page_title: Vladimir Shchuko
section_title: Modernism to Stalinism
hierarchical_section_title: Vladimir Shchuko / Biography / Modernism to Stalinism
caption_attribution_description: Lenin Library in Moscow, 1928-1941
context_page_description: Vladimir Alekseyevich Shchuko was a Russian architect, member of the Saint Petersburg school of Russian neoclassical revival notable for his giant order apartment buildings "rejecting all trace of the moderne". After the Russian Revolution of 1917 Shchuko gradually embraced modernist ideas, developing his own version of modernized neoclassicism together with his partner Vladimir Gelfreikh. Shchuko and Gelfreikh succeeded through the prewar period of Stalinist architecture with high-profile projects like the Lenin Library, Moscow Metro stations and co-authored the unrealized Palace of Soviets. Shchuko was also a prolific stage designer, author of 43 drama and opera stage sets.
context_section_description: Vladimir Gelfreikh, Shchuko's junior partner in the Soviet period, graduated from the same Academy class of Leon Benois in 1914. Their first extant practical work, the reconstruction of the square in front of the Smolny Institute, was executed in 1923–1924. In 1925 Shchuko designed the pedestal and architectural setting for Sergey Evseyev's iconic "Lenin on Top of an Armored Car" monument on the Finland Station square. The monument was clearly designed "to provide a counterpoint to the statue of Peter the Great, the Bronze Horseman". The Evseyev-Shchuko monument was the first one to establish a "canonical" image of Lenin and was widely repeated,; it turned out to be the architect's last notable work in Saint Petersburg.
  The second half of the 1920s was marked by high-profile architectural contests dominated by modernist architects. Shchuko and Gelfreikh lost the Kiev Passenger Railway Station contest to Pavel Alyoshin and Andrey Verbitsky, but in 1928 secured a winning bid on the contest to design the Lenin Library in Moscow. The initial draft comprised a complex network of low-rise buildings facing Mokhovaya Street and a π-shaped high-rise tower of the main depository at the back of the block. Construction commenced in 1930 and was substantially complete in 1941; expansions continued into the 1970s. The built structure disposed with the complexity of the original proposal; the depository, completed in 1941, is a plain 19-floor elongated slab. Among many artists involved in decorating the Library, Shchuko is personally credited for the design of the sculptural frieze facing Mokhovaya and Vozdvizhenka streets. Modern authors consider the Library, along with the Mayakovskaya station, to be Moscow's nearest approximations of Art Deco style and compare it to the 1937 Palais de Chaillot in Paris.
  In 1930 Shchuko and Gelfreikh launched construction of a large (2,500 and 850 seats) opera theatre in Rostov-on-Don. The open contest to design the Rostov theatre was won by the Barkhin family partnership, but after the results were announced, Shchuko personally arrived in Rostov and persuaded the commissioners to discard the Barkhin drafts. The constructivist theater was completed in 1935, when Shchuko was working on the Palace of Soviets. An elaborate set of rotating stages provided unprecedented freedom to producers and designers, even allowing live cavalry marches on stage. Despite its award-winning exterior and plans, the theatre was never used for its intended purpose: poor acoustics rendered it useless for music, and it has not produced a single opera show. It was destroyed in World War II and rebuilt in 1963; this time, the main hall was reduced to 1,200 seats but acquired proper acoustics.
caption: Although the Lenin Library project employed many artists, the frieze is personally credited to Shchuko.
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