Residence of Bukovinian and Dalmatian Metropolitans
Резиденція митрополитів Буковини і Далмації
Interesting facts
- Before drawing his plans, Hlávka studied the region's church building and in 1866 published an article on the Eastern church architecture of Bukovina.
- Hlávka's programme went well beyond a palace, adding offices, meeting halls, a library, a choir school, a museum of church art and a chapel.
- The Synodal Hall was originally hung with portraits of Austrian monarchs painted by Epaminonda Bucevschi.
- Besides the Marble and Red Halls, the metropolitan's wing has a Blue Hall, once the library, and a Green Hall, once the reception room.
- UNESCO's evaluators compared the Red Hall to a wooden jewel box whose painted walls look like trimmings of red Chinese silk.
- The seminary's Church of the Three Holy Hierarchs is decorated with murals by Karl Jobst and other artists.
- In the Soviet years the buildings were first used for storage and many murals were painted over, before redecoration in 1957–1967.
- In 2011 the residence was chosen, partly by internet vote, as one of the Seven Architectural Wonders of Ukraine.
- A monument to the architect Josef Hlávka, sculpted in 1937, stands in the park around the ensemble.
Why it is worth it
Brick in two shades of red, glazed tiles in green and yellow laid in zigzags across the roofs, Byzantine domes and Moorish arches: the former residence of the Orthodox metropolitans of Bukovina and Dalmatia is one of the most extravagant buildings of the Habsburg nineteenth century, and since 2011 a UNESCO World Heritage Site. It was built between 1864 and 1882 to designs by the Czech architect Josef Hlávka, who studied the church architecture of Bukovina before he started and drew partly on the Alhambra for inspiration.
The background is the transfer of the Orthodox see from Rădăuți to Chernivtsi after Bukovina passed to the Habsburgs in 1782. The first residence was a hasty, damp building that partly collapsed in 1790, and for decades the bishops lived in rented rooms until a competition held in 1860 brought in Hlávka. Construction dragged on through technical problems, Hlávka's illness from 1872 and his disputes with local officials; the complex was finally consecrated in the winter of 1882–83. Three wings frame a courtyard about 100 metres deep and 70 metres wide, closed by gates in tall railings. Facing the entrance is the metropolitan's palace with the Chapel of St John the New of Suceava, the Marble (former Synodal) Hall with its painted ceiling, and the Red Hall, panelled in carved wood. To one side stand the seminary and its Church of the Three Holy Hierarchs; to the other the former monastery, whose clock tower carries Stars of David in tribute to the city's Jewish community, which helped fund the construction. A landscaped park surrounds the whole ensemble.
The Synodal Hall was where, on 28 November 1918, the union of Bukovina with Romania was voted. The buildings were looted and burned during the Second World War, then handed to the city's university in 1955 and restored in stages; today they house Chernivtsi University, including its faculty of modern languages.
Chernivtsi, on the Prut River in western Ukraine, was the capital of the Habsburg duchy of Bukovina, and its centre still reflects that Austro-Hungarian past.
Getting there
The residence lies about 1 km from the centre of Chernivtsi. The nearest airport by straight-line distance is Suceava Ștefan cel Mare International Airport (SCV) in Romania, about 75 km away across the border.
On these lists
From the encyclopaedia
The Residence of Bukovinian and Dalmatian Metropolitans in Chernivtsi, Ukraine, was built for the Eastern Orthodox metropolitan bishop between 1864 and 1882 to the designs of the Czech architect Josef Hlávka from Austria-Hungary. The Residence, whose buildings are now part of Chernivtsi University, was declared a UNESCO World Heritage Site in 2011.
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