Architects of the cultural borderland : Julian and Alfred Zachariewicz, Ivan Levynsky, Tadeusz Obminski

This text has been dedicated to the four most prominent architects of the city of Lviv in the late 19th and early 20th centuries - the architectural «quartet» whose members are: Julian Octawian Zachariewicz (1837-1898), Alfred Zaсhariewich Jr. (1871-1937), Ivan Levynskyi (1851-1919), and Tadeusz Obmiński (1874-1932). These four carried out the most important architectural and construction projects of Lviv in the age of the greatest construction boom in the city's history. The role of the "elder" in this group was played by Julian Zachariewicz - a professor at Lviv Polytechnic, the founder of Lviv’s architectural school of the latter half of the 19th century, its leader during the era of historical styles. The creative work of Julian Zachariewicz impresses with its style metamorphoses, which can be traced from the neo-Renaissance building of the Polytechnic (1874-1877), oriented to the Ringstrasse, up to the Julietka villa (1891-1893), its design reflecting the influence of the English concept of a reformed singlefamily house. In addition, Professor Zachariewicz devoted much of his time and effort to various projects outside of practical architecture, acting as a theorist, restorer, archaeologist, museum curator and public figure. His son Alfred left his mark in history as an outstanding builder of Lviv in the first third of the last century, a highly gifted representative of the local architectural school during the periods of Art Nouveau, early modernism, and Neoclassicism of the early 20th century, the initiator of promoting the reinforced concrete in the construction industry of Galicia. Alfred Zachariewicz became famous, in particular, for the projects of the buildings for the Lviv Chamber of Commerce and Industry (1907-1910) and the Land Credit Society (1911-1916). Ivan Levynskyi was a leading construction entrepreneur of Galicia in the late 19th - early 20th centuries whose firm erected the largest objects of Lviv architecture of the period, such as the Civic Theater (1897-1900), or the Main Railway Station (1901-1904). During the 1880s-1910s, Levynskyi, being a brilliant specialist in architectural planning, built numerous complexes of residential architecture – both single-family and multi-apartment. He also effectively served architectural and construction orders received from a number of Ukrainian institutions in Lviv. Tadeusz Obmiński entered the history of architecture as a researcher of folk wooden construction, and at the same time as a leading architect of Art Nouveau style, taking part in designing such objects as Segal’s house (1904-1905) or the Dnister insurance company building (1905-1906). The complex, multiple identities of the four creative professionals to whom this article is dedicated can be interpreted in various contexts: political, social, national, confessional, linguistic, artistic. During the fin de siècle and throughout subsequent historical cataclysms, each of these four was destined to a greater or lesser extent to experience a deep crisis, and even more so – a dramatic collapse of their mixed identity.