Town Hall in Stanislaviv
The first town hall in Stanislaviv was built in 1666. The present building is the fourth. Its construction began in 1929 and was completed at the end of the interwar period. The author of the construction was the Polish architect Stanisław Trela.

History of the four buildings of the Stanisławów Town Hall
The first wooden building of the town hall in Stanislawow was erected in 1666, soon after the town was founded by the castellan of Cracow, field hetman of the crown, Andrzej Potocki. The building was temporary, so a few years later (1672) a new edifice of wooden and stone construction was erected. It was severely damaged during the Polish-Turkish War (1672-1676).

Still in the 17th century, a third, already completely walled, Baroque building was built on a cruciform plan, with a high tower in the middle. This building existed until 1868, when it, along with many other buildings in the town, was consumed by fire. The reconstruction of the town hall in the Neo-Renaissance style was carried out under the direction of the Cracovian architect Filip Pokutyński (1829-1879). This, the fourth town hall in Stanislavl, was destroyed during the First World War - it housed an observation post, so the building was repeatedly shelled. After the war, the town hall was in a catastrophic technical condition and had to be partly demolished and rebuilt.

Construction of the new town hall building in Stanislavov
The construction work, designed by the Polish architect Stanisław Trela (1892-1950), did not start until ten years later due to the constant economic crises. The contractor for the work was selected on the basis of an invitation to tender, and was the company "Inżynier Krausz i Spółka".

In 1929, the side wings were demolished, retaining only the core of the 18th-century tower and part of the cellars. Completion of the building was planned for 1932, but due to a continuing shortage of funds, the finishing work dragged on until the end of the interwar period. The investment was financed by the municipal authorities, but from the start it was not planned to house the municipal authorities, as these were housed in the Provincial Office building. "The new town hall" was to serve as the Pokucka Museum, as well as the library and the municipal archive.

The preserved part of the tower was used as a communication core, while the utility rooms were located in four newly built reinforced concrete side wings, founded on the plan of a Greek cross (isosceles), which is why it is sometimes said that the building was founded on the plan of the Virtuti Militari. The basement was used for catering and technical facilities, the ground floor was given over to a commercial function (shops), and the actual museum rooms and museum management were located on the first floor. The library and archive are planned for the second floor.

Architecture of the Town Hall
In terms of the overall massing of the building, Stanisław Trela based himself on the original scheme of a central plan with a tall tower. The architectural design, however, is completely different, indicating inspiration from Expressionism, the Art Déco style and its Polish edition - the so-called Krakow School. The definition of art déco in architecture, formulated in 1928 by Jerzy Warchałowski, was: "a certain sharpness of forms and lines, the intersection of planes, a system of internal jambs within the boundaries of a solid, the predominance of geometric elements, the rhythmic movement of forms appearing and receding with a clear limitation of illuminated form from form in shadow, the meeting of planes at right angles or their merging into a crystalline shape or the complete as if avoidance of a line that is too fluid, of forms that are too round". These features are clearly visible in the architecture of the Town Hall. It is a stacked, dynamic arrangement of cubic volumes based on diagonal directions.

There are noticeable analogies with the best-known realisations in the art déco convention, such as the Polish pavilion at the World Exhibition in Paris in 1925 or the pavilion of the Union of Glassworks at the General National Exhibition in Poznań in 1929, not least because of the crystalline tower illuminated at night, characteristic of these buildings. The installation of electric floodlights to illuminate the tower was also envisaged in Stanislawow.

A Poznan engineer, on business in Stanislawow, wrote in a letter to his daughter: "I must admit that I liked most the body of the town hall, extremely modern, in the American style. The central part dates from the 17th and 18th centuries, while the four side wings have been added, giving the whole an extremely original appearance. I hope that in a few months' time this will be a place that will be alive and developing the idea of regionalism, because without knowing one's homeland, it will be impossible to know our homeland, whose strength comes from strong and compact regions" (Piotr J. Jamski, Pocztówki z Kresów przedwojennej Polski , Warsaw 2012).

The post-war fate of the town hall
During the Second World War, the German occupation authorities planned to destroy the town hall, but these plans were eventually abandoned due to the reinforced concrete structure. It ended with the destruction of one of the wings.

In 1957, renovation work was carried out, during which traces of Polishness were removed: the bas-relief Stanislavov coat of arms and four bronze eagles, originally standing in the corners of the fourth floor, were removed and replaced with antique-style acroterions (naszczytniki). Two years later, the National History Museum began operating in the building.

Today, the former Stanislavsky Town Hall is a symbol of the city, which has been called Ivano-Frankivsk since 1962. It is the only secular building in Ukraine with a gilded dome.