Selim A. Lindqvist
Selim Arvid Lindqvist (19 May 1867, Helsinki – 17 May 1939, Helsinki) was an architect from Finland. He worked mainly in the Art Nouveau style and mainly in Helsinki. He has been described as one of the foremost Finnish architects from the time around 1900. Life Lindqvist came from a lower-middle-class family; his father was a Feldwebel in the military and his mother ran a bakery. He studied architecture at the Polytechnical Institute (today Helsinki University of Technology) under Gustaf Nyström and Frans Anatolius Sjöström between 1884 and 1888. During his time studying, he started to work with the architect Constantin Kiseleff. Lindqvist's breakthrough as an architect came in 1890, when a large department store in central Helsinki was built to his designs (Merkurius department store). Around this time he formed a partnership with architect Elia Heikel, who had taken over Kiseleff's firm. He was also tied to the architect firm Grahn, Hedman & Wasastjerna for some time. He also worked closely with Friedrich Lüsch, who had immigrated to Finland from Germany. In the 1890s, when building activity in Helsinki dropped due to an economic downturn, Lindqvist journeyed to Italy, Austria, Hungary and Germany, lived for a year in Nizhny