A team of architects from Lviv won the first prize in the All-Ukrainian architecture competition for the best pre-project restoration solution of the architectural monument of the 16th-18th centuries – Kushnirska Tower on 1 Staroposhtovyi Uzviz Street in the city of Kamianets-Podilskyi.
A team, consisting of Olha Kryvoruchko, Associate Professor at the Department of Architectural Constructions, Lviv Polytechnic, and Kharkiv School of Architecture, and Danylo Halandzhii, Olena Zaluzhna, Anastasiia Nikulina, Oleksandr Hutsuliak, and Anastasia Irtiuha graduates and students of Lviv Polytechnic and Kharkiv School of Architecture, was working on the project.
The authors of the project proposed the restoration concept of the Kushnirska Tower with minimal interventions in the existing building of the tower, use of authentic building materials and structural elements, while ensuring comfort and inclusiveness. The decision to adapt the premises of the landmark: it is proposed to use the building as a city exhibition hall, museum and conference hall, which may include a tourist information point, a cafe, a reading room and a small lecture or cinema hall.
Restoration solutions for the building include cleaning dirt from the stone walls of the facades, filling in the joints, preservation of surfaces with the help of mortar-fixing materials, cleaning the plaster from dirt, and fixing it. The project also provides for the restoration of lost ceilings with wooden beams, the use of existing holes from old beams for the installation of new ones. The restoration of the roof involves the replacement of the destroyed structural wooden elements and the replacement of the covering with a ceramic roof, the fragment where the covering elements were lost it is proposed to cover with a glass roof, which will add more light to the upper floors of the tower, and will also symbolically emphasize that this is a restoration, and not full reproduction.
The main functions of the building
- On the first floor, there is a reception with a tourist information point, a reading room with the possibility to buy, read and exchange books (book sharing). Here you can also work with a laptop or charge your phone. Additional premises: a block of bathrooms, a wardrobe for employees, and a wardrobe for school excursions. The first floor can be used as a shelter.
- The second floor is the main exhibition hall (can be used for collections of local archaeological findings, ethnographic or local history exhibitions, periodic exhibitions of modern art). Additional premises: an office for employees of the institution, a storage room for the processing of exhibition materials and further formation of expositions.
- The third floor is the VR-hall (virtual reality hall) for reproducing historical battle scenes, ancient city life and crafts.
- The fourth floor is a small cinema hall for 25–45 people with the possibility of watching film, art performances, arranging discussion clubs and other events of cultural and social life.
- The fifth floor is a conference hall with a capacity of up to 100 visitors, which can be divided into two smaller halls and a catering area.
- The sixth floor is a cafe with an entresol, upper insolation and a greenhouse.
