Re: Alexander Palace Design

[BobAtchison]

I have no fixture plans of Alexandra's bathroom, but I do of all of Meltzer's redesigned area of of the Imperial wing with his signatures.  I also have lists of all of the items purchased for the rooms in Russian - long-hand notes that are hard to read...

You can see some of the layout of Alexandra's bathroom through the doorway - especially in blow ups

[pers]

No, I mean the detail of the walls and where the bath and toilet were located as well as the area next door forming a passage towards the door that gives access to the corridor.  Something that I find difficult to understand is the staircase that goes out of Alexandra's toilet to the mezzanine level.  I cannot picture how that works...  

Also the door(s) from the bedroom into the small chapel area, where in the alcove were they situated?  I do not see the doors from the photograph itself that you have on the website.

Thirdly, you say the firm of Charles Berger in Paris exists to this day.  I cannot seem to find it on the internet.  Do you know more about it.  I am sure they would have exact records of the colour and design of the mauve material that covered the walls in the Mauve Boudoir, and for that matter can re-create it.

[Forum Admin]

Pers,
I speak fluent French, and both telephoned and wrote to Charles Berger & Cie in Paris on behalf of Bob about the fabrics for the Palace.  They are still in business, but have absolutely no records left whatsoever of Meltzer's order for Alexandra.  They offered to recreate fabrics from known samples if they were available to be provided to them (at a rather substantial price), but have no records of what they produced and sent to the Alexander Palace over one hundred years ago.

[BobAtchison]

Pers - there are brief films of the toilet behind the curtains in the bedroom.  I don't think it was used very much - if at all, since the fixtures were very old-fashioned.  Alexandra had a modern bathroom next door and I am sure that was the one they used.

As far as I know there weren't doors to the small chapel and toilet in the bedroom, just curtains.  There are very few pictures - actually I never seen myself - except for the short film clip.  I imagine this is because they were small spaces and very badly lit so they would be hard to photograph.  They are concealed from view from the front of the room so they were not seen by very many people. The spaces were very small as well.

I looked for traces of the plumbing and fixtures of the bathroom in the floor of the bedroom when I was there, but I couldn't see anything.  I assume the floor parquet had been redone after the war.

[pers]

Oh, thank you for clearing that up.  I thought it had walls in the inside behind the curtains in the alcove.  The reason I thought so, is because of all the icons that had to be mounted in some way or other inside the alcove...

[BobAtchison]

Pers:

The ikons were actually hung on cords attached to a rod near the top of the wall.  It's possible some of the smaller ones were pinned to the curtain as well.

Pictures of the palace when it was a museum show lots more ikons than Alexandra had hung there.  Ikons from the Winter Palace were transferred here whrn Nicholas's and Alexandra's rooms were closed down in the 20's.  Other ikons from the upstairs rooms also came here when the children's rooms where closed down in the 30's.  The museum workers hoped they could save them by making them a part of the bedroom collection.  The loss of so many beautiful and historically important pieces - it's a sad story.

[lolajl]

It would be nice if there is a section about Orthodoxy.  The church was a very important part of the Royal Family's life.  You can't understand the actions of the family without understanding the role of Orthodoxy.  

[Pegschalet]

I have a question about the Alexander Palace design.  Were there any secret passageways or tunnels?  Also was there an attic floor or servants floor about the children's floor

[F.R.S.G.]

 who have internal pictures of the corridor to send to me
      thanks fernando

[nerdycool]

Would anyone know what rooms were located on the second floor of the right wing and the Parade Rooms? I'm not sure by looking at the pictures, but I'm thinking that the Parade Rooms have higher ceilings and no rooms above... maybe only some small attic space. Going along with this, is there a floor plan of the second floor all together? Thanks.

[BobAtchison]

There were secret chambers in the palace and secret storage areas.  The palace was packed with stuff in storage.  There were constatnt fears of fires, so they had fireman on 24 watch in the palace.  yes there was a huge attic.

There was an underground tunnel built from the palace to the kitchens.

Bob

[londo954]

Re: Internal Corridor.

If you go to the Tzarskoe Selo Website
I believe there was a photo of one of the Exhibition Rooms showing the internal corridor today !!!

[valmont]

London,
Do you have the address for the tsarkoe Selo website?

[londo954]

The Address is
www.tzar.ru  goto Alexander Palace it will say it is under construction but if you click on teh ALEXANDER PALACE icon again it will show you someof the interiors ...of particular interest in the two exhibition halls that were made out of the Maple ROOM you can look through the doorway into the rest of the enfilade of rooms....not as impressive I suppose as similar enfilades such as the Catherine Palace but it gives one the idea of the way it was when N & A lived there

[BobAtchison]

I have never seen a picture on the web of the corridor.  They took lots of video the first time we were there - and this included the corridor but when Bishop Vassili passed on I don't know what happened to it.

I never had enough time to see if the artificial marble that Nicholas moved from the Music Room was still there under the paint.  I couldn't see where the elevator had been - this area was relly worked over by the Soviets when they demolished Alexandra's rooms on purpose.  There were closets in the walls and markings - I assume all of this is gone is recent remodellings.

The restoration of the palace has been sort of "slash and burn" - I think they just like to start out with a clean slate rather than trying to preserve some of the things that aren't felt to be 'significant'.  The point of Soviet restoration was not to  recreate a 'living space' but only to recreate the overall visual appearance.  I think of this like a cardboard cake with frosting but nothing underneath.

One can hope that this will be different at some point in the future. Perhaps when they get around to recreating the Mauve Room, the Bedroom and the Pallisander Room there will be enough money and the meticuliousness necessary to make it look FEEL and FUNCTION like these rooms were when they were intact. Until then it would be better if they did nothing.

Bob