These palaces are characterized by gigantic proportions, golden splendour decorations, the use of two or three shades of colour for their façades, the refinement added by their gilding, give these buildings a particular style.

His most spectacular work is the Smolny Convent in St. Petersburg, the model he had made demonstrates the ambition of the original project that was not completed: the immense pyramidal steeple was never built.

He adapted the Italian Baroque taste to the immensity of the landscape of St. Petersburg, his art is made of an amalgam of all these styles, which he has managed to transcend into an original synthesis, more Russian than European.

[2] In St. Petersburg, with the empress Elizabeth Petrovna, a host of architects competed in the realisation of palaces: Fyodor Semenovich Argunov [ru], Savva Chevakinsky, Andrey Kvasov, among others.

With the exception of some constructions by Andrey Kvasov, Antonio Rinaldi, Johann Gottfried Schädel and Rastrelli's Saint Andrew's Church in Kyiv, the style is rarely seen in Ukraine.