Work began on Krasnye Vorota in the spring of 1932 and proceeded smoothly despite fears that the untested three-arch design would collapse under the weight of the soil.

In this type of station, the outer tubes (which house the tracks and platforms) are separated from the larger central hall by heavy pylons.

This design was planned to be used for the first time on the four central-city stations on the first Metro line, Krasnye Vorota, Chistye Prudy, Lubyanka, and Okhotnyi Ryad.

The southern is a subterranean vestibule with mezzanine stairwells and a distinctive shell-like pavilion designed by Nikolai Ladovsky, that stands on the south side of the Garden Ring (with an open Red Gates plaza in front of it), on the intersection of Myasnitsky drive, Boyarsky side-street and Khoromny lane.

The second entrance was built into the ground floor of the Red Gate skyscraper, designed by architect Alexey Dushkin and opened on 31 July 1954, the architecture carries resemblance of the more flamboyant Stalinist style.