Building at 13 Ivan Kotliarevskyi Street, Lviv
1. Formation of the Street
Ivan Kotliarevskyi Street lies within Lviv’s historic Kastelivka / Novyi Svit district — an area developed at the turn of the 19th and 20th centuries as the city expanded westward, creating orderly residential quarters for the middle class and professionals.
Originally, this section was called Nabielaka Street, after the Polish poet Ludwik Nabielak. It featured elegant villas and apartment houses surrounded by greenery — a characteristic trait of the “garden city” atmosphere of Kastelivka.
The building now numbered 13 once bore the address Nabielaka 11-A and became home to several figures of Lviv’s cultural life.
2. Architects and Style
The architect of this house remains unknown, yet stylistically it represents late Historicism with elements of early Modernism.
The façade is symmetrical and understated: large window openings, a clearly defined central axis, and minimal ornamentation. This balance of practicality and refinement was typical for Lviv’s residential buildings of the 1900s.
3. Ownership
In the early 20th century, the property belonged to Maria Strzyżowska. Her ownership illustrates a wider phenomenon of that era — private, often female, proprietorship of income-producing houses within the growing bourgeois city.
4. Notable Resident
The most famous resident of the building was Feliks Wygrzywalski (Fелікс Вигживальський), a renowned Polish painter and graphic artist.
He lived here from 1908 to 1914 and again from 1918 to 1944.
Wygrzywalski was a professor at the Free Academy of Art in Lviv and one of the city’s leading artists of the early 20th century. He produced paintings, lithographs, murals, and stained-glass designs, helping shape the city’s artistic identity.
After World War I, he returned to Lviv and to his former apartment at Nabielaka 11-A, where he remained until 1944.
5. Architectural Description
The house at 13 Kotliarevskyi Street is a solid, early-modern masonry residence:
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balanced façade with a central axis and possibly a bay or small balcony;
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tall rectangular windows ensuring ample daylight;
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restrained decorative detailing limited to cornices and subtle plaster moulding;
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a small garden strip in front, consistent with Kastelivka’s villa character.
Its architecture emphasizes durability, proportion, and comfort rather than exuberance — the very qualities that made such buildings highly valued among Lviv’s educated residents.
6. What It Is Today
Today, the building remains a residential property, retaining its historic layout and façade.
Beyond its architectural merit, it carries memorial significance as the long-time home of Feliks Wygrzywalski, one of Lviv’s most influential early-modern artists.