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.
Vladimir Shchuko
Shchuko in 1912, by Ivan Kulikov
Although the Lenin Library project employed many artists, the frieze is personally credited to Shchuko.
1932 draft for the Palace of Soviets
Stalinist architecture, mostly known in the former Eastern Bloc as Stalinist style or Socialist Classicism, is the architecture of the Soviet Union under the leadership of Joseph Stalin, between 1933 and 1955. Stalinist architecture is associated with the Socialist realism school of art and architecture.
The main building of Moscow State University
Hotel Ukraina, one of "Stalin's high-rises"
Wet stucco over masonry. Early elite block, Patriarshy Ponds, Moscow. Art deco adaptation by Vladimir Vladimirov
The Moscow Canal