The provincial engineer Stanislav Antoni Kharmansky (1861 - after 1914) was the youngest representative of the Kharmansky architectural dynasty in Yekaterinoslav. He was the author of designs for many public buildings preserved to this day in Dnipro. The buildings he erected in the city of his origin are eloquent examples of the talent and ability of their creator. Stanislav Antoni Kharmanski belonged to the architectural elite of Yekaterinoslav of the late 19th - early 20th centuries. The architect designed in various styles, from neo-classical to Art Nouveau, diversifying and enriching the appearance of the old city with his works. Unfortunately, his fate is lost in the whirlwind of the First World War and the subsequent occupation of Ukraine by the Bolshevik army.

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Stanislav Antoni Charmansky was born in 1861 in Yekaterinoslav in the family of hereditary nobleman Edward Christopher Peter Charmansky (1836-1910), an assistant architect at the Gubernial Road and Building Commission. His ancestors came from the ancient Charmanski family of the Rogala coat of arms, whose owners were known from the mid-14th century. Stanislav had two brothers: the elder Marian Józef Zdzisław (1859-1825) and the younger Anatoly (? - after 1932).

He received his secondary education at the Yekaterinoslav Real School, from which he graduated in 1881, and then went to study in St Petersburg. From 1882 to 1887 Stanislav Antoni studied at the Institute of Civil Engineers. He graduated with honours and received a diploma, having been awarded "the title of civil engineer with the right to carry out civil and construction and road works, and to wear the sign established by the Supreme Will, in the event of transfer to civil service". Here it is worth noting that two years earlier - in 1885. - his elder brother Zdzislaw had graduated from this academy with equally high results, and earlier also their father, but in his time the academy was called the Building School. There is no denying that this university was one of the centres of engineering and architectural training for Poles in the Russian Empire during the partition period.

If we trace Stanislaw Charmanski's professional path, we will see that it was similar to that of his father, with the difference that after graduation he was sent to his native Ekaterinoslav, where his family, good friends and acquaintances lived, and where his father could always come to his son's aid. He was appointed junior engineer at the Ekaterinoslav Gubernial Construction Department.

According to the official government information on the pages of the yearbook "Memorial Book and Address Calendar of the Yekaterinoslav Gubernia" in 1889. Stanislav Charmanski worked as a junior engineer, while his father was a gubernial architect; in 1895 Charmanski - was still a junior engineer, in 1897. - acting gubernial engineer, 1900. - already a gubernial engineer with the official rank of court councillor (8th class of the Table of Ranks of the Russian Empire), in 1912 and 1914 - he continued in this position, having obtained for his service the high official rank of state councillor (5th class of the Table of Ranks of the Russian Empire). Valentin Starostin noted that in October 1914. Stanislav Charmansky resigned from service due to illness.

In 1896, Charmanski was promoted to the post of gubernial engineer, which entailed heading the construction department of the aforementioned institution and taking part in meetings of the gubernial government college.

An interesting assessment by the Polish authors of the book Мarek Mądzik, Mariusz Korzeniowski, Krzysztof Latawiec and Dariusz Tarasiuk 'Poles in eastern Ukraine in the years 1832-1921' should be quoted here, who called Stanisław Antoni Charmański "a kind of record-holder in holding a single function within a given administrative body", as he performed his professional duties in one gubernial board for 27 years. The pages of this publication also indicate the year of Stanislav Charmansky's promotion to gubernial engineer - 1896. This position entailed heading the Yekaterinoslav Gubernial Building Department and taking part in meetings of the Gubernial Government College.

Stanislav Kharmanski during this period also proved to be a remarkable and original architect, whose brick works were created in several style solutions, characteristic of the era or reigning in Yekaterinoslav. It can be said with certainty that Stanislav Antoni Charmanski was a talented designer of public buildings, partly preserved to this day, partly destroyed by time, people and war. Several such buildings were created in collaboration with other Polish architects working in Yekaterinoslav at the time or invited from other cities of the Russian Empire. We should add that Stanislav Charmansky happened to design theatre and concert buildings in the city.

