20 Facts About Ivan Zholtovsky

Ivan Vladislavovich Zholtovsky was a Soviet and Russian architect and educator.

Ivan Zholtovsky worked primarily in Moscow from 1898 until his death.

Ivan Zholtovsky was born in Plotnitsa, Minsk Governorate November 27,1867.

Ivan Zholtovsky joined Academy of Arts in Saint Petersburg at the age of 20.

Ivan Zholtovsky retained this hands-on approach for the rest of his career, being a construction manager in the original sense of architectural profession.

Ivan Zholtovsky traveled to Italy frequently, recording its architectural legacy.

Ivan Zholtovsky stayed in Moscow throughout the course of World War I, Revolution of 1917 and Civil War.

Ivan Zholtovsky was spared from revolutionary new-vs-old rhetoric: after all, he was the employer to many modernist architects, giving them whatever jobs he could secure.

Together with Shchusev, and relying on his juniors, Ivan Zholtovsky supervised the first master plan for redevelopment of Moscow.

Ivan Zholtovsky met with Vladimir Lenin and was very well received; according to Zholtovsky's own memoirs, Master Plan was commissioned by Lenin himself, who wasn't exactly competent in architecture and couldn't recall any past projects of his contractor.

Some of Ivan Zholtovsky's students operated their own projects, some joined the firm.

Ivan Zholtovsky shared contest prize with Boris Iofan and Hector Hamilton; Iofan's draft was later selected.

Ivan Zholtovsky refused to work for Metro, believing that the lowly underground job is not worth his time.

In 1940, already 73 years old, Ivan Zholtovsky accepts the chair of Moscow Architectural Institute.

Ivan Zholtovsky issued his students an exercise to design Country residence of a Marshal of Soviet Union.

Immediately, political accusations poured in; November 2,1945 Ivan Zholtovsky received a formal order to discard completed student projects, reverse their grades, and issue a new, politically correct, assignment.

In 1948,80-year-old Ivan Zholtovsky became the subject of a witch-hunt .

Ivan Zholtovsky died of pneumonia at the age of 92.

Ivan Zholtovsky's creed was that architecture and construction process are indivisible; separation of architect from construction management reduces art to draftsmanship.

Ivan Zholtovsky workshop proposed various prefab concrete drafts, mixing new technologies with Stalinist exterior; this line of architecture never materialized: Khrushchev announced his war with "architectural excesses" in November 1955, just when the concrete industry acquired enough capacity for mass construction.