In 1840 the authority of the Committee of 1816 was terminated and in Petersburg, as so generally elsewhere in Europe, coherent urbanistic control came to an end. The great architectural period there was over as Moscow, with its nationalistic traditions, came more to the fore. Characteristically, the most important new church of the second quarter of the century, the Cathedral of the Redeemer of 1839-83, was built in the older capital and is the first major Russian example of Neo-Byzantine. One is not surprised to find that Konstantin Andreevich Ton (1794-1881), its architect, was German not French; for in a sense this represents a rather clumsy local variant of the German _Rundbogenstil_, continuing the particular eclectic line initiated by Klenze in his Munich Court Church more than a decade earlier. ------------------------------------------------------------------------ CHAPTER 4 GREAT BRITAIN IN English terminology, the most productive period of Nash and Soane, the two greatest Romantic Classical architects of England, extending from 1810 down to the thirties, is loosely referred to as ‘Regency’, and the rest of the first half of the century as ‘Early Victorian’. Neither term has much more specific meaning in an international frame of reference than does ‘Restoration’ or ‘Louis Philippe’ in France, not to speak of ‘Biedermeier’, which is sometimes used for this period in Germany and Austria. ‘Regency’ production includes the characteristic monuments of mature Romantic Classicism in England and also much work that makes manifest the Picturesque point of view. Early Victorian production illustrates the modulation of Romantic Classicism into the Renaissance Revival, and includes as well the most doctrinaire phase of the Gothic Revival (see Chapter 6). Although current researches are somewhat amending the picture, it is accepted that private architecture has generally been more significant in England than public architecture. This was least true in the first three decades of the nineteenth century. Soane had been Architect to the Bank of England, in effect if not in fact an important branch of the State, from 1788. Nash succeeded Wyatt in the office of Surveyor-General—although he was only given the title of Deputy—in 1813. And in 1815 Soane, Nash, and Smirke, undoubtedly the three leading architects of their day if one excepts Wilkins, became the members of a new board set up by the national Office of Works, which was at a peak of its authority and activity immediately after Napoleon’s downfall. Soane and Smirke, though not personal favourites of George IV, were knighted, like several of their German contemporaries. The principal building project of the day, the laying out and the construction of Regent Street and Regent’s Park, the latter on Crown land, had the fullest personal support of George IV, first as Regent and after 1820 as King.