Lev Kekushev

Lev Nikolayevich Kekushev
Isakov Apartment Building, 1904-1906
Born	February 19, 1862 Vilnius
Died	?? 1916 - 1919 ?? Moscow
Nationality	Russia
Occupation	Architect
Buildings	Mindovsky House Isakov Apartment Building
Projects	Completion of Hotel Metropol

Lev Nikolayevich Kekushev (Russian: Лев Николаевич Кекушев) was a Russian architect, notable for his Art Nouveau buildings in Moscow, built in the 1890s and early 1900s in the original, Franco-Belgian variety of this style. Kekushev's buildings are notable for his skillful use of metal ornaments and his signature with a lion (Lev) ornament or sculpture.

Kekushev was born in the family of a Russian officer in Vilnius (Maria Naschokina, p. 253; Simbirsk according to other sources). Kekushev graduated high school in Vilnius, and the Institute of Civil Engineers in Saint Petersburg (1883–1889). For one year, he worked as a state-employed construction engineer in Saint Petersburg, but relocated to Moscow in 1890. At first an assistant to architect Semyon Eybushits, he started independent practice in 1893. At the same time, Kekushev became a master in applied art technologies - iron forging, silver galvanization and chemical frosting of glass. Throughout the 1890s, Kekushev and Illarion Ivanov-Shitz were employed by Moscow-based railway companies and designed dozens of extant railway stations.

Kekushev was the first practitioner of Art Nouveau in Moscow, starting with his apartment buildings in Varsonofyevskay Lane and Bolshaya Dmitrovka, completed 1893. His style (unlike the next generation of Art Nouveau architects like William Walcot and Fyodor Schechtel) is very close to the original Belgian style of Victor Horta. The new wave of architecture was endorsed and financed by prominent business figures like the Khludov and Morozov families and Jacob Reck.

In 1898-1899, Kekushev won the first prize in the open contest for Hotel Metropol; financier Savva Morozov discarded the decision of a professional jury and awarded architectural design to William Walcot. However, the owners retained Kekushev as overall project manager. "None of this (Walcot's earlier) work is on the scale of the Metropole; Kekushev's assistance was probably crucial to the final realization of this complex structure, with its immense dome of glass and iron over an interior court" (Brumfield, chapter 3).