Nina Aleshina facts for kids

Kids Encyclopedia Facts

Quick facts for kids Nina Alexandrovna Aleshina
circa 1980
Born	(1924-07-17)17 July 1924 Moscow, Russian Soviet Federative Socialist Republic, Soviet Union
Died	17 November 2012(2012-11-17) (aged 88) Moscow, Russia
Nationality	Russian
Other names	Nina Alexandrovna Alyoshina, Nina Alyoshina, Nina Aleshina
Occupation	architect
Years active	1950-2012
Known for	Moscow Metro

Nina Aleksandrovna Aleshina (Russian: Нина Александровна Алёшина; July 17, 1924 – November 17, 2012) was a talented Russian architect. She was in charge of the design team for the Moscow Metro for ten years. She helped design or led the creation of nineteen subway stations. Nina Aleshina received many awards for her work, including being named an "Honored Architect" in 1985.

Early Life and Education
Building a Career
Awards and Legacy
Designing Metro Stations
Images for kids
See also

Early Life and Education

Nina Aleksandrovna was born in Moscow, Soviet Union on July 17, 1924. Her grandfather was a priest, and her family included many smart people and musicians.

She finished music school in 1941, the same year Germany invaded Russia. Nina first studied piano. Later, she decided to study architecture at the Moscow Institute of Architecture. She graduated in 1950.

Building a Career

Aleshina started her career working on plans for the Novoslobodskaya station in the Moscow Metro. She focused on how the walls and support pillars looked. Her husband, Nikolai Aleshin, helped by sketching ideas for the station's stained glass windows.

Nina designed the entrance area of the station. This was the first of twenty projects she worked on for the Moscow subway system.

Later, from 1981 to 1991, Nina Aleshina became the chief architect for the entire metro system's design. This was a big job because she still worked on her own station designs too. She visited construction sites every day to make sure architects and builders worked well together. Nina was known for being a perfectionist, meaning she wanted everything to be perfect. Engineers and foremen respected her a lot.

In her later years, Aleshina wrote a book about the history of the Moscow Metro. It included details about each station's design and special features.

Awards and Legacy

Nina Aleshina passed away in Moscow on November 17, 2012. She was buried next to her husband and daughter. Besides many awards for her designs, she was also honored with the Order of the Badge of Honour and the Medal "For Labour Valour". Her work helped make the Moscow Metro famous for its beautiful stations.

Designing Metro Stations

The Moscow Metro project started in 1931. Designers wanted to create underground spaces that felt open and beautiful, not just functional. They aimed for stations that could move trains and people well, but also looked like art.

At first, stations used many natural materials. After 1958, designers started using more concrete, paint, and tiles. Early stations often had entrances inside larger buildings. Later, smaller, separate entrance buildings became common.

Many stations used a "shallow column design," which was nicknamed the "centipede." This design had ribbed ceilings across a main hall with two rows of columns. Nina Aleshina changed the shapes of columns and decorations to make each station unique. It was a challenge to make them all different, especially since the long ribbed ceiling was often the first thing passengers saw.

Stations from the 1950s and 1960s

1962, Leninsky Prospekt station: Nina Aleshina worked with other architects on this station. It had a simple design with a glass entrance building above ground. Inside, the pillars were made of light marble and got wider at the top. The walls had light ceramic tiles in a diamond pattern. The floor was made of gray and brown granite.

1962, Oktyabrskaya station: Also called the "October" station, this was another joint project by Aleshina. It showed the style of Soviet Modernism from the 1960s. The station had a wide roof over the glass entrance. The pillars inside were lined with light marble and had lights hidden above them. The walls along the tracks were tiled in black and white.

1962, Profsoyuznaya station: This "Trade Union" station was designed by Aleshina and Nikolai I. Demchinskii. It was a standard, pre-made structure. The main hall had 40 columns covered in wavy, blue-gray marble. The walls along the tracks were white ceramic tiles set diagonally. The floor was red and gray granite.

1966, Ryazansky Prospekt station: Aleshina and Yury Vdovin designed this station. It had two small entrance buildings. The square columns were covered in blue-gray marble. Around each column was a "mat" of red marble, while the rest of the floor was gray granite. The track walls had white ceramic tiles with red decorations that looked like patterns from the Ryazan region.

1966, Taganskaya station: This station was a joint design by Aleshina, Yury Vdovin, and sculptor Eduard M. Ladygin. The columns were light marble with red borders. The walls had black and white ceramic tiles. Lights were hidden behind the edges of the ceiling. The walls also featured special panels by Ladygin about "The Conquest of Space."

