Vul. Akademika Hnatiuka, 08 – residential building

The house was built in the center of the city, close to Svobody boulevard and to the western boundaries of the historic center, on a corner parcel adjacent to the intersection of Hnatiuka and Kurbasa streets.

The four-storied corner townhouse is an element of the block’s dense housing. It has two main façades opened at an angle. The elongated west façade overlooks Kurbasa street; the narrower south one with the entrance portal overlooks Hnatiuka street. The five-window-axis south façade’s composition has a symmetrical structure. Its center is emphasized by a three-window protruded wall section with a wide balcony on the second floor and a narrower one on the third floor. On the eight-axis west façade, there is a wide three-window protruded wall section to the right and balconies on the second and third floors to the left. Between the two external façades bordering the sidewalk line, there is a cut corner with a small half-round balcony. From the east, where an undeveloped area is located, one can see a long unplastered firewall.

The façades are horizontally divided by cornices and bars as well as by line rustication stripes; vertically, at the top two floors level, they are divided by pilasters with composite capitals and flutes. The fourth floor paired narrow windows are additionally flanked by smaller Doric pilasters. The third floor window openings have semicircular tops. The upper cornice is decorated with consoles and a strip of ovoli. On the perimeter of the façades, an attic is arranged. The roof is topped with a several-tier tented superstructure, with a bulbous dome and a spire making the townhouse’s silhouette to stand out clearly in the perspective of Hnatiuka and Sichovykh Striltsiv streets. The façade wall’s lower tier is filled with shop windows of commercial premises.

The style of exterior decorative design (mostly moulding) is defined by an eclectic blend of Neo-Renaissance and Neo-Baroque forms: ornamental moulded friezes featuring a palmette motif are arranged on the attic and above the top floor windows; there are also Baroque cartouches below the bases of pilasters and on the attic, as well as rows of decorative balusters below the windows. The décor complex is most notably accentuated by a relief located on the south façade above the third floor central window and featuring two female figures as allegories of painting and music.

The plot where the house is located has a shape of an irregular elongated quadrangle. The building consists of two front blocks (their façades overlooking Hnatiuka and Kurbasa streets) with a two-tract arrangement of rooms, and interior sections adjacent to the firewalls, with one tract of rooms. The building’s arms encircle a closed courtyard with galleries from all sides. A spacious staircase, adjacent to the courtyard, can be reached through the gate (from the side of Hnatiuka street) and an entryway. The interior residential and commercial premises are connected according to the enfilade principle.