William Heste
William Hastie (Russian: Василий Иванович Гесте; born in 1753 or 1763 in Scotland - June 4, 1832 in Tsarskoye Selo) was a Russian architect, civil engineer and town planner of Scottish descent. His name is also transliterated back from Russian as William Heste or, seldom, Vasily Heste.
William Hastie was born either at 1753 or at 1763. (A service list from year 1822 lists Heste as 69, hence 1753, but Peterburg Necropolis lists his as born in 1763). He came to Russia in 1784 with the group of 73 Scottish craftsmen hired in Edinburgh[1] by Charles Cameron to work on construction sites in Tsarskoe Selo. Hastie and his compatriot Adam Menelaws made most illustrious career among this group,[2] becoming notable professional architects.[3]
Hastie never returned to Scotland, and instead in 1792 he entered the service of the Russian Imperial Chancellery, designing model buildings for mass construction. In July 1795 he joined the Yekaterinoslav Governorate administration as its chief architect; in particular, in Crimea Hastie surveyed the Bakhchisaray Palace and other Tatar and Greek relics. Hastie left the southern provinces in June 1799, but returned to their architecture in 1810s, producing a master plan for the redevelopment of Yekaterinoslav, which was approved in 1817 and generally followed throughout the 19th century.
After serving in Yekaterinoslav Governorate, he returned to Saint Petersburg in 1803, and joined Charles Gascoigne as his assistant on the construction site of Izhorsky Zavod. Hastie is credited with designing and building the plant office building and, together with Gascoigne, with building the dam across Izhora River. Here Hastie acquired practical skills in metalworking and bridge engineering.
In February 1805 Hastie returned to Saint Petersburg and was assigned to building bridges over the city's small rivers. There Heste built Blue, Green, Red and Potseluev bridges. They were the first bridges in Saint Petersburg to be built from iron cast. From 1808 to 1832 Heste was the head architect of Tsarskoe Selo. He created general plan of construction in the town. From 1810 Heste was involved in most urban constructions in Russia. William Hastie died on June 4, 1832.
After the 1812 fire of Moscow which destroyed three quarters of the city Hastie was the first to propose a detailed redevelopment plan. He was, however, rejected for disregarding historical background of the city.
[edit] Notes
- ^ Kuznetsov, p. 213, provides detailed account of the hire and subsequent protest by Foreign Office
- ^ Cross, p. 248
- ^ See also Shvidkovsky, 1996, for a detailed description of Cameron's workforce in Tsarskoye Selo.
[edit] References
- Cross, Anthony Glenn (1997). By the Banks of the Neva: Chapters from the Lives and Careers of the British in Eighteenth-century Russia. Cambridge University Press. ISBN 0521552931, ISBN 9780521552936.
- Architects of Tsarskoe Selo (Russian)
- Heste on the site 300 years of St. Petersburg (Russian)
- Kuznetsov, S. O. (1998). "Adam Menelas na rossiyskoy zemle (Адам Менелас на российской земле. Возможные пути интерпретации творчества архитектора императора Николая I)" (in Russian). The Philosophical Age. Almanac 6. Russia at the Time of Nicholas I: Science, Politics, Enlightenment. Ed. by T. Khartanovich, M. Mikeshin. St. Petersburg, 1998. http://ideashistory.org.ru/pdfs/19kuznetsov.pdf.
- Shvidkovsky, Dmitry (1996). The Empress & the Architect: British Architecture and Gardens at the Court of Catherine the Great. Yale University Press. ISBN 0300065647, ISBN 9780300065640. (biography of Charles Cameron)
