Lev Nikolaevich Kekushev was a Russian architect and educator, one of the first and most significant masters of the Art Nouveau style in Moscow. He specialized in the early Franco-Belgian variant of Art Nouveau and was distinguished by his professional handwriting and high quality of interior design. His works were often adorned with a signature in the form of a statue or a relief of a lion in the arch of the vault.

Kekushev was born on February 7 (19), 1862, possibly in Vilno or Saratov, into the family of nobleman Nikolai Grigorievich Kekushev and Konstantia Voievodskaya, a Catholic and daughter of a landowner from the Voievodski family. In 1861, his father retired with the rank of major and in 1863 began civil service in the engineering corps in Vilno. Due to his service, his father frequently moved the family: to Saint Petersburg (1863), Pskov (1864), Novgorod (1865), until they settled in Vilno at the end of the 1860s.

After graduating from the Vilno Real School in 1883, Lev entered the Institute of Civil Engineers in Saint Petersburg. He studied with Viktor Velichkin, Illarion Ivanov-Shits, and Nikolai Markov, who also became notable architects, while most graduates pursued engineering work. Even during his student years, Kekushev showed talent for painting, and his works were characterized by an "elegantly artistic appearance." In February 1888, even before graduating from the institute, he began working at the Technical and Construction Committee of the Ministry of Internal Affairs, but resigned in November of the same year. From February to December 1889, he was an assistant to V. G. Voievodsky in the construction of the city central slaughterhouse on Zabalakansky Avenue. Biographer Maria Nashokina suggests that Voievodsky was a close relative of Kekushev on his mother's side, possibly his uncle. In June 1890, Kekushev moved to Moscow.