Ilarion Tomashevsky

Born on April 9, 1909, in Vladivostok, Russia; died in 1970 in Krasnoyarsk, USSR.

Ilarion Tomashevsky was one of two sons of the Shanghai architect P. A. Tomashevsky, who killed himself in 1929. At that time 20-year-old Ilarion was already working as an architect at the largest local firm Palmer & Turner. He stayed with the firm until at least 1941.

In 1935, together with other Russian artists and poets, Tomashevsky started funding and publishing the literary magazine Phoenix, which lasted for 7 months.

Tomashevsky was a passionate promoter of "midget apartments" – small apartment houses – and he created at least five of them in the French Concession around the years 1939–1942; he also built his own residence on Route Magniny. At least one of his buildings – Delastre Apartments – was a collaboration with V. N. Dronnikoff. The general contractors for most Tomashevsky's buildings was the firm of A. V. Kooklin.

Tomashevsky lived in Shanghai until at least 1948, and then repatriated to the USSR and settled in Krasnoyarsk, East Siberia. He continued working as an architect, joining the Soviet Architects' Union in 1953. He created a number of industrial and transport-related buildings in the towns around the region (Abakan, Krasnoyarsk, Chernogorsk and Cheliabinsk).