Alexandre Kooklin

Architect, engineer, contractor

Born on April 3, 1903, in Sarapoul, Viatsk region. Wife – Antonina Dimitrievna, born in Helsinki. Their three children –  Antonina, Eugenia and Dimitri were born in Shanghai.

Kooklin was educated at the Harbin Polytechnic Institute, specializing in reinforced concrete. His Shanghai career started in 1932 and it was called outstanding. According to his friend's memoir, "he supervised the construction of water reservoirs in Lushan, designed and oversaw the construction of numerous buildings in Shanghai. For years, he was chief consultant for a Chinese commission for the preservation of ancient architecture." (Borodin Chronicles) 

By Kooklin's own description he had private practice in engineering and was building contractor and consultant, having erected "many apartment buildings, factories, schools etc in Shanghai and waterworks system in China." (Arolsen)

He was on the board of the Russian Engineering Society since 1935. He was also member of the technical council in charge of the construction of the Russian Orthodox Cathedral (1936), for which he received a medal of St. Vladimir from the Peking Mission.

A. V. Kooklin's firm was the general contractor for several apartment buildings in central Shanghai, such as Tomashevsky-designed Delastre Tenement, Rabinovich's Doumer Apartments, Davies, Brooke & Gran's Hanray Mansions, LVK's five-story apartment house on Route Mercier, and others. Kooklin was also the architect of several buildings, including Pershing Apartments on Avenue Joffre (1941) and the four-story apartment house on Route Pere Huc (1941). All his buildings are in the modernist style.

The firm A. V. Kooklin & Co. was active in Shanghai as late as 1947. The Kooklin family left China via Hong Kong and tried to emigrate to Australia, but ended up taking Soviet citizenship and going to the USSR. The architect's descendants live in Ukraine.