Alexander Vesnin
Soviet architect (1883–1959)
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Alexander Aleksandrovich Vesnin (Russian: Александр Александрович Веснин; 28 May 1883 – 7 September 1959), together with his brothers Leonid and Viktor, was a leading light of Constructivist architecture.[1] He is best known for his meticulous perspectival drawings such as Leningrad Pravda of 1924.
Saint Petersburg
Alexander Vesnin | |
|---|---|
 Photo by Alexander Rodchenko, 1924 (fragment) | |
| Born | 28 May 1883 Yuryevets, Kostroma Governorate, Russian Empire |
| Died | 7 September 1959 (aged 76) Moscow, Russian SFSR, Soviet Union |
| Alma mater | Institute of Civil Engineers, Saint Petersburg |
| Occupation | Architect |
| Practice | Vesnin brothers |
| Buildings | Dnieper Hydroelectric Station ZiL Palace of Culture |
In addition to being an architect, he was a theatre designer and painter,[2] frequently working with Lyubov Popova on designs for workers' festivals, and for the theatre of Tairov. He was one of the exhibitors in the pioneering Constructivist exhibition 5×5=25 in 1921. He was the head, along with Moisei Ginzburg, of the Constructivist OSA Group.[3] Among the completed buildings designed by the Vesnin brothers in the later 1920s were department stores, a club for former Tsarist political prisoners as well as the Likachev Works Palace of Culture in Moscow. Vesnin was a vocal supporter of the works of Le Corbusier,[4] and acclaimed his Tsentrosoyuz building as 'the best building constructed in Moscow for a century'. After the return to Classicism in the Soviet Union, Vesnin had no further major projects.
Abstract Composition. 1915c. M.T. Abraham Foundation
Selected work
- 1934 People's Commissariat of Heavy Industry Project
- 1930 Oilworkers' Club, Baku[5]
- 1930-36 Likachev Palace of Culture, Moscow
- 1928 House of Film Actors, Moscow
- 1926 Mostorg department store, Moscow
- 1924 Leningradskaya Pravda project
- 1922-23 Palace of Labor project[6]