The Lubyanka Building in Moscow was designed by Alexander V. Ivanov for the All-Russia Insurance Company, which built it as a revenue house. The infobox gives 1898 as completion, and the text says it was built then from a design dated 1897. Aleksey Shchusev enlarged it from 1940 to 1947, though the text says both that his design doubled the building and that only the right facade was built under his direction.
The article describes Neo-Baroque with Palladian and Baroque details. The facade is yellow brick over granite lower floors. It gives no dimensions.
The Cheka took it over in 1918. The Dzerzhinsky statue came down in 1991, the year the KGB was dissolved, and Pavlensky set the door on fire in 2015. It is the FSB headquarters, also housing the Border Guard Service, a prison and a historical museum. Prison museum visits need special authorization. The article gives no hours.
Comments