10 Treasures of Polish-Ukrainian Architectural Heritage
The fates of Ukraine and Poland have intersected many times over the centuries. Reminders of that fact include not only the friendship and partnership between the two countries, but also an architectural heritage, a material trace of their shared history.
Poland and Ukraine are connected not only by their adjacent location, but above all by a thousand years of shared history. Throughout that time, the fates of the two lands and nations often intertwined. It is the experience of many European countries shaken by dramatic events over the centuries that different historical landmarks – due to shifting national frontiers – have passed between various ‘caretakers’. In times of peace, they are shared history, but, in times of war, they become objects of special protection – though they might seem of minimal importance at such times, from the long-term perspective of generations, the protection and ongoing care these places is vital. Landmarks are not only tourist attractions, but tools for teaching about the past, a record of history that future generations should know.
The Castle in Pidhirtsi
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Zamek Koniecpolskich w Podhorcach,1918 - 1939, fot. Narodowe Archiwum Cyfrowe (NAC)/https://audiovis.nac.gov.pl
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One of the most elegant residences of the Polish aristocracy on the eastern lands of the old Polish Republic, this castle was built in the first half of the 17th century by Hetman Stanisław Koniecpolski for his own use. Its spectacular structure was reflected a popular form for that time known as palazzo in fortezza, which combined the features of a defensive fortress and those of a luxurious palace. The design of this substantial building was the work of the Venetian architect Andrea dell’Aqua, who had earlier worked on modernising the fortifications in Zamość among other projects.
Set on a lofty concrete base, this enormous fortress-palace is impressive not only for its scale and the extensive embellishment of its walls with towers, colonnaded balconies, monumental terraces and staircases, but also for its interior accoutrements – according to archival records, it simply oozed luxury and each detail was fittingly elegant from its marble floors to its sculpted chimneys, from its decorative tapestries to its displayed works of art. All of that, however, as a result of the tribulations of history, was either destroyed or scattered far afield. After the passing of the hetman’s descendants, the property was acquired by the Rzewuski family and later by the Sanguszkis. Each of these families introduced certain modernisations to the castle, but the extraordinary overall appearance of this castle – lording it over its surroundings – has remained the same to this day.
The Collegiate Church in Ivano-Frankivsk
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Kolegiata w Iwano-Frankiwsku, fot. iStockphoto/Getty Images
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The parish church in Ivano-Frankivsk (formerly known as Stanisławów) was funded in 1662 by the Royal Field Hetman Andrzej Potocki, the founder and funder of the entire city. It was also intended to serve as a defensive fort protecting the eastern flank of the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth against the Tatars. The Potocki family during the 1660s and 1670s went on to build places of worship for almost all the religions living in the city: in addition to the Catholic church, they built an Orthodox church, a synagogue and an Armenian church.
The Collegiate Church of Most Holy Mother Mary and Sts. Andrew and Stanislaus was erected in the latter half of the 17th century. In addition to its role as a sanctuary, the church also became the mausoleum of the Potockis. In the mid-18th century and again in the 1840s, the church underwent repairs and modernisation. From the 1960s to the 1980s, the church housed carpentry shops. Today, the former church serves as an art museum (including religious art). Nobel prize-winning novelist Henryk Sienkiewicz situated scenes from his famous Trilogy in the collegiate church back when the city was still Stanisławów: the memorial service following the death of character Michael (Michał) Wołodyjowski took place here.
The Boim Chapel, Lviv
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Boim Chapel in Lviv, 1880 - 1939, photo: National Digital Archive (NAC) / audiovis.nac.gov.pl
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Among the many valuable landmarks of Lviv from different historical periods, one of the most remarkable is the mausoleum chapel of Jerzy Boim. He was a merchant and member of the city council when the city was called Lwów and part of the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth during the reign of Hungarian king Stefan Batory. The chapel was built at the turn of the 16th and 17th centuries alongside a cathedral presbyterium. It performed its original function until the end of the 18th century and then became a part of the cathedral complex.
This small chapel happily avoided reconstructions and to this day it retains its exceptional, idiosyncratic appearance. Designed on a rectangular plan, the chapel is crowned with a dome topped with a figure of the Sorrowful Christ. The façade of the chapel is densely covered with ornamental decoration: it’s a perfect example of the style typical of its period – horror vacui, a dread of leaving spaces empty. You cannot find a single empty space anywhere on the building’s façade. The chapel’s interior is similar: its walls and domes are thoroughly covered with stucco. Since 1969, the building has housed a branch of the Lviv Art Gallery.
