Vul. Samchuka, 8 – the Suputnyk Restaurant

ID: 2678

Originally, it was built in 1957 as the Dytiache café ("Children's Café") in connection with the children's railway arranged in the Stryiskyi Park. The modernist building was designed by Anatoliy Konsulov, a Lviv architect. Shortly after the opening, a fire broke out in it. After that, a restaurant called Suputnyk ("Satellite") was opened and still operates there. As of today, the building has been significantly rebuilt.

History

The Dytiache café was designed by architect Anatoliy Konsulov and built in 1957. The location has been chosen due to the proximity with the Lviv Children's Railway, which still operates there. And the name was derived from one of the then three stations, Dytiache Mistechko ("Children's town"). The latter has not survived the 1973 reconstruction of the park which included also a shortening of the tracks. The Soniachna ("Sunny") station is located in its place today.

Photographs from Anatoliy Konsulov's private archive and interviews that have been conducted with some of café's patrons, let us know that there was a fire in the building in the late 1950s or early 1960s. It was probably after that that the building was reopened as a restaurant. It received the name Suputnyk ("Satellite") and a bright neon sign. The renaming coincides with Yuri Gagarin's first flight to the Earth's orbit. As the cult of space conquest began in the USSR then, it would often get marked in the urban space. This included renaming of streets and buildings, as well as through visual art.

On everyday level, the restaurant served as a dining location for the employees of neighboring institutions, as well as a meeting place for the Lviv Polytechnic students, whose dormitories are located nearby. The restaurant would get most frequented though during industrial and art exhibitions taking place in the Stryiskyi park, the task of which was to demonstrate the achievements of the region.

Those who used to come to the Suputnyk in the Soviet period still mention it as one of the "most democratic" public places in the city, where one could even joke about political issues, unlike, for example, the Lviv Hotel, whose staff could not be trusted. Therefore, it was favored by visitors. And it received an unofficial name Baraban ("the drum") because of its round shape.

A large-scale reconstruction of the building began in the 1990s, when the Suputnyk became the property of private entrepreneurs. They retained its catering function and name but transformed it as an architectural object.

Architecture

The building was one of the first Anatoliy Konsulov's projects, designed in accordance with the trends of the second wave of Soviet modernism. The architect had previously worked exclusively in the Socialist Realist style. It was in contrast to the latter that modernist architecture emerged. It focused on the simplicity of form, optimization of space end effective structure design.

The building's plan is based on a circle with a rectangular insert that separates its front façade. The building had a flat roof with a symmetrical cornice, supported by walls and six pylons and high ribbon windows. The porch, which also had places for visitors, had a minimalist metal fence.

The building is located on the edge of the Stryiskyi Park's upper terrace, at the end of the plane tree alley. Therefore, one of the characteristic features of this architect's works was manifested in this object, namely, a combination of modernist architecture and nature. The building's exterior and interior were as minimalist as possible, attention being chiefly paid not to the decoration but to the original architectural design and space optimization. The façade was complemented by a neon sign; at the entrance to the café, there had been a sculpture of a mother and a child, which was taken away when it was reopened as a restaurant.

The last reconstruction of the building conducted in the 1990s changed it significantly. The building was expanded, a massive asymmetrical cornice and a wooden fence were added, the ribbon windows were replaced with standard plastic ones, the walls were repainted a warm orange-pink color. The interior was filled with a large number of decorative elements. Because of this, it is already difficult to recognize in the present-day Suputnyk restaurant a building designed by Anatoliy Konsulov.

Personalities

Anatoliy Konsulov (1924-1986) — a famous Lviv architect. Born in Kyiv, he studied at the Stoliarsky music school for gifted children (violin class) in Odesa. He later entered the Moscow Institute of Architecture; however, the institution he graduated from was Lviv Polytechnic Institute. In 1948-1972 he headed a group of architects at the Dipromist (State Institute for Urban Design). He is the author of many projects in and around Lviv: a sanatorium in the town of Truskavets, the Dnister hotel, the Lviv hotel, the Stryiskyi Park entrance arch and more.
Mykola Pankiv — a co-owner of the Suputnyk restaurant since 1994.
Nazar Rudy — a co-owner of the Suputnyk restaurant since 1994.

Sources

Юрій Бірюльов, "Консулови", Енциклопедія Львова, ред. Андрій Козицький, Т. ІІІ, (Львів: Літопис, 2012), с. 386.
Муза Консулова, Анатолій Консулов. Архітектор (Львів, 2017), 126
Interview with Zenoviy Mazuryk, 17.05.2020
Interview with Kateryna Konsulova, 2.11.2019
Interview with Bella Ditiatiyeva, 19.02.2020
Львов. Детская железная дорога

By Ludmyla Batalova

Edited by Olha Zarechnyuk

Translated by Andriy Masliukh