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Konstantin Andreyevich Thon or Ton (; October 26, 1794 – January 25, 1881) was a Russian architect who was one of the most notable architects during the reign Nicholas I. His major works include the Cathedral of Christ the Saviour, the Grand Kremlin Palace and the Kremlin Armoury in Moscow.
Thon first attracted public attention with his sumptuous design for the interiors of the Academy building on the Neva embankment. In 1827, he submitted to the tsar his project of St Catherine church at the Obvodny Canal, the first ever design in the Russian Revival style. Nicholas I, who felt disaffected with the prevailing Neoclassicism of Russian architecture, remarked that "Russians have their own great art traditions and don't need to cringe before Rome". Thon's project was to become a revered model for other churches in St Petersburg and across Russia.
In 1836–42, Thon supervised the construction of another ponderous church with a spacious interior, that of Presentation to the Temple for the Semenovsky regiment in St Petersburg. He followed this with dozens of Neo-Russian-Byzantine designs for churches and cathedrals in provincial towns, including Suomenlinna, Yelets, Tomsk, Rostov-on-Don, and Krasnoyarsk. Some of his revivalist projects were assembled in the Model Album for Church Designs (1836).
From 1838 to 1851, Thon was employed in construction of the Neo-Russian Grand Kremlin Palace and the Kremlin Armoury in Moscow. The grandiose palace, famed for opulent interiors of its 700 rooms and , was meant to symbolize the grandeur of the Russian state. It was a daring design which incorporated parts of earlier structures that had been standing on the spot. The palace has served successively as an official House for the Russian tsars, Soviet rulers, and the presidents of the Russian Federation. At the same time, Thon rehabilitated the abandoned Izmaylovo Estate into an almshouse for the veterans of the Napoleonic Wars.
After the death of his patron, the Emperor, Thon's failing health prevented him from working on other projects apart from the great cathedral in Moscow. He died at St. Petersburg in 1881.
Even during his lifetime, the more radical of his contemporaries, such as Alexander Herzen, dismissed his architecture as "reactionary manifestation of the tyrant's rule". The Soviet authorities, labelling Thon's churches ugly chests of drawers, systematically destroyed as many of them as possible, including all his churches in St Petersburg and vicinity and the work of his life, the Cathedral of Christ the Saviour. The fall of the Soviet rule in 1991 brought about a renewed interest in the work of the Neo-Russian-Byzantine master.
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