Mordvinov Arkady Grigoryevich (real surname — Mordvishev; January 15, 1896, selo Zhuravlikha, Nizhny Novgorod Governorate — July 23, 1964, Moscow) — a Soviet architect, president of the USSR Academy of Architecture (1950–1955), and one of the key representatives of the Stalinist architectural school. Born on Nizhny Novgorod soil, he spent most of his career in Moscow.[1][2]

Education and early career

He spent his childhood years in the selo (a larger village) of Varezh. In 1930 he graduated from the Faculty of Civil Engineering at the Moscow Higher Technical School (Bauman MVTU), then did postgraduate studies at the Moscow Architectural Institute.[1] His early works belonged to Constructivism, but as early as 1929 Mordvinov became one of the organizers of VOPRA — the All-Russian Society of Proletarian Architects, which opposed avant-garde movements. In particular, he lashed out at Ivan Leonidov, branding his approach "Leonidovshchina" — "a petty-bourgeois trend in architecture."[1] He later abandoned Constructivist ideas and moved on to richly decorated forms — the theater in Sochi (1934) is one example.[2]

Government and creative work

In the early 1930s he worked as deputy head of Architectural Design Workshop No. 3 of the Mossovet Architectural Planning Department and sat on the standing architectural council for the construction of the Palace of Soviets under the Presidium of the All-Russian Central Executive Committee.[1] From 1943 to 1947 he served as chairman of the Committee on Architectural Affairs under the Council of Ministers of the USSR.[2] From 1950 to 1955 he was president of the USSR Academy of Architecture; in 1944 he delivered a report at the Academy's Sixth Session on the artistic problems of Soviet architecture.[3][4]

Mordvinov initiated the in-line, high-speed methods of constructing apartment buildings that were used on Gorky Street (now Tverskaya), Leninsky Avenue, Bolshaya Polyanka, the Moskva River embankments, and Novinsky Boulevard (1937–1940).[2] Among his largest completed projects is the Hotel Ukraina (opened in 1957, designed jointly with V. K. Oltarzhevsky and others), which became one of the seven "Stalin skyscrapers" and was the largest hotel in the USSR and Europe at the time of its opening.[1] He also took part in the planning and development of the central part of the Novye Cheryomushki district (1956–1964) and in the construction of Komsomolsky Avenue (1958–1965).[2] He designed the Central Post Office in Kharkiv; the post office building in Donetsk was built from his sketches.[2]

Nizhny Novgorod connection

Mordvinov was born in the selo (a larger village) of Zhuravlikha, in the Nizhny Novgorod land. In 1930 he won first prize for his design of the Gorky Automobile Plant, the largest industrial construction project of the time in Gorky (now Nizhny Novgorod).[2]

Awards

  • Stalin Prize, Second Class (1941), for the architecture of the apartment buildings on Bolshaya Kaluzhskaya Street in Moscow.[1]
  • Stalin Prize, First Class (1949), for the design of the Hotel Ukraina.[1]
  • Order of Lenin.[1]
  • Two Orders of the Red Banner of Labor.[1]

He is buried at Novodevichy Cemetery in Moscow.[1]

Sources

  1. rus.team — Mordvinov Arkady Grigoryevich — Soviet Architect — Biography
  2. sanstv.ru — Oltarzhevsky — Meaning of the Word
  3. search.rsl.ru — Mordvinov, Arkady Grigoryevich.
  4. russianartarchive.net — Mordvinov Arkady Grigoryevich • Russian Art Archive Network
  5. bse.sci-lib.com — Mordvinov A. G. Apartment Building on Gorky Street in Moscow