11 Facts About Lev Kekushev

Lev Nikolayevich Kekushev was a Russian architect, notable for his Art Nouveau buildings in Moscow, built in the 1890s and early 1900s in the original, Franco-Belgian variety of this style.

Lev Kekushev graduated high school in Vilnius, and the Institute of Civil Engineers in Saint Petersburg.

Lev Kekushev was the first practitioner of Art Nouveau in Moscow, starting with his apartment buildings in Varsonofyevskay Lane and Bolshaya Dmitrovka, completed 1893.

Lev Kekushev's style is very close to the original Belgian style of Victor Horta.

Lev Kekushev's buildings include such diverse luxury residences as the timber-framed Nosov House and stone and steel Mindovsky House.

Unlike other architects, who commissioned artwork finishes to independent artists, all Lev Kekushev buildings have distinct Lev Kekushev metal ornaments.

Maria Naschokina, a historian of Art Nouveau, suggested that Lev Kekushev's withdrawal was actually caused by unspecified illness; this statement has not been thoroughly proved.

The architect's son, Nikolay Lev Kekushev, was a famous aviator who saw combat in 1924 in Central Asia, later working as aircraft engineer on Arctic flights in the 1920s and 1930s.

Lev Kekushev was a member of Pavel Golovin's air crew that was the first to reach the North Pole on May 5,1937, in preparation for Ivan Papanin's polar expedition.

In 1948 Nikolay Lev Kekushev was arrested, and he spent six years in Dzhezkazgan labor camps.

Lev Kekushev survived and wrote a book of memoirs, Zveriada; however, it does not reveal much about his father's last years.