Leszek Władysław Horodecki – The Polish Gaudi | Article

Leszek Władysław Horodecki – The Polish Gaudi

horodecki_wladyslaw._1910.jpg, portrait, Leszek Władysław Horodecki, 1910, photo: Wikimedia Commons

The name of this Polish architect is little known in Poland, but in Kyiv, the main street is named in his honour. Today, the buildings, churches, train stations and factories that he built are considered as some of the most brilliant architectural monuments in Ukraine and… Iran.

In the right place at the right time

May 1863. A son is born to the Polish noble Horodecki family: Leszek Dezydery Władysław. His childhood is spent in the village of Sholudky in modern-day Ukraine. At first, his parents send the boy to study in Odessa, and then, having noticed his talent for drawing and draughtsmanship, they send him to the Imperial Academy of Arts in Saint Petersburg. Finishing the academy in 1891, Władysław sets off to conquer Kyiv.

The end of the 19^th century. Kyiv is undergoing a construction boom. There is already plumbing and a central power plant in the city, and architects are beginning to erect the first multi-storey brick buildings. Horodecki turns up in the right place at the right time. He is bold, full of ideas and the desire to do what he likes: designing buildings. However, there’s just one problem: no one knows who he is.

The young architect immediately comes up with a way to make a name for himself. The first orders (projects for a shooting gallery, a tomb and a pavilion) he fulfils for free. Even when proposals begin to pour in one after another, Władysław doesn’t turn away any work. Even building public toilets.

Clients value Horodecki for his commitment, creativity and quick-paced work. From a builder of lavatories, he becomes one of the most famous and audacious architects in Kyiv. Through his projects, he builds villas, hospitals, factories, gymnasiums and churches. To lessen his dependence on building-material manufacturers (and increase his own earnings), Horodecki builds his own concrete-mixing plant in Kyiv.

On a grand scale

Horodecki stands out from the crowd and loves it when he receives attention. The famous architect wears only the most expensive and stylish suits, and strolls around the city with a pet monkey. He is among the first Kyivans to buy an automobile.

Aside from architecture, he is also fond of jewellery, paints watercolours, makes etchings, and designs costumes for one of the first stationary theatre troupes in Kyiv, the Solovtsov Theatre, and dresses for his wife Cornelia. He is obsessed with hunting wild animals as well. In 1895, he goes on a hunting tour around the lands of Lankaran (modern-day Azerbaijan), the Transcaspian region (modern-day Turkmenistan), Turkistan, Afghanistan and Western Siberia. His trip lasts 15 years, with breaks. But even this is not enough for him: the architect travels to Africa for a year. Horodecki is so impressed by the hunt at the foot of Mt. Kilimanjaro, that upon his return to Kyiv, he writes the book In the Jungles of Africa: Diary of a Hunt and illustrates it with his own drawings and photographs.

The most unusual house in Kyiv

One day, Horodecki makes a bet with his friend and colleague Alexander Kobelev. The Pole vows that in a short period of time, he will build an unusual house in one of the most unsuitable places in the city: on a cliff in the centre of Kyiv. Polak potrafi (A Pole can do anything) is what they would say in Poland today, and they would be correct!

House with Chimaeras in Kyiv, photo: Wikimedia Commons/CC-by-SA 3.0

After two and a half years, the architect arranges a magnificent banquet to celebrate the end of construction on the so-called House with Chimaeras. From the Bankova Street side the building has three storeys, and from the other side (visible from Ivan Franko Square) has six. Its façade is decorated with sculptures of wild animals: elephants, rhinoceroses, lions, antelopes, giraffes and eagles. On the house’s roof sit gigantic frogs and sea deities with chains instead of hair.

Crowds of onlookers come to see this miracle palace. Some Kyivans claim that the unconventional architect built the house in memory of his daughter, who, due to an unhappy affair of the heart, committed suicide by throwing herself into the Dnieper. Others say that the house was a gift for his mistress.

The last journey

After the Russian Revolution, Horodecki moves to Warsaw. Here he leads an architectural design business and builds a water tower in the city of Piotrków Trybunalski, yet in Poland the architect doesn’t manage to create anything that would cause the same excitement as his works in Kyiv – the House of Chimaeras, the neo-gothic St. Nicholas Cathedral or the Karaite Kenesa.

Starving for interesting projects, he happily accepts an offer to be the chief architect of the Syndicate on the Design of Persian Railways. In 1928, Horodecki moves to Tehran and within a year and half builds a hotel and Persia’s first railway station. The authorities are delighted with the Polish architect.

Impressed by Horodecki’s work, they give him an order that was not merely for the construction of buildings: he is instructed to design projects for entirely new cities! However, the architect is not destined to realise these projects. On 3 January 1930, Horodecki dies of a sudden heart attack. A house for the daughter of the Shah, Princess Shams Pahlavi, is built by the Persians based on Horodecki’s sketches after his death.

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Władysłąw Horodecki

Ukraine