Terrazzo is a composite material made from marble, quartz, granite, glass, or other chips and poured with a binder. This material was used to pave many entranceways, stairwells, and communal spaces in Lviv’s buildings. It was often decorated with geometric designs, the year of installation, the name of the manufacturer, […]

I read an interesting article in Ukrainian, in which the author uncovers the original purposes of the layout of an old Kozak village and the design of the houses. Below is my translation of most of it. The link to the original article and a few more photos can be […]

Lehedzyne I spent a weekend visiting a friend in Lehedzyne, a village near Uman. I found two interesting boot scrapers. One extra wide one (for several people to scrape at the same time) near the village store, and then another large one with a handle attached to it in Baba […]

My friend found an antique roller shutter in Zhovkva, an old fortress town near Lviv. As the manufacturer’s mark is in German, and the company was based in Vienna, the shutter probably dates to before WWI. Photo credit: Charitie Hyman

This is a unique find for me. There are about 8 of these antique locks still attached to a building in Rzeszów, Poland. They were made by a company L. Russ in Drohobycz. The city of Drohobycz is presently in Ukraine, but both Drohobycz and Rzeszów were historically part of Galicia […]

I found a few antique Vienna- and Rzeszów-made roller shutters and locks in Rzeszów, a city in Galicia that is now in Poland. Alfred Woltär Wien Probably the same A. Woltär that made shutters, which can still be found in Vienna. Rzeszów-made locks and shutters

Chernivtsi has quite a few boot scrapers. This last one is located right in front of a guard stone

In Chernivtsi I saw a few tiles with the inscription “Leon Schrenzel Czernowitz.”  Overall, I saw the name of only one company that manufactured tiles. Leon Schrenzel’s building materials company was founded in 1887 – a time when Chernivtsi would have been part of the Austrian Empire.

In Krakow I found an old metal roller shutter made by a company from Lviv—Bielicki (several shutters by this company still remain in Lviv). In this instance, however, it seems as though the company was partnered with a company called Wietzen. And actually I recently found the same exact plate […]

Chernivtsi has quite a few Austrian- and Romanian-era metal roller shutters. Like in Lviv, some inscriptions include the company’s address (i.e., J. Engel Cernauţi Strada Wilson 7, which is Romanian for J. Engel Chernivtsi 7 Wilson Street). Lviv has this same Prague-made shutter