Janusz Witwicki (10 September 1903 in
Lwów
Lviv ( uk, Львів) is the largest city in western Ukraine, and the seventh-largest in Ukraine, with a population of . It serves as the administrative centre of Lviv Oblast and Lviv Raion, and is one of the main cultural centres of Ukraine ...
– 16 July 1946 also in Lwów) was a Polish architect and art historian, creator of the
Plastic Panorama of Old Lviv Plastic Panorama of Old Lwów (Polish: ''Panorama Plastyczna Dawnego Lwowa'') is a model of the city of Lwów (since 1945 Lviv in Ukraine) as it looked like in mid-18th century, when it belonged to the Crown of the Kingdom of Poland. The model, with ...
.
He was the son of
Władysław Witwicki – a psychologist, philosopher, translator, historian (of psychology and art), artist, and one of the fathers of Polish psychology.
Witwicki attended the VII Tadeusz Kościuszko High School in Lwów, and in 1920 he volunteered to the
Polish Army, to take part in the
Polish-Soviet War. After the conflict, he studied architecture at the
Lwów Polytechnic, which he graduated in 1926. Also, he studied history of art at the
University of Jan Kazimierz
The University of Lviv ( uk, Львівський університет, Lvivskyi universytet; pl, Uniwersytet Lwowski; german: Universität Lemberg, briefly known as the ''Theresianum'' in the early 19th century), presently the Ivan Franko Na ...
, with extra courses taken in Paris and
Rome.
Witwicki had his own office, he designed city of Lwów's
pavilion for the 1929
Poznań International Fair. In the same year, Witwicki started working on the deed of his life - the
Plastic Panorama of Old Lviv Plastic Panorama of Old Lwów (Polish: ''Panorama Plastyczna Dawnego Lwowa'') is a model of the city of Lwów (since 1945 Lviv in Ukraine) as it looked like in mid-18th century, when it belonged to the Crown of the Kingdom of Poland. The model, with ...
. For a few years, in the early 1930s, he moved to
Toruń, and then returned to Lwów, to take up the job of assistant at the Historical Architecture Department at the Lwów Polytechnic.
During
World War II, Witwicki continued his work on the Panorama, he was three times arrested by both Soviet and German occupiers. He was murdered by unknown perpetrators (possibly
NKVD agents) on July 16, 1946. Witwicki was buried at the
Lychakivskiy Cemetery.
The book ''
Lviv through the ages
Lviv ( uk, Львів) is the largest city in western Ukraine, and the seventh-largest in Ukraine, with a population of . It serves as the administrative centre of Lviv Oblast and Lviv Raion, and is one of the main cultural centres of Ukraine ...
'' (2003) by Ihor Kaczor and Love Kaczor includes a dedication to Witwicki.
References
Sources
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{{DEFAULTSORT:Witwicki, Janusz
1903 births
1946 deaths
Architects from Lviv
Lviv Polytechnic alumni