Constantin Kluge was born in Riga on January 29, 1912 then a large industrial port city in the Russian Empire. Of Russian parents, his father was a graduate of the Polytechnic Institute of Riga and his mother a Professor of Literature. Kluge's father was mobilized in the Czar's army in 1914 and during the subsequent civil war in Russia, the artist's childhood was spent in moving constantly from one end of Russia to the other. When Kluge was eight years old the family emigrated to North China, settling in Shanghai, where Kluge graduated from the French Municipal College. By the time he was seventeen, he was a very active member of the Shanghai Art Club. At this period of his life he also took up the violin and cello, and later in Paris gave music lessons to help him with his expenses. Meanwhile, his parents had decided that pure art was not a dependable career, and so in 1931 Kluge left Shanghai for Paris to study architecture. He spent six years at the Ecole des Beaux-Arts and in 1937 graduated with the title of French Government Architect.