This station is named in honour of the Soviet poet Vladimir Mayakovsky. It was opened in 1938. The architectural style of the station is Stalinist neo-classical but the presence of avant-garde details also give it an art-deco feel. The columns and arches which run along both platforms are covered in grooved stainless steel and if you throw a coin up on one side of the arch it will spin around and land on the floor at the base of the other side of the arch.

On the ceiling of the station are several niches containing beautiful mosaics made out of smalt. These mosaics are the work of Aleksandr Deyneka and are entitled '24 hours of Soviet Sky'. They were put together in the workshop of Vladimir Frolov in Leningrad. In total there are 35 mosaics. The plan of the station was awarded the grand prize at the International Exhibition in New York in 1939. On 6 November 1941, when Moscow was at risk of falling to the Nazis, the conference of the Moscow Soviet of Worker Deputies, dedicated to the 24th anniversary of the October Revolution, was held at the station and Iosif Stalin made a speech here. Throughout the war years the station was used as a bomb shelter.