Old Saint Petersburg Stock Exchange and Rostral Columns

Designed by French architect Thomas de Thomon, and inspired by the Greek Temple of Hera at Paestum, the stock exchange was constructed between 1805 and 1810.

Designed by French architect Thomas de Thomon and inspired by the Greek Temple of Hera at Paestum, the stock exchange was constructed between 1805 and 1810.

The Old Stock Exchange is sited to fill the majestic sweep of the Spit (in Russian Strelka) of Vasilievsky Island, just opposite the Winter Palace.

Thomon's design called for a peristyle of forty four Doric columns resting upon a massive stylobate of red granite[1] and supporting an entablature of triglyphs and slotted metopes.

In 1767 the Committee of City Building decided to develop the vacant space on the spit of Vasilevsky Island, and to create a new home for the St Petersburg stock exchange.

In 2010 work began on moving the naval museum to a new location in the renovated complex “Kryukov (Marine) barracks”, at Ploshchad Truda in the Admiralteysky District of the city.

The old stock exchange building was transferred from federal ownership back to the city of St Petersburg in June 2011, and plans were considered to use it for the trading of oil commodities.

Opposite the exchange building on the Neva, de Thomon designed a semicircular overlook with circular ramps descending to a jetty projecting into the river.