Fyodor Ivanovich Lidval (,

Swedish Swedish or ' may refer to: Anything from or related to Sweden, a country in Northern Europe. Or, specifically: * Swedish language, a North Germanic language spoken primarily in Sweden and Finland ** Swedish alphabet, the official alphabet used by ...

: Johan Fredrik Lidvall) (June 1 (June 13) 1870,

St. Petersburg Saint Petersburg, formerly known as Petrograd and later Leningrad, is the second-largest city in Russia after Moscow. It is situated on the River Neva, at the head of the Gulf of Finland on the Baltic Sea. The city had a population of 5,601, ...

– 1945,

Stockholm Stockholm (; ) is the Capital city, capital and List of urban areas in Sweden by population, most populous city of Sweden, as well as the List of urban areas in the Nordic countries, largest urban area in the Nordic countries. Approximately ...

) was a Russian-Swedish architect.

Life

Lidvall was born in

into a family of Swedes. In 1882 he attended elementary school at the Swedish Church of St. Catherine, and then the second Petersburg Technical High School in 1888. For two years he worked in Baron Stieglitz's School of Technical Drawing. From 1890 to 1896 Lidvall was a student in the architectural department of the St. Petersburg Academy of Arts, studying (1894–1896) in the workshop of the eminent architect

Leon Benois Leon or Leonty Nikolayevich Benois (; – 8 February 1928) was a Russian architect from the Benois family. Biography He was the son of architect Nicholas Benois, the brother of artists Alexandre Benois and Albert Benois. He built the Roman ...

. He graduated from the Academy of Fine Arts in 1896 with the title "Artist-Architect". From 1909 he was a member of the Academy of Architecture, an arm of the

Imperial Academy of Arts The Imperial Academy of Arts, informally known as the Saint Petersburg Academy of Arts, was an art academy in Saint Petersburg, founded in 1757 by Ivan Shuvalov, the founder of the Imperial Moscow University, under the name ''Academy of th ...

. In 1917, ruined by the

revolution In political science, a revolution (, 'a turn around') is a rapid, fundamental transformation of a society's class, state, ethnic or religious structures. According to sociologist Jack Goldstone, all revolutions contain "a common set of elements ...

, he was forced to emigrate to his family in

, ending the most fruitful period of his work which is connected with St. Petersburg, although he designed several buildings in Stockholm . In Stockholm, Lidvall worked as an architect. He mainly constructed apartment buildings, but also the head office for Shell in Stockholm. He died in 1945 and is buried in Stockholm in Djursholm Cemetery.

Works

Lidvall began to play a significant role in the architecture of St. Petersburg in the first decade of the Twentieth Century. At the beginning of his career, he was a typical follower of the prevailing

Modernist Modernism was an early 20th-century movement in literature, visual arts, and music that emphasized experimentation, abstraction, and Subjectivity and objectivity (philosophy), subjective experience. Philosophy, politics, architecture, and soc ...

style. One of his early works was an apartment building of the type called in Russia a "finance house", on Kamennoostrov Prospect in St Petersburg, begun in 1899 and completed in 1904. The structure was also known as the "Lidval House" as he received the commission from his mother, Ida Amalia Lidval. This building, with its

Gothic Gothic or Gothics may refer to: People and languages *Goths or Gothic people, a Germanic people **Gothic language, an extinct East Germanic language spoken by the Goths **Gothic alphabet, an alphabet used to write the Gothic language ** Gothic ( ...

windows, abundance of decorative elements, and different colors and textures, is often cited as a model of its style. Lidvall himself lived in this house until his exile in 1918. He designed the Azov-Don Commercial Bank Building in St. Petersburg (1907–1813), already showing his characteristic restraint and use of classical elements (the center of the building includes a portico with columns). Lidvall also built structures for the Azov-Don Commercial Bank in

Moscow Moscow is the Capital city, capital and List of cities and towns in Russia by population, largest city of Russia, standing on the Moskva (river), Moskva River in Central Russia. It has a population estimated at over 13 million residents with ...

Astrakhan Astrakhan (, ) is the largest city and administrative centre of Astrakhan Oblast in southern Russia. The city lies on two banks of the Volga, in the upper part of the Volga Delta, on eleven islands of the Caspian Depression, from the Caspian Se ...

