Vallin de la Mothe, Jean Baptiste Michel

Vallin de la Mothe, Jean Baptiste Michel 

Born 1729, in Angoulême, France; died there May 7, 1800. Architect. Of French origin.

Vallin de la Mothe studied under his uncle, the architect F. Blondel, as well as in Italy during the years 1750-52. From 1759 to 1775 he worked in Russia, primarily in St. Petersburg. Vallin de la Mothe’s structures are models of early Russian classicism, in which clarity of composition is combined with a baroque plasticity of mass. His works include the Gostinyi Dvor (merchants’ arcade; 1761-85), the Catholic Church of St. Catherine (1763-83) on Nevskii Prospect, and the Little Hermitage (1764-67), with its severe facade on the Neva side that is in harmony with the Winter Palace in its proportions. Vallin de la Mothe took part in designing the Academy of Arts building (1764-88, with A. F. Kokorinov) and the New Holland warehouses (1765-80, with S. T. Chevakinskii). Vallin was a professor at the St. Petersburg Academy of Arts (beginning in 1759); among his students were V. I. Bazhenov and I. E. Starov.

REFERENCESS

Krasheninnikov, A. F. “Nachalo tvorcheskogo puti arkhitektora Delamota.” In the collection XVIII nauchnaia konferentsiia Leningradskogo inzhenerno-stroitel’nogo instituía [LISI]: Doklady [arkhitekturnykh] sektsii. Leningrad, 1960. Pages 25-29.
Krasheninnikov, A. F. “O tvorchestve pozdnego Delamota.” In the collection Voprosy arkhitektury i grafiki: Doklady XXII Nauchnoi konferentsii [LISI]. Leningrad, 1964. Pages 62-65.