He studied at the Imperial Academy of Arts (1803–15) under the Empire Style architect Andrey Voronikhin, best remembered for his work on the Kazan Cathedral, situated right in the middle of the Nevsky Prospekt.

In 1827, he submitted to the tsar his project of St Catherine church at the Obvodnyi Canal, the first ever design in the Russian Revival style.

In 1836–42, Thon supervised the construction of another ponderous church with a spacious interior, that of Presentation to the Temple for the Semenovsky regiment in St Petersburg.

He followed this with dozens of Neo-Russian-Byzantine designs for churches and cathedrals in provincial towns, including Sveaborg, Yelets, Tomsk, Rostov-on-Don, and Krasnoyarsk.

The grandiose palace, famed for opulent interiors of its 700 rooms and halls, was meant to symbolize the grandeur of the Russian state.

Despite large pieces of steelwork used in the construction, Venetian facades and medieval clock towers of the stations cleverly masked their modern function.