Black House, Lviv

The Black House (Ukrainian: Чорна кам'яниця, Chorna Kamyanytsia; Polish: Czarna Kamienica) is a remarkable Renaissance building on the Market Square in the city of Lviv, Ukraine. It was built for Italian tax-collector Tomaso Alberti in 1577. The architect was probably Piotr Krasowski.[1] The Lviv Historical Museum has been housed in the Black House since 1926.

For other uses, see Black House.
Black House
Ukrainian: Чорна кам'яниця, Chorna Kamyanytsia
Location within Ukraine
General information
Architectural styleRenaissance
LocationLviv, Ukraine
AddressMarket Square, 4
Town or cityLviv
CountryUkraine
Coordinates49°50′32″N 24°1′57″E
Construction started1577
Renovated1884/1980/2019
OwnerLviv Historic Museum
Height4
Design and construction
ArchitectPiotr Krasowski

The façade is lined with sandstone which has darkened over the years to blackish brown. The front exhibits some fine decorative ornamentation. Jan Lorencowicz, having acquired the house in 1596, added another storey and opened one of the town's first pharmacies on the ground floor. The uppermost storey was added in 1884.

History

The first owner of this building, or more precisely, of the one that used to stand in the location of the present one, was Andriy of Kyiv, that is why it was called the Kyiv House. At the end of the 16th century a representative of the Lviv patrician generation, Jan Lorencowicz, opened one of the first pharmacies in Lviv here.

From 1682 the daughter of Anchevsky- Anna and her husband, Dr. Andriy Shimonovich own this house.[2]

In 1732 the building was transferred to the Lviv district director Franciszek Wieszniewski, and in 1760, to the Armenian family Nikorovych. The assessor of the Tribunal, Dominik Nikorovich, received his nobility from the Austrian emperor in 1782. Owned by his descendants, the building was until 1911.

In 1884 the house was restored in accordance with the project of M. Fehter and A. Piotrovsky. The fourth floor was completed and the gutter, which was in the middle of the building's facade, was moved.

In 1911, the building was transferred to the right of Dr. Emil Roinsky. In the same year, a new restoration under the project of E. Zhikhovich is being carried out. In 1926, Roysky sold a building to the city government, which placed it in one of the departments of the Historical Museum of the city of Lviv.

The new reconstruction and adaptation of the building to the needs of the museum are held until 1929 under the direction of architect L. Diachak. On Sunday, September 22, 1929, a museum exposition opens here. Since then the building has not changed its owner and now there is a department of the new and modern history of the historical museum.

Now here is a Department of History of Ukrainian Diaspora of Lviv Historical Museum where some fragments of three main streams of Ukrainian emigration movement during the late 19th to late 20th centuries is highlighted. Items collected in the exposition helps to understand better that the Ukrainians living outside Ukraine is an important part of the Ukrainian nation which enriches the treasury of our shared history, science, culture and art.[3]

Architecture

Before the Renaissance period, stone and brickwork buildings in Lviv were normally crowned with a pitched roof. Subsequently, decorative "attics" - parapets with rich sculptural decoration mounted over the facades - became a characteristic feature of the residential architecture. At one time they embel- lished the majority of houses in the Market Square and the main streets adja- cent to the central square. "Diamond" rustication decorated the facades of many buildings dating from the sixteenth century, including the Black House, built largely during the 1580s.[4]

The four-story construction is elongated from east to west. The surface of the façade is divided by belt courses into three levels, and is completely covered by limestone slabs hewn using a diamond rustication technique. Wide pilasters that flank the façade wall are also rusticated. The décor composition includes a sculpture on the level of the first floor, a white stone border around the portal and windows, and a decorated attic.

