Vul. Stryiska, 109 – Lviv main bus station
The "Lviv" bus terminal’s building on Stryiska street 109 was constructed in 1976-1980. Its project was designed by architects V. Sahaydakivsky, V. Leokhnovsky, and M. Stoliarov; V. Boykiv and A. Yefremov were the project engineers. Stylistically, the building is modernist in style. The attractive form of the bus terminal with the neighbouring 14-storied residential buildings stands out against its background and gives an expressive picture to the entrance of the city. As of 2013, the bus terminal building premises were also used by a car sales center.
History
To construct the main bus terminal complex, a plot on Stryiska street near the southern entrance to the city was chosen. The plot belonged to the "Green Building Trust". There used to be everal private houses there; they were dismantled, and the residents were resettled. According to the site plan, a new road had to be laid near the future bus terminal plot;" the road would cross Stryiska street at right angles. The intersection had to be arranged in the form of a two-level interchange. Apart from that, the city pipelines and networks were constructed up to this place, including water and heating supply, sewerage system, electric and telephone lines.
The resolution for the construction of a new bus terminal was issued by the Ministry of the Automobile Transport of the Ukrainian SSR on 27 October 1969. The project was drawn in 1971-1973 by the Lviv branch of the Dipromist Institute. The Lviv production and economic association of bus stations acted as the client.
According to the preliminary calculations, the cost of the construction of the bus terminal complex was 1,750,000 roubles and the cost of the building itself was 1,200,000 roubles (prices as of 1973). The construction was finished in 1980.
Apart from the bus terminal itself and the neighbouring residential block, the rest of the planned
infrastructure elements were never realised. The designed road, perpendicular to Stryyska street, was partially constructed in its eastern part in 2012, but without the two-level interchange.
Since the surrounding infrastructure has not been built in full, the bus terminal building, as of 2012, is not used in full either. The functional purpose of its premises has been slightly changed. The main access from the city is from the north-eastern façade, via the arrival platforms, and not from the west as it was envisaged by the project. The arrival platforms themselves perform a double function as buses both arrive there and depart from there. Instead, the departure platforms are used for parking. The main booking-office hall was transferred to the basement floor where originally a luggage storageroom was designed. Thus, the main hall is not used the way it was intended initially. Service and administration premises, recreation rooms are rented by private companies on a commercial basis.
In the second half of the 1990s and in the first half of the 2000s several projects were presented which considered a reconstruction and expansion of the bus terminal complex, including the addition of more floors and the construction of a hotel on the complex territory. The last of such was rejected by the city building council in 2009.
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Architecture
According to the site plan, the bus terminal is located on the southern edge of the city, in the neighbourhood of Bodnarivka, at two kilometers’ distance from the city ring road. The bus terminal territory (with an area of 3 ha) is situated at the intersection of Stryyska street and a new predesigned street.
The bus terminal was intended for 500 passengers and a capacity of up to 15 thousand passengers daily. The bus terminal complex consists of the main building, a technical checkpoint, a transformer substation, special bridges to examine buses from below, a garbage receptacle, treatment facilities, and a sports ground. The bus terminal general plan project envisaged the future construction of a two-level interchange at the intersection of Stryyska street and a new predesigned street. A free territory to the north of the bus terminal was considered a reserve one for the further development of the bus terminal complex.
The volumetric structure of the bus terminal is a triangle forming three zones: an area in front of the bus terminal from the side of Stryyska street, arrival zone and departure zone. From Stryyska street the building has three floors and a complicated roof.
The building’s main façade, where the main entrance is located under the project, is oriented to Stryyska street. The building stands on an open plot and thus can be perceived from any side without hindrance. This location conditions the building’s composition which is centric in plan. The main axis of the bus terminal complex is directed perpendicularly to Stryyska street; the square near the main terminal lies along this axis.
The main volume of the building is lifted and supported by massive pylons with staircases located in them; it is cantilevered and overhangs the ground floor. Each of the three façades is concave and divided largely by vertical pilasters and big windows. In general, the building dominates its surroundings.
The building’s composition has the form of a trefoil with concentric floors repeating the same form.
A vestibule with two tiers of windows, ticket offices, a control room, and rooms for drivers are located in the ground floor premises of the building’s central part. The cantilevered second floor is much larger in plan than the ground floor; its volume overhangs the latter. There are recreation and waiting halls, a café and a buffet, bathroom units, a room for mothers with children, service rooms, a hairdresser’s shop, a first-aid station, hotel rooms and the bus terminal adminisration office there.
Arrival and departure platforms are located on the perimeter of the northern and southern façades under the overhanging volume of the building. They are accessed from the basement floor where the luggage storage room and auxiliary services are situated. A wide fence roof is arranged under the western façade for those arriving from the city.
Three pylons with staircases inside are the basis of the building’s conbstruction design and function as stiffening cores. Twelve additional columns are placed in the spans between the pylons; these columns support longitudinal reinforced concrete frames.
The building has monolithic reinforced concrete strip (and, in some places, piles) foundations. The basement walls are constructed of precast foundation slabs and blocks.
The façade window constructions of the second and third tiers are made of steal sashes; the windows have aluminium frames. The façade’s steel elements are painted with light-coloured nitro paints. The floor is decorated with granite slabs; the construction elements are decorated with terracotta colored stucco.
The main interior volume of the building is bridged with a monolithic coffered ceiling of a triangular layout. Thus, there are no load-bearing structures in the interior space. Between the floors, there are monolithic rib bridgings made of reinforced concrete. There are two open reinforced concrete staircases in the main hall. There are concrete and tiled floors in the utility rooms, mosaic floors in public rooms, and parqueted floors in working rooms. The premises are decorated with terrazite plaster, as well as mastic and glue-based paints and calcimine. Columns in the passenger hall, stairs barriers and the café walls are faced with marble.
Personalities
1. Technical archives
of the Mistoproekt State Institute of
Urban Planning (ukr. ДП ДІПМ "Містопроект"). Object 3027 "Engineering Project of a Bus
Terminal for 500 Passengers Located on 187-189 Stryiska Street in Lviv". Explanatory
Notes, Volume 1. Lviv: Ukrainian State Institute of Urban Planning Hyprograd, Lviv branch. 1973, 140.
Print.
2. Hofer A., Leitner E., Tscherkes B.,
Lemberg: Architecture and City. 100 Landmark buildings (Wien: LIT Verlag GmbH
& Co KG, 2012), 163.
3. Трегубова Т. О., Мих Р. М., Львів.
Архітектурно-історичний нарис (Київ: Будівельник, 1989), 269.
4. Бірюльов Ю., Архітектура Львова. Час
і стилі ХІІІ–ХХІ ст. (Львів: Центр Європи, 2008), 624–720.