Yakov Chernikhov
Russian, 1889-1951
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Yakov Georgievich Chernikhov was a Russian architect and graphic designer known for working in the constructivist style. As an architect, painter, graphic artist, and architectural theorist, his greatest contribution was in the genre of architectural fantasy — the Soviet version of Claude Nicolas Ledoux, Giovanni Battista Piranesi, and Antonio Sant'Elia all at once. His books on architectural design published in Leningrad between 1927 and 1933 are sometimes regarded amongst the most innovative texts (and illustrations) of their time.
Chernikhov was born December 17, 1889, in Pavlograd, Katerynoslav province in a poor Jewish family, one of 11 children (five girls and six boys). His father, Georgy Pavlovich Chernikhov, owned restaurants on ships of the Volunteer Fleet; later, having become bankrupt, family moved to Odessa. A few years later family moved back to Pavlograd. After studying at the Grekov Odessa Art school, Ukraine, where his teachers were Gennady Ladyzhensky and Kiriyak Kostandi, leading artists of the South Russian school, he moved in 1914 to Petrograd (St. Petersburg) and joined the Architecture faculty of the Imperial Academy of Arts in 1916, where he later studied under Leon Benois.