Editor’s note: Alexander Pasternak (1893-1982) was the younger brother of the poet Boris Pasternak. He was three years Boris's junior. Both of their parents were artists—their father, Leonid Pasternak, a distinguished painter of the Russian Impressionist school, and their mother, Rosa Koffmann, a concert pianist. Alexander Pasternak was an architect by profession and a learned writer on architectural subjects, author of (among other works) a treatise on Methods of Investigating the Architectural Composition of Town Centers in Classic and Western Europe before the Eighteenth Century. In the Twenties he designed the Karpov Biochemical Institute and collaborated with Melnikov on preparations for the first Lenin Mausoleum. From 1929 to 1933 he and his wife, who was also an architect, worked with Le Corbusier on the Centrosoyuz Building in Moscow. From 1932 to his retirement in 1956 he served on the faculty of the Architectural Institute in Moscow.

...
 
A new initiative for discerning readers—and our close friends. Join The New Criterion’s Supporters Circle.