Kiev Kyiv, also Kiev, is the capital and most populous List of cities in Ukraine, city of Ukraine. Located in the north-central part of the country, it straddles both sides of the Dnieper, Dnieper River. As of 1 January 2022, its population was 2, ...

, and

Kharkiv Kharkiv, also known as Kharkov, is the second-largest List of cities in Ukraine, city in Ukraine.

. The second decade of the Twentieth Century began Lidval's creative heyday. During these years he designed a house for

Alfred Nobel Alfred Bernhard Nobel ( ; ; 21 October 1833 – 10 December 1896) was a Swedish chemist, inventor, engineer, and businessman. He is known for inventing dynamite, as well as having bequeathed his fortune to establish the Nobel Prizes. He also m ...

, the

Tolstoy House The Tolstoy House is a well-known apartment building in St. Petersburg, located at 15-17 Rubinstein street (Saint Petersburg), Rubinstein Street and 54 Fontanka, Fontanka Embankment. The building was constructed in 1910–1912 under the aegis of ...

on Trinity Street (now St. Rubenstein Street) with another facade overlooking the

Fontanka Embankment The Fontanka Embankment () is a street in Saint Petersburg that follows the course of the Fontanka from its origin as it diverges from the Neva River up to its confluence with the Great Neva River, Great Neva. In 1762–1769 the general plan of c ...

, and many other buildings. Included among these was the six-storey Hotel Astoria, which opened in 1912 and was one of the most luxurious hotels in the Russian Empire.William C Brumfield. ''Landmarks of Russian Architecture''. Routledge (UK), 1997. . pp. 217–218. He designed (with his mentor Leon Benois) the Art Nouveau redesign of the

Grand Hotel Europe The Grand Hotel Europe () is a historic Hotel rating, five-star luxury hotel on Nevsky Prospect in Saint Petersburg, Russia. History The Grand Hotel d'Europe was built from 1873 to 1875, to designs by Swiss/Russian architect Ludwig Fontana. I ...

, which had been opened in 1875. Both the Hotel Astoria and Grand Hotel Europe are open to this day as five-star hotels. File:Lidval House antrance2.jpg, Entrance to Lidval House File:Hotel Astoria.jpg, Lidval's Astoria Hotel File:Lesnoy Nobel dohodny dom.jpg, Lidval's house for Alfred Nobel on Lesnoy Prospect File:Lesnoy Prospect, 21 Nobel's residence detail3.jpg, Entrance to Alfred Nobel house File:Sankt-Petěrburg 046.jpg, Lidval's Azov-Don Commercial Bank Building File:TolstovskyDom.jpg, Lidval's Tolstoy House File:Tolst7.JPG, Arches at Tolstoy House File:Tolst3.JPG, Another view of arches at Tolstoy House File:Tolst det.JPG, Tolstoy House detail File:Shellhuset, Stockholm.jpg, Shell House in Stockholm

References

*''

Great Soviet Encyclopedia The ''Great Soviet Encyclopedia'' (GSE; , ''BSE'') is one of the largest Russian-language encyclopedias, published in the Soviet Union from 1926 to 1990. After 2002, the encyclopedia's data was partially included into the later ''Great Russian Enc ...

'' (Большая советская энциклопедия) *''Fyodor Lidval'' (Федор Лидваль), Valery Isachenko. 1987, Lenizdat *''Architects of St. Petersburgh, Nineteenth and Early Twentieth Centuries'' (Зодчие Санкт-Петербурга. XIX — начало XX века), Valery Isachenko, Yuri Artemiev, S. Prohvatilova, editors. 1998, Lenizdat. *''Architectural monuments of Leningrad'' (Памятники архитектуры Ленинграда), 1975, Stroiizdat
List of Lidval's structures

Lidval entry at St. Petersburg Encyclopedia

Lidval entry at Pro Peter, the virtual encyclopedia of St. Petersburg

Brief biography, list of works, and list of reference works at stateyki.org.ua

Description of Lidval's Tolstoy House at stateyki.org.ua
{{DEFAULTSORT:Lidval, Fyodor Architects from Saint Petersburg People from the Russian Empire of Swedish descent 1870 births 1945 deaths Emigrants from the Russian Empire to Sweden Art Nouveau architects