Ivan Levinsky: how to build a stylish city

/ Ukraine /

"2019 has been declared the year of the architect Ivan Levinskyi in Lviv. An architect who not only built for us Lviv, which we love so much, but created a real myth about Ukrainian Lviv - the cultural capital of an independent Ukrainian state, the creation of which was a cherished dream of the Galician intelligentsia of the beginning of the XNUMXth century," — Bohdan Goy.

A hundred years. The number is significant and well read in the titles of historical essays. But really, a hundred years is a good term for a new reading of events already from the height of time that has passed. The direct participants and creators probably disappeared, giving descendants the opportunity to make their own harsh assessments without looking back at their authorities. And in the fast-moving XX century. the descendants have already had time to deny their predecessors, express themselves, deny it again and express themselves several times, not forgetting to refer to the origins. Modernism is such an inexhaustible source that inspires and does not require special explanations for understanding.

Installation "Cabinet of Ivan Levinsky", author Volodymyr Kostyrko, architect Oleg Mochalkin, 2019, Center for Architecture, Design and Urbanism "Powder Tower", Lviv. Photo: Roman Shishak

In 2018, the centenary of the Vienna Secession was celebrated, timed to the anniversary of the death of Otto Wagner, Gustav Klimt, Koloman Moser and Egon Schiele - the brightest representatives of the style, whose influence went far beyond the borders of the country, and within the borders of the Austro-Hungarian Empire, where the West was then of Ukraine, played a key role.

On the XNUMXth anniversary of the death of Ivan Levinsky, we would like to consider more thoughtfully the peculiarities of the Ukrainian Secession, which, bearing the main features of the style, found its own, certainly original, distinctive expression.

Thanks to Levinsky, a style took shape in Lviv that gave the city a distinct uniqueness

Ivan Levynskyi is an outstanding Ukrainian architect, entrepreneur, public figure, professor and patriot of the young state of Ukraine. Contemporaries compared him with Rockefeller, Morgan and Ford. Having founded a construction firm in 1885, Levinsky developed a development company over three decades that specialized in the purchase of real estate, the production and sale of building and decorative materials, and construction itself. Thanks to him, not only did new quarters, dozens of elegant houses, public buildings grow in Lviv, but also the special handwriting of the master was created, which, having established itself in the works of Levinsky's students, took shape in a style that gave Lviv a distinctive uniqueness.

Ivan Levinsky was born in Dolyna, a small town in the foothills of the Carpathians, in the family of a director of a public school. Having lost his father at an early age, the boy had an unstoppable desire for education - from childhood he had a unique talent for critical and large-scale thinking. Choosing between the career of a clergyman and an engineer, he prefers the latter. Having received secondary education in the city of Stryi, thanks to the financial support of his older brother, Ivan entered the Technical Academy (now Lviv Polytechnic National University), where he found a friend and business partner in the person of teacher Julian Zakharevich.

Long years of work and creativity will connect these architects who are different in age, temperament and creative approach - the ideological inspirations of the New City. Working without a master plan, they managed to establish new building directions, expand the city, change the scale of the streets, and introduce green areas into architectural ensembles. If Julian, being a conceptual visionary of architecture, devoted more time to theory and the creation of model projects, then Ivan was a motor and a tireless embodiment of fresh ideas of Viennese architects, reinterpreted from the standpoint of a Ukrainian architect.

Building of the insurance company "Dniester", st. Ruska, 20, Lviv. Photo: Roman Shishak

Levinsky, increasing the intensity of construction work, was able not only to maintain quality, but also to introduce new standards of planning, while working on the traditions of the new national style. The intensity of a century ago is the simultaneous construction in a city with a population of 100 of about 000 private housing objects - mainly two-, three- and four-story buildings, in a row for the construction of the railway station, the City Theater (now the Opera and Ballet Theater), dormitories for students, hotels, hospitals and factories.

The new standards of Levinsky's time were related to changing the ratio of areas between residential, technical and sanitary zones, the use of block systems, new engineering solutions, as in the case of the Opera House. But it remained in history thanks to the new expression of Art Nouveau architecture.

Lewinsky remained in history thanks to the new expression of the architecture of secession

Villa Maryana Panchyshyn, str. Karmelyuka, 3, Lviv. It was implemented by one of Levinsky's students, Kazimir Teodorovych. Photo: Roman Shishak

The national style is born due to the peculiarity of modernism to look for fresh forms, ornamentation and color in local artistic traditions. Such a base will be for the creators of the new style - Levynskyi, Obminskyi, Lushpinskyi - folk sacred wooden architecture of the Carpathians, ornamentation of the Hutsul region, the use of ceramics and wood in the design of facades and interiors.

The approach to design was individual, so in Lviv you will not find two identical buildings, but even two identical ornaments on decorative ceramic tiles, one of the most famous techniques of the Ukrainian Secession. At the same time, the ratio of the proportions of the facades and high pitched roofs, the arrangement of ceramic friezes, which brought versatility to the style described above, were preserved. The use of artistic metal, decorative stucco, reproduction of traditional wooden elements in cement is typical for the design of facades of that period.

Wooden details of the facade of Maryana Panchyshyn's villa. Photo: Roman Shishak

Levynskyi, acting literally as a producer of construction ("designing horizontal projections" - that's what he called his drawings, and designing "external walls" he usually left to his students), always created, attentively listening to changes in European fashion. And already in the period of late secession, he abandons the saturated color range, creating more restrained, monochrome facades, still recognizable by ceramic panels with faceted inserts.

"People's House" Bursa in Lviv, str. Mykoly Lysenko, 14. Photo: Roman Shishak

In the period of late secession, Levinsky creates restrained facades, recognizable by ceramic panels with faceted inserts

Fragments and details of facade decoration using ceramics and wood

Even after Levinsky's death, the style was embodied in the works of Polish and Ukrainian architects. Creating the architectural face of Lviv, this energetic entrepreneur was guided not only by marketing policy, architectural ambitions, but also primarily by patriotic motives, integrating the Ukrainian artistic language into the world treasury of historical heritage.

That is why, for many Lviv residents, he remains the only true architect-patriot who created the Ukrainian Lviv — the cultural capital of an independent state, the appearance of which was a cherished dream of the Lviv intelligentsia at the beginning of the XNUMXth century.

 

Text: Svitlana Tymkiv