Children of the Lviv School of Architecture

politechnika_lwowska_nac_2.jpg, default, Lviv Polytechnic, 1880 - 1939, photo: National Digital Archives (NAC)/audiovis.nac.gov.pl, Children of the Lviv School of Architecture

#architecture

Established in 1843, the Lviv Polytechnic was one of the oldest technical colleges in this part of Europe, highly respected for its high level of education. It had a faculty consisting of outstanding specialists. However, the stormy twentieth century forced many of them to leave Lviv. As a result, architects educated in Lviv began designing and teaching in various other Polish cities.

The Lviv technical college was known as ‘the crucible of cadres of the Second Polish Republic’, underscoring its significance for the development of Polish science and many branches of engineering. For many decades, this higher academy was the most respected and was acknowledged as the most valued of the Polish technical education institutions operating on the former Polish lands.

At first, individual technical departments began to open throughout Europe at the beginning of the eighteenth century (the world’s first engineering school opened in 1701 at the Charles University in Prague); later, similar curricula began to be offered in military schools and, in the latter half of the century, there were already a few schools of mining. The growth of technical education developed in parallel with the Industrial Revolution – before the ‘epoch of steam and electricity’, education in the humanities was definitely more highly esteemed, but, with growing advances in technology and engineering, interest in those fields began to grow among young people.

Considered the first polytechnic on our continent – the first school exclusively focused on technical education – the École polytechnique was established in Paris in 1794. Soon after that, similar schools began to be established in other cities: in Prague (1806), Vienna (1815), Glasgow (1820), London (1824) and so on. In 1826, at the initiative of Stanisław Staszic, a preparatory school was established in Warsaw intended to be the foundation of a future polytechnic, but, in 1831, as part of the repressions following the failure of the November Uprising, it was closed down. That same Stanisław Staszic had also brought about the creation in 1816 of a Mining Academy in Kielce, which is considered the oldest technical school on Polish lands. A second one was created in Lviv.

For the Arts & Sciences

On November 4, 1844, the Lviv Polytechnic (for its first few years known as the Technical Academy) was ceremonially opened. At the time, the school had two three-year departments – technical and trade – and lectures were given in German; from 1870, the language of instruction was changed to Polish (Lviv at the time was still part of the Austrian Empire). The school grew with lightning speed: in the mid-1870s, it already had over a dozen faculties, including construction, surveying, physics and mechanical engineering among others.

Thumbnail — Jan Styka, 'Portrait of Julian Zachariewicz', 1891–1895, photo: Wikimedia.org

In 1877, the architect Julian Zachariewicz became rector of the Polytechnic. During the years 1873 to 1877, Zachariewicz designed the academy’s monumental main building and its Chemistry Building. The main building of the Polytechnic was one of the most impressive structures in the city, designed as an elaborate palace with a high, rusticated ground floor, an entry portico with a colonnade crowned by a sculptural composition or decorative pediment bearing the motto ‘Litteris et Artibus’ (For the Arts & Sciences). No less attention was given to the interior: the main hall or auditorium has a specially decorative character with a broad, ceremonial staircase, bas–reliefs, and an elaborate cornice supported by a colonnade in the Corinthian style. Further underscoring the importance of the institution is the fact that the painted decoration of the building was entrusted to no lesser figure than Jan Matejko.

In late 1883 and early 1884, the painter designed for the Lviv Polytechnic a series of eleven murals entitled ‘The History of Human Civilisation’, but, due to his poor health, Matejko was unable to see the project through and his involvement in the project ended with his creation of conceptual drawings for it. When, in 1892, he saw the finished project, he was dissatisfied, saying that the paintings were ‘sloppy’ and ‘inexact’. Nonetheless, the institute’s authorities and the general public reacted very positively (the students took particular joy in the many nudes that appeared throughout the work…). Matejko’s paintings were so rich in symbolism and allegory that they were accompanied by a special explanatory brochure published for the occasion.

