The Hall on the Island pavilion is, as the name suggests, located on an island in the Great Pond in the Landscape Park. It was constructed in the 1740s at the time of Elizabeth to a design by Savva Chevakinsky and decorated from drawings by Rastrelli. In 1794 it was reconstructed by Giacomo Quarenghi, but a couple of decades later, in 1817–20, more work was carried out in the hall by Vasily Stasov. In the eighteenth and early nineteenth centuries this pavilion, intended as a concert hall and resting place for boaters, was occasionally used for court lunches as well. The small kitchen built alongside it for this purpose was removed in the early twentieth century. According to different people’s memoirs, in the nineteenth century the Hall on the Island is where devices were kept for skaters using the rink that functioned on the lake to warm themselves with. [Click to enlarge] In 1911, in connection with the 200th anniversary exhibition organized in Tsarskoye Selo, a restaurant was opened in the hall and the island was connected to the shore by a pontoon bridge.
From 1912 to 1941 the pavilion remained closed, with boats kept there in winter. In 1996 the historical ferry crossing, linking the island with the Catherine Park, was re-established. The Hall on the Island was restored in 2008 and is now used for temporary exhibitions and classical musuc concerts.