The project of a wooden house with carvings in the Russian style was created by architect Andrei Leontievich Gun for entrepreneur and public figure Alexander Alexandrovich Porokhovshchikov in 1871. The carvings on the facades were done by master I. A. Kolpakov. The house received a diploma at the World Exhibition in Vienna in 1873. This building is an example of how professional artists interpreted folk art. The carvings do not copy folk samples but create a new work, preserving the spirit of folk art as understood in the second half of the 19th century.

Andrei Leontievich Gun, born on April 14, 1841, and died in 1924, studied at the Imperial Academy of Arts, where he received the title of academician of architecture in 1867. Since 1907, he was a full member of the Academy. His work was associated with St. Petersburg, where he taught at the Institute of Civil Engineers. In Moscow, at the request of Porokhovshchikov, Gun also worked on the interior decoration of the concert hall of the restaurant 'Slavyansky Bazar' on Nikolskaya Street, 17, but this building has not survived.

The House of Porokhovshchikov seems small, but over the years it housed the Agency for the Sale of Electric Sewing Machines of V. N. Chikolyev, the editorial office of 'Gazeta A. Gatsuka' from 1875 to 1878, and the Society of Educators and Teachers with a school. Since 1889, there was a women's Sunday school, a pedagogical museum, and a library. The philosopher Sergey Nikolaevich Trubetskoy lived in this house.

In Soviet times, the building was occupied by the Kyiv District Department of the All-Ukrainian Society for the Protection of Monuments of History and Culture, the N. A. Dobrolyubov Library, and the Museum of Military Glory of the 77th Guards Division.

Today, the house has been leased long-term by a descendant of the first owner, the famous artist Alexander Shalvovich Porokhovshchikov, who passed away in 2012. He conducted a restoration of the interiors of the main floor, planning to open a cultural center there.