The prototype of modern shopping centers is the building of the commercial and industrial house of the late 19th - 20th centuries

The study is devoted to a retrospective analysis of the building of the Muir and Merilise commercial and industrial house. Since the beginning of the company's existence, this object has adopted unique stylistic images that are reference models. In the building, the aesthetic and commercial-industrial merged, and a balance was achieved between the commercial and the spiritual, which is the merit of the heads of the firm of Scottish merchants Andrew Moore, Archibald Merileese and St. Petersburg architect Roman Ivanovich Klein. The study of a commercial building makes it possible to introduce systematized information of historical, cultural and stylistic value into scientific circulation, which makes it possible to enrich the scientific and cultural field. It will bring us closer to solving problems in the architecture and construction of modern shopping centers, which will allow us to create worthy, unique, reference model objects valuable for future generations. The collected and systematized information was subjected to a comprehensive systematic, stylistic, cultural and aesthetic analysis, which made it possible to determine the authentic value of the Muir and Merilise trading house. As a result of the consolidation of information based on documentary sources, the results of the conducted research are introduced into scientific circulation. For the first time, the object has been analyzed and consecrated comprehensively, which makes it possible to evaluate the building of the Muir and Merilise commercial and industrial house as a reference model worthy of the ideological and imaginative imitation and orientation of modern architects. The study of the creative heritage of architect R. I. Klein is underestimated, therefore, the creative potential has not been fully explored. It is promising for studying and orienting in the creative process when creating modern shopping centers, which are created as there are antipodes to historical buildings and structures, the more expressions of opposition, the more urgent the appeal to the origins, actualization and identification of standards and patterns capable of to focus on the cultural and aesthetic growth of the architecture of public buildings.