died in 1812, before Napoleon's invasion of Russia; his widow secured a pension from the Russian Government, sold Cameron's library and either returned to England or died in Saint Petersburg.

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