Starting from the first half of the XVIII century, on the site where house No. 18 on Bolshaya Morskaya Street is currently located, which forms the perspective of the street from Nevsky Prospekt, several buildings. First, there was a meat and fish market. Later, a plot of land at this address was bought by Yakov Kentner, a barber and a bathhouse attendant. He built stone baths here, which were destroyed by a fire in 1736. An apartment building was erected on the ashes, first one-story, then a five-story building.

In 1903, the House on Bolshaya Morskaya Street housed the Charles store and the Association of St. Petersburg Mechanical Footwear Production, which gave birth to the Soviet shoe brand Skorokhod.

The house has acquired a modern look for a very long time. After it was decided to build a bank on this site, a tender was announced in 1913. The final design was approved in 1915. Construction began, but the revolution changed the plans - the building remained unfinished until the end of the 1920s. Petersburgers even began to call it a “cat's house” for the huge number of homeless animals that settled inside.

In 1930, the newly created Textile Institute moved to the house on Bolshaya Morskaya Street. The school is still located in this building today, but now under a different name - St. Petersburg State University of Technology and Design.