5th Gymnasium Building

Formation of the Street

Serafyma Kushevycha Street was laid out at the beginning of the 20th century during the rapid urban expansion of western Lviv. Until 1946, it was known as Samuil Kushevych Street, named after Kazimierz Samuel Kuszewicz, a 17th-century Mayor of Lviv and memoirist. After the Second World War, it was renamed Klubna Street because of the nearby club of the Lviv Tram and Trolleybus Administration (today the Hnat Khotkevych Municipal Palace of Culture). In 1993, the street received its present name in honour of Serafym Kushevych, a Ukrainian Orthodox priest from Volyn who was persecuted and executed in the Soviet BelBaltLag labour camp in 1937.

Who Was the Owner?

No. 5 was built between 1905 and 1907 as the purpose-built premises of the Fifth Imperial and Royal (k.k.) Gymnasium, an educational institution established in 1889 at the Bernardine Monastery. The building was commissioned by the educational authorities of the Kingdom of Galicia and Lodomeria, while the design was prepared by Lviv architect Zygmunt Kędzierski. From the very beginning, it served as one of the city’s most modern secondary school buildings.

Architectural Appearance

The building is an outstanding example of Late Art Nouveau (Secession) applied to public architecture. Its composition is distinguished by monumental proportions, strict symmetry and a rational layout, all characteristic of large educational buildings of the early twentieth century.

The façades are decorated with restrained Secession ornamentation dominated by geometric motifs. The central avant-corps with the main entrance creates a ceremonial focal point, while the large windows were designed to provide abundant natural light to the classrooms. The architecture successfully combines the traditions of Historicism with the emerging principles of Art Nouveau that defined the Lviv architectural school at the beginning of the twentieth century.

Interesting Facts

• The Fifth Gymnasium was one of Lviv’s most important secondary schools and was attended by many Ukrainian (Ruthenian) students, as it was located on what was then the outskirts of the city.
• Among its graduates was the renowned Ukrainian composer Vasyl Barvinsky.
• During the German occupation of Lviv (1941–1944), the building housed the Second General Jewish Hospital.
• After the Second World War, the premises successively accommodated a Communist Party school, the Lviv Republican School of Cinema Projectionists, and later the Lviv Republican College of Cinematography.
• The building is listed as a local architectural monument and remains one of the finest preserved examples of Secession-era educational architecture in Lviv.

What Is Here Today?

Since the early 1990s, the building has housed the Lviv Branch of the Kyiv National University of Culture and Arts, and since 2000 it has also been home to the Lviv Branch of the European University. More than a century after its construction, the building continues to fulfil an educational function while remaining an important landmark of Lviv’s historic urban fabric and a valuable example of the city’s Art Nouveau architectural heritage.