Alexey Shchusev: Architect of Stalin''s Empire Style

Alexey Shchusev (18731949) was one of the most celebrated architects of the Soviet Union, famous for Lenins Mausoleum in Moscow. Not only a gifted designer of many prominent buildings, his career was quite unique and closely intertwined with the turbulent course of Russian and Soviet history. He was one of the very few architects who managed to rise to the top of the architectural hierarchy under the tsars and then to repeat this success under Soviet rule. Already before the Revolution of 1917, Shchusev was an acclaimed Revivalist architect, wellknown for his church designs and Moscows Kazan Station. In the 1920s, he became a renowned Constructivist. Following the official renunciation of Avant-Garde architecture ordered by Stalin, Shchusev swiftly became an advocate of Socialist Classicism, designing many projects in the dictators favoured Empire Style in order to satisfy the Stalinist states needs for monumental representation. Combining a scholarly study of Shchusevs career with stunning photographs this book traces the development of this artistically and politically gifted architect through the architectural and historical changes in the first half of the twentieth century. See more