Skip to main content

The architect-restorer Alexander Kedrinsky (6 May 1917 – 22 September 2003) was renowned as Scientific Director of more than 300 restoration projects in St Petersburg, Tsarskoe Selo, Peterhof, Pavlovsk and Gatchina. He developed a method of re-creation and restoration for destroyed and damaged architectural monuments of St Petersburg and its suburbs, and justified the comprehensive re-creation of the war-devastated palace-and-park ensembles. His masterly talent revealed itself most fully as Chief Restoration Architect of the Tsarskoe Selo complex, the position he held for 45 years until his death.

Kedrinsky’s merit was the triumphal re-birth of the Amber Room at the Catherine Palace that took 1979 to 2003. As the scientific director and author of the restoration plan, Kedrinsky thought the Amber Room should be restored with maximum accuracy in all its grandeur. His approach to restoration, new in those days, was called “re-creation” and has now received wide recognition.   

Besides architecture, Kedrinsky was an expert in other fields of restoration like painting, gilding, modelling and amber carving. His designs showed him as a splendid graphic artist capable of rendering the most intricate baroque compositions. As a tutor and author/co-author, whose most important book was “Basics of architectural monuments restoration”, he brought up a whole pleiad of young architects-restorers.

The first honorary freeman of Pushkin Town, Alexander Kedrinsky was buried at the Kazan Cemenery of Tsarskoe Selo, the town his whole professional life was tied up with.