Mikhail Eisenstein

Born in St. Petersburg into a family of German Jewish immigrants to the Russian Empire, Mikhail Eisenstein (Mihails Eizenštein) graduated from the St. Petersburg Civil Engineering Institute in 1893 and worked at the Riga city planning department. He opened a private architecture practice in 1897, converting to Russian Orthodox Christianity in that same year and becoming a devoted Christian. He began experimenting with art nouveau; his unique Jugendstil style, which has survived on Riga’s Alberta, Strēlnieku, and Elizabetes (Elizabeth) Streets, is characterized by elongated female forms, brightly glazed earthenware siding, and curvilinear motifs. During the Russian Civil War, Eisenstein joined the “White” forces opposing the Bolshevik regime and the Revolution; he soon left for Berlin, where he died in 1920. He was the father of the famed Soviet film director Sergei Eisenstein (1898–1948).