Gottfried Johann Schädel

Johann Gottfried Schädel (German: Johann Gottfried Schädel, Russian: Иван Иванович Шедель) was a German Baroque architect who worked in Russia and Ukraine.

Menshikov Palace in Saint Petersburg

Schädel was born in 1680 in Wandesbek, Duchy of Holstein, Holy Roman Empire (now part of Hamburg).

In 1713, Prince Alexander Menshikov paid him 400 Reichsthaler (384 rubles) to move to Saint Petersburg with his family. After Menshikov's fall from grace, Schädel settled in Moscow where he worked in tandem with the Italian artist Francesco Bartolomeo Rastrelli.

In 1731, Schädel accepted an invitation from the Archbishop of Kyiv and moved to Kyiv, where he designed the great belltowers of Kyiv Pechersk Lavra and Sophia Cathedral, the Klov Palace and other notable buildings which altered the city's skyline.

Schädel received no new commissions after 1744 and died in Kyiv in poverty in 1752.

In 1995, the Ukrainian film director Valentyn Sokolovsky created a documentary about Schädel for the National Television Company of Ukraine.