(b Vlasikh, nr Tver’, 9 Feb 1902; d Moscow, 6 Nov 1959). Russian architect, urban planner, writer and teacher.

His father was a farmer and woodsman on an isolated farmstead in the province of Tver’. From 1914 to 1917 Leonidov worked as a casual labourer on the docks of Petrograd (now St Petersburg). He then became an apprentice to an icon painter in Tver’, who had noticed his drawing skills. His formal art studies began at the Svomas (Free art studios), Tver’, and continued from 1921 to 1927 at the Vkhutemas (Higher (state) art and technical workshops), Moscow. While studying there under the painter and Constructivist architect Aleksandr Vesnin, Leonidov’s attention shifted from painting to architecture. He entered several architectural competitions, producing designs for a model peasant cottage (1925), schemes for a block of flats (1926) in Ivanovo-Voznesensk, buildings (1926) for the Belorussian State University, Minsk, and prototypes for Workers’ Clubs (1927). His diploma project (1927; unexecuted) for the Lenin Institute and Library, Moscow, brought him international recognition. The scheme was prominently displayed that year at the Exhibition of Contemporary Architecture, Moscow, and was published in the Constructivists’ architectural journal Sovremennaya arkhitektura. Leonidov envisioned the institute as a technologically audacious ensemble of glass curtain-walled buildings on a vast scale. They include an auditorium in the form of a complete sphere supported on a single pylon, a science theatre with planetarium, and various research institutes. The buildings were to be connected by an elevated monorail and advanced telecommunication devices. A towering rectangular book repository that focuses the composition was intended to be a landmark in the Lenin Hills overlooking Moscow.

• Leonidov, Ivan (Il'ich)
  • Rozhdestvensky, Konstantin
  • Russia, §III, 3(i): Architecture, 1917–c 1945
  • groups and movements
    • OSA