This lavishly illustrated book tells the epic 300-year story of St Petersburg through its architecture, landscapes, literature and art, from the city's origins and its earliest buildings through to the present day. Now a UNESCO World Heritage Site, the historic centre of St Petersburg is being restored with the help of the World Monuments Fund. The book showcases the surviving monuments of St Petersburg while examining what has been lost and what is being lost. Written by two experts on architecture and historic conservation, it includes before-and-after images to evaluate the effect of postwar restoration work and also includes over 100 commissioned photographs.

About the Author

Colin Amery is Director of the World Monuments Fund in Britain and a writer and architectural consultant. He was architectural critic of the Financial Times for twenty years, an editor of the Architectural Review and has been the author of many architectural books, including Vanishing Histories and The Lost World of Pompeii with Brian Curran (Frances Lincoln & J. Paul Getty Museum). He is an Honorary Fellow of the Royal Institute of British Architects. Brian Curran gained an MS in Historic Preservation from Columbia University and, after serving as Director of Projects for the WMF in Britain, became its West Coast consultant. He now works on writing and conservation projects in Los Angeles. He co-wrote The Lost World of Pompeii with Colin Amery. Yuri Moldkovets has been one of the principal photographers at the Hermitage Museum in St Petersburg for the past eight years, contributing to more than eighty publications on the museum's collections and one the city's history and architecture. He also works as a freelance photographer for the newspapers Argumenty I Fakty, Kommersant and Moskovskie Novosti, as well as for a number of art and design magazines.

Reviews

Enlivened by lavish illustrations. Art Newspaper The epic 300-year history of St Petersburg is told in this lavishly illustrated book, through its architecture, literature, music and art. Good Book Guide A beautifully illustrated history. Sunday Telegraph