Location: Rinok (Market) Square, 1
Lviv Town Hall is an administrative building in the central part of Lviv, on Rynok Square, 1. Throughout its existence, the town hall was the seat of the central city government of Lviv. Today it is the seat of the Lviv City Council. An architectural monument of national importance, which belongs to the UNESCO World Heritage. The modern tower of the Lviv Town Hall is 65 meters high, the tallest in Ukraine.
Beginnings, the old town hall
Historian of the beginning
of the 20th century, Franciszek Yavorskyi, claims that
during the princely times there was no town hall in Lviv,
although Magdeburg law was already implemented to a certain
extent then. The cornerstone, in his opinion, should have
been laid by Casimir III after the confirmation of the
Magdeburg right (1356), together with the relocation of the
city center and the foundation of the future Latin
cathedral. However, Yavorsky himself drew attention to the
fact that there are no documentary references to this. The
version also does not agree with the latest ideas about the
beginnings of the city center and the cathedral. According
to them, the city center was planned back in the second half
of the 13th century. In turn, the cathedral was probably
founded after the death of Casimir III, in the 1380s.
According to historiographical tradition, the
construction of the first, probably wooden, town hall was
completed by Prince Volodyslau of Opole, who in 1372–1378
ruled Galicia as a vassal of the Hungarian king with the
title of Lord of Russia. The first mention of the town hall
was given by Bartholomew Zimorovych in the description of
the fire in 1381, when it burned to the ground. But in 1382,
the town hall is again mentioned as already existing. Early
references to her are very sparse. It seems that the layout
of the town hall was typical, close to those built in German
cities based on Magdeburg law. It consisted of a trading
hall and a meeting hall. In 1387, the magistrate forbade the
sale of wine anywhere except in the town hall's cellars,
from which it is clear that there were cellars that were
rented out. The town hall tower was probably made of wood,
as there are records of repeated expenditures for material
and carpentry work on it. The first mention of a clock dates
back to 1404. In 1414, for the needs of fish merchants, a
pond was created nearby, on which a stone bridge was built.
In 1425, expenses were recorded for the installation of a
pranger (pillar of shame) nearby.
Over the centuries,
all parts of the town hall changed and expanded. At the end
of the 15th century, a decision was made to expand the town
hall. The western part of the building with the tower was
dismantled, and on August 10, 1489, the ceremonial laying of
the cornerstone took place with the participation of Prince
Jan Olbracht. The nature of the expenses suggests that the
new building was quite monumental. The construction of the
tower was carried out by builder Hans Stecher, who led a
team of 17 journeymen. The carpenter Kapinos was also
involved. Most of the work was completed by 1491, but the
building was finally finished only in 1504, when a new clock
was installed.
In 1527, during the great fire of
Lviv, the town hall did not burn to the ground, but was
badly damaged. In 1532, seven masons under the leadership of
master Oprelich began restoration work. At the same time, a
new tiled roof was made. In the years 1539–1540, the master
builder Luka led a team of 7 comrades, 2 students and 16
workers to repair the town hall tower. In 1557, a dial was
installed, executed and painted by the Lviv painter
Augustyn. In 1571, the town hall survived another fire.
In 1617, Martin Campian convinced the city council to
build a new tower. He paid for the construction materials
and labor with his own money. He also used funds from the
royal treasury, which were primarily intended to ensure the
defense capability of the city. In 1619, the construction of
a new octagonal tower was completed, decorated with
sculptures by Andreas Behmer and Bernard Dickembosch.
Campianus was praised from the tower. Fragments of
sculptures that survived after the fall in 1826, coats of
arms, believed to be the works of Bemer, were in the
Lyubomyrsky museum in Lviv.
At the beginning of the
XIX century. the old town hall consisted of several
buildings facing south. The middle house was the oldest,
with its foundations dating back to the beginnings of the
city; to the right and to the left were later additions. The
main entrance was in the left wing. Wide stairs and a
semicircular gate supported by steel pillars led to it;
behind it was a vestibule and hayloft, from which stone
stairs led to the floors. The grandest hall of the house was
the "gentleman's" or "consular" room. The City Council was
meeting here. The richest burghers, "patricians" of the
city, Catholics themselves, Germans and Poles belonged to
the council. They ruled the city regardless of the
resistance of the poorer population. For many years, the
Stavropygian brotherhood, on behalf of the Ukrainian
community, led the process with the city so that Ukrainians
would be admitted to the council. At the end of 1745, the
process ended happily, the first Ukrainian - Heorhiy Kotsii
- joined the city council.
