Karl Ivanovich Blank was a Russian architect, notable as one of the last practitioners of Baroque architecture and the first Moscow architect to build early neoclassical buildings. His surviving, undisputed legacy consists of three baroque churches and Moscow Orphanage. The Ukrainian palace of Kachanivka is also attributed to him.
Moscow Orphanage
St. Nicholas church, Rozhdestvenka Street
St. Catherine church, Zamoskvorechye
Trinity church by Yauza River
The Moscow Orphanage or Foundling Home was an ambitious project conceived by Catherine the Great and Ivan Betskoy, in the early 1760s. This idealistic experiment of the Age of Enlightenment was intended to manufacture "ideal citizens" for the Russian state by bringing up thousands of abandoned children to a very high standard of refinement, cultivation, and professional qualifications. Despite more than adequate staffing and financing, the Orphanage was plagued by high infant mortality and ultimately failed as a social institution.
The Orphanage, January 2018
Karl Blank's plans for the Orphanage, 1760s
Portrait of Ivan Betskoy.
Moscow Orphanage. By Fyodor Alekseyev, 19th century