Karol Podczaszyński

Who was Karol Podczaszyński?

Karol Podczaszyński was a Polish architect, a representative of the neoclassical architecture and a professor of the Imperial University of Vilna, as well as one of the pioneers of industrial design.

He was born November 7, 1790, in the village of Żyrmuny near Lida, in what is now the Hrodna Voblast of Belarus. He graduated from the prestigious Polish Liceum Krzemienieckie and the Imperial University of Vilna. Between 1814 and 1816 he continued his studies on architecture in St. Petersburg, where he became the first Pole on the Imperial Academy of Arts. Between 1817 and 1819 he also travelled to Western European countries, visiting Königsberg, Danzig, Berlin, Paris, Naples, Venice and Vienna before returning to Cracow. Upon his return to Vilnius he was offered a chair of architecture, which he accepted.

Among his most notable architectural works are the refurbishment of the interior of the Vilna University, including the Aula's interior, Evangelical Reformers' Church and the neoclassical Jan Śniadecki's manor in Jašiūnai. Yet another of his major works was the neo-Palladian Tusculanum manor, completed in 1825. The entire Žirmūnai microdistrict in Vilnius was named after his native village, a part of the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth at the time of his birth.