Moscow Architectural Institute

Moscow Architectural Institute 

the oldest pedagogical and academic center in the field of architecture. The origin of the institute dates back to 1866, when an architectural division was set up at the Moscow School of Painting, Sculpture, and Architecture. In 1918 the division became part of the State Free Art Studios. It became part of Vkhutemas (State Higher Arts and Technical Studios) in 1920 and of Vkhutein (Higher Art and Technical Institute) in 1928. In 1930 the departments of architecture at Vkhutein and at the N. E. Bauman Moscow Higher Technical School were merged to form the Higher Institute of Architecture and Building. Since 1933 the institute has been called the Moscow Architectural Institute.

The institute has (1973) departments of civil engineering, industrial architecture, and urban planning. There is an evening division, courses for the advanced training of instructors and specialists in city planning, a graduate school, 32 subdepartments, building materials laboratories (founded in the late 19th century by Professor N. K. Lakhtin), and laboratories of constructional physics and engineering design. The library has approximately 300, 000 volumes.

In the 1972–73 academic year the institute had an enrollment of 2, 000 students and a faculty of about 300 instructors, including 45 professors and doctors of sciences and approximately 100 docents and candidates of sciences. Fifteen members of the faculty have been awarded State Prizes.

The work of many prominent Soviet architects and artists has been associated with the Moscow Architectural Institute. These architects and artists have included A. V. Shchusev, L. A. Vesnin, V. A. Vesnin, A. A. Vesnin, I. V. Zholtovskii, I. V. Ryl’-skii, N. V. Markovnikov, A. V. Kuznetsov, A. P. Ivanitskii, M. Ia. Ginzburg, I. A. Golosov, P. A. Golosov, N. A. Ladovskii, V. A. Favorskii, V. F. Krinskii, L. A. Bruni, and V. N. Iakovlev.

The institute is authorized to accept doctoral and candidate’s dissertations for defense. Between 1930 and 1972 it trained more than 5, 000 architects. The majority of first prizes at all-Union contests of diploma projects organized by the Architects’ Union of the USSR have been awarded to graduates of the Moscow Architectural institute. In 1966 the institute was awarded the Order of the Red Banner of Labor. In 1972 the Sverdlovsk Architectural Institute was organized from a branch of the Moscow Architectural Institute.

I. S. NIKOLAEV