ARCHITECTURE OF THE BUILDINGS OF LVIV POLYTECHNIC IN THE FIRST PERIOD OF OPERATION, BEFORE 1877: ADAPTATION OF THE OLD OBIECTS AND NEW PROJECTS IN THE CITY CENTER
Authors:   Architecture and Conservation Department, Lviv Polytechnic National University, Boyko Oksana , Bevz Mykola ,   Architecture and Conservation Department, Lviv Polytechnic National University
Published: December 2022

In the works of the history of Lviv Polytechnic, the first years of operation of the technical school are connected with the building in the center of Lviv, on the street Teatralna 20. However, the real architectural history of the Polytechnic has been richer in objects and more connected with center of the city. Newly released archival documents that touch on the history of Lviv Polytechnic make it possible to look differently at the first period of its existence. Extremely interesting is also the information about the buildings and the set of premises (their planning structure, functions) that ensured the functioning of the educational institution. It was believed that the first building specifically designed for the Polytechnic was its current main building on S. Bandera Street, 12, erected in 1873-1877. They were planned to location on a plot in the central part of the city – on Castrum Square. This square arose after dismantling the complex of the Low Castle buildings and the Franciscan monastery. The article is devoted to the analysis of newly discovered archival projects: a) projects of reconstruction of residential buildings at the corner of Teatralna and Virmenska streets for the needs of the technical school; b) the projects of the new building of the technical academy that were planned to be built nearby – on Kastrum Square. The beginnings of the architectural and construction history of Lviv Polytechnic University have their interesting pages, though at first it was not a higher educational institution. In the first period, in the rank of a real school, the educational institution operated in the rented and adapted premises of the building located at the corner of present streets Teatralna-Virmenska. Why was the new educational establishment located here? The answer to this question is simple. According to Lviv’s urban transformation plans, this section was designated by the new Austrian authorities as the site of new representative institutions. This is where the main administrative, socio-cultural and educational objects should appear. At the beginning of the 19 century this section of the central part of Lviv was chosen by the Austrian administration for the settlement of theaters and educational institutions, which was reflected in the names of the streets at that time. The Virmenska Street, which emerged at the same time as the formation of a medieval city within the defensive walls, was initially shorter and started from Krakiwska Street. The section between Teatralna and Krakiwska streets was annexed to Virmenska only in 1871. By that time it was called Pekarska, then Trinitarian (from the neighborhood of the Trinitarian Order). After liquidation by the Austrian authorities in the late 18th century. Trinitarian monastery Street is called Academicka or Universytetska (from the university that housed this monastery building. That is, the Real School was located near the old university. The building at the corner of 20, Teatralnaya Street – 2, Virmenska Street, which housed originally the Real School, and hence the Technical Academy, was erected on the site of two medieval buildings whose owners’ names were preserved in their names. In the XVII century. there were little houses under the names: Pischimushinska (1605–1612), Sokolovska (1630–1640), as well as Turivska or Turtsivska (1631–1635, 1639). In the books and court documents for the years 1647–1767, the corner stone was marked by the name of Kosmiglovska – on behalf of its owner Kosmigel, and in the elbow tax for 1767 – the Kosmiglovska corner, measuring 10.1 m x 29 m. Next to it, in the direction of the Virmenska (No. 2), there was a plot with a house of Bivetivska or Pishchiminska (23.0 m wide), in the elbow tax for 1767, designated as “the Bivetivska wasteland”. On the map of Lviv in 1777 J.-D. Guber’s empty parcel is marked on the right of an elongated corner building, which has a conscription number 62 and faces the present street with a narrower facade. Theatrical. It was on these two plots that new houses were erected, the names of which correspond to the names of their new owners – Darovsky and Levytsky. These buildings were recorded on the cadastral map of Lviv in 1849 under the conscription numbers 72 (extended along Virmenska) and 73 (extended along the Theater). At the Central State Historical Archives in Lviv, four cases with drawings of the buildings of a real trade school, and later the academy, remained in the Fund of the Collection of Projects and Plans. Two of these cases relate to the aforementioned boardwalk building at the Teatralna-Virmenska – inventory plans, the project of their adaptation to the educational institution. Two more dating back to the dates (1840, 1843) are projects for the construction of a new facility. The first case (1840) presents the design of a new building – in terms of a U-shaped form (in two versions of the pillars: two floors and three), attached one side to some neighboring houses. Instead, the second case (for 1843) presents a very carefully executed project of a new, free-standing house of the Imperial and Royal Technical Academy in two versions. In our opinion, the architect’s building was located in the same northwestern section of Lviv, but on the other side – opposite the corner house, on the opposite side of Teatralnaya Street – on the square called Kastrum, which was formed on the site of the dismantled buildings of the Low Castle. Initially, the square of Kastrum was large and extended from Poltva to the University building, located here from 1784 in the rebuilt buildings of the Trinitarian monastery.