Potocki Palace, Lviv

Potocki Palace stands at 15a Kopernyka Street in Lviv. The surrounding land was long called Khorunshchyna, because as early as the seventeenth century it belonged to the standard-bearer Stefan Potocki. In the late nineteenth century Count Alfred II Potocki, a politician and governor of Galicia, decided to build a palace here. The site had previously held a park and a small hunting manor on the marshy bank of the Poltva; the manor was taken down, and construction began in the late 1880s. The count did not live to see the palace finished — it was completed by his son Roman Potocki. The count was known as a patron of the arts and a connoisseur of French architecture, so the project went to the Frenchman Louis d’Auvergne, while the architect Yu. Tsybulskyi supervised the construction. The palace was meant for formal receptions and meetings: it had numerous drawing rooms and a large courtyard for carriages. The main facade is separated from Kopernyka Street by massive wrought-iron gates, with lodges for the gatekeeper on both sides. The rear facade has a terrace, and a curved staircase with a balustrade leads straight down into the park. The interior was decorated in the Louis XVI style: the Blue, Mirror and Red halls, with walls covered in wallpaper of the matching colour, a lot of stucco and gilding, and fireplaces trimmed with gilded bronze, marble and painting. The ballroom (the Mirror Hall) and the blue drawing room — the count’s former dining room — make the strongest impression. The fireplaces, stucco and wall paintings have survived to this day. The halls can also be viewed in the 3D tour on the venue’s page. After the Second World War the building was used by various institutions. After the restoration of 1975 it housed a wedding palace, and later the palace was handed over to the Lviv Art Gallery. Today its halls display period interiors and examples of eighteenth-century European art, and the Publishers’ Forum is held on the grounds every year.