Picture display

standardowy (864px desktop)

Jan Matejko, 'A History of the Civilization of Humanity – The Holy Trinity', also known as: 'The genius of humanity, created by God the Father and the Son – a symbol of creative inspiration', drawing, 1885, Lviv University of Technology, photo: Polona National Library

Picture image

politechnika_lwowska_matejko_polona.jpg

During the 1872-1873 academic year, the Lviv institute underwent an organizational reform; as a result, an independent Architecture Department was created. At that time, there was a five–year course of study (later reduced to four years). The student body increased in size from year to year: in 1890, the Architecture Department had eighteen students; in 1905, already 100; by the end of the 1920s, nearly 250 students were learning the secrets of architectural design, including over a dozen women. The Polytechnic enjoyed tremendous popularity and eager candidates came to Lviv from far and wide. So much so that, until 1945, there were not enough opportunities on Polish lands for the education of future architects. From 1915, besides Lviv, there was only the Architecture Department of the Warsaw Polytechnic. The Lviv Polytechnic was also the only such school during the period of the partitions which had Polish as its language of instruction. Its popularity was further enhanced by the fact that Lviv, at the turn of the 19th and 20th centuries and until the outbreak of World War II, was an important and highly developed scientific and academic institution.

The Folk Secession

Picture display

standardowy (864px desktop)

The tenement house 'Under the spider' in Kraków, photo: Rafał Jabłoński/East News

Picture image

pod_pajakiem_en.jpg

Many Polish architects were graduates of the Lviv Polytechnic; some also spent many years teaching there. One example is Teodor Talowski, one of the most interesting architects of the turn of the 19th and 20th centuries. A student of Julian Zachariewicz, he directed the Drawing Faculty of the Lviv Polytechnic from 1901 to 1906 and he also taught a course in Ancient Christian and Mediaeval Architecture (quite early, towards the end of the 19th century, he had been appointed a professor in the Construction Department of the Technical and Industrial School in Kraków). He combined his academic career with design work – many structures were created by his hand (mostly tenement houses and churches) – in which he blended in a unique and novel way nationalist and folk elements as well as the very latest secessionist style. The tenement houses which he designed during the 1880s along Retoryka Street in Kraków (the Festina lente and Under the Singing Frog buildings) or the Under the Sign of the Spider on Karmelicka Street are individual, novel and very poetic buildings.

Shuttling between Lviv and Kraków, Adolf Szyszko-Bohusz was also active at this time. He defended his doctorate at the Lviv Polytechnic (his dissertation had to do with his research and archaeological discoveries at Wawel Castle in Kraków) and, from 1912 to 1916, he was in charge of the Architecture Faculty, a position he resigned when he was offered a position as director of the restoration of Wawel Castle. Szyszko-Bohusz, an architect and landmark conservation expert, left behind many important projects, as well as a series of achievements in preserving landmarks and modernising them and also in the field of landmarks research. It is to him that we owe the present appearance of the Wawel Hill.

Picture display

standardowy (864px desktop)

Adolf Szyszko-Bohusz, post office in Częstochowa, 1926

Picture image

Adolf Szyszko-Bohusz, gmach poczty w Częstochowie, 1926

Karol Schayer was also a graduate of the Lviv Polytechnic Architecture Faculty; he was the author of dozens of what were then novel, modernistic residential and public buildings, but also his iconic creation, the Silesian Museum in Katowice. During World War II, Schayer left Poland and, in 1946, he settled in Beirut, where he continued to work as an architect, bringing the fruits of his Lviv training to bear beyond the borders of Poland.

In 1908, Stefan Bryla also earned his diploma at the Architecture Faculty in Lviv. He was a key figure in the development of modern Polish architecture and also infrastructure: without his pathbreaking work, the first Polish skyscrapers would not have come to be: a residential tower in Katowice (for employees of the Inland Revenue Service) and a business tower in Warsaw for the Prudential Insurance Company. Stefan Bryla designed Europe’s first welded highway bridge (over the Słudwia River in Maurzyce near Łowicz), modern trade halls (among others in Katowice) and factory halls (e.g. for the Mielec airplane works); he also designed such important edifices as the National Museum in Warsaw and the Jagiellonian Library in Kraków.

