Nikolai Severov

• Name — Nikolai Severov • Native Name — Никола́й Па́влович Се́веров • Birth Name — Nikolai Pavlovich Severov • Born — 2 March 1887 • Birthplace — Tiflis, Tiflis Governorate, Russian Empire • Died — 21 February 1957 • Place of death — Kyiv, Ukrainian SSR, Soviet Union • Education — Institute of Civil Engineers, Saint Petersburg • Awards — Order of the Red Banner of Labour

Severov was born on 2 March 1887 in Tiflis (now Tbilisi), in the Tiflis Governorate of the Russian Empire. He attended secondary school in Vladikavkaz. In 1904, Severov moved to Saint Petersburg, where he studied watercolour at the Saint Petersburg Stieglitz State Academy of Art and Design. In 1905, he passed the entrance examination for the Institute of Civil Engineers, where he studied architecture. His first independent project was the railway station in Feodosiya. Following the outbreak of World War I, Severov completed his studies in 1915 and was subsequently conscripted into the army.

After the Russian Revolution, Severov returned to Tiflis in 1918. He worked within the Committee of State Constructions from 1921 to 1932 and later served as Chief Architect of Gruzkurortstroy, the Georgian resort construction authority from 1932 to 1942. From 1922 to 1948, he taught at the Tbilisi State Academy of Arts, becoming a full professor and serving as dean of the architecture faculty from 1945 to 1948. In 1935, Severov was appointed Chairman of the Union of Architects of the Georgian SSR, a post he held until 1948. In 1939, he was elected an Honorary Member of the Academy of Architecture of the USSR. During World War II, in 1942, he became Director of the Institute of the History of Georgian Art at the Georgian Academy of Sciences. Severov joined the Communist Party of the Soviet Union in 1954.

• Year — Building — Location — Notes • 1927–1929 — Reconstruction of the Simon Janashia Museum of Georgia — Tbilisi • 1929–1930 — Building of the Central Committee of the Communist Party of Georgia — Tbilisi • 1930 — Building at 4 9 April Street — Tbilisi — Described as one of the earliest modernist buildings in Tbilisi • 1933 — Sanatorium of the VTsSPS — Likani — With D.I. Fomin • 1933–1935 — Rest House of the Council of People's Commissars of the Georgian SSR — Gagra • 1935 — Cheluskintsy Bridge — Tbilisi — With K. Zavriev and N. Slovinsky • 1935–1939 — Rustaveli Cinema — Tbilisi — 1,200-seat cinema on Rustaveli Avenue; Stalinist architecture; cultural heritage monument since 1988

In 1948, Severov relocated to Kyiv, Ukrainian SSR, where he was elected a Full Member of the Academy of Architecture of the Ukrainian SSR (1948–1955). He died in Kyiv on 21 February 1957.

Nikolai Severov is recorded as having received Order of the Red Banner of Labour.