Lost Heritage: the Destroyed Temples of Orenburg in the Second Half of the 18th Century

Abstract

The article outlines the results of scientific research, which is the result of the author’s research project on studying the architectural heritage of the city of Orenburg from the mid-18th century to the beginning of the 19th century. The city-fortress, founded in 1743, was designed on the basis of the new principles of urban planning and architecture laid by Emperor Peter I, which causes a keen interest. To date, several architectural monuments of the city of the period, related to the style of the Petrine Baroque, are lost. Since this style is represented by a few architectural structures, their study is of particular interest in the context of the history of Russian architecture. The architectural appearance of the first major temples of the city - the Cathedral of the Transfiguration of the Lord and the Vvedensky Cathedral - is captured by artists and photographers. The search and detailed study of these iconographic materials form part of the retrospective method of reconstructing the cathedrals and constructing its orthogonal projections. Such a method may be of interest for working with historical and architectural heritage in the face of a lack of information.