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The Private Apartments of the Winter Palace are sited on the piano nobile of the western wing of the former imperial palace, the Winter Palace in St Petersburg. Access to the private rooms, for members of the Imperial Family, from the exterior was usually through the Saltykov Entrance (''centre in the photograph to the right'') which was reserved for use by only the Tsar, Tsaritsa and grand dukes and grand duchesses. A second access was through a discrete box-like porch, on the western end of the Palace's Neva façade. From the ground floor, it can be accessed from the October Staircase, formerly known as His Majesty's Own Staircase; this double-flighted imperial staircase was a secondary entrance to the private apartments, and provided a more convenient route to the palace's ground floor and private entrances than the more formal and ceremonial public route through the state apartments. During the October Revolution of 1917, this was the entrance by which the revolutionaries gained access to the palace in order to arrest the Provisional Government in the small private dining room. Since that date it has been known as the October Staircase and has a plaque commemorating the event. Despite its size and grandeur, the October Staircase was a secondary staircase, the Jordan Staircase being the principal. From the palace's more formal rooms, the private apartments are entered through the rotunda, a circular room which served as an ante and waiting room for those to be received by the Tsar. Another entrance is from the Malachite Drawing Room, which served as both a private and state room, and was often the assembly point for the beginning of imperial processions from the neighbouring Arabian Hall which led to the principal state apartments – particularly for imperial weddings, when the bride would be formally dressed in the Romanoff wedding regalia by the Tsaritsa in the Malachite Drawing Room. The private rooms overlook a lawned and wooded garden, created from a former parade ground by the last Empress of Russia, who wanted a private place for her children to play. Until 1917, this wing was rather like a private house within a palace; it was used by the Imperial Family whenever in residence. Following a severe fire in 1837 when most of the palace was destroyed, the private apartments were rebuilt in various styles according to the tastes of their intended, individual occupants, the immediate family of Tsar Nicholas I; thus they are an array of eclectic styles and loose interpretations of earlier 18th century tastes and fashions. During the reigns of the following three Tsars many changes were made in decoration and use, but the layout remained essentially unchanged. In 1904, the last Tsar Nicholas II and his family abandoned the Winter Palace in favour of the more private Alexander Palace at Tsarskoye Selo. From this date until the fall of the monarchy, the Winter Palace was used only for formal state occasions. It was in the Private wing of the Winter Palace, following the February Revolution of 1917, that the Russian Provisional Government established itself. A few months later during the October Revolution this was the area of the palace most damaged during the famous Storming of the Winter Palace, a defining moment in Russia's history. The plan used ''(right)'' is based on the arrangement of rooms prior to 1917; it has since been altered to accommodate the palace's use today as part of the complex of buildings which comprise the State Hermitage Museum. Many of the former private rooms are not regularly open to the public, or have been much changed. ==Apartments of Nicholas I and Alexandra Feodorovna== The apartments of Nicholas I and his wife, Alexandra Feodorovna, were in the northwest corner of the palace, a suite traditionally occupied by the monarch since the time of Catherine the Great, and now form part of the Apartments of Nicholas II and Alexandra Feodorovna. Catherine the Great had her throne room here, before Giacomo Quarenghi completed the building of the larger St George's Hall in the eastern wing in 1787, suggesting that rooms were formerly less intimate and private than they latterly became. During the 1780s, the interior design of the palace was changed from the ornate rococo designed by Francesco Rastrelli to the simpler Neoclassical decoration still prevalent in the state rooms today; the private rooms, however, seem to have been frequently redecorated according to the (often simple) tastes of their occupants; and in terms of decoration, luxury and use they do not correspond to the Petit appartement du roi at Versailles. Following the fire of 1837, Nicholas I was responsible for the rapid rebuilding of the palace. He insisted that the exterior remain unchanged, but allowed large parts of the interior to be redesigned in a variety of tastes and styles, leading the palace to be described as "A 19th-century palace inspired by a model in rococo style." Several eminent architects were employed to rebuild the palace, most notably Vasily Stasov, who was charged with the rebuilding of the state rooms in identical or similar styles to that which had been before, and Alexander Brullov. It is Brullov who is most closely associated with the private apartments. Able to work competently in a variety of styles, his commission was to rebuild the private and semi-private rooms according to the tastes of their intended occupants. The architects involved in the rebuilding of the palace were able to take advantage of construction developments not available to Rastrelli and Quarenghi in their original plans. Following the fire, it was discovered that large quantities of wood and hidden voids had been one of the reasons the fire had spread so drastically. In order to avoid a repeat of this, hidden behind the new but classical façades, the architects were able to use the latest techniques in building. These included the large-scale use of steel to support the vast ceiling spans of the Baroque state rooms, avoiding the need for supporting columns. However, in the smaller rooms the ceilings were built with less flammable brick vaults, which were to have a significant effect on Brullov's decorative schemes for the private rooms. Vaulting lent itself to both Gothic and Byzantine forms of interior design. Nowhere in the palace is the Gothic more evident than in the ground floor drawing room created by Brullov in 1838 for the daughters of Nicholas I. Later the architect Andrei Stakenschneider was employed to carry out many projects at the palace. He decorated the crimson boudoir of the Tsaritsa Alexandra Feodorovna in a Rococo revival that Quarenghi had all but eradicated from the palace 70 years earlier. 抄文引用元・出典: フリー百科事典『 ウィキペディア（Wikipedia）』 ■ウィキペディアで「Private Apartments of the Winter Palace」の詳細全文を読む スポンサード リンク
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