Aleksandr Vasilyevich Vlasov (Russian: Александр Васильевич Власов; 19 October 1900, Bolshaya Kosha, Selizharovsky District - 25 September 1962, Moscow) was a Soviet architect.

During a business trip abroad in 1935–1936, he often referred to examples from the ancient and medieval history of Europe, and sometimes used phrases from the French language in the text.

[1] Course projects from 1923, completed under the guidance of architect Ilya Golosov, have been preserved: "Passage Hotel with a Restaurant on the Roof" and "Central Station on the City Square".

In 1924, the Faculty of Architecture of MIGI became an administrative unit of the Moscow Higher Technical School, and Aleksandr Vlasov continued his studies at the new university.

[1] In 1929, together with Karo Alabyan, Vladimir Babenkov and Viktor Baburov, he created VOPRA - the All-Russian Association of Proletarian Architects.

[3] According to the “VOPRA Declaration”, the creation of proletarian architecture is possible if the method of Marxist analysis is used when analyzing the art of past generations.

For the first time, he received approval for the construction of a large architectural ensemble in Moscow, and in 1936, according to his design, the first buildings were created - the dormitories of the future institute.

[5] In 1931, the authorities of the city of Ivanovo announced a competition for the creation of a regional theater - a grandiose structure even by the standards of the capital.

The jury named the best project by Aleksandr Vlasov, who proposed the construction of a multi-level building stylistically close to the Mausoleum.

[10] Since the capital of the Ukrainian SSR was almost completely destroyed during the Great Patriotic War, architects had the opportunity to rebuild Khreshchatyk.

Nevertheless, the development plan for Khreshchatyk was discussed for a long time, and the construction of the first buildings began only in 1949, shortly before Aleksandr Vlasov left for Moscow.

The architects had to not only design individual buildings, but also solve many infrastructural issues: think through the street grid, transport routes, and the location of public organizations.

[14] In the same year, a new plan for the construction of Moscow until 1960 was approved, according to which large-scale development of territories outside the current Third Ring Road was envisaged.

[15] Already in 1952, under the leadership of Aleksandr Vlasov, for the first time in the history of the USSR, a project for the largest single urban complex was implemented: an area in the southwest of the capital, the main thoroughfare of which was Leninsky Prospekt.

This is the last major project implemented according to the design of Aleksandr Vlasov with the participation of architects Nikolai Ullas and Igor Rozhin.

On November 30, 1954, at the "All-Union Meeting of Builders..." that opened in Moscow, Nikita Khrushchev criticized Soviet architecture in recent years.

Industry leaders, including Aleksandr Vlasov, were ready for such a statement, so for their part they pointed out the shortcomings of landmark projects of the post-war period.

The Leningradskaya Hotel, built according to the design of architects Leonid Polyakov and Aleksandr Boretsky, was recognized as an anti-record.

Aleksandr Vlasov laid the blame not on the political leadership of the country, not even on Joseph Stalin personally, but on the architects who made mistakes "in understanding the method of socialist realism".

[20] After this, the so-called "perestroika" period began, when Soviet architects had to develop new methods, both in the construction of individual structures and in the design of standard residential buildings.

[22] On November 4 of the same year, in the Resolution of the Central Committee of the CPSU and the Council of Ministers of the USSR, the former chief architect of Moscow, along with other masters of the Stalin era, was found guilty of a passion for external decoration, which led to irrational spending of budget funds.

[26] And although a commission of public referents, created in 1958, headed by Yuri Yaralov, recognized his idea as the best of those proposed, according to critics, not a single concept fully corresponded to the image of the Palace of Soviets.