Museum of Decorative and Applied Arts

The history of the Museum of Applied Art began with the opening in St. Petersburg in January 1876 at the expense of the Russian philanthropist A.L. Stieglitz advanced for Russia at the end of the XIX century school of technical drawing. The director of the school and the architect of the museum building, built in 1885-1896, was the famous St. Petersburg architect M.E. Mesmacher. On May 12, 1896, in the presence of Nicholas II and Alexandra Fedorovna, the opening of the Art and Industrial Museum of Baron Stieglitz took place. The building of the museum in the Salt Town is an outstanding architectural monument of St. Petersburg during the historic period. The decoration of the thirty-two halls of the museum reflects almost all historical epochs and styles. After the revolution, the school was closed, and the museum passed into the jurisdiction of the Hermitage, becoming its I Branch. After the war, at the recreated school, which became in 1953 LVHPU named after V. I. Mukhina, the museum was revived. The modern exposition of the museum is a unique experience for Russia in the reconstruction of the exposition of the art and industrial museum of the historical era, which collected all the “fashionable” design trends of the late XIX century. In the museum you can see exhibitions of works by students of the school, Russian and Western European applied art.