Moscow University of Design named after Sergei Stroganov is the oldest school of industrial and applied art in Russia. Founded in 1825 by the count Sergei Stroganov as the School of Drawing in Application to Arts and Crafts in Moscow, it became at the end of 19-th century the leading school with the college and the high school level training textile, interior and furniture design, jewellers, graphic designers. Here a number of outstanding Russian artists, architects and art-critics were studing and teaching: Mikhail Vrubel, Konstantin Korovin, Alexei Shussev, Ignaty Nivinsky, Ivan Fomin.

In 1918 the Stroganov School was transferred into the Free State Artistic Workshops and in 1920 - into VKHUTEMAS-VKHUTEIN, the innovative design-school, famous for its professors. Vassily Kandynsky and Kasimir Malevich, Vladimir Tatlin and Alexander Rodchenko, El Lissitsky and Alexander Vesnin, Vladimir Favorsky and Nikolai Ladovsky taught here. After 1930 Architectural, textile and typographic faculties became independent institutes, others became the basis for the Moscow Institute of Applied and Decorative Arts. In 1945 the Stroganov School was revived to prepare artists for industries and architectural decoration.

In 1996 the Moscow School of Industrial and Applied Art (former Stroganov) received the status of the University.

At the present moment the Moscow University of Design is a multiprofile institute. At the three faculties and 11 chairs specialists on five main specialities and 12 specialisations are trained. Graduates work for the formation of the man-made environment. There are such special facilities as the library, the museum and computer classes. Research programs differ on each faculty - from History and Theory of Decorative Art to History and Theory of Industrial Design and Graphic Design.