The council chamber was
famous for its wealth. There were: an expensive collection
of oriental carpets, precious candlesticks, clocks,
pictures, maps of parts of the world, a large coat of arms
of Lviv, and other things. The council received guests and
embassies here. Bohdan Khmelnytskyi's ambassadors also
visited here: in 1648 Zahary Khmelnytskyi, the hetman's
brother-in-law, in 1655 - Pavlo Teterya and Lesnytskyi. Next
to the council chamber was a treasury, where the privileges
of the city and various valuables - city and private
individuals - were hidden. On the floor above the council
hall was the hall of the bench court, where an ancient image
of the "terrible court" hung. Further, there were rooms of
various city offices. There was a separate room for the "40
men" college, which appeared in 1577. It included
representatives of crafts, the poorer bourgeoisie, as well
as delegates of the "Russian nation" (Ukrainians). Ukrainian
representatives repeatedly scolded the city council in
bitter words for its arrogance and injustice towards the
poor population.
"Behind the town hall building there
was an old tower 58 m high. It was four-walled up to the
fourth floor, eight-walled above; its top was covered by a
bath, covered with sheet metal, with a steep turret. On the
top of the tower was the Polish coat of arms and below it
the heraldic lion, which has been preserved to this day. In
1672, during a strong storm, a lion fell from the tower,
this was considered a bad sign for the city - that year the
Turkish siege came to the city.
The town hall is a
witness of many historical events. In 1564, the Moldavian
landlord Stefan VII Tomsha was executed here, and in 1578,
Ivan Pidkova, the leader of the Cossack-peasant uprising,
was executed here.
The walls of the town hall at the
end of the 1780s were partially destroyed. In 1790, the city
bought one of the 12 buildings on the north side of the town
hall to replace its old premises with new, more spacious
ones. At the beginning of the 19th century, a project was
developed, according to which all parts of the town hall,
except for the tower, were to be demolished. The loosening
of the foundation of the tower of the town hall led to its
destruction on July 14, 1826: the longitudinal 4-sided part
"in the afternoon took shape" (that is, "began to crack", or
sway), at a quarter to 7 it collapsed, collapsing on two
sides. A trumpeter, 2 soldiers, several workers were killed.
New town hall
The cornerstone was laid on October 21,
1827. The ceremony began with a service in the Latin
Cathedral by Przemyśl Bishop Jan Anthony de Potochki. After
that, Lviv Archbishop Andrzej Ankwicz, in the presence of
Governor August von Lobkowitz, Burgomaster Jan Gomme and a
large number of Lviv residents, held a service in front of a
specially arranged altar on the site of the future
construction and consecrated a stone, in which a capsule
with a commemorative act and coins of the time was placed.
Laying took place on the western side of the future
building. Historian Franciszek Jaworski claims that the
construction lasted from 1827 to 1835 according to the joint
project of Franz Thresher and Joseph Markl, approved in
Vienna. There is, however, a version by Franz Ciszka about
the construction of the town hall by Markle together with
Yosif Vondrashka under the leadership of Jerzy Glogowski in
1828–1835. This version is also preferred by Tadeusz
Mankowski. For a long time, it was impossible to lay the
foundations of the northern wing, because the issues with
the owners of some mid-market tenement houses were not
settled, the last of which was demolished only in 1832. The
town hall is made of brick, four-story, square in plan, with
an inner courtyard. A tower with a clock rises above the
town hall. The cost of construction is 800,000 gold rynas.
The architecture of the new town hall was critically
evaluated by contemporaries. Later, at the beginning of the
XX century. Franciszek Yavorskyi called it ugly and compared
the tower to a chimney. Ukrainian art critic Dmytro Stepovyk
spoke much better about the town hall. He considers
restrained decor to be optimal, such that it does not
diminish the beauty of valuable surrounding sights, and the
massive block of the building, in his opinion, "organizes
the entire square." Another art critic, Volodymyr Ovsiychuk,
generally supports these views, but outlines the nature of
the building as a "cold treasury".
