Habsburg Lviv Seen Through the History of Buildings: Architecture and Scenes from the City's Life

We invite you to the lecture by architectural history researcher Olha Zarechnyuk, which continues the series of lectures entitled "Let's Have a City...".

The archival materials about Lviv's buildings, which consist of architectural drawings and bureaucratic correspondence, reveal much more than just the date of construction, the names of its architects, and its customers. By researching them, it is possible to compile biographies of many buildings, each of which, including the seemingly ordinary ones, can be seen as a subject of "microhistory" that offers a unique perspective on history and the world around us. This research method, formulated by Italian historians in the 1970s, allows us to complement and undermine "big narratives" such as modernization to show the lives of the unprivileged and the everyday life drama in the city.

The State Archives of the Lviv Oblast recently published publicly digitized materials about Lviv's houses (mid-nineteenth to mid-twentieth century). The Lviv Interactive project has been working with these documents for over 15 years. Thus, these documents will serve as the basis for the lecture. The researcher will discuss such topics: the expansion of Lviv in the late nineteenth century, the emergence of high-density construction of kamienice on the site of villas and gardens; the role of professionalizing architects; the introduction of modern building materials and structures; city officials who supervised the processes and had their vision of urban development; and the relationship between owners and tenants, or neighbors.

Credits

Cover Image: Muzeum narodowe w Warszawie, photograph Józef Kościesza Jaworski

Gallery: Vlavyslav Pavliuk