The western half of the newly renamed English Embankment today looks distinctly shabby, but a number of buildings still impress by their elegant proportions. No. 56 is an excellent example of the work of the Italian architect Giacomo Quarenghi, whose restrained Palladianism is evident in a whole series of buildings in different parts of central St Petersburg. The building, or rather the rebuilding of the original structure, was begun in 1814, three years before Quarenghi's death. Although it underwent some reconstruction in the 1870s, it retains its characteristic features: a row of half columns and corner pilasters of the Corinthian order at first-floor level, supporting a pediment, topped by three statues. It now houses the St Petersburg City Excursion Bureau and the lofty central hall is used as open-plan office space. Long curtains cover most of the walls, and it is only when these are drawn back to reveal brass commemorative plaques, an organ and religious inscriptions that the building's original function becomes clear. This was the English Church, the focal point of the British community's life in pre-Revolutionary St Petersburg. A British visitor describes the impression it made on him in 1827, a few years after it was opened: