Kremlin Senate

The Kremlin Senate is a neoclassical administrative building inside the Moscow Kremlin, designed by architect Matvey Kazakov and constructed from 1776 to 1787 to house Russia's highest judicial and legislative body. Kazakov conceived the triangular building, roughly 100 meters along each side, as a Temple of Law, combining Doric and Ionic columns on the exterior with a celebrated domed rotunda inside. After the 1917 Revolution and the return of the capital to Moscow, the building became the seat of Soviet government, and Lenin kept an apartment there from 1918 to 1922 while Stalin later used it for his study. The Senate now serves as the Office of the President of Russia and remains an influential model for eighteenth century Russian official architecture.