1969, Varshavskaya station: Also known as the "Warsaw" station, Aleshina and Natalya K. Samoilova designed it. They used a type of marble called Gazgan, which naturally changes color from cream to black. This created a colorful look, broken up by rows of columns that were wide at the top and got smaller towards the bottom.

Stations from the 1970s

1972, Oktyabrskoye Pole station: This "October field" station was a team effort by Aleshina and others. The main hall had columns covered in aluminum. The floor was white marble with a gray granite strip. The walls along the track were light gray marble with black marble at the bottom. They also had sculpted metal designs by Džems Bodnieks and Heim M. Rysin, showing Soviet themes.

1975, Kuznetsky Most station: Aleshina worked with Samoilova and artist Mikhail N. Alekseev on this station. It had rows of columns and arches that looked like supports for a bridge. These were made of blue-gray marble. The walls along the tracks had metal designs showing blacksmith work, like sparks and tools. The architects won an award for this design in 1977.

1975, Lubyanka station: This was a redesign of an older station. Aleshina and Strelkov rebuilt it to connect to the new Kuznetsky Most station. The ground around the station was like quicksand, so engineers had to freeze it to build. The old gray marble was replaced with white tiles. The pillars were white marble, and the floor was black and red granite.

1975, Shchukinskaya station: Aleshina, Samoilova, and Alekseev designed this station. It had columns made of yellowish marble with shiny aluminum and bronze strips. The floor had a gray granite pattern. The walls were covered in red marble and wavy aluminum panels. This was one of the first times this special aluminum material was used on such a large scale.

1978, Medvedkovo station: This station was another collaboration by Aleshina and Natalya K. Samoilova, with art by M. N. Alekseev. It had rows of 26 columns covered in yellow and pink marble with steel inserts. The track walls were red marble with metal panels shaped like pyramids, representing ice. The station's theme was "northern nature," with designs showing geese, polar bears, and reindeer.

1979, Marksistskaya station: Also called the "Marxist" station, this was a joint project with Volovich, Samoilova, and artist Alekseev. Nina Aleshina loved this station and called it the "most beautiful subway in the world." The station's design aimed to show the strength of Marxist ideas. The hall had red marble columns and pink marble walls with a black granite base. Alekseev created beautiful mosaic panels with Marxist themes.

1979, Perovo station: Aleshina and Volovich, with Samoilova and Tkachev, designed this station. It had a slightly curved ceiling and focused on arts and crafts. The walls had white marble mixed with carved stone designs of flowers and mythical creatures like a phoenix and a winged horse. The floors were black and brown granite. The lighting was in a zig-zag pattern on the ceiling. This design won an award in 1980.

Stations from the 1980s and 1990s

1983, Serpukhovskaya station: Aleshina worked with Leonid N. Pavlov and Lydia Y. Gonchar on this station. The columns were warm-toned marble with metal parts. It was the first metro station to use fiber optic lighting on a message board. The walls were white marble. The station was decorated with themes of old cities near Moscow.

1983, Chertanovskaya station: This was a solo project by Aleshina. It was made of pre-made concrete, and Aleshina personally checked the concrete work. The 26 star-shaped columns were connected by arches. Crystal chandeliers shaped like pyramids provided light. Both columns and track walls were white marble. The walls had metal designs by Alekseev and Novikova, who also made mosaics about "Constructing a new Moscow."

1985, Domodedovskaya station: Aleshina and Samoilova, with artist Mikhail Alekseev, designed this station. Its theme was aviation. Columns and walls were white and gray marble with copper designs of aircraft. The floor had a pattern of gray and black granite. The lighting looked like the lights inside an airplane cabin.

1988, Mendeleyevskaya station: Aleshina and Samoilova designed this station with columns connected by arches, in a traditional Russian style. The columns were white marble, and the track walls were gray marble with reddish lines. The station's theme was about the scientist Dmitri Mendeleev. One end of the hall had his portrait and the periodic table. The walls had decorations of atoms and molecules.

1990, Podbelskogo Street station: Aleshina, Samoilova, and Alekseev worked together again on this station. It was named after a statesman, Vadim Podbelsky, and had a sculpture of him. The station had two rows of 26 white marble columns. The walls had striped metal panels, and the floor was gray granite with red and black details. In 2014, the station was renamed Bulvar Rokossovskogo station.

1995, Chkalovskaya station: Aleshina, Leonid L. Borzenkov, and Aleksandr L. Vigdorov designed this station. It was dedicated to the pilot Valery Chkalov and had an aviation theme. The entrance had metal designs like aircraft. The ceiling arches and columns looked like airplane wings and bodies. The columns were blue-gray marble, like the sky. The walls had ceramic panels showing clouds around the globe.