Project
Architectural competitions for the design of public spaces
Since 2010, the City of Lviv, in cooperation with the project and the Center for Urban History of East Central Europe, has been organizing international competitions for the design of public spaces n Lviv.
The aims of these competitions are:
- To find the best possible designs for improving the public spaces in Lviv.
- To extend the city administration’s experience of international design competitions,
- To encourage open discussions of the possibilities of design in the city,
- To give local architects opportunities to compete with international architects,
- To strengthen the international profile of Lviv,
- To control private investments in or around public spaces
So far, two competitions (one of which was in effect three competitions) have been concluded.
In addition to the general competition aim to improve public spaces, these particular competitions were intended to call attention to the multi-cultural and multi-confessional history of Lviv, a history that was deliberately suppressed or distorted during the decades-long soviet period.
International Design Competition for Sites of Jewish History in Lviv (2010)
Competitors were asked to submit proposals for one or more of three currently empty sites which are closely connected to the history of Lviv’s Jewish community before the Second World War and its destruction in the Holocaust.
136 potential competitors from 34 different countries registered for entry, and 70 submissions from 16 countries were received and accepted.
All but a very few submissions dealt only with one of each of these sites. The competition was in effect therefore three competitions, and was adjudicated as such.
The organizers gave names to the sites, indicating their intended future uses. These were:
1. “Synagogue Square". Located in what used to be the Jewish quarter in the historical inner city, this is where two of Lviv’s most important synagogues, the Golden Rose and the Great City Synagogue, and a religious teaching house once stood.
2. “Besojlem Memorial Park”. The site was once a Jewish cemetery, and numerous eminent Rabbis are known to have been buried there.
3. “Yanivsky Camp Memorial Park”. The Yanivsky (Janowska) concentration camp was one of the main sites of the Holocaust in Galicia. It is estimated that over a hundred thousand were killed here, and thousands more were sent to the Belzec death camp. The site is currently an abandoned piece of overgrown land, with no trace of what took place here.
International Design Competition for the Open Spaces of the Bernardine Monastery Complex In Lviv (2012)
The competition site consists of the currently public spaces in and around the former Bernardine monastery at the southern perimeter of Lviv’s historical old town. The Bernardines first built a monastic settlement on the site in the mid 15th century. The monastery was rebuilt numerous times, and by the 17th century, its spatial configuration was very much as it is today. Lviv’s newly arrived Austrian authorities dissolved the Bernardine Order in 1784, and the whole monastery, with the exception of the church, was given over to different secular uses. The religious functions of the complex have never been reinstated, and during the soviet period, the church was used as a storehouse.
Competitors were asked for proposals to revitalize the spaces in around the former monastery; to enhance their connectivity to the surrounding city; and to maintain and further emphasize the historical significance of the site.
160 potential competitors from 34 different countries registered for entry, and 30 projects from 13 countries were received and accepted.