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275 CONCLUSIONS The tendency to write history along the narrow lines of national narratives and professional architectural/art history – themselves often written from nationalist perspectives – has led to overly simplistic understandings of Habsburg Lemberg’s architecture. To successfully portray the complexity of its historical development and categories of architecture, as well as the associated politics of culture and nationalism , requires thorough and careful reformulation of terminology. Contrary to conventional national histories, the officials in the Galician governor’s office did not single-handedly shape the city’s architecture and its use of public space from the annexation of the city toAustria in 1772 until its autonomy almost a century later in 1870. Rather, a variety of groups, including important local figures, interacted in the creation of Habsburg Lemberg during this period. The diverse uses that these individuals placed on architecture highlight the ways in which both imperial and national projects were staged in the Galician capital from the early nineteenth century on. Following 1848, the official policy of restricting public space to imperial symbolic uses was maintained, and further reinforced by much more severe legal measures against those who broke the law. After the Ausgleich, the authorities, now Polish-speaking though politically segregated, under increasing pressure from different groups in the city that demanded public presence, gradually arrived at a vision of the city that was both Habsburg and Polish. In this vision, the city center was understood as no place for dilapidated areas, political disturbances, or public nuisances, though the outer districts were left undisturbed and where an appropriate location for Ruthenian meetings was inside cultural institutions, not on the street. This post-1867 official project of creating a Habsburg Lemberg, yet a Polish Lwów, failed for several reasons. First, the building authorities were continually short of the finances and other resources needed to realize their aspirations. 276   ◆   CONCLUSIONS Second, in a situation where old hierarchies were breaking down and “citizens’ rights” were being invoked to support diverse uses of public space, it was no longer possible to control the continuous, semantically ever-shifting staging and reinvention of architectural visions and the local use of space. And third, modern nationalists’ attempts to integrate the masses into new ideologies underestimated the vitality of imperial legacies among various social, national, and professional strata that continued to exist as late as the last years immediately preceding World War I. Throughout the nineteenth century, newly constructed buildings and monuments transmitted values that far exceeded the preoccupation with style and building techniques found in standard architectural histories. These values became most visible during street celebrations, restoration practices, and provincial exhibitions. In this way, streets, banners, inscriptions, and evening illumination became statements of identity on display. When the architectural surroundings would not have corresponded to an individual ceremony’s meaning, temporary architecture was constructed and existing structures appropriately decorated. Façades became arenas for the public display of beliefs, and building interiors, perhaps publicly accessible but restricted to select audiences, delivered particular views of private values. Polish and Ukrainian writings on architecture have long linked the quality and aesthetic values of buildings, as well as of monuments, to the politics of the era in which they were constructed. This practice was shaped in large measure by the Marxist-Leninist views of history, but it was hardly new in historiographies of architecture. Almost from the moment that Austrian officials, such as the theater director, Franz Kratter, and Police Director Joseph Rohrer, arrived in Lemberg with the mission of making it the capital of the newly acquired Crown Land of Galicia in the early nineteenth century, they viewed architecture in political terms. For such men, the architecture they found in the city reflected Polish culture’s perceived backwardness, and they emphasized this by describing it as ugly and “baroque” in contrast to the neoclassical and enlightened aesthetics then current in Austria. From Austria’s acquisition of Galicia in 1772 on, Lemberg’s architecture was seen as – and used for – the symbolic coding of public values. These values changed with the actors involved and with the passage of time. In the early nineteenth century, Austrian high officials such as Kratter and Rohrer strove for architecture that represented good government, worthy of the Habsburg capital of Galicia and of esteemed visits from Vienna. This view extended into the Vormärz, as exemplified by Governor Ludwig Taaffe’s understanding of public space in 1824. Numerous employees of the Crown Land Building Department executed this vision in practice over the...

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