According to assertion of V. Vuitsyk the facades of Black House and Assumption Church were polychrome namely triglyphs and metopes have traces of red, green, blue and gold paints.[5]

The portals and windows are decorated with marble on the inside of the building.[6]

The origin of the name

The black stone house acquired its name in the 19th century for one very trivial reason: over the centuries white lead used as a coating for polychrome had oxidized because of exposure to air and light, thus turning it black. Later, this black colour was maintained by routine repairs. In the 1960s there was a popular legend that the black colour of the building was the result of years of rubbing the black juice of green walnut peels into the façade. Another theory for the black discolouration, which is discounted by leading architects of Lviv, holds that soot has covered the white sandstone as a result of many years of heating.

The heating of buildings in winter was rather elaborate in the Middle Ages. To keep in warmth, carpets would be hung at some distance from walls to create an air gap for heating. To heat buildings a two-chambered stove would be fired up. Blazing wood heated stones and warm air from the stones travelled through pipes to all the floors. The porous sandstone that the building is built of would actively absorb dust and soot for centuries, turning it from white to black.

Renovation 2017

Lviv Historical Museum has won a grant from the US Embassy's Fund for the Preservation of Cultural Heritage for $275,000. The museum has added 29 thousand dollars.[7][8] Masters works by laser scanning.

For the money from the grant is planned to make the waterproofing roof, strengthen walls, to restore the internal and internal facades of the building, interiors on the first floor, to organize courtyard, and to create the conditions for exhibiting collection of architectural and sculptural details from the funds of the Lviv Historical Museum.[9]

On the facade of the building were found gray shades, and on the elements of stucco gilding.

The end of the restoration is scheduled for 2019.[2]

See also

References
  1. To this day significant differences exist in the dating and identity of the architect of the Black House. A detailed description of the buildings on Market Square in Lviv is listed in the monograph by Lucja Charewiczowa, Czarna kamienica ijej mieszkanczy (Lviv, 1935), pp. 7-42. In Charewiczowa' s view (p. 58) the identity of the architect of the Black House should be sought among the three distinguished builders of the late sixteenth century: Pietro di Barbona, Paolo Dominici, and Petro KrasovsTcyi (Piotr Krasowski). See also Vuitsyk, "Budivelnyi rukh u L'vovi," p. 125; Trehubova and Mykh, L'viv, pp. 58-59, 63-68; Milobçdzki, Zarys dziejów architektury w Polsce, p. 166.
  2. "У Львові реставрують унікальну "Чорну кам'яницю", яка насправді виявилась не чорною | То є Львів". То є Львів (in Ukrainian). 2018-09-21. Retrieved 2019-01-16.
  3. "The Black Stone House - Architectural Lviv - Architectual Lviv - Things to do - Lviv.travel - official city guide". lviv.travel. Archived from the original on 2019-01-17. Retrieved 2019-01-16.
  4. Zhuk, Ihor (2000). "The Architecture of Lviv from the Thirteenth to the Twentieth Centuries". Harvard Ukrainian Research Institute: 36 – via Harvard Institute.
  5. Kazantseva, Tetiana (2016). "EVOLUTION OF THE POLYCHROMY IN LVIV ARCHITECTURE OF THE 14TH – THE FIRST HALF OF THE 17TH CENTURY". Lviv Polytechnic National University Institute of Architecture Department of Design and Architecture Basics: 12.
  6. "Pl. Rynok, 04 – Chorna Kamianytsya (The Black House)". Lviv Interactive. Retrieved 2019-01-16.
  7. "Реставрація чорної кам'яниці: як зміниться історична пам'ятка в центрі Львова". tvoemisto.tv. Retrieved 2019-01-16.
  8. "Як виглядатиме Чорна кам'яниця у Львові після реставрації". tvoemisto.tv. Retrieved 2019-01-16.
  9. "У Львові реставрують пам'ятку архітектури Чорну кам'яницю". Варіанти (in Ukrainian). Retrieved 2019-01-16.
  • Памятники градостроительства и архитектуры Украинской ССР. Киев: Будивельник, 1983—1986. Том 3, с. 42.

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