Poliakov, Leonid

Poliakov, Leonid Mikhailovich 

Born Aug. 8 (21), 1906, in St. Petersburg; died June 21, 1965, in Moscow. Soviet architect. Became a member of the CPSU in 1948.

From 1923 to 1929, Poliakov studied with I. A. Fomin at the Higher Art and Technical Institute in Leningrad. He taught at the Moscow Architectural Institute from 1945 to 1965 and at the Moscow Higher Industrial Arts School from 1958 to 1965. From 1948 to 1950 he served as chief architect for the city of Sevastopol’, a post he held later, from 1958 to 1965, at the Gidropro-ekt Institute.

Attracted to a variety of aesthetic solutions for his structures, Poliakov sometimes disregarded functional requirements. His works in Moscow include apartment houses on the Arbat and Spiridon’evskii Lane (both 1933–35); the Kurskaia (1938), Ok-tiabr’skaia (1949, State Prize, 1950), and Arbatskaia (1953) subway stations; and the Hotel Leningradskaia (1949–53). In Sevastopol’ he designed the building complex on Nakhimov Avenue (1948–51). He also designed the structures surrounding the V. I. Lenin Volga-Don Ship Canal (1952). Poliakov was awarded the Order of Lenin, two other orders, and medals.