Before World War I, he trained in the workshops of Igor Grabar and Alexey Shchusev, and collaborated with Marian Peretyatkovich and Ivan Rerberg on Northern Insurance Buildings (Moscow).

In 1918, Golosov joined Moscow state architectural office led by neoclassicist Ivan Zholtovsky, and stayed with him throughout the Civil war, at the same time teaching at the MVTU and VKhUTEMAS.

He understood that constructivist theories contradict his own architectonic concepts of early 20s... Golosov accepted constructivism as an exterior decoration trend, not as a wholesome functional style".

Yet, for a brief period in 1925-1928, fellow architects perceived him as the leader of constructivism, due to his highly publicized completed designs like the 1927-1929 Zuev Workers' Club (see also: interior photograph) and a brilliant streak of contest entries in 1926.

Golosov and his followers deliberately replaced the proven historical details (columns, capitals, friezes and cornices) with their own inventions - to differentiate themselves from pure Revivalists like Zholtovsky.

In 1938, he designed and managed construction of a typical Stalinist apartment block in Nizhny Novgorod (Oktyabrskaya Street), which earned an honorable posthumous mention in "XXX years of Soviet architecture" edition in 1949.