The Church of St. Andrew & the Bernardine Convent in Lviv
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St Andrew's Church and Bernardine Monastery in Lviv, photo: Demmarcos / Wikimedia.org
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The Frisian traveller and chronicler Ulyrk Werdum, who toured the Polish Republic in the years 1670-1672, observed:
Amongst all the churches, whether built of stone or built of wood, whether in Lviv or on its outskirts, as well as all the other structures here, none can compare with the convent of the Franciscans, commonly known in Poland, Ukraine and Lithuania as the Bernardines. Their convent is located in the southeastern part of the city, below the castle on the approaches to the city centre. It is surrounded by exceptionally thick walls with stone ramparts and, on the interior, it is decorated with a large, stocky church. It is so full of supplies that it could probably hold out longer in a siege than either the fortress or the city itself. The nuns in this convent come from the most elite ranks of the Polish nobility and most of them in their youth worked in the fields and then went off to see the world and, once they’d had their fill of wandering, they would come here to the convent to rest and, despite that and withal, they live a life which is not necessarily the most pure.
The structure that he describes was built in the years 1602-1613 and it is still maintained in an idiosyncratic style. That style is expressed in an outstandingly richly decorative pediment on the church façade, densely covered in iron scrollwork, sculptures and bas-reliefs. The striking decorations contrast with the heavy, massive stone church façade and its adjacent convent buildings.
The Church & Convent of the Barefoot Carmelites in Berdychiv
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Church and monastery of the Discalced Carmelites in Berdyczów, 1918, photo: National Library / Polona.pl
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In 1627, the magnate, soldier and Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth politician, Janusz Tyszkiewicz, was captured and imprisoned by the Ottomans. During his captivity, he had a dream in which he saw a vision of the Virgin Mary, who instructed him to build a fortress. Upon his release, Tyszkiewicz became the governor of Kyiv Province, and, in 1630, he bequeathed his own castle and its surrounding grounds to the Barefoot Carmelite order. In doing so, he not only provided them with a fortified structure, but also the church and convent associated with it. In view of its defensive character, the extended complex was called ‘the Fortress of Our Holy Lady Mary’.
The Carmelites reclaimed the complex in 1717 after it had been destroyed by the combined Cossack-Tatar armies and its reconstruction was conceptualised by Jan de Witte, an architect and soldier of Dutch stock. It is primarily through his intervention that the complex is so impressive today, combining defensive elements with extraordinarily rich Baroque architecture. After its stormy 20th-century history (in the 1920s, the Soviet authorities installed within it a museum of atheism and a prison), the complex was returned to the Carmelite Order in 1991. Since 2007, the Polish government has been paying for the complex’s restoration in return for which permission was given for a small museum to honour the Polish-British author Joseph Conrad.
Zhovkva
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Zhovkva, market square, 1880 - 1939, photo: National Digital Archive (NAC) / audiovis.nac.gov.pl
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The town of Zhovkva, then Żółkiew, was established by Great Royal Hetman Stefan Żółkiewski. It was created in the year 1597 and based on the design of another private gentry town a few years older – Zamość. For this same reason, Żółkiewski asked for the assistance of architect Paweł Szczęśliwy, an architect of Italian extraction, heavily influenced by Italian architecture. Conceived of as an ideal town, Zhovkva was surrounded by fortifications and laid out as a pentagon with a market square, one side of which was the castle – the home of the founder. The market square included a row of houses and one of the several churches that were built at the time throughout the town.
Zhovkva, synagogue, 1880 - 1939, photo: National Digital Archive (NAC) / audiovis.nac.gov.pl
Hetman Żółkiewski himself, one of the most important figures in the history of the the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth, spent little time in his town – the development of Zhovkva was left to the supervision of his wife Regina. The town later became the favourite residence of Stefan Żółkiewski’s great-grandson, King Jan III Sobieski, who also contributed greatly to the town’s growth and development and its conversion – including the castle – to the Baroque style. One of the most interesting structures that has endured to our days is the ‘Sobieski shul’, a synagogue built by the growing Jewish community during the 17th century. (The Jews received permission to reside and trade in Zhovkva from King Jan III Sobieski himself.) The synagogue, dating from the late 17th century, has the unusual form of a Renaissance fortress with walls two-metres thick and a massive façade with a high attic and decorative portal.
In the years 1951-1991, when the town belonged to the USSR, it was known as Nesterov. Although it was destroyed in World War II and rebuilt, Zhovkva retained many of its landmarks and the original five-sided layout of an ideal Renaissance town can still be detected.
