The Premier Site for Russian Culture
Built on the site of wooden single-storey trading rows with open galleries (1740s). First project for a shopping arcade on Nevsky Prospekt was designed but not built by Antonio Rinaldi (late 1750s). Construction began after the adoption of a new project for a two-storey building submitted by Bartolomeo Francesco Rastrelli (1757). The design was reviewed when the merchants considered it too expensive (1761). The project was awarded to Jean-Baptiste-Michel Vallin de la Mothe, who retained the original plan and composition, but altered the facades and designed a purely functional building in the early Neoclassical style with contributions from Alexander Kokorinov. Also known as Bolshoi Gostiny Dvor.