Vallin de la Mothe, Jean-Baptiste-Michel

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Vallin de la Mothe, Jean-Baptiste-Michel (1729–1800). French architect. He settled in Russia in 1759, introduced French Classicism influenced by Palladio, A. -J. Gabriel, and J. -F. Blondel (to whom he was related), and taught at the new Academy of Arts in St Petersburg. He designed Gostinyy Dvor (Merchants' Court), a pioneering work of Neo-Classicism (1758–85), the Old Hermitage (1764–7), the Classical New Holland Port Gateway and Warehouses (from 1761), and the Academy of Fine Arts (1765–72), all in St Petersburg. In the last building (originally planned by Blondel) he collaborated with Aleksandr Filippovich Kokorinov (1726–72), Director of the Academy of Arts, and himself no mean architect.

Bibliography

A, xxxv/12 (1922), 173–80;
Builder (1980);
Gallet et al. (1980);
G. Hamilton (1983);
Hautecœur (1912, 1952);
Middleton & and Watkin (1987);
Jane Turner (1996);