Modus: Prace z historii sztuki (19.2019)

Figurę 13- View of the tram
depot and power station
complex in Vulka district,
status as of 1908. Photo-
grapher unknown, photo
from the I & I Kotlobulatov
Collection
-> see p. 192

current) generator.104 Director Tomicki opted for a morę advanced and morę
expensive solution, consisting in the extension of the tram power plant and
routing underground cables from it, which would supply electricity to the power
switchboard, then to electrical installation and to a set of batteries, located in
the basement of the theatre. Ultimately, the Electric Committee at its meeting
held on October 9,1899, accepted Tomickis concept. The opinion of professor
Dzieślewski was of key importance to this decision.105
Construction works commenced after the tender procedurę for the supply
of technical eąuipment was completed in mid-January, and the tender procedurę
for the extension of the power plant was concluded at the end of April 1900.
The last commission was entrusted to construction contractor A. Kamienobrodz-
ki106 The extension of the power plant consisted in demolishing the west wali
of the engine room, and extending it by 13.65 m along the entire width towards
the west. A basement was added under the extended (western) part of the en-
gine room, in order to allow employees of the plant to access the steam turbinę.
The Kleins ceiling of the basement has been placed on iron I-beams supported
on cast iron pillars. A water tower annex was added from the north of the en-
gine room. The extended interior of the engine room was covered with wooden
slopes of a gable roof, supported on wood-and-steel girders, madę in the same
way as those of 1894.107 The exterior faęades repeated the motif of evenly spaced
brick pilaster strips. On the other hand, the divisions of the gable, west faęade
of the engine room and the water tower outbuilding were modified in a manner
typical of the municipal construction in Lviv, already applied in the construc-
tion of a gasworks from 1905-1906.108 Brick pilaster strips, clasping the edges
of the extended building, protruded above the roof slope, turning into slightly
wider rectangular pinnacles, covered with ceramic roof tiles. Stepped finials were
fitted on the axis of the gables closing the faęades. The shoulders of the gently
sloping gables were recessed cornices madę of brick (see: Figurę 13).109 It is
worth noting that the faęades of numerous annexes added to the power plant
before 1914, including the largest of those, housing the battery room and erected
in 1903, were madę in a similar manner.110 Construction works were completed
in November, and at the beginning of 1901 a new steam and electric unit was
launched. It consisted of two steam boilers and a 500 horse power Parsons-system
steam turbinę coupled with an electric generator.111

104 Elektryczne oświetlenie, “Gazeta Narodowa”, 17 vi 1894, issue 138, p. 2.
105 J. Tomicki, Ze statystyki, p. 3; A. Kryżaniwskij, Prąd stały, p. 125.
106 dało, file 3, description 1, case 4354,“Protokół z posiedzenia komisji z 1511900 r.”, f. i-5v; ibidem,
“Protokół [posiedzenia komisji dla budowy elektrowni] z dnia 24 iv 1900 r.”, f. 29.
107 dało, file 2, description 4, case 1051,“Plan rachunkowy centr[alnej] stacji elektr[ycznej]”, edited
by A. Kamienobrodzki [Lviv 1900], f. 4,14,20.
108 See below, as in the case of gables in the ammonium water distillery and the water gas works.
109 Drawings of decorative gables in the power plant, see as in footnote 107, f. 4.
110 Detailed designs of those outbuildings are not included in the archival units described as the Lviv
power plant files. For numerous photographs from the period as well as photographs taken
in 2019 by Y. Tymchyshyn showing the complex of the former power plant surviving until
the present day, see: A.KpiDKaHiBCbKnn, Byn. Caxapoea 1 - ejieKmpocmanąin nocmiuHoeo cmpywy
(within the digital encyclopaedia project “Interactive Lviv” implemented by the Centre for Ur-
ban History of Central and Eastern Europę: www.lia.lvivcenter.org/uk/objects/sakharova-oi/,
accessed: 12 vn 2019).
111 dało, file 3, description 1, case 4354 [Pisma ni departamentu magistratu z 18 m 1902 r.], f. 43.

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Tomasz Dywan