North-West district: objectivities and subjectivities of territory and urban substance Dr. Olha Kryvoruchko, National University Lviv Politechnic This article is a part of a research project: “The memory of vanished population groups in today’s East and Central European urban environments. Memory treatment and urban planning in L’viv, Černivci, Chişinău and Wrocław.” https://memoryofvanishedurbanpopulations.wordpress.com
objectivities: the functional use of territory There is a visible heterogeneity of functional use of the territory. There are mixed: dense residential areas and abandoned industrial areas, also there are many wastelands and semiprivate territories without concrete use. In this urban fabric can be seen how some quarters do not exist and on their places are other functions, such as food market inserted.
objectivities: the functional use of buildings Most of the buildings are residential, but there are also mixed quarters, and further away from the city center there are many industrial buildings, also unused.
objectivities: historical value of buildings With yellow and orange color are indicate valuable and protected buildings. They are in the majority. Although many interesting buildings of functionalism are not protected. Also can be seen how housing density and concentration of valuable and protected buildings fall from the city center to the periphery, where, in general, boundaries of the district are lost very often.
subjectivities: emptiness in the urban fabric Often the sites, where were buildings of special significance: religious, cultural or educational, after their disappearance remained empty. After the destructions of such buildings, they were not rebuilt due to lack of owners-community. And in their place arose anything new. Such vacant sites are very common in urban fabric of North-West district in Lviv. They are often used as a small parks, as a resting places of local residents or playgrounds for kids. Sometimes they are used like a places of spontaneous trade, which is officially banned, but because of the lack or unavailability of the relevant trade places, people are staying in these empty places – and fill them spontaneously with a new function and a new life – transient too .
subjectivities: emptiness in the urban fabric
Small public parks and rest places with a little green
subjectivities: emptiness in the urban fabric
Small public parks with playgrounds
subjectivities: emptiness in the urban fabric
Small public parks
subjectivities: emptiness in the urban fabric
Small pieces of memory (memory stickers) present in certain locations
subjectivities: emptiness in the urban fabric
Sometimes vacant holes are still unused in any way and offers interesting views of the internal structure of the quarters. They are good examples of how the emptiness brings something more to the existing structure.
subjectivities: uncompleted urban fabric Specificity of North-West district is it’s incompleteness. The reasons for this phenomenon are different. On the one hand, the cultural dissociation, on the other – location in the neighborhood of large landscape formations, on one more other – because of the unfinished planning processes and also periphery location.
subjectivities: uncompleted urban fabric
Sometimes streets contact with the landscape. And the contact is not in their favor.
subjectivities: uncompleted urban fabric
The spontaneous ends of the streets.
subjectivities: foreign components Urban fabric of North-West district has its own laws and rules. It is quite hollow – and this is its own peculiarity. But this hollow provokes intervention. Then appear buildings, often without understanding the properties of the urban fabric.
Disadvantages of scaling
subjectivities: foreign components
Disadvantages of scaling
subjectivities: foreign components
Disadvantages of scaling
subjectivities: overlay of epochs North-West district has a presence of past epochs, in varying degrees missing. Some are present in more invisibly ways, others left significant traces. Soviet epoch is reflected more in the appearance of cultural and public buildings. There are an interesting examples of Polnish constructivism.
subjectivities: overlay of epochs
The contrast between old and new and old-new
subjectivities: vanishing elements Some of the buildings and their details are not listed in the list of monuments, are not protected and are threatened with extinction. But they create a unique spirit of place, and they carry the memory that disappears.
subjectivities: vanishing elements
subjectivities: vanishing elements
subjectivities: vanishing elements
subjectivities: vanishing elements
subjectivities: vanishing structure a vanishing building substance can lead to the vanishing structure of the North-West district in Lviv.