For more than fifty years (from 1934 till the beginning of 1990s) the State Museum of Architecture had been situated in the Donskoi Monastery. The most dramatic stages of the Museum's development are bound with its architectural complex: memorable exhibitions and conferences were held there, several generations of the staff were educated, the collections were preserved and augmented.

The Donskoi Monastery was founded in 1591 in a thanksgiving for the expulsion from Moscow the Tartar troops of Kazy-Guirei. It was perceived then as one of the miracles of the Icon-gonfalon of the Virgin of Don. The Monastery's foundation was laid on the spot of the movable fortress "gulai-gorod" that protected southern approaches of the Russian capital near the Crimean Ford. With its construction the formation of a defensive system of fortresses around Moscow was finished. It consisted of the Andronikov, Novospasskiy, Simonov, Danilov and Novodevichiy monasteries and shielded the city from the raids of the nomads.

The earliest stone structure on the cloister's ground — the Small, or the Old Cathedral (1591-1593) - a beautiful monument of the Godunov's epoch. This is a church without piers covered with a fine three-stepped pyramid of "kokoshniks" (a type of gable) that ended with a helmet-like cupola on a slender drum. A dome of present-day shape as well as a belfry, chapels and a refectory are the later additions. The Grand Cathedral (1684-1698) was erected one hundred years later, when the Donskoi Monastery received a rich endowment of the Tsar's Court and the Moscow nobility in honour of a new victory over the Crimean khanate. The mighty volume of the cathedral with five high slender domes dominates under the whole ensemble of the Monastery. A flower-like form of the plan, a direction of the cupolas at the quarters, a clear dividing of the facade according to the storeys, using of the order elements - all this bears evidence of a formation of a new style - a Naryshkin barocco. The inside paintings of the cathedral were executed in the XVIII c. (1782-1785) by the artist Anton Klaudo, the idea was by Vasily Bazhenov.

Two gateway chapels of the Donskoi Monastery (the church of the Virgin of Tikhvin above the Northern Gates and a three-tiered bell-tower with a clock above the Western one) belong to a transitional period between the barocco and the epoch of Peter the Great. Among the traditional features (a composition of several tiers) you can find here adopted European details of decoration. The hospital church of the Archangel Michael (the Golitsin mausoleum) was founded in 1714 and was rebuilt to a great extent in the early XIX c. Its classical outside with a portico decorated with sculpture corresponds to the tombstones of the Monastery's necropolis. There a Museum's exposition of sculpture was once situated: works by F.G. Gordeyev, I.P. Martos, S.S. Pimenov and other outstanding Russian and European sculptors.

The walls of the Donskoi Monastery form almost a perfect square- a rare example of the plan's regularity in fortification. Twelve two-storeyed towers are also a part of a defensive system: at the walls' corners round ones are situated, the rest are four-sided. Their "crowns" of white stone (reminiscent of those in the Novodevichiy Monastery) are evidence of a decreasing role of the complex as a part of Moscow's fortifications during the 2nd half of the XVII c. In the period of the Museum's activity the fragments of the destroyed ancient monuments had been placed in the arches of the walls. Until now there are carved platbands of windows and a portal of the Church of St. Nicholas (1669), a real masterpiece of the art of the time. The carved tombstones from that monument's churchyard are placed below. Alongside several details of the Church of the Assumption in the Pokrovka Street (1696-1699) are arranged on the wall. It was one of the most original edifices of the Moscow barocco. You can find here cover plates of the windows of the 2nd and the 3rd tiers of the church, the Northern porch and a part of the balustrade. The Western portal of the loft is particularly interesting: at the capital of the right column there is a carved image of hand holding a scroll; the name of the Church's founder - Piotr Potapov - is graved there. A complex of architectural details of the former Troitse-Makariev Monastery in Kalyazin has persisted due to the labours of the Museum's staff. They had undertaken several expeditions shortly before the submergence of the monastery. On the right from the Northern Gates there are on a display a portal of the Trinity Cathedral by the mason Mikhail Voronkov (1521) and windows' platbands of the Refectory.

The cover plate of the window from the Church of the Annunciation in Yurievets-on-Volga (1700) is an example of the rare mastership. Though, according to a tradition, its upper part has to remind a kokoshnik - a Russian women's traditional headdress, but we find here a detail that looks like a crown of three dents adorned with a scene of battle between a lion and a unicorn. Next to the corner tower of the Eastern wall there is a platband of the double window from the Sukhareva Tower (1692-1695). It was built under the supervision of M.I. Choglokov above the Sretenskiye Gates of the Zemlyanoi (Ground) Town (an area in old Moscow). Between 1698-1701 one more storey and a tower with a clock were added. A little later a Peter the Great's adherent, the Field Marshal Ya.V. Bruce established an astronomical observatory there. The tower was demounted in 1934 because of the reconstruction of the Grand and the Small Kolkhoz Squares.

At the central part of the Eastern wall of the Donskoi Monastery the high relieves and sculptures of the Cathedral of Christ the Saviour are exhibited that were executed in 1847-1849 by P.A. Klodt, A.V. Loganovskiy, N.A. Ramozanov, A.I. Terebenev. They rendered episodes of the Sacred history and the history of Russia that are associated with the events of the Napoleonic War of 1812. One of the high relieves by A.V. Loganovskiy developed the theme of the defense of Russia against the foes: the events before the Battle of Kulikovo (1380) are represented there. There are portrays of the Grand Prince of Moscow Dmitriy Donskoi, his generals, an outstanding personality of the time - the Venerable Sergius of Radonezh as well as Oslyabya and Peresvet, two monks who had become heroes of that battle. Another many-figured composition illustrates an episode of the Sacred History: Melkhisidek meets Abraham with captive chieftains. It symbolically reflects a solemn homecoming of the Russian warlords and army after the triumphal foreign campaign of 1813-1814. 

Based on the materials of S.V. Geraskin, A.N. Looppol