The Museum is located in a complex of buildings registered as the landmark of the late XVIII–XX centuries architecture. Muscovites call this old mansion the Osterman House after the name of its former owners.
From the second quarter of the XVII century this suburban mansion belonged to the Streshnevs family of Russian nobles, and in 1783 it was inherited by Count Ivan Andreyevich Osterman. In the late XVIII century the main mansion, constructed after the design of an unknown architect, obviously from M. F. Kazakov's circles, acquired the appearance that was close to what we see today. In 1796 brothers Ivan Andreyevich and Fedor Andreyevich transferred their title and name to their grandnephew Alexander Ivanovich Tolstoy glorified in the patriotic war of 1812 and foreign campaigns of the Russian army. The mansion of A. I. Osterman-Tolstoy suffered in the 1812 fire, it was not restored for a long time, and was sold to the Holy Synod to house the Moscow Seminary in 1834.
In the early 1840s the building was restored and expanded after the design by A. F. Shchedrin, and in 1885 a wing of the diocesan dormitory was added to the gallery on the right, it was designed by P. Ye. Bayev.
The building was nationalized in 1918 and transferred to the All-Russia Central Executive Committee. After the Great Patriotic War (WWII) it housed the Presidium of the Supreme Council and the Council of Ministers of the RSFSR. In 1920-1930 delegates coming to the congresses of the Supreme Council stayed in this house, hence the name of the street – Delegatskaya. A new three-storey building was added to the seminary dormitory in the early 1950s, it was designed by G. Gelfreich and Kabanov.
The history of the building is associated with many prominent Russians. It was visited by Emperor Alexander I, Metropolitans Platon, Philaret, Tikhon, poet F. I. Tyutchev, and – during the soviet period – by V. I. Lenin, N. S. Khrushchev, M. Gorky.
The 1981 Decree of the RSFSR Council of Ministers transferred the building to the All-Russia Museum of Decorative, Applied and Folk Art, which opened to visitors on July 21, 1981.
The territory of the Museum with the total area of 5 acres makes it possible to realize modern events involving the park zone in museum projects, to conduct mass events, to create public space.
