Lobanov-Rostovsky House

The "House with Lions" — as the mansion on St. Isaac's Square is popularly known — was built by Auguste de Montferrand in 1817–1820 for Prince Alexander Lobanov-Rostovsky, who chose a strict Classicist idiom for its facades. The triangular building faces Admiralteysky and Voznesensky Prospekts and St. Isaac's Square all at once; its main facade, on the Admiralteysky Prospekt side, is adorned with an eight-column Corinthian portico set above a projecting arcade, while at the entrance, reached by gently sloping carriage ramps, stand marble lions by the sculptor Paolo Triscornia.

The prince received the building plot in 1817, just as construction of the new St. Isaac's Cathedral was under way nearby and the city authorities were redeveloping the northern part of the square. According to legend, Emperor Alexander I complained about the untidy appearance of the site, and Lobanov-Rostovsky, in response, built the mansion here at his own expense. The house was conceived as an income-generating property: from the very start, the letting of its apartments and commercial premises was managed by the prince's wife, Cleopatra Ilyinichna. Tenants in the 1820s included a shop run by the Italian Leoncini brothers, the capital's first lithography workshop, the painter Sours's cosmorama, and other places of entertainment; the flood of 7 November 1824, during which a chance passer-by took shelter on the back of one of the lions, was later mentioned by Pushkin in his poem "The Bronze Horseman."

Already from 1824, part of the floors was occupied by departments of the Ministry of War, and a few years later the prince, ruined and having attempted to raffle off the estate in a lottery, was forced to sell it to the treasury — the deal was halted personally by Nicholas I, who ordered the mansion bought together with its owner's rich library. From 1829 the building was rebuilt for the needs of the military department, with only the facade and main staircase left unchanged. After the revolution the house held a school for nearly half a century — later specializing in physics and mathematics — and from 1964 to 2004 a design institute.

In 2002 the mansion was handed over to the Presidential Property Management Directorate, and instead of the originally planned move of the Constitutional Court here, it was decided to open a luxury hotel. The reconstruction, carried out by the company Tristar Investment Holdings, provoked protests from heritage activists: in 2007 the historic courtyard wing was demolished, and the added mansard rose higher than the original roofline. The reconstruction project was designed by the architect Yevgeny Gerasimov. Since 2013 the hotel has been operated by the Canadian Four Seasons chain under the name Lion Palace.