"Ornament is Not a Crime": art nouveau in Lviv's architecture (04/14/02)

"Ornament is Not a Crime": art nouveau in Lviv's architecture

by Ihor Zhuk

NEW YORK - "Ornament is Not a Crime," a photographic exhibition depicting the art nouveau style of architecture in Lviv, is scheduled to open at The Ukrainian Museum on Sunday, April 28. The opening ceremony and reception will begin at 2 p.m. The exhibit will be on view through July 28.

"Ornament is Not a Crime," the title chosen for the present exhibition, is a reference to the radical dictum proclaimed at the dawn of the 20th century by the great Austrian architect Adolf Loos. In "Ornament und Verbrechen" and his other theoretical works, the renowned master of avant-garde architecture argued for the complete removal of ornamentation from architectural designs, as he considered the phenomenon of ornament to be akin to crime. The thrust of Loos' radical criticism was, in the first instance, aimed at the art nouveau style, immensely popular around 1900, and nevertheless condemned as an anachronism by the end of the first decade of the 20th century.

Since then the artistic heritage of art nouveau has undergone a thorough reassessment. Its significance in the history of art and architecture has been universally acknowledged. This reappraisal of the style, known variously as art nouveau, Jugendstil, Secession, and under a number of other names, is reflected in the emphatic title of the project: "Ornament is Not a Crime."

In addition to making their contribution to the centenary of the style of 1900, the organizers of the exhibition have attempted to acquaint art lovers with a vivid and little-known aspect of the artistic culture of East Central Europe by focusing on the architecture of Lviv, the biggest city of the western region of Ukraine. The exhibition "Ornament is Not a Crime" presents Lviv's numerous buildings of the early 20th century displaying the extraordinary art nouveau decoration.

Lviv has particular significance in the history of Ukraine, culturally fulfilling the function of a second capital (after Kyiv) and being an extremely important frame of reference for the Ukrainian psyche. Lviv is Ukraine's western gateway, a terminal linking Ukraine to Europe. From its foundation in the 13th century, the city developed as a fundamental point of exchange (in the widest sense, in terms of mutual influence in economic, political, religious and cultural spheres) between Eastern and Central Europe. Lviv's history is full of turbulent events that left their mark on both its sacred and secular architecture.

The earliest of its churches, built by the descendants of King Danylo, founder of Lviv and ruler of Galician Rus', date from the 13th century and are within the Byzantine tradition. The king of Poland, who in the mid-14th century incorporated Lviv into his realm, funded the gothic Roman cathedral. The architectural ensemble of the Orthodox Church of the Assumption, built at the turn of the 16th and 17th centuries by Italian craftsmen, is a supreme example of the Lviv Renaissance style.

In 1772, after the first partition of Poland, Lviv became a part of the Hapsburg Empire, and the capital of the most easterly of the Austrian crown lands. Its architecture clearly reflected the influence of the Viennese baroque and, subsequently, of Biedermeier.

During the period from the 1870s through the 1910s, a new feature of Lviv, relating to the city's important role as an administrative, economic and cultural center, became its intensive construction activity and the concurrent development of local architecture. As a result of the reforms carried out in the Austrian Empire in the 1860s, the status of Lviv/Lemberg, the capital city of the autonomous kingdom of Galicia, was considerably enhanced, which created a need for new buildings or diverse types. Thus, the late 19th and the early 20th centuries turned out to be an immensely creative era in Lviv's architectural history.

From the late 1890s onward, progress in the realm of architectural design and allied visual arts was accompanied by a widespread enthusiasm for the concept of art nouveau. Architecture of Lviv dating from ca. 1905 abounded in examples of this style, popularized by Tadeusz Obminski, Ivan Levynskyi, Alfred Sachariewicz, Wladyslaw Sadlowski and other highly skilled architects. Lviv's reputation as one of the greatest Secessionist sites of East Central Europe derives from the creative work of these outstanding representatives of the local school of architecture.

By the reckoning of the author of the exhibition displayed at The Ukrainian Museum, the number of architectural objects showing Art nouveau ornamentation within the city of Lviv approaches 800.

From around 1908, the art nouveau style of Lviv's architecture entered the later stage of its development, to be superseded by the patterns of neoclassicism and early modernism just before World War I broke out.

The "Ornament is Not a Crime" exhibition was presented in 1997 in the gallery of the Austrian Consulate General in Krakow, and in the Museum of Architecture in Wroclaw, Poland. Futher presentations, supported by the British Council, took place in Britain, where the exhibition became a part of the International Festival of Architecture and Design Manifesto '97 in Edinburgh (1997), and of the Festival of Central European Culture organized under the aegis of the Austrian Cultural Institute in London (1998).

For information call (212) 228-0110, e-mail [email protected], or log on to ukrainianmuseum.org.

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