Gostiny Dvor
Encyclopedia
This Gostiny Dvor
Gostiny Dvor
Great Gostiny Dvor is a vast department store on Nevsky Avenue in St Petersburg.This Gostiny Dvor is not only the city's oldest shopping centre, but also one of the first shopping arcades in the world...
is not only the city's oldest shopping centre, but also one of the first shopping arcades in the world. Sprawling at the intersection of Nevsky Prospekt
Nevsky Prospekt
Nevsky Avenue |Prospekt]]) is the main street in the city of St. Petersburg, Russia. Planned by Peter the Great as beginning of the road to Novgorod and Moscow, the avenue runs from the Admiralty to the Moscow Railway Station and, after making a turn at Vosstaniya Square, to the Alexander...
and Sadovaya Street for over one kilometer and embracing the area of 53000 m² (570,487.3 sq ft), the indoor complex of more than 100 shops took twenty-eight years to construct. Building works commenced in 1757 to an elaborate design by Bartolomeo Rastrelli
Bartolomeo Rastrelli
Francesco Bartolomeo Rastrelli was an Italian architect naturalized Russian. He developed an easily recognizable style of Late Baroque, both sumptuous and majestic...
, but that subsequently was discarded in favour of a less expensive and more functional Neoclassical
Neoclassical architecture
Neoclassical architecture was an architectural style produced by the neoclassical movement that began in the mid-18th century, manifested both in its details as a reaction against the Rococo style of naturalistic ornament, and in its architectural formulas as an outgrowth of some classicizing...
design submitted by Jean-Baptiste Vallin de la Mothe
Jean-Baptiste Vallin de la Mothe
thumb|St. Petersburg's [[Imperial Academy of Arts]]Jean-Baptiste Michel Vallin de la Mothe was a French architect whose major career was spent in St...
(1729–1800).
Throughout the following century, Gostiny Dvor was continuously augmented, resulting in ten indoor streets and as many as 178 shops by the 20th century. By that time, the Gostiny Dvor had lost its popularity to the more fashionable Passage
The Passage
For the novel by Justin Cronin see The Passage The Passage , from the French word Passage, is an elite department store on Nevsky Avenue in Saint Petersburg, Russia, which celebrated its 150th anniversary in 1998...
and New Passage, situated on the Nevsky Prospekt nearby. During the post-World War II
World War II
World War II, or the Second World War , was a global conflict lasting from 1939 to 1945, involving most of the world's nations—including all of the great powers—eventually forming two opposing military alliances: the Allies and the Axis...
reconstructions, its inner walls were demolished and a huge shopping mall came into being. This massive 18th-century structure got a face-lift recently and entered the 21st century as one of the most fashionable shopping centres in Eastern Europe
Eastern Europe
Eastern Europe is the eastern part of Europe. The term has widely disparate geopolitical, geographical, cultural and socioeconomic readings, which makes it highly context-dependent and even volatile, and there are "almost as many definitions of Eastern Europe as there are scholars of the region"...
. A nearby station of Saint Petersburg Metro
Saint Petersburg Metro
The Saint Petersburg Metro is the underground railway system in Saint Petersburg and Leningrad Oblast, Russia. It has been open since November 15, 1955.Formerly known as the V.I...
takes its name from Gostiny Dvor.