Buckingham Palace 1847, the couple had found the palace too small for court life and their growing family, and consequently the new wing, designed by Edward Blore, was built by Thomas Cubitt, enclosing the central quadrangle. The large East Front, facing The Mall, is today the "public face" of Buckingham Palace, and contains the balcony from which the royal family acknowledge the crowds on momentous occasions and after the annual Trooping the Colour. The ballroom wing and a further suite of state rooms were also built in this period, designed by Nash's student Sir James Pennethorne. Before Prince Albert's death, the palace
Private Apartments of the Winter Palace the imperial private lives could have been. Today, with the exception of the library, the rooms are simply decorated and display part of the Hermitage Museum's vast collection of art; no reference is made to their former use. Much of the art collection displayed in the palace today is not original to the Winter Palace, but has been brought from numerous other palaces and estates which were nationalised after the revolution. Private Apartments of the Winter Palace The Private Apartments of the Winter Palace are sited on the piano nobile of the western wing of the former imperial palace, the