In 1837, the
offices of both senates of the magistrate, all of its
departments were moved to the building. In the same year,
the first art exhibition in Lviv was held on the first floor
of the northern wing. On the morning of November 2, 1848,
during the revolutionary events in Lviv, the city center was
shelled by Austrian artillery and the town hall was badly
damaged by fire. The dome of the tower collapsed and thereby
destroyed the clock and bells. 25 arabesque bas-reliefs by
Yoan Shimzer, which were temporarily stored in the attic
from 1847 and were intended for the southern facade, have
been lost. In 1851, the building was renovated according to
the project of Johann Salzman (Alfred Bojarski Czarnota was
also among the specialists who worked on the
reconstruction). The dome finish was replaced with a toothed
one. The construction was carried out by Wilhelm Schmid,
Vincent Ravskyi Sr. and Joseph Franz. In 1852, new clocks
were installed on the tower.
At the end of the 19th
and the beginning of the 20th centuries. a number of
reconstruction projects of the town hall were created. But
none of them was implemented. In 1928–1929, architects
Witold Ravskyi and Rudolf Martulya reconstructed the
interiors in the constructivist style. The ceiling of the
main hall was replaced with a new reinforced concrete one.
Ravsky developed new rocaille paintings of the hall instead
of the old Art Nouveau ones. Created sketches of new lions
at the entrance that were not implemented.
During the
November parade, centurion Dmytro Vitovskyi handed the
rifleman Stepan Pankivskyi (with him also riflemen Mykola
Konyk, Lev Gets, Zenon Rusyn and Mykola Pachovskyi) a
Ukrainian national flag, which was sewn by the wife of the
director of Narodnaya Torgivli Maria Lazarko and brought to
the headquarters of the Military Committee. and gave orders
to fix it on the spire of the town hall, which was carried
out.
After 1939
Since 1939, the building has
housed the Lviv City Council.
In the summer of 1944,
the UPA and the Craiova Army tried to take the city under
their control, in particular, the Polish flag hung on the
town hall before the arrival of the "Soviets". In 1970
(according to other data, 1977), a memorial plaque was
installed on the facade in honor of the first mayva in Lviv
in 1890. Sculptor Mykola Posikira. Cast from bronze at the
Lviv experimental ceramic-sculpture factory.
To the
27th anniversary of the Independence of Ukraine in August
2018. "World of Safety and Comfort" and "LichtForum"
companies carried out work on the architectural lighting of
the Town Hall.
The earliest information about the clock at the town hall (the
first city clock of Lviv) dates back to 1404. During the
reconstruction of the town hall and the tower in 1491, a clock bell
weighing 1.1 tons, made by the foundry Valentin Felten, was placed
on the tower. With the help of this bell, the hours were struck
manually until the monk Gregory (lat. Gregorius monachus) made a new
automatic clock that struck the hours itself and was installed on
the tower in 1504. The clock was decorated by the painter Jan, for
which he received 4 red gold. Zimorovych mentions this watch in his
writings. In the fire of 1527, when the whole city was on fire, the
clock survived, but, like the tower, it needed repair. These works
were done by master Lukash. After 20 years, another repair of the
clock was carried out, during which the windings were updated, new
stone weights were hung, etc. Carpenter Shimon made new hands and a
dial. In 1557, the stonemason Pavlo made four dials for the town
hall clock and decorated them with carvings with angel heads, and
the artist Augustyn represented the movement of the sun and the moon
on the silvered dial. At the same time, the clock was equipped with
an additional bell for striking the quarters.
In 1571, the
town hall and the clock mechanism were again damaged by fire.
Baltazar Slovik, a watchmaker from Przemyśl, established that the
old clock was not suitable for use at all, which is why it was
dismantled, and a clock from Halytska Gate was temporarily installed
in its place. Master Melchior Tyl was invited from Slesek to make a
new watch. Work on the new clock lasted two years and in 1574 it was
installed on the tower. The restoration cost 220 Austrian forints
and was financed from the city treasury. Later, a bell that struck
every 15 minutes, a large iron cross for arrows, new weights, two
lines of 36 fathoms long, which were regularly lubricated with
tallow and grease, and new dials with gilding were installed.
