Dr. Schmidt describes the building planning schemes in Moscow from approx. the accession of Catherine the Great in the early 1760s to the mid-reign of Nicholas I, about 1840. The author maintains that despite the enormous destruction of historic Moscow caused by the reordering of Gorkii (the old Tverskaia) St. the Kalinin Prospect (the Arbat) under Stalin Khrushchev, there still exists a significant remnant of the classical city which rose from the ashes of the great fire in 1812. The architects of the classical city--Catherine's builders, Vasilii Bazhenov Matvei Kazakov, those who rebuilt Moscow after 1812, Osip Bove, Domenico Giliardi, Afanasii Grigor'ev--are featured together with their individual architectural creations as well as their broader city-planning accomplishments. In many respects an atlas of the boulevards thoroughfares of central Moscow, this book both recreates the Moscow of another era adds to the understanding of the contours character of the modern Soviet metropolis. Illus.
