Rudnev was born to the family of a school teacher in
Novgorod. He graduated from the
Riga Realschule (now the
Riga 1st State Grammar School) and entered the
Imperial Academy of Arts in
Saint Petersburg (1906). At the Academy he studied painting under
Leon Benois and architecture under
Ivan Fomin. From 1911 Rudnev was a success in various architectural competitions, and in 1915 he became a certified specialist in the art of architecture. After the
February Revolution Rudnev won the competition for the
Monument to the Fighters of the Revolution on the
Field of Mars in Petrograd (March 1917). The
avant-garde monument there was built according to his design. After the end of the
Second World War, Lev Rudnev took active part in reconstructing the ruined cities of
Voronezh,
Stalingrad,
Riga and
Moscow. In 1922–1948 Rudnev was a professor at the Academy of Arts (former Imperial Academy of Arts) in Leningrad; in 1948–1952 he was a professor at the
Moscow Architectural Institute. Rudnev was also a member of Academy of Architecture of the USSR. Rudnev's most remarkable architectural work is the ensemble of the
Lomonosov Moscow State University on
Sparrow Hills, then known as Lenin Hills (1948–1953, co-designed with S. Chernyshyov, P. Abrosimov, A. Khryakov, and engineer V. Nasonov). His
Palace of Culture and Science in
Warsaw, Poland (1952–1955) resembles the markedly sculptural style of the
MSU ensemble. ==Projects==