Nikolay Vasilievich Vasiliev (November 26 [8 декабря] 1875, St. Petersburg – October 16, 1958, New York) – Russian architect and artist.

Biography

Nikolai Vasilievich Vasiliev was born in St. Petersburg on November 26 (December 8) 1875 and was baptized on December 3 in St. Isaac’s Cathedral, which is recorded in the metric book of the cathedral. His father, a peasant from the village of Pogorelki in the Uglich district of the Yaroslavl province, was eventually able to become a merchant class.

Studied at the St. Petersburg Commercial School. Then he served in the army, after which in 1896 he entered the Institute of Civil Engineers. He graduated from the institute in 1901 with a silver medal „for the best architectural projects." After graduating from the Institute of Civil Engineers, he entered the Academy of Arts, where he studied at the workshop of L. N. Benois. Graduated from the Academy in 1904.

Before the revolution he lived and worked in St. Petersburg. From 1906 he served in the Chancellery for the Institutions of the Empress Maria, at the same time doing private practice. The main area of __activity of Nikolai Vasiliev was work on competitive projects, mostly in the company of former fellow students – fellow architects. As part of this activity, Vasiliev took over mainly the solution of artistic tasks – the design of facades, leaving colleagues to work on the plan. Special attention should be paid to the perspectives of buildings made by Vasiliev, which have independent artistic significance. The most successful was the union with Alexei Bubyr, among their joint works Bubyr’s house on Stremyannaya Street and the German Theater in Revel (Tallinn).

The end of the decade was the most fruitful period in the career of an architect. They were presented projects of the Cathedral Mosque (1st and 2nd prizes) in St. Petersburg and the merchant’s bank in Kharkov (2nd prize), which were subsequently brought to construction, active design work was carried out for Revel (Tallinn). Vasiliev’s creative achievement was the projects of large housing complexes with original design of the facades. The ideas formulated in these works were later implemented during the construction of the Basseynoye Cooperative complex.

It is considered one of the leaders of the Northern Art Nouveau movement, which arose in St. Petersburg under the influence of Finnish architecture. He received high praise for his work from the famous Finnish architect Eliel Saarinen. In the 1910s, the projects of Nikolai Vasiliev in the style of „neoclassicism" did not come to fruition. Later significant works – the residential complex of the Basseynoye Association of Own Apartments („Basseyny Cooperative") and the building of shopping malls on Liteiny Prospekt („Novy Passage").

In 1918 he emigrated through Turkey and Serbia to the United States. He worked successfully in America, sent projects to representative architectural competitions in the USSR.

Life and work in emigration

Not earlier than May 1921, together with other refugees, Nikolai Vasiliev arrived in Belgrade from Constantinople and left it in January 1923 at the latest. During these two years, he returned to private practice and designed a number of buildings in and around Belgrade itself. He lived at 4 Avalsk_ Street and was married to a Serb woman named Regina.

Before moving to the United States, where Vasiliev spent the rest of his life, he spent some time in Serbia, participating in two architectural projects – the Geographic Institute in Belgrade (successful) and the high-rise building of the Chicago Tribune newspaper (unsuccessful). Vasiliev tried for the first time in his career to design a skyscraper and did not quite succeed in this.

From 1922 to 1928, Vasiliev was in France, and on February 22, 1928, he sailed to the United States, where immediately upon arrival he got a job at the respectable company „Warren and Wetmore". There he worked until the Great Depression, at the same time participating in various architectural competitions (in particular, for the building of the Gosprom in Kharkov and the Palace of Soviets in Moscow – both times were unsuccessful, but the project of the Palace of Soviets was evaluated positively, took fourth place and received a cash prize). In 1930 he became an American citizen, and in 1931 he was fired from Warren & Wetmore due to the difficult situation in the American economy and the lack of customers.

After leaving Warren & Wetmore, Vasiliev worked for Shreve, Lam & Harmon, Leitman, Whitney Associates. In 1936 he became a staff member of the New York City Tunnel Authority, and in 1938 he joined the City Planning Commission.

He died after a serious illness at St. Clara’s Hospital in Manhattan.

In his personal life, Nikolai Vasiliev was a man of rare, almost childish purity and gentleness. He never denied anyone or anything and often helped his fellow workers. Young Soviet architects who came from the USSR spoke of him with admiration and were proud of his talent.

Family

After Nikolai Vasilievich Vasiliev left abroad, the people closest to him remained in Soviet Russia – his wife, daughter Valentina Nikolaevna (by her husband Leonov) and niece Tamara Vasilievna (by her husband Gulyaev), whose father was the brother of the architect Vasily, who also had an engineering and construction education.

Nikolai Vasilievich’s wife lived in Leningrad. During the Great Patriotic War, in 1942, she was evacuated across Lake Ladoga. Daughter Valentina Nikolaevna lived in Dushanbe.

