Architecture

The Patriarch’s Palace is one of the rarest and best monuments of civil architecture in Moscow of the mid XVIIth century. The palace was erected on the order of Patriarch Nikon in1653-1655 by Russian makers on the place of older constructions of the Metropolitans’ and later Patriarchal court in the Moscow Kremlin. The works were headed by stone maker apprentice Alexei Korolkov and apprentice Ivan Semenov.

 

In contradistinction to palatial buildings of the former centuries, consisting of separate buildings, the Patriarch’s Palace is unique architectural block. It includes the two-storey chamber building (on the second floor there is a large cross Chamber), the three-storey building of living quarters and offices and the home church of Twelve Apostles raised on high passage arches.

The new building of the Patriarch’s Palace was included to Cathedral Square Complex. That is why the southern faзade was adorned with a freeze reminding those of the Assumption and annunciation Cathedrals.

By 1673, one passage arch under the Twelve Apostles’ Church was filled up. In the late XVIIth century, the fourth floor was added to the building. The so called Peter’s chamber is the only chamber to survive till our days. The outlook of the building have been changed.