Vul. Bohomoltsia, 01 – residential building
A four-storied building, located at the corner of Bohomoltsia and Franka streets, was constructed in 1905-1906 under a project developed by architect and constructor Jan Schulz for Helena and Stanisław Jakób Bal. This townhouse was built in the Historicist (Neo-Renaissance) style. Today it is used as a residential building; there are also offices of bank branches, a beauty salon and a hairdressing salon on the ground floor.
Architecture
The house is located at the corner of Bohomoltsia and Franka streets. This is a residential townhouse, typical of Lviv of the early 20th century, when houses were designed already connected to water supply, sewerage and electricity networks. Among all the buildings on Bohomoltsia street, this is the most traditional one in terms of its constructions and style. In its planning scheme, residential and auxiliary premises are clearly demarcated: the former face the street, while the latter face the courtyard. In general, this is typical of the residential architecture of the whole 19th century. All stairs in the house are wooden, despite the widespread use of metal structures and concrete at that time. The façades and interiors design is also quite conservative as they are solved in the Historicist style, some Neo-Renaissance elements used.
The house has four stories and cellars. It is built of brick and plastered; the bridgings between the floors are Klein vaults made of bricks laid on metal beams; the roof bridging is wooden. Both front and back stairs are wooden and have wheeling steps. The roof structure is made of wooden rafters and posts. The roof is covered with slate; originally, the house probably had a tin roof.
The plot where the house stands is quite large: the street façades are 32.8 and 31.2 meters long. Consequently, the townhouse has the shape of a closed quadrangle in plan and contains a large courtyard inside. The house has two front entrances: one from Franka street and the other through a passage from Bohomoltsia street. According to the original project, there were four apartments on each floor: two five-room ones and two four-room ones. Each of them had a spacious entrance hall, a kitchen, a bathroom, a toilet, small rooms for servants and pantries. All auxiliary facilities were located inside the apartment, their windows facing the courtyard. Apart from the main (front) staircases, there were also two subsidiary ones, located next to the kitchens and meant to be used by servants. Separate service toilets were to be entered through little galleries.
The street façades have thin projections on each side; and so does the cut corner. The central parts of the façades are symmetrical. The décor contains some rustication: more prominent one on floors 1-2 and thinner one on upper floors, representing a typical of the Historicist style tectonic composition principle. The second and third floors are divided on the façades by a moulded Doric order entablature with metopes and triglyphs. All windows have profiled trimmings, supplemented with linear pediments on floors 3-4. The façades are accentuated by balconies on the second and third floors located at the corner and on the main façade as well as by two bay windows facing Franka street. They all have a similar design: moulded consoles with volutes, pilasters, enclosures or panels. The façades are crowned with a moulded Corinthian order entablature, with roof windows in the frieze and panels having moulded arabesques between them.
The passage and corridors have walls and ceilings decorated with panels and restrained Neo-Classicist décor. The ground floor staircase has a floor covered with ornamental tiles while the staircase flooring on the upper floors is covered with herring-bone pattern parquet.
The building has undergone numerous alterations. Many ground floor premises are occupied by bank branches (in the front parts of the building) and by a hairdressing salon (in the rear part) while the rest is occupied by apartments. Several windows on the façades have been turned into doors; almost no authentic woodwork has been preserved in both windows and doors.
Related Places
Personalities
Klementyna z Bochdanów Witosławska – owner of the real estate #508 4/4 who inititated the construction of Bohomoltsia street
Sources
- State Archive of Lviv Oblast (DALO) 2/1/121.
- Informator lwowski (Lwow, 1932).
- Księga adresowa Małopołski, Wykaz domów na obszarze miasta Lwowa (Lwów. Stanisławów. Tarnopól, 1935/1936), 2.
- Lewicki Jakub, Między tradycją a nowoczesnością: Architektura Lwowa lat 1893–1918 (Warszawa: Towarzystwo Opieki nad Zabytkami, Wydawnictwo Neriton, 2005), 258-260.
- Skorowidz krolewskiego stolecznego miasta Lwowa (Lemberg, 1872).
- Skorowidz krolewskiego stolecznego miasta Lwowa (Lemberg, 1889).
- Skorowidz krolewskiego stolecznego miasta Lwowa (Lemberg, 1910).
- Spis abonentow sieci telefonicznej... (Lwow, 1937).
Media Archive Materials
Related Pictures