Pavlo Alyoshin

Pavlo Alyoshin (16 February 1881 – 7 October 1961) was a Ukrainian Soviet architect and civil engineer. Throughout his career, he employed a wide variety of architectural styles, and helped to create the Pedagogical Museum, the incomplete city of "New Kharkiv", and the Kovalevsky mansion also known as the "Palace of Sighs".

Born in Kyiv into a family of craftsmen, he first attended the Kyiv Drawing School before going to St. Petersburg to study at the Institute of Civil Engineers. There, as the best student in his class, he was allowed to study abroad and learn Western architecture. In 1904 he graduated from the school, and by 1906 was allowed to complete his first individual project which was a women's gymnasium. In 1909 he was given the task of designing the Pedagogical Museum, perhaps his most famous creation, which was completed in 1911 in an Empire style. In the late 1910s, he worked on a mansion for the Kovalevsky family and started experimenting in a Ukrainian national style and neo-baroque. In 1917 he graduated from the Imperial Academy of Arts, and then from the 1920s to 1930s worked as a chief architect of Murmansk, then Kyiv, and helped create the incomplete sotsgorod city of "New Kharkiv". After the end of World War Two, Alyoshin was extensively involved in reconstruction efforts, particularly of the Mariinskyi Palace and the Red University Building. He died in 1961.

Early life Alyoshin was born on 16 February 1881 in Kyiv, which was then part of the Kiev Governorate in the Russian Empire. His father was a carpenter who became part of an artel and was later a contractor. Alyoshin's grandfather was a serf craftsman who came from the Kursk Governorate and was also a deputy. After finishing his schooling at a gymnasium, he entered the Kyiv Drawing School, from where he would graduate before going to St. Petersburg. He attended the school due to his results in drawing and painting from his gymnasium not being sufficient, and while in school also took drawing lessons from I. Seleznyov. At the school he was finally allowed to create actual architectural projects, and studied under famous Imperial Russian professors I. Mikhailovsky and Alexander Krasovsky. In 1903 he also got to supervise his first architectural project after competing to design a school named after M. Tereshchenko in Kyiv, where he was awarded first place and permitted to supervise under P.I. Hollandsky. He also started working in 1907 on the building of the trade and industrial society in St. Petersburg, which was built using reinforced concrete and the newest finishing materials. In the First Men's Gymnasium, in July 1910, a land plot was allocated for the construction of the museum and construction started taking place, which was finally completed in August 1911. The mansion, specifically, was created in a style that was similar to Italian palaces in a tribute to the Romanesque style. In 1917 he graduated from the academy, and was granted the title of architect instead of previously just being a civil engineer. In 1917, during the Russian Revolution, Alyoshin decided to pivot his plan for the future and went to Murmansk to become the city's chief architect until 1918. He resided at the building from the time of its completion to his death. During 1930 to 1931 he was then the head of a team for the design of the sotsgorod city "New Kharkiv" by the existing city of Kharkiv for the 113 thousand inhabitants of the Kharkiv Tractor Plant. However, the city went uncompleted starting in 1933 after Stalinist architecture took over and the sotsgorod style became criticized.

Alyoshin helped reconstruct Mariinskyi Palace after World War II. After the end of World War Two, Alyoshin's career experienced a revival, as he was tasked with the reconstruction of many buildings that were damaged during the war. He helped reconstruct from 1944 to 1949 Mariinskyi Palace and the Red University Building of the Taras Shevchenko National University of Kyiv. He was also awarded the title of Doctor of Architecture in 1946 and became a full member of the Academy of Architecture of the Ukrainian SSR. His activity would then slow toward the end of his life, and in 1952 he completed some of his last works by writing the book "Architecture of School Buildings".

Personal life

He had multiple children, including Fedot and Olga, and had grandchildren named Vadym and Oksana, who all went into architecture.

Death He died on 7 October 1961 in Kyiv, where he had been working. He was buried at Lychakiv Cemetery.