Nikolai Kolli

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Nikolai Kolli
Kolli in 1935
Born
Nikolai Dzhemsovich Kolli

17 August [O.S. 5 August] 1894
Died3 December 1966(1966-12-03) (aged 72)
Moscow, Soviet Union
OccupationArchitect
Tsentrosoyuz building (1933), Moscow,
collaboration with Le Corbusier.
Chistye Prudy station of the Moscow Metro (vintage image).

Nikolai Dzhemsovich (Yakovlevich) Kolli (Russian: Николай Джемсович (Яковлевич) Колли; 17 August [O.S. 5 August] 1894 – 3 December 1966) was a Soviet and Russian Modernist—Constructivist architect, architectural functionary, and city planner in the Soviet Union.[1]

History[edit]

Kolli was born in Moscow, and studied at the Imperial Moscow School of Painting, Sculpture and Architecture, and then at the Leninist VKhUTEMAS in Moscow.[1]

He first came to attention with a 1918 proposal for a monument celebrating the victory of the Red Army over Tzarist General Krasnov, in the form of a red wedge cleaving a block of white stone. It became an image that artist El Lissitzky subsequently appropriated in "Beat the Whites with the Red Wedge."

Nikolai Kolli is buried in the Vvedenskoye Cemetery.[2]

Modernism[edit]

Nikolai Kolli studied under Ivan Zholtovsky as one of his "Twelve Disciples." In the late 1920s became a member of both the Soviet OSA Group (Union of Contemporary Architects), and a delegate to the international CIAM (Congrès International d'Architecture Moderne) architectural group.

From 1928 to 1932 he lived part-time in Paris, assisting Le Corbusier in that architect's only built work in Moscow, the Tsentrosoyuz building (Central Cooperative Alliance offices).[3][1]

Career[edit]

Kolli taught at the N. E. Bauman Moscow Higher Technical School from 1920 to 1941, and at the Moscow Institute of Architecture from 1931 to 1941.[1]

From 1935 to 1951 he headed the Moscow branch of the Soviet Union of Architects.

Works[edit]

The works of Nikolai Kolli include:

See also[edit]

References[edit]

  • The Great Soviet Encyclopedia, 3rd Edition (1970-1979).
  • “Arkhitektor N. Ia. Kolli.” Arkhitektura SSSR, 1964, no. 12.