In the Belgrade period 1921-1923 he was married to a Serb woman named Regina.


Buildings in St. Petersburg



Stachek Avenue, 100 – Kazan Church and Chapel at Krasnenkoye Cemetery. 1901. (Not preserved).

The mansion of V. Savitsky in Tsarskoe Selo (Pushkin, Moskovskaya st., 15). 1904-1905.

House of VA Krutikova in Tarakanovsky lane, 7 (Lodygin lane). 1905. Implemented with a change in the facade.

Stremyannaya street, 11 – the Ugryumovs’ apartment house (A.F.Bubyr). 1906-1907. Together with A.F.Bubyr.

Bolshaya Konyushennaya street, 21-23, right side / Volynsky lane, 3 – trading house of the Guards Economic Society. 1908-1909. Participation under the direction of E. F. Wirrich. (Expanded).

Kronverksky prospect, 7 / Horse lane, 1 – St. Petersburg cathedral and cathedral mosque 1909-1920. With the participation of A. I. von Gauguin (civil engineer S. S. Krichinsky).

Bolshoi Sampsonievsky prospect, 62, courtyard – Helsingforskaya street, 1, courtyard. – workshop of the Nevskaya thread manufactory. 1911. (Expanded). The building is a prime example of industrial architecture from the early 20th century.

Liteiny prospect, 57 – shopping arcade „New Passage". 1912-1913 (building in which since Soviet times has been a subscription store, a sports store, an exhibition hall, etc.).

Bolshoy prospect of the Petrogradskaya side, 104 – R. A. Diederichs’ apartment building. 1912-1914. Together with A.F.Bubyr.

Nekrasova Street, 58-60 / Grechesky Prospect, 10-12 / Fontannaya Street, 3 – a residential complex of the Basseynoye Association of its own apartments. 1912-1914. Together with E. F. Virrikh, A. I. Zazersky, A. F. Bubyr, V. N. Pyasetsky


Addresses in St. Petersburg – Petrograd


1901-1911 – Novo-Isaakievskaya street (Yakubovich since 1923), 22;



1911-1912 – Kamennoostrovsky prospect, 59;

1912-1913 – the embankment of the Admiralteisky Canal, 17;

1913-1915 – Alekseevskaya Street (Pisareva since 1923), 14;

1916-1918 – Stremyannaya street, 11.


Buildings in other cities


Lubyansky passage (1882-1883, Moscow);

German Theater (Estonian Drama Theater), Tallinn, 1908-1910. Together with A.F.Bubyr.

Villa – A. Luther’s mansion, Tallinn, 1909-1910. Together with A.F.Bubyr.

The building of A. Luther’s furniture factory, Tallinn, 1912. Together with A. F. Bubyr.

Merchant bank and hotel „Astoria", Kharkov, 1909-1913. Together with A. I. Rzhepishevsky.

Geographical Institute in Belgrade, 1922-1924. In the 50s of the 20th century, the building became a military museum.


Unrealized projects


theater project in the „neo-Russian style", decorated with majolica, 1906

Ushakova’s house at the corner of Maly Prospekt and Shirokaya (Lenin) Street, 1906

project of a country house for the house of Princess E.A. Vorontsova-Dashkova, 1908. Together with S. S. Krichinsky. Built as a palace in 1912-1915 according to the project of S. S. Krichinsky.

Competition project of the theater and concert hall of the Estonian Musical Society in Reval (Tallinn), 1909. Together with A.F.Bubyr. Built in 1910-1913 by the Finnish architects Armas Lindgren and Vivi Lenn.

project of residential buildings on Troitskaya (Rubinshteina), 1910. Together with A.I.Dmitriev

competition project of a residential complex of the First Russian Insurance Company on Kamennoostrovsky Prospect, 1910. Together with A.I.Dmitriev. Built in 1911-1912 according to the project of L. N. Benois and others.

A. Luther’s house in Reval (Tallinn), 1910. Together with A.F.Bubyr.

competition project of the town hall in Reval (Tallinn), 1912. Together with A.F.Bubyr.

competition design for the building of the Noble Assembly, 1912. Together with F.F. Lumberg. Built in 1912-1914 according to the project of V.A.Kosyakov and G.A.Kosyakov

competition design for the building of the Ministry of Trade and Industry, 1913. Built in 1913-1915 according to the project of M. M. Peretyakovich

Competitive design of the State Bank building on Mikhailovskaya Square (Arts Square), 1914

competitive design of the building of the State Industry in Kharkov, 1925

competition design of the monument to Christopher Columbus in Santo Domingo, 1929

competition project of the Palace of Soviets in Moscow, 1931

numerous competitive projects of public buildings for various cities of the Russian Empire.