Sebastiyan Klenovich dedicated several lines in his "Roxolania" to
this watch:
There, the clock on the tower counts the slow hours,
Its changes in time are heard in constant knocks.
The clock lever
turns all the gear wheels
And he accurately measures the time
that is running somewhere.
Ears caress the clock with its double
chime,
Every time it reminds us: a particle of time has passed,
As if to say that lost time cannot be returned,
And he always
teaches that he is a thing dear to everyone
In 1619, the
burgomaster of Lviv M. Campian rebuilt the Gothic town hall in
accordance with the Renaissance fashion. Then two medieval bells
fell on the tower. In 1721, a new clock mechanism was purchased,
which was replaced in 1788 with a clock purchased from the disbanded
church of the Jesuit fathers. The clock and bells broke on July 14,
1826, when the old town hall collapsed.
In 1836, a clock made
at the Vienna Polytechnic Institute was installed on the newly built
tower. Professor Stampfer was watching the clock. However, the new
clock functioned for only 11 years - until 1848, when during the
artillery bombardment of Lviv by Austrian troops, the clock burned
down together with the tower of the town hall. After the rebuilding
of the tower in 1851, a new clock was installed, also of Viennese
manufacture, made by the famous Austrian firm "Wilgelm Stiehl",
which is still working. This is one of the last mechanical tower
clocks in Europe. The clock mechanism is at a height of 75 meters,
from the fourth floor of the town hall to the cabin where it is
located - 255 steps, and in total to the observation deck on the top
of the town hall, under the bells - 364 steps. The clock weighs 2.5
tons, the diameter of the dial is 2.7 meters, the length of the
large hand is about 2.15 meters (weight 15 kilograms), and the small
hand is 1.7 meters.
The smaller clock bell was cast in the
workshop of Jan Belman in Lviv in 1835. It was by his voice that the
residents of Lviv had to turn off the lights at exactly 11 p.m. The
Viennese master Hilzer cast a larger clock bell in 1849. On it is
written in Latin: "Good people, do not sleep on the kingdom of God."
It weighs 700 kilograms and is unique in its components. It contains
280 kilograms of silver and copper and 140 kilograms of cast iron.
It is he who is credited with the magical ability to fulfill wishes,
so everyone who knows about it will definitely crawl a couple of
meters to touch his magical metal.
One of the most famous
legends associated with the Lviv "Big Ben" is the story of the monk
Grigory. In 1348, the Lviv Town Hall burned down. In the fire, the
watch suffered considerable damage. By some miracle, the seconds
mechanism survived - the heart of the watch mechanism (since then it
has not seen any repair or restoration). But the bells were
"silent". After all, the gears that actuate them were completely
broken. The restoration lasted two years. At that time, monk George
lived in the town hall, who rang the bells every 15 minutes. Neither
the residents of the city nor even the administration of the city
council knew about the existence of the mysterious monk. When the
gears were restored, the monk was useless. When he went to say
goodbye to the mechanism, his heart failed and he died. Since then,
a legend has appeared about a coffin with a black monk, which
allegedly flies around the town hall at twelve o'clock at night.
Some more interesting stories are connected with the life of
Lviv watchmakers. Until the 16th century, as a rule, monks took care
of clocks. One of the reasons was to prevent the "unclean force"
from settling in the complex clockwork. It was believed that the
clock, which is taken care of by a "man of God", will never mislead.
Until recently, until 2000, ordinary citizens were not allowed
to the clock - the town hall tower was considered a strategic
object. Now the entrance to the town hall is free, there is a paid
observation deck on its tower, which offers a view of the city.
Lviv trumpeter
In the 15th and 20th centuries, the town hall
trumpeter served on the town hall tower. He was supposed to watch
over the security of the city around the clock, announce the exact
time with a signal, play festive music on holidays, and sound the
alarm in case of an enemy attack or a fire.
The tradition of
trumpet playing at the Lviv City Hall was revived in 2011.
Now, in the courtyard of the Lviv town hall, various events are
taking place to the sound of trumpeters - for example, antiques are
sold here.