The former Embassy of Germany in Saint Petersburg is considered the earliest and most influential example of Stripped Classicism. Designed by Peter Behrens, it was built to house the diplomatic mission of the German Empire in Saint Petersburg, the capital of the Russian Empire. After the relocation by the Bolsheviks of the Soviet capital from Petrograd (as Saint Petersburg was then known) to Moscow, it served as a consulate of the Weimar Republic and Nazi Germany. Located at 11/41 Saint Isaac's Square () in the Tsentralny District of Saint Petersburg, the building now houses the offices of two Russian government agencies. History of the site In the 1740s, a two-storey building was erected by Nikita Shestakov on the site which is today at 11/41 Saint Isaac's Square. In 1743 Shestakov sold the building to merchant Fedot Stepanov and from the 1760s to 1812 it was owned by a jeweller to the court of the Russian Empire. From 1815 to 1820, renowned Russian architect Vasily Stasov redesigned the house in the Empire style common in Russia during this period. In 1832, General-Adjutant Pavel Konstantinovich Aleksandrov, the illegitimate son of Grand Duke Konstantin Pavlovich, purchased the building and lived there with his wife Anna Alexandrovna. The couple regularly held balls in the residence, with frequent visitors including Alexander Pushkin. The house was passed onto their daughter, Princess Alexandra Pavlovna Lvova, wife of Prince Dmitry Aleksandrovich Lvov, and between 1870–1871 the facade of the building was designed in Eclectic style by Ferdinand Müller. German Embassy In 1873, the German Ambassador declared an intention to acquire the building from Princess Lvova and the building was bought by the German Empire for housing the German Embassy to the Russian Empire that same year. The Germans commissioned architect Rudolf Bernhard to redecorate the buildings interiors, and in 1889 Ivan Schlupp redesigned the building by adding a second floor over a part of the facade on Bolshaya Morskaya Street. In 1911–1913 the building was again redesigned, this time in Neoclassical style by German architect Peter Behrens, as a grandiose monument the power of a unified Germany. Behrens' design, which Albert Speer reported Adolf Hitler admired, saw the facade of the building being built in red granite, the frontispiece, reminiscent of Ancient Greek architecture, was completed with 14 columns, and decorated with pilasters. Ludwig Mies van der Rohe served as construction manager on the project, and sculptor Eberhard