Architects in Galicia and the city
Architects in Galicia and the city

The question of history and modernity before World War I

Author(s): Aleksander Łupienko
Contributor(s): Katarzyna Wieleńska (Translator)
Subject(s): 19th Century, Pre-WW I & WW I (1900 -1919), Interwar Period (1920 - 1939), WW II and following years (1940 - 1949), Post-War period (1950 - 1989), Transformation Period (1990 - 2010), History of Art
Published by: Wydawnictwa Uniwersytetu Warszawskiego
Keywords: architects; 19th-century architecture; historicism; national styles; hygienic movement
Summary/Abstract: The paper describes the dilemmas of architects, one of the important groups of professionals in Galicia at the turn of the nineteenth and twentieth centuries. The paper is based on Polish-language publications of architects, as well as art historians and others, who were interested in urban architecture in Galicia. The main topics covered here are the need of new aesthetics in architecture, freed from emulations of earlier styles and decorative motifs (including the question: what an architectural style really is), including the need for a more national (Polish) architecture. Another topic was the end of a ‘monopoly’, hitherto held by architects in the field of architectural critique, and the rise of an art-historical discourse. Finally such topics as modernity in architecture, rational city planning and an affirmation of pure aesthetic values in architectural practice attracted the attention of the authors of the sources.

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