270 years ago, Nikolai Aleksandrovich Lvov was born (4 (15) May, 1753 - 22 December, 1803 (3 January, 1804)) - an architect, one of the brightest and most versatile representatives of the Russian Enlightenment. According to one version, he designed the building at 29, Moskovsky Prospekt, the oldest of our university facilities.
This building, known as the house of the merchant S. S. Kocherov, was built between 1805 and 1810. From 1814 to 1819, it housed an army seminary that trained regimental priests. From 1821 to 1828, the Military Construction School was located here, and in 1832 the first Russian School of Civil Engineers was located, to which the St Petersburg State University of Architecture and Civil Engineering dates back.
The building at 29, Moskovsky prospekt
The future architect was born in the Nikolskoye-Cherenchitsy estate near Torzhok (today it is the village of Nikolskoye, Tver Region), into an old noble family. At the age of 18 he went to St Petersburg for military service. At the same time he attended the school of General Alexander Bibikov, wh ere he studied German and French, geography and mathematics, music and grammar. But literature attracted him the most.
The young man even created a circle of lovers of literature, whose members published a handwritten journal.
In the early 1770s, Nikolai Lvov entered the civil service. He was engaged in architecture, archeology, chemistry, geology, mechanics, collected folk songs, created a poetic translation of ancient Greek Anacreon songs, was a talented engraver and draftsman. He studied all sciences on his own, from books. Among his friends were architect Giacomo Quarenghi, poet Gavriil Derzhavin, painters Vladimir Borovikovsky and Dmitry Levitsky. He was an adherent of the ancient classics and the Italian architect of the 16th century Andrea Palladio. In 1783 Lvov was elected to the Russian Academy, in 1785 he became an honorary member of the Academy of Arts.
Lvov designed buildings in St Petersburg and its environs, cathedrals in Torzhok and Mogilev, estate complexes in the Tver, Novgorod, Moscow provinces.
He was engaged in the search for new building materials, the development of methods for earth-building, heating and ventilation of buildings. He was the author of books on various subjects, one of the founders of the landscape style in Russian gardening.
An excellent draftsman, he created a project for the star and signs of the Order of St Vladimir, the new signs of the Order of St Anna. He died suddenly at the age of 50. He was buried in his Tver estate in Nikolsky.
By order of the Committee for State Control, Use and Protection of Historical and Cultural Monuments No. 15 dated 20 February, 2001, the complex of buildings of the Institute of Civil Engineers, built in the 1st quarter of the 19th - early 20th centuries (architects N. A. Lvov, I. S. Kitner, A. P. Maksimov, civil engineer R. B. Bernhard) and located at the following addresses: 4, 2nd Krasnoarmeiskaya st.; 1, 3rd Krasnoarmeiskaya st.; 29, Moskovsky pr., are included in the "List of newly discovered objects of historical, scientific, artistic or other cultural value".