From 1908 to 1910, Stefan Bryla was a lecturer in Lviv, but he left the city to continue his studies in Berlin and London among other places and later on to work in the US, where he also worked on skyscrapers. In 1921, he was named a professor at the Lviv Polytechnic and he took charge of the Second Bridge–Building Faculty. This outstanding bridge builder also left behind many theoretical works which served as a foundation for the education of many generations of engineers to come.

Who Took More?

Picture display

standardowy (864px desktop)

The new seat of the Faculty of Architecture of the Silesian University of Technology, Gliwice, photo: Nemo5576/Creative Commons (CC BY-SA 3.0)

Picture image

gliwice_wroclawska_wydzial_architektury_politechniki_slaskiej_04_09_2011_p9049539.jpg

The turbulent history of twentieth-century Europe interfered with the growth of the Lviv institution (and dozens of other institutions as well). With the outbreak of World War II and especially in 1945, the faculty members of all divisions were compelled to leave. In this fashion, the year in which the war ended marked a new chapter in the history of the Architecture Faculty of the Lviv Polytechnic. Although it ceased to exist in its prior form, most Polish institutions of higher education consciously carry on its achievements and traditions.

The unique character of the Architecture Faculty can be seen in two traditions: the creative tradition of the Lviv school of architecture, embodied in its professors – pioneers, co–founders of the school in post-war Wrocław – and the genius locum embodied in the building inherited from the Royal School for Machine Construction.

– one can read more on the website of the Wrocław Polytechnic. In the description of the history of the Silesian Polytechnic, it says:

The first inauguration of an academic year took place on 29 October 1945. At that time, 2,750 students commenced their education. The curriculum plans and programs were drawn from those of the Lviv Polytechnic. In addition, the cadre of professors of the Silesian Polytechnic was mostly made up of former employees of the Lviv Polytechnic.

Traces of the scientific heritage of the Lviv school could also be detected at the Gdańsk Polytechnic.

Picture display

standardowy (864px desktop)

The main building of the Gdańsk University of Technology, photo: Rafał Jabłoński/East News

Picture image

gmach_glowny_politechniki_gdanskiej_en.jpg

The changes of national borders which resulted from the new world order that arose after World War II compelled employees from Lviv to move to other cities that lay within the borders of the new Polish Republic. At the same time, the national authorities began setting up new technical schools in city after city and professors and instructors from Lviv immediately found positions there; moreover, the Lviv professors were considered great ‘catches’, because the school from which they came commanded such tremendous respect.

All told, fourteen professors from the Lviv Polytechnic moved to the Silesian Polytechnic as well as dozens of adjunct and assistant professors from that institution, becoming a significant percentage of the new Polytechnic’s body of educators. By way of comparison, it’s worth noting that ten Lviv professors transferred to the Wrocław Polytechnic, two to the Gdańsk Polytechnic and two to the AGH University of Science and Technology in Kraków. These numbers are only approximate since the immediate post-war employment situation in the country was fluid and unstable. Professors moved from one school to another and some lectured in two or three places simultaneously, complicating the count.

– wrote Tadeusz Zagajewski about the immediate post-war peregrinations of the Lviv Polytechnic’s staff in his account of the creation of the Upper Silesian facility.

Between Modernism & Socialist Realism

Picture display

standardowy (864px desktop)

Gdańsk, photo: Łukasz Głowala / Forum

Picture image

gdansk_forum_3.jpg

Among those from Lviv who ‘kick–started’ architecture departments in other Polish cities, Witold Minkiewicz deserves mention. This architect completed his studies at the Lviv Polytechnic in 1908 and, by 1920, he was already a professor and chairman of one of its architecture faculties. In academic year 1930–1931, he was appointed rector of that school and, in 1938, he was granted an honorary doctorate. He was also a Lviv city councilman. In 1945, he was arrested by the NKVD and, once released, he moved to Gdańsk and took charge of the Monumental Architecture Faculty of the new polytechnic there. He lectured at the Gdańsk Polytechnic until 1960, combining his academic career with work in reconstruction and research into landmarks preservation. He worked on, among other projects, rebuilding the Main Building of the Gdańsk Polytechnic and the Wybrzeże [Seacoast] Theatre [also in Gdańsk], but also the Royal Wawel Castle in Kraków.

