Karo Alabyan (1897-1959) was a Soviet architect, academician, and executive editor of the Architecture of the USSR magazine.
Karo Alabyan was born in Azerbaijan in 1897. In 1923, he entered the architectural department of the VKHUTEMAS (Higher State Artistic and Technical Workshops) in Moscow. In 1929, he graduated from the Moscow Higher Art and Technical Institute, and in the same year, he was among the founders of the All-Russian Society of Proletarian Architects. From 1929 to 1931, he headed the First State Design Institute in Soviet Armenia. In 1932, after the foundation of the Union of Soviet Architects, Alabyan became its executive secretary (until 1950).
In 1936-1937, Alabyan (in cooperation with architect S. Safaryan) began to work on the project of the exhibition hall of the Armenian SSR of the All-Union Agricultural Exhibition. While working on the exhibition hall project, the master was also involved in other projects, such as: the Izvestia printing center building in Moscow, the Soviet exhibition hall at the International Exhibition and, finally, took part in the final design of the Soviet exhibition hall at the International Exhibition in New York.
In 1939, Karo Alabyan went into the first group of full members of the Academy of Architecture of the USSR and was elected its first Vice-President. In 1945-1946, he designed the building of the Academy of Sciences of the Armenian SSR. Since 1949, Karo Alabyan headed one of the Moscow architectural workshops (No 2, of the Mosproject-1 Institute), which within ten years, became a large design organization.
During the Great Patriotic War, he directed the activities of the Union of Architects and the Academy of Architecture, headed a special workshop of the Academy, which developed plans for camouflaging the most important industrial and defensive facilities. Since 1942, he was a member of the Commission for Registering and Protection of Monuments of Art, the Chairman of the Reconstruction Commission of the Union of Soviet Architects of the USSR. In 1943-1945, he was in charge of the development of the Master Plan of Stalingrad reconstruction. In 1949-1953, Alabyan was the Vice-President of the Academy of Architecture of the USSR.
Karo Alabyan designed the development of the governmental center in the city of Frunze (1951), created a competitive building project of the Borodino Panorama (1951) in Moscow, built the Harbor Station in Sochi (1949-1953), carried out the construction of the railway station in Voronezh (1950-1953), and a number of residential settlements on Leningrad Avenue in Moscow (1955-1958).
The postcard with a commemorative stamp provides a portrait of Karo Alabyan and his sketch of the exhibition hall of the Armenian SSR (1939).
In addition to the issue of the postage stamp, JSC Marka produced a special cancel for Moscow.
Design Artist: O. Savina.
Quantity: 4,5 thousand cards.
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