Former hotel “Union” (2 Nezalezhnosti St.)
Today, the hotel’s former premises are only a harmonious part of a promenade. However, only 100 years ago the newly built Union Hotel was a real miracle for the residents of Stanislaviv because there was not a single five-story building until then.
The then construction methods did not give the opportunity to build tall buildings. The breakthrough happened only with the invention of reinforced concrete. The first time the technology, including the use of reinforced concrete, was used in Stanislaviv by the architect-engineer Fryderyk Janusz during the construction of the Union Hotel in 1912. From the very beginning, the hotel was to be the embodiment of the most ambitious construction project, since it was erected to order of Stanislav Khovanets, the director of the Savings Bank, the owner of the printing house and co-owner of the newspaper „Courier Stanyslavivskyi”, as well as one of the richest inhabitants of the city.
The Union Hotel was not only the tallest building in Stanislaviv but also the first building in the city, equipped with an electric lift, which immediately became a great attraction for the inhabitants of the city. The hotel also had its own power plant, which was the first power plant in the city.
The statues that decorate the facade were the work of the sculptor Marian Antoniak.
It is said that K. Hauswald, who was a neighbor of the Khovanets family, just burst with envy, so he turned to architect F. Janusz with a request to design the same house or at least not worse. As a result, a five-story tenement house no. 11 appeared on the opposite side, built in 1913, just a year after the construction of the Union Hotel. So, no wonder that the figures on the facade of the K. Hauswald’s house are also the work of the sculptor Marian Antoniak.