Vladimir Alexandrovich Somov

Vladimir Alexandrovich Somov was born in Kherson in a large family. His mother worked in a public canteen. In her free time, she engaged in applied arts and instilled in Vladimir a love for drawing.
In 1947, after finishing school, Somov moved to Moscow. He entered the Moscow Institute of Railway Engineers (MIIT), majoring in construction, but the following year decided to apply to the Moscow Architectural Institute (MARCHI) and graduated in 1951.
In his first year, he participated in a competition for the Armenian hydroelectric station. The project won and the station was built 70 kilometers from Yerevan. His graduation project was a theater on Pushkin Square.
During his studies, he interned in Moscow workshops with Alexey Shchusev, Ivan Zholtovsky, and Lev Rudnev.
After graduation, he worked for three years in Astrakhan where he interned with architect Pavel Krat. P. Krat, an emigrant architect from Yugoslavia, introduced Somov to new European modern architecture.
From 1954 to 1992, he worked at the "Giproteatr" Design Institute of the Ministry of Culture of the RSFSR.
He designed dramatic theatres in Novgorod and Blagoveshchensk, as well as other public and cultural buildings.
From 1964 to 1974, he was a participant in the studio school of artist E. Belyutin.
He participated in eight international competitions for public and cultural buildings.
Since 1961, he was a member of the Union of Architects of the RSFSR. Since 1994, he was a member of the Exhibition Committee of the International Federation of Artists.
Somov's artworks are held in private collections in Russia, the USA, France, Poland, and others.
In 2016, Somov was featured in Andrey Rozen's documentary film "The Novgorod Spaceship", which tells the story of the Theatre building in Veliky Novgorod.

1984–1985 – Exhibitions at the Central House of Architects, Moscow;
1990 – Exhibition "New Reality" at the Central Exhibition Hall "Manege", Moscow;
1990 – Solo exhibition at the Central House of Architects, Moscow;
1994–1995 – Exhibition at the gallery on Malaya Gruzinskaya, 28, Moscow;
1994 – Exhibition at the gallery on Gogolevsky Boulevard, 10 (in honor of the 20th anniversary of the "Bulldozer Exhibition"), Moscow;
1995 – Exhibition at the gallery on Gogolevsky Boulevard, 10 (in honor of the 20th anniversary of the exhibition in the "Beekeeping" pavilion at VDNH), Moscow;
1996 – Exhibition with the group "Golden Brush" at the Central House of Artists, Moscow;
1996 – Exhibition with the group "Creative Fund of Russia" at the Central House of Artists, Moscow;
2017 – Exhibition "World — Theater. Architecture and Scenography in Russia" at the State Museum of Architecture named after A. V. Shchusev, Moscow.

N. Moleva (article), "Nashe"