Tadeusz Teodorowicz-Todorowski was born in Lviv in 1907 and, nineteen years later, he affiliated himself with his hometown polytechnic. He was a lecturer in the Architecture Faculty and an assistant to Witold Minkiewicz, combining his teaching with practical design work: he built himself a modern home in Lviv and also designed modernistic churches. As a post–war repatriate, he ended up resettled in Upper Silesia. In November 1945, he became director of the Engineering and Construction Department of the Silesian Polytechnic. And, once again, he succeeded in complementing his teaching with the creation of major projects: as early as the 1940s, he designed the visualization of the Construction Faculty Building in Gliwice; in the ‘70s, he designed a building for the Architecture Department in the same city. Tadeusz Teodorowicz–Todorowski was also responsible for the design of Neighbourhood A in Tychy, the first, still socialist realist residential quarter in that newly built city.

Picture display

standardowy (864px desktop)

Youth Palace in Katowice, photo: Krystyna and Aleksander Rabij/Reporter/East News

Picture image

palac_mlodziezy_w_katowicach_en.jpg

Zygmunt Majerski, a graduate of and longtime lecturer in the Historical Architecture Faculty of the Lviv Polytechnic who also worked for the Lviv municipal government, after the war also ended up in Gliwice at the newly established Construction Department (the Architecture Department of the Silesian Polytechnic was only set up in 1977). Majerski chaired the Faculty of Design of Residential and Commercial Buildings and later the Faculty of Architectural Design. During the years 1966–1971, he was dean of the Construction and Architecture Department of the Silesian Polytechnic and, in 1977, he became the first dean of the new Architecture Department of the Silesian Polytechnic. Among Zygmunt Majerski’s design achievements are some of Upper Silesia’s most significant edifices, e.g. the Palace of Youth in Katowice, the Music & Dance House in Zabrze, the Mining Department in Gliwice and the Jan Kochanowski Theatre in Opole (many of these projects were designed in cooperation with Julian Duchowicz).

Preservation of Landmarks

Picture display

standardowy (864px desktop)

The main building of the Wrocław University of Science and Technology, 1910, photo: https://polska-org.pl/

Picture image

politechnika_wroclawska_wroclaw_7125814.jpg

Amongst the many academic workers of the Architecture Department of the Lviv Polytechnic who, after World War II, joined the ranks of the Wroclaw Polytechnic was the architect, landmarks conservation expert and architectural historian Tadeusz Broniewski. Throughout the 1920s, he was a lecturer in Lviv, but he left that job behind so as to accept, in 1931, the position of director of the State Construction School in Jarosław and soon after he also became the city’s deputy mayor. After World War II, Broniewski moved to Wrocław where, in 1945, he accepted the position of director of the Architectural History Department and, four years later, of dean of the Architecture Department of the Wrocław Polytechnic; in addition, Broniewski taught in the State Higher Academy of Fine Arts and he taught Art History at Wrocław University. As landmarks conservator, he was responsible for, for instance, the expansion of the Main Building of the Wrocław Polytechnic, the reconstruction of the St Mary Magdalene Church in Wrocław and of the Town Hall in Lubań.

It is a phenomenon that the legend of the Lviv Polytechnic lives on, not only in architecture departments. The Lviv school produced a large cohort of important and accomplished professionals and teachers in many fields. Although the wartime fate of this part of the world changed the trajectory of its history, the institution’s traditions were passed on by its lecturers to other schools, creating a remarkable spiritual continuity of the Polytechnic’s legacy in which open–mindedness and the search for a rational and functional – but not ostentatious – modernity are always paramount.

Translated by Yale Reisner

Language English

#Ukraine

lviv

architecture

Gdańsk University of technology

art and technology

Ukraine