Moscow Manege

Designed by Spanish engineer Agustín de Betancourt with a roof without internal support for 45 metres (148 ft) (the building's width), it was erected from 1817 to 1825 by the Russian architect Joseph Bové, who clothed it in its Neoclassical exterior, an order of Roman Doric columns enclosing bays of arch-headed windows in a blind arcade, painted white and cream yellow.

The structure was used first as a traditional manège, an indoor riding academy, to house parades of horsemen and a training school for officers.

It was there that Nikita Khrushchev chided avant-garde artists for promoting degenerate art, an episode known as the Manege Affair.

On 14 March 2004, the night of a Russian presidential election in which Vladimir Putin was overwhelmingly re-elected for a second four-year term, the building caught fire and burnt down, killing two firefighters.

On 18 February 2005 the restored Manege resumed its operation as an exhibition hall by mounting the same exposition that had been scheduled for the day of the fire.