Modus: Prace z historii sztuki (19.2019)

Drawing 15. Plan and
views of the elevation
of the power plant complex
at Persenkivka, accor-
ding to the 1907 design.
Drawing based on selected
fragments of the designs:
dało, file 2, description 5,
case 1050, f. 9,11,12. Key
to the plan of the complex:
1 - engine room; 2 - steam
boiler room; 3 - electrical
switchboard; 4 - filters and
water pumps; 5 - battery
bank room
-> see p. 202

longitudinal halls (engine room and slightly smaller steam boiler room), joined
along their longer sides. Piller planned to cover them with rather steep, gable
roofs covered with timber, supported on iron truss girders. There was a plan to
add two-story, pitched roofed annexes with cellars to both halls, from the east and
west. In their central part there were rooms opening to the engine room and steam
boiler room. The opening was madę with the aid of three iron pillars supporting
iron beams. There was a plan to locate battery banks, electrical switchboards and
water pumps in these rooms. The rooms intended for employees were located
on the sides of both annexes (see: Drawing 15).133
Divisions of the side faęades of the engine room and the steam boiler room,
according to the plan, were intended, with evenly spaced pilaster strips. Between
them, it was planned that wide, rectangular Windows, closed in sections would
be fitted on two levels. The annexes added to the engine room and the boiler
room, and the vestibule preceding the main entrance to the engine room from
the north, were planned to be enclosed on the edges with massive rusticated
lesenes, topped above the slope of the mono-pitched roof with reduced pinnacles.
The vestibule’s faęade was distinguished by a projection added in the middle.
It was closed with a steep gable above the entrance, with a stepped finial added
on the axis of the gable. The monotony of faęade divisions has been varied with
applications representing stone blocks. They were used in the same way as in
the case of the building of the municipal slaughterhouse in Gabrielivka - at
the height of the closing of window openings with segmental archivolts and in
their keystones.134 In the plans, the Southern and northern faęades were to be
crowned with two gables, in which significant reduction of the pinnacles was
madę by integrating them with the triangular outline of the gable (see: Draw-
ing 15).135 These motifs are similar to those that began to be used in urban
gasworks buildings after 1905, especially in the tops of the machinę room and
the vertical retort house from 1914.
When comparing the preserved design with the photographs of the completed
building (see: Figures 16,17), admittedly, when it comes to the planning and use
of building structures, it was implemented as intended. I suppose that in mid-
1907 it had been decided that the project submitted by Piller should be amended
or modified. As a result of these modifications, the engine room was eventually
covered with a mansard roof with glazed side panels, allowing much better illu-
mination of the interior. The steam boiler room from the west has been covered
with a mono-pitched roof. The engineers of the Municipal Construction Office
must have considered the proposed simplified neo-Gothic motifs of the faęade
to be anachronistic and un-modern - it was decided that they should be replaced
with element in Art Nouveau style.

133 dało, file 2, description 4, case 1050, “Projekt zakładu silnicy do wytwarzania prądu elektrycz-
nego dla światła i ruchu kolei elektrycznej”, edited by A. Piller, Lviv iii 1907, f. 9-12. A. Pillers
authorship was established based on the following documentation: J. Biruliow, Secesja we Lwo-
wie, translated by J. Derwojed, Warszawa 1996, pp. 75-76; idem, ApximeKmypa, p. 460; idem,
3axape6uui meopuj cmonuuuHozo Jlboooa, JlbBiB 2010, p. 264; idem, Mucmeuynoo nboiocbKoi
ceuycii, JlbBiB 2016 (second, amended edition), p. 51.
134 dało, file 2, description 4, case 1050, “Projekt zakładu silnicy do wytwarzania prądu elektrycz-
nego dla światła i ruchu kolei elektrycznej”, edited by A. Piller, Lviv iii 1907, f. 9.
135 Ibidem, f. 12.

240 ARTICLES

Tomasz Dywan