The project to build a shopping arcade in what was then Sapiezhynska Street, Karpinski Street and Kosciuszko Street took place on a grand scale in the heart of the emerging metropolitan centre of Stanislavl: Sapieżyńska, Karpinski and Kościuszko Streets, took place on a grand scale in the very heart of the emerging metropolitan centre of Stanislavov. The new elegant Art Nouveau building was built in the tenement houses acquired and rebuilt by the Ignacy and David Gartenberg brothers (previously owned by the Halpern family of Stanislavl), right next to the newly built neo-Baroque Railway Directorate, becoming a desirable social meeting place for Stanislavl residents.

Shopping arcades under glass roofs were then a sign of modernity in any self-respecting European city. Lviv had the legendary Mikolasch Passage from 1900 and even earlier, from the 1890s . Hausmann Passage from the 1890s. The fact that in the early years of the 20th century Stanislaviv had not yet had such a passage was an opportunity for an unquestionably flawless investment, which benefited the city's thriving industrialists. The business activities of the Gartenberg brothers , was connected with paraffin, and their commercial interests linked Eastern Galicia with Vienna. It was therefore no coincidence that the design for the 1903 arcade was commissioned from the Viennese firm of Fellner & Helmer, which at the time had pompous theatre buildings from Vienna to Odessa in its portfolio. For Stanislavov, this meant the momentum and prominence of a new investment. The contractor for the project, according to the Stanislavovsky Courier, appointed was Henryk Gustav Koschyc. The designer's sudden death in early 1904 prevented him from completing the work. After him, the construction was led by Lviv engineer Antoni R. Fleischl (ca. 1865 - - 1921 ), known as one of the pioneers of the "new Jewish style" or "Jewish secession" in Lviv. The management of the construction rested in the hands of the Lviv-based architect Karol Boublik and Jan T. Kudelski, who was already living in Stanislavov at the time. Construction of the arcade lasted intensively from June to December 1904.

The arcade itself, located in the spacious courtyard of the tenement houses undergoing reconstruction at the same time, had the shape of an elongated hall, richly decorated with Art Nouveau elements, 53 metres long, running along the east-west axis, parallel to Sapiezhynska Street and Kosciuszko Street. The width of the hall was 8 metres, increasing to 12 metres at its eastern end, which was given the shape of an elongated octagon. This 17-metre-long octagon, covered by a dome, was entered by side passages about 3 - 4 metres wide from Kościuszki and Sapieżyńska Streets, ending in decorative gates.

The entire quarter , inside which the arcade was located, together with the buildings at 7 Karpińskiego and 2 Kościuszki Street , fell into appalling ruin as a result of the shelling of the city in 1917. Of the entire arcade complex, only the structural skeleton of the arcade itself and one building at 4 Kościuszki Street survived, which still bears the inscription: "EDISON cafe".

The metal structure was re-glazed and renovated, and the surroundings were tidied up with the efforts of the Municipal Office in 1926 - - 1927. At that time, the central part was revitalised in the ground-floor enclosure of the shop premises.

In the 1960s a Soviet department store began to operate here. In the 1990s the arcade temporarily housed a contemporary art gallery. Today it is a commercial and service centre.

Location: Nezalezhnosti St, 3, Ivano-Frankivsk, Ukraine