Building
Named after its distinctive stonework eastern façade with horizontal rows of sharp-edged stones, the Palace of Facets is all that is left of a larger royal palace made of white limestone. Although from the façade, it appears to be a three-story rectangular building from the outside, it is actually a one-story building with a semi-basement. On the west side the building is directly connected to the central building of the Grand Kremlin Palace.
The first floor of the Palace of the Facets consists of the main hall and adjoining sacred vestibule. Both are decorated with rich frescoes and gilded carvings. The splendid vaulted main hall has an area of about 500 m² (5,380 ft²). The entire vault and the walls are frescoed with elaborate several themes from the history of the Russian State and the Russian Orthodox Church. This was used as a throne room and banqueting hall for the 16th-century and 17th-century tsars and is still used for holding formal state receptions. The paintings were restored in the 1880s by icon painters from Palekh by order of Tsar Alexander III.
On the palace's southern facade is the Red Porch, an external staircase decorated with stylized lion sculptures on the railings. The tsars passed down this staircase on their way to the Cathedral of the Dormition for their coronations. The last such procession was at the coronation of Nicholas II in 1896. In the Streltsy Uprising in 1682 several of Tsar Peter the Great's rebellious relatives were hurled down the staircase onto the pikes of the Streltsy guard. Demolished by Joseph Stalin in the 1930s and replaced with a canteen for Kremlin workers, the staircase was rebuilt in 1994 at great expense.
Read more about this topic: Palace Of Facets
Famous quotes containing the word building:
“A building is akin to dogma; it is insolent, like dogma. Whether or no it is permanent, it claims permanence, like a dogma. People ask why we have no typical architecture of the modern world, like impressionism in painting. Surely it is obviously because we have not enough dogmas; we cannot bear to see anything in the sky that is solid and enduring, anything in the sky that does not change like the clouds of the sky.”
—Gilbert Keith Chesterton (1874–1936)
“Whoever places his trust into a system will soon be without a home. While you are building your third story, the two lower ones have already been dismantled.”
—Franz Grillparzer (1791–1872)
“Writing a book I have found to be like building a house. A man forms a plan, and collects materials. He thinks he has enough to raise a large and stately edifice; but after he has arranged, compacted and polished, his work turns out to be a very small performance. The authour however like the builder, knows how much labour his work has cost him; and therefore estimates it at a higher rate than other people think it deserves,”
—James Boswell (1740–1795)