The research project on the legacy and achievements of Florian Wyganowski, an architect and engineer active in Riga at the turn of the 19th and 20th centuries, was initiated in 2023, at the Polonika Institute within the activities of the Strategic Research Programme. The career of Florian Vyganovsky, in the field of construction in the broadest sense of the term, represents a significant contribution to the material culture of the territories of contemporary Latvia, Lithuania and Belarus, while the figure itself is an excellent example of the functioning of architects of Polish origin in the territories of the multicultural Empire and their contribution to the development of the field.

The primary objective of the research project is to continue the study of Latvian and Lithuanian architecture at the turn of the 19th and 20th centuries created by architects and engineers of Polish descent, as previous queries have confirmed the original assumption that the work of Florian Wyganowski is a topic of great potential in this context.

The project is being carried out by Dr Jan M. Nowicki of the Art Institute of the Polish Academy of Sciences. The queries carried out in the first stage of the work, including in the collections of the State Historical Archive of Latvia (Latvijas Valsts Vēstures Arhīvs), the State Historical Archive of Lithuania (Lietuvos Valstybės Istorijos Archyvas) and Polish and foreign online repositories, have resulted in the acquisition of extensive and diverse archival material.

From the research to date, as Dr Jan M. Nowicki admits, emerges "a multifaceted and thus extremely interesting picture of Wyganowski's career. A landowner by origin, who, having graduated strictly in engineering, completed a considerable number of often prestigious architectural projects over a period of 30 years, at the same time sitting on the city council and developing an enterprise dealing with, among other things, the supply of building materials (probably on an agency basis). Wyganowski's career is therefore an exceptionally engaging example of how people of Polish origin functioned within a multicultural empire, as well as a picture of the changes that took place in the way architecture was created at the dawn of the modern era." The current state of knowledge allows us to conclude that Florian Wyganowski realised several townhouse projects in Riga, as well as the Church of St Francis in Moscow Suburb. In addition to Riga, in Latvia he built the Church of the Sacred Heart of Jesus in Latgale and the church in Rzezhitsa. In Lithuania, on the other hand, he was responsible for temple projects in the villages of: Yasvoynya, Krakovin, Novi Town, Podbirė, Poniemunek and Komaje, while in Belarus he was responsible for projects in Olkovichi and Kamionka.

Dr Jan M. Nowicki - a graduate of the Institute of Art History and the European Centre at Warsaw University. His doctoral dissertation entitled. "Paradoxes of 'village cathedrals'. Neo-Gothic ecclesiastical architecture in the provinces of the Kingdom of Poland in the years 1886-1915" was defended with distinction at the Faculty of Culture and Art Sciences (former History Faculty), University of Warsaw (2023). Employed as a specialist in the Laboratory of the Catalogue of Art Monuments in Poland of the Institute of Art of the Polish Academy of Sciences (since 2022). His research and publications include the reception of medieval architecture in later periods, art and culture of the 19th and early 20th centuries, Gothic architecture, the history of medieval studies as a scientific discipline, the history of the conservation of ancient architecture or monuments of Mazovia.