Antoni Wiwulski


Antoni Wiwulski was a Polish-Lithuanian architect and sculptor.

Biography

He was born 20 February 1877 in Totma, Vologda Governorate, Russian Empire, where his father, of Lithuanian origin, served as a forest superintendent. He graduated from the reputable Jesuit boarding school Zakład Naukowo-Wychowawczy Ojców Jezuitów w Chyrowie and then two of the most prestigious art and architecture universities of the epoch: the École Supérieure des Beaux-Arts in Paris and the Higher Technical School in Vienna. His work was part of the sculpture event in the art competition at the 1912 Summer Olympics.
Among the most notable of his works are:
The Holy Heart of Jesus' Church was started in 1913 and was the first example of usage of reinforced concrete in the former Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth. Wiwulski, impressed by the possibility of building gigantic buildings with the newly rediscovered material prepared a project of a giant church with a stylised gigantic sculpture of the Creator sitting on the dome. However, the project was discontinued after Wiwulski's death on January 10, 1919.
In 1919, despite suffering from tuberculosis, he volunteered for the Polish militia and took part in the defence of Vilnius against Bolshevik assault in the early stages of the Lithuanian–Soviet War and Polish-Bolshevik War campaigns. He contracted pneumonia while on guard in the Vilnius' suburb of Užupis. After his death he was buried in the cellars beneath the church he had designed. When it was converted by the Soviets into a Palace of the Construction Workers in 1964 his ashes were moved to Rasos Cemetery.

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