Nikolai Kolli | |
|---|---|
 Kolli in 1935 | |
| Born | Nikolai Dzhemsovich Kolli 17 August [O.S. 5 August] 1894 |
| Died | 3 December 1966 (aged 72) Moscow, Soviet Union |
| Occupation | Architect |
Nikolai Dzhemsovich (Yakovlevich) Kolli (Russian: Николай Джемсович (Яковлевич) Колли; 17 August [O.S. 5 August] 1894 – 3 December 1966) was a Soviet and Russian Modernist—Constructivist architect, architectural functionary, and city planner in the Soviet Union.[1]
Kolli was born in Moscow, and studied at the Imperial Moscow School of Painting, Sculpture and Architecture, and then at the Leninist VKhUTEMAS in Moscow.[1]
He first came to attention with a 1918 proposal for a monument celebrating the victory of the Red Army over Tzarist General Krasnov, in the form of a red wedge cleaving a block of white stone. It became an image that artist El Lissitzky subsequently appropriated in "Beat the Whites with the Red Wedge."
Nikolai Kolli is buried in the Vvedenskoye Cemetery.[2]
Nikolai Kolli studied under Ivan Zholtovsky as one of his "Twelve Disciples." In the late 1920s became a member of both the Soviet OSA Group (Union of Contemporary Architects), and a delegate to the international CIAM (Congrès International d'Architecture Moderne) architectural group.
From 1928 to 1932 he lived part-time in Paris, assisting Le Corbusier in that architect's only built work in Moscow, the Tsentrosoyuz building (Central Cooperative Alliance offices).[3][1]
Kolli taught at the N. E. Bauman Moscow Higher Technical School from 1920 to 1941, and at the Moscow Institute of Architecture from 1931 to 1941.[1]
From 1935 to 1951 he headed the Moscow branch of the Soviet Union of Architects.
The works of Nikolai Kolli include:
