For more than two centuries, Lviv Polytechnic has been training professionals in various fields, personalities who have entered the history of Ukraine. This list also includes the Nahirnyi family, father and son Vasyl and Yevhen Nahirnyi. Nataliia Filevych has been researching their heritage. She has recently given a lecture on «Nahirnyi Architects: past and present» at the Scientific and Technical Library, Lviv Polytechnic National University.
Today Nataliia Filevych is the director of the Nahirnyi Foundation, a long-term researcher of sacred architecture created by the Nahirnyi family. Nahirnyi’s legacy is huge, but the memory about him was disappearing, as the names of talented architects were deliberately forgotten or mentioned only in the context of the history of architecture. Today, the researcher is trying to promote the legacy of Lviv Polytechnic graduates and to preserve it through the activities of the Nahirnyi Foundation, which was launched in 2017.
– After the death of Yevhen Nahirnyi’s second wife Yosyfiia Flianch, Nahirnyi’s personal archive was planned to be thrown away. However, this was interfered by the Director of the Lviv Art Gallery Borys Voznytskyi. The study of the legacy of the Nahirnyi continues today, said Mz. Filevych.
Vasyl Nahirnyi is a well-known Galician architect, a graduate of Lviv and Zurich Polytechnics. His works include more than 200 churches. He also organized such societies as the People's Trade, Zoria, Dnister, the Society for the Development of Rus’ Art, Prosvita, and the Rus’ Bursa of Craftsmanship. His son Yevhen Nahirnyi followed in his father's footsteps and also became an architect. In his church projects, he developed the traditions of folk architecture, while creating a new national style of sacred buildings. The total number of Yevhen Nahirnyi’s projects exceeds 400 buildings. Thanks to Mz. Filevych, the book fund of the Scientific and Technical Library of Lviv Polytechnic was replenished with research on the legacy of the Lviv Polytechnic graduates, well-known architects Vasyl and Yevhen Nahirnyi.
