November 11, 2024 marks the 180th anniversary of the opening of a higher technical institute in Lviv – the Tsisar-Royal Technical Academy, which was established on the model of the Polytechnic Institute of Vienna.
A mention of the established tradition to celebrate the opening of the Lviv Technical Academy on November 11 is found in the «Report of the School Commission on the Government’s Draft Law on the Organisation of the Tsisar-Royal Technical Academy» dated from February 7, 1894, which was discussed on February 13, 1894 at a meeting of the Galician Provincial Sejm. In particular, the document states: «The Technical Academy, officially opened on November 11, 1844, runs a Technical Department, as well as a commercial course; the subjects were taught in an encyclopaedic manner».
The forerunner of the Technical Academy in Lviv was a number of educational institutions of practical and industrial profile: the Tsisar-Royal Real School (1817–1835), the Tsisar-Royal Technical Academy (1835–1843), and the Tsisar-Royal Real-Trade Academy (1843–1844).
The emperor’s decisions of December 16, 1843, and February 3, 1844, approved the regulations on the organisation of a technical institute in Lviv with the official name of the Tsisar-Royal Technical Academy. It was announced a competition to find a person for the Director of the institution. Shortly afterwards, government newspapers in Lviv, Vienna, Prague, and Graz published the relevant announcement, inviting candidates to submit their applications by the end of April of the same year. As a result, Florian Schindler, Professor of Higher Mathematics at the Joanneum Polytechnic Institute in Graz, was appointed as a Director of the Tsisar-Royal Technical Academy in Lviv on November 12, 1844.
The Technical Academy in Lviv consisted of Technical and Commercial Departments, as well as a Real School which ran a two-year preparatory course. According to the organisational regulations approved by the Austrian emperor on February 3, 1844, purely technical disciplines were introduced into the educational process: higher mathematics, mechanics combined with industrial physics, and practical geometry (geodesy). As a result of the institution reorganisation, the study program of the Technical Department was extended from a one-year course to a two-year course.
In 1846, the Galician State Printing House in Lviv published a brochure entitled Lectures of the Tsisar-Royal Technical Academy in Lviv for the 1846/7 academic year, which contained detailed curricula for the Technical and Commercial Departments, as well as for the Real School. In particular, the Technical Department taught elementary mathematics, higher mathematics, preparatory drawing, physics or the study of nature, technical chemistry, practical geometry (geodesy), mechanics or the study of machines and construction art.
Thus, the Technical Academy in Lviv took a worthy place in the network of already established (poly)technical institutes of the Austrian Empire that trained civil engineers in Prague (1806), Graz (1811), Vienna (1815), Krakow (1834) and Trieste (together with the School of Navigation) (1844).
List of illustrations
- Director Florian Schindler.
- The Technical Academy in Lviv (the house of the Levytsky family).
URL: https://wiki.lpnu.ua/wiki/images/1/12/252710908_363860992201588_1306159148756696563_n.jpg - Lemberg (Lwów) Cadastral Map 1849/1853. Historic paper map preserved by the Central State Historical Archives of Ukraine in Lviv (TsDIAL).
URL: https://maps.geshergalicia.org/cadastral/lviv-lwow-lemberg-1853/
Houses in the inner-centre of Lviv by conscription numbers:- No. 75 (after the reconstruction of 1849–1850, house No. 76) (Langegasse) – the school, in the premises of which the Real School in Lviv was opened in 1817;
- No. 73 and No. 72 (Langegasse – Universitätsgasse): from 1842 the house of the Levytsky family, from 1850 the house of the Weryha Darowski family.
