Project for a Club of a New Social Type, 1928

Born in 1902 in Babino (Tver region) and died in 1959 in Moscow, Ivan Ilich Leonidov was one of the youngest members of Russian Constructivism. He was educated in his hometown and in St. Petersburg, and from the beginning he stood out for his ability in drawing, so he collaborated with an icon painter.

After the Revolution he entered the Tver Art School and in 1921 he moved to Moscow to study at the VJUTEMAS. He first devoted himself to painting, but soon moved to the architecture department, then directed by the Vesnin brothers. As an advanced student he took part in numerous competitions from 1925 onwards, and already in 1926 he joined the OSA group. The following year, while still a student, he designed the Lenin Institute, a set of pure forms (a slender prism and a sphere) linked together by masts and suspenders...[+]