Skip to content
  • Home
  • Physical Traces
    • Architecture
    • Ghost Signs
    • Infrastructure
  • Culture
    • Art
    • Music
    • Language
  • History
    • Historical Figures
    • Old Postcards & Photographs
    • Societies & Cooperatives
  • Learn & Listen
    • Reading List
    • Playlist
    • Songs from Gimpel’s Lemberg Yiddish Theatre 1906-1910
    • Watchlist
    • Online Resources
  • Glossaries
    • Architectural Styles in Lviv
    • Architectural & Infrastructural Terms
    • Lviv Architects
    • Galician Ukrainian Lexicon
  • Galicia Today
    • Lviv Guides
    • Genealogy Research & Heritage Tours
  • About
    • What is Galicia?
    • Concept & About Me
    • Support Me
  • English
    • English
    • Українська
Forgotten Galicia

Forgotten Galicia

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

Tag: advertising

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 […]

Read More
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

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
Last June, I took a walk through my favorite neigh Last June, I took a walk through my favorite neighborhood to show an acquaintance some of Lviv’s finest architectural gems. We stopped near the former Ludwik Heller Villa to admire and photograph the beautiful rose garden set against a backdrop of carved wooden details—a radiant sun and folk motifs inspired by the Podhale region’s mountain architecture. These elements reflect the Zakopane Style, which emerged in southern Poland but found expression across Galicia, including here in Lviv.

Little did I know that just three months later, the villa would be damaged in a russian missile attack on the city. The roof, in particular, was severely affected and had to be completely replaced.

This June, I returned to the villa once again to admire the flowers and intricate architectural details—camera in hand, as before. But the experience is now different. Though the windows have been replaced, and the roof is undergoing restoration, the neighborhood no longer feels quite the same to me.

Soundtrack: The English folk song "Bonny Bunch of Roses," which recalls the time "Moscow was blazing" during Napoleon’s invasion—an image we are eager to see repeated.

#zakopanestyle #zakopanestylearchitecture #stylzakopiański #villas #villa #willa #archidetails #architecturalheritage #architecturaldetail #woodwork
#roses #garden #oldhouselove #lviv #lwów #galicja #galicia #ukraine
Golden hour | Lviv center | Constitution Day | Jun Golden hour | Lviv center | Constitution Day | June 28

#oldtown #architecturalheritage #archilovers #goldenhour☀️ #goldenhour #lviv  #ukraine #uaflag
Facade fragment of the former Credit Land Society Facade fragment of the former Credit Land Society building (1912–1914), designed by Alfred Zachariewicz and Józef Sosnowski. Red granite from J. L. Urban & Co. Ołomuniec (Polish) / Olomouc (Czech) / Olmütz (German).

#inscription #oldsigns #oldsignage #makersmark #manufacturersmark #redgranite #archidetails #lviv
#lwów #ukraine
#lviv #lwów #archidetails #architecturaldetail #a #lviv #lwów #archidetails #architecturaldetail #artnouveau #artnouveaustyle #archihunter #ukraine
#paintedceiling #archidetails #artnouveau #archite #paintedceiling #archidetails #artnouveau #architecturalornamentation #architecturaldetail #artnouveauarchitecture #oldbuildings #lviv #lwów #galicia #galicja #ukraine
Boot scrapers of Helsinki - both modern and histor Boot scrapers of Helsinki - both modern and historical.
One of my favorite remnants of the past in the urban landscape is the humble boot scraper. In most cities (like Lviv), these small fixtures—once essential for scraping mud and snow from shoes—have become obsolete, relics of a time before paved roads and modern infrastructure. But walking through Helsinki, I was intrigued to see not only historical boot scrapers still in place, but also modern versions—fitted with sturdy brushes—installed near building entrances. In Helsinki, their continued relevance is clear. With long winters and frequent snowfall, these practical devices still serve an important purpose. 

#bootscraper #bootscrapers #decrottoir #archidetails #archihunter #architecturaldetail #oldbuilding #oldbuildings #helsinki #finland #doorsofinstagram
Owls in Helsinki’s Architecture | Finland’s in Owls in Helsinki’s Architecture | Finland’s interpretation of Art Nouveau (Jugendstil) wove together threads of national identity, blending Finnish folklore, Kalevala mythology, medieval church motifs, and the rugged beauty of the Nordic wilderness. Among the most intriguing symbols found in this architectural style are owls.

In the early 1900s, while Finland was still under Russian rule, architects used this richly symbolic style to help shape a visual language for a nation yearning for independence.

#archidetails #helsinki #finland #jugendstil #artnouveau #artnouveaustyle #artnouveauarchitecture #architecturalheritage #archihunter #architecturaldetail #archilovers #owls
🩷 Art Nouveau fence 🌹 Summertime in Lviv # 🩷 Art Nouveau fence 🌹 Summertime in Lviv 

#summer #summertime #artnouveaustyle #artnouveau #secesja #secessionism #ironwork #metalwork #archidetails #archihunter #lviv #lwów #ukraine
Follow on Instagram




Tags

architecture Austrian Empire Galicia ghost signs hand-painted signs interwar Poland Lviv manufacturer's mark music old photographs

Archives




Forgotten Galicia
Instagram Facebook
© 2012-2025