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Forgotten Galicia

Forgotten Galicia

Remnants of the past found in Lviv, Galicia & the former Austrian Empire

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Ghost Signs of Lviv: A Look into the City’s Faded Past

June 1, 2020

I love ghost signs. These messages from the past are one of my favorite parts of the urban landscape. I get overly excited every time I discover a new one. Ghost signs (aka fading ads or brick ads) are old hand-painted signs that have been preserved on a building for […]

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February 8, 2020

Photographs of Prewar Lviv: Hand-Painted Signs

I’ve combed through hundreds of old photographs of Lviv (Lemberg / Lwów) in search of hand-painted signs that are visible today as “ghost signs.” While I’ve only been able to find one such example – a photograph of a milkhouse, the search was not in vain: I came out with […]

February 27, 2018

Medieval Signage in Lviv

Medieval ads and signs have survived in and around Lviv’s Rynok Square. These are metal signs or stone carvings located above entrance ways. The emblems marked the locations of guilds, workshops, stores, taverns, etc. Signage during this era used symbols since the general populace was illiterate. Entrances to taverns were […]

April 25, 2016

Prague’s House Signs

Before Empress Maria Theresa introduced identifying numbers to Prague in 1770, houses were known and located by allegorical symbols. Many of them originally had alchemical significance. The Two Suns The Golden Key Castle goldsmiths lived in this house in the 17th century They paid fees to the city and thus […]

September 15, 2014

Chimney Sweep Sign in Lviv

Lviv, like most cities in the nineteenth century, needed chimney sweeps to keep chimneys clean from the soot that accumulated from burning coal. The bas-relief of a chimney sweep on Anhelovycha Street is one of the only reminders of the era of chimney sweeps. At the beginning of the twentieth […]

Forgotten Galicia

forgottengalicia

Friday night, Lviv experienced a massive drone att Friday night, Lviv experienced a massive drone attack. It was a terrifying night, with the buzzing of drones and loud explosions echoing through the city for several hours. Thankfully, no lives were lost, but nearly a dozen people were injured, and a couple were hospitalized. Several locations around Lviv were struck, including historic neighborhoods. Pre-WWI Austrian-era buildings in Art Nouveau and Historicist styles were among the damaged structures. In total, over 50 buildings (528 apartments) were impacted, with more than 500 windows shattered. Fifteen apartments are now uninhabitable. One of the most severely damaged buildings is just a few doors down from where some of my relatives live. A nearby Soviet-era business center, where another relative has her office, also suffered significant damage.
This morning, I had an appointment just down the street from one of the affected sites, so I decided to see the damage for myself. Workers were already clearing debris, and the coffee shops in the business center were still up and running. Life goes on, despite everything.

#historicalarchitecture #architecturalheritage #oldbuildings #wartimelviv #lviv #russiaisaterroriststate
Last week I went to a lecture about Ukrainian arti Last week I went to a lecture about Ukrainian artist and monumentalist Yuliyan Butsmaniuk (1885-1967) who created works in the Ukrainian Art Nouveau style at the Mystetska Biblioteka (Art Library). While there, I also got to see the library's current exhibition "The Memory of Things" dedicated to Art Nouveau (Secessionist) household objects.

#artnouveau #artnouveaustyle #artnouveauarchitecture #secesja #secessionism #antiques #antiquefurniture #lviv #ukraine
#doordetail #doorsoflviv #doorsofinstagram #doors #doordetail #doorsoflviv #doorsofinstagram #doors #olddoors #archidetails #woodwork #woodendoors #lviv #lwów #ukraine
#villas #willa #villa #archidetails #summertime #o #villas #willa #villa #archidetails #summertime #oldhouse #oldhouselove #houseportrait #archihunter #lviv #lwów #ukraine
Szymon Małochleb’s Art Nouveau-style residence, Szymon Małochleb’s Art Nouveau-style residence, built between 1912 and 1913 and designed by Jan Kajpert and Aleksander Osten, stands out for its richly detailed sculptural decoration by Teobald Orkasiewicz. On the pediment is a relief of Tadeusz Kościuszko, leader of the Polish Uprising of 1794, while above the gateway is "The Beating of Scythes," inspired by a well-known work by Polish painter Artur Grottger.
Adjacent to the main house, a one-story factory building was constructed during the same time. In the interwar years, it housed Małochleb’s water pump factory, which specialized in digging, drilling, repairing, and cleaning various types of wells.
From 1913 to 1927, Teobald Orkasiewicz, the artist behind the building’s sculptural elements, lived and worked on the premises.
In the 1940s–1950s, the premises housed the Driller cooperative of the Lviv Regional Metalworkers’ Union, which specialized in installing and repairing water standpipes, drilling wells of various depths, and producing various agricultural tools.
In 1997, sculptor Stanislav Melnychuk restored a statue of the Virgin Mary, which now adorns the building’s courtyard.

#archidetails #architecturalsculpture #artnouveau #architecturalornamentation #secesja #oldhouse #oldhouselove #architecturalheritage #lviv #lwów #galicja #galicia #ukraine
#windowkitty #catsofinstagram #catlovers #catsanda #windowkitty #catsofinstagram #catlovers #catsandarchitecture #catsoflviv #archidetails #oldbuildings #lviv #ukrainiantraditions
Summertime in Lviv #archidetails #architecturalhe Summertime in Lviv

#archidetails #architecturalheritage #architecturehunter #architecturaldetail #architecturalornamentation #lviv #lwów #summertime #ukraine
#balustrades #balustrade #archidetails #staircase #balustrades #balustrade #archidetails #staircase #stairwells #ironwork #architecturehunter #archihunter #lviv #lwów #ukraine
Wojciech Wentz Villa, built in 1907, designed by a Wojciech Wentz Villa, built in 1907, designed by architect Ludwik Weltze. The first owner was Wojciech Wentz, a police advisor. In the early 1920s, the property passed to Zygmunt Radzyminski (1843–1928), a Polish historian and renowned researcher of genealogy and heraldry. The villa’s final owner before the Soviet era was Jerzy Kuryłowicz (1895–1978), a prominent Polish philologist and linguist. From 1926 to 1946, he resided in the villa while serving as head of the departments of Indo-European linguistics and Romance philology at Lviv University.

#oldhouse #oldhouselove #houseportrait #villas #villa #willa #archidetails #architecturalheritage #lviv #lwów #architecturehunter #archihunter #galicia #galicja #ukraine
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