The Kamianets-Podilskyi Fort
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Kamieniec Podolski, 1876, fot. Biblioteka Narodowa Polona
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This impressive defensive fort in strategically situated Kamianets-Podilskyi embodies the stormy history of its region. The first fortifications on the site were probably built in the 13th century by the leaders of ancient Rus’, but they were conquered and destroyed by the Mongols. The next defensive structure was erected on the stony cliffs in the 14th century by Lithuanian princes from the Koriatowicz dynasty. The fort’s current appearance results to a great extent from reconstruction that took place in the mid-16th century at the behest of the previously-mentioned King Stefan Batory, who recognised the location’s strategic value. Though it was seen for years as impregnable, it fell into the hands of the Ottomans in 1672. Captain Jerzy Wołodyjowski was killed defending it – he would later be the model for one of the main characters of Sienkiewicz’s The Deluge.
The Kamianets-Podilskyi fort returned to the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth as a result of the Karlowitz Treaty of 1699. It was never again the site of a battle and, from the 18th century on, it served primarily as a prison. Situated on a tall hill, this exceptionally scenic expansive stone complex today includes a museum, and one of its attractions is a long bridge, the only way one can gain access to the fortress.
The Wooden Churches of the Carpathians in Poland & Ukraine
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Orthodox church of the Birth of the Mother of God in Chotyniec, photo: National Heritage Institute
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Cerkiew Narodzenia Przenajświętszej Bogurodzicy w Chotyńcu, fot. Narodowy Instytut Dziedzictwa
Sixteen priceless wooden Baroque Orthodox churches, built between the 16th and 19th centuries, have survived until our times. They constitute yet another proof of the commonalities of history and culture of these lands divided by a border created by fate and the decisions of politicians. Eight of these historic churches are on the current territory of Poland – the same number on the territory of Ukraine. In 2013, all sixteen of them were placed on the UNESCO List of World Heritage Sites.
The Polish Soldier’s Home in Lviv
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Polish Soldier's House in Lviv, longitudinal cross-section of the body and cross-section of the roof truss, designed by Andrzej Frydecki, Stefan Porębowicz, 1936, photo: Museum of Architecture in Wrocław / ma.wroc.pl
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On 22nd December 1918, the General Headquarters of the Polish Army issued a document about the need to expand educational activities within the military – six months later, a bill was ready in the Sejm regarding the education of soldiers. To carry out that programme , so-called Polish Soldier’s Homes began to be established in various Polish cities (as well as abroad). These were cultural-educational institutions in which the needs of young uniformed personnel were addressed with an array of courses and lectures, educational activities, cultural events, and more. The army didn’t have its own funding for such things, so each centre was developed in a different fashion. On 10th August 1919, Prime Minister Ignacy Jan Paderewski ceremonially opened the Polish Soldier’s Home in Warsaw (which was created at the initiative of the Polish Red Cross and the Prime Minister’s wife Helena Paderewska at a temporary facility in the Mostowski Palace – today, the city’s police headquarters). Similar institutions were established in many cities from Poznań and Katowice, to Sanok and Siedlce.
The Polish Soldier’s Home in Lviv opened in the 1920s at the initiative of a group of soldiers. It took a number of years to raise the necessary funds – construction finally started in 1934. The building’s up-to-date design in modernist style was developed by Andrzej Frydecki and Stefan Porębowicz. Construction began before the war but was then understandably interrupted – it was ultimately completed in 1946 according to the original plans.
Modernism in Ivano-Frankivsk
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City Hall of Ivano-Frankivsk, 1935, photo: Polon National Library, City Hall of Ivano-Frankivsk, photo: Mykolamarkovych / Wikimedia.org
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During the interwar period of the Second Polish Republic, Stanisławów – today’s Ivano-Frankivsk – was the third largest city in Galicia region. Although the origins of the city go back to the 17th century, its continued growth required the construction of new buildings and, in the 1920s and 1930s, the most avant-garde and fashionable form of architecture was modernism. So that was the form that the City Hall took, having been destroyed multiple times by fire and finally rebuilt in the years 1929-1932.
Planted in the middle of the city square, it was laid out in the form of a Greek cross with a tall tower where the building’s wings met. The whole building was given straight, angular shapes with very prominent cornices and clearly designated storeys. The geometric designs and sharp angular features of the building echo art deco form with elements of constructivism. The builder Stanisław Trela, aware of the building’s prominence in the public eye, gave it a form that was at once modern and stylish.
A similar idea came to Bohdan Lachert who designed the municipal post office in 1937-1939. Associated with the avant-garde Praesens Group, Lachert gave the building a horizontal shape, novel for his time, intersected by horizontal ranks of windows with walls set upon massive stone and brick platforms with rounded corners. The building continues to perform its original function to this day.
Originally written in Polish, Feb 2022, translated by Yale Reisner, Feb 2022