Stanislav Kharmanski's design of numerous public buildings was conditioned by the fact that Yekaterinoslav at the turn of the 19th and 20th centuries had transformed into a large industrial city with a constantly growing population.

In 1896, together with architect Leonid Brodnicki, a representative of yet another Polish architectural dynasty, he designed and built the Auditorium of the People's Reading Committee (5 Polovitskaya Street). This unique building in neoclassical style is an architectural monument. It is considered to be the oldest surviving building of a theatre character in Yekaterinoslav. Since 1902, the building belonged to the Ekaterinoslav Scientific Society.

The People's Reading Auditorium became the first cultural and educational centre for the poor citizens of Ekaterinoslav. Lectures, theatrical performances were held here, the first film screening in Ekaterinoslav took place here. The Auditorium building, built at the end of the 19th century, had a very modest appearance that did not correspond to its purpose. The two-storey brick edifice was made in a provincial version of eclecticism, leaning towards neoclassicism.

Two years later - in 1898. - together with Ignacy Gorlenski, an architect from St Petersburg, he designed and built the Summer Theatre in the City Garden, whose auditorium was one of the largest in the city. It was a very large architectural project, which can be dated between 1898 and 1904.

The Summer Theatre was built in the Neo-Russian style. This style drew inspiration from the architecture of ancient Rus', which is why the buildings created resemble wooden terraces. Hence, there was a two-storey wooden 'teremok' with turrets in the Municipal Garden. The building was reminiscent of decorations from Russian folk tales and fitted perfectly into the park space. In 1921. The Summer Theatre burned down for unknown reasons.

Stanislav Kharmanski was also involved in designing buildings on behalf of various charitable societies of the then Yekaterinoslav region. In 1897, a kindergarten and a children's shelter were built near the City Garden according to Сharmanski's design. The adornment of the urban space of the workers' district of Chechelevka in the western part of the city became a school designed for the Society for the Care of Women's Education at 4 Chechelevka Street. It was a three-storey building with elements of the Art Nouveau style, very distinctive against the background of the single-storey buildings of the workers' Slobodka .

Another outstanding work by Stanislav Kharmanski is the House of Labour (trudolubija) (15 Levanevsky Street), which was built in 1910-1911 on behalf of the Yekaterinoslav Benevolent Society. It is located in the neighbourhood of the Chechelevka workers' quarter. Here the homeless, the disabled and the mentally handicapped toiled at simple work. The one-and-a-half-storey rectangular building was designed in the Art Nouveau style. The main façade was decorated with rich ornamentation, the other façades are much more modest. The appearance of the building contrasted strongly with its purpose. It is considered one of the best among the rare surviving examples of the decorative Art Nouveau movement in the city. Unfortunately, the building is now in a state of disrepair.

It is worth noting here that the style of designed buildings in Yekaterinoslav at the time was freely chosen, largely depending on the tastes of the client or architect. From the end of the 19th to the middle of the 20th century, the so-called "brick style" occupied a special place. It referred to the whole trend and determined the character of the development of the entire historic part of the city through eclectic façades created in the spirit of "no style". The facades of the buildings freely combined motifs derived from the following architectural schools: Old Russian, Gothic, Byzantine, Romanesque, including the motifs of Classicism, Romanticism and Neo-Renaissance. In the last quarter of the 19th century, very interesting and diverse ornamental elements appeared on Ekaterinoslav buildings. A characteristic feature of the local building school was the famous hand-moulded figured bricks. Various architectural details were made of them: door portals, plinths and cornices, pilasters, capitals, half-columns, as well as complex ornamental forms. In Yekaterinoslav, among the facade details of the zoomorphic type, lion heads are often found; they predominate in terms of the number of "animal" images on the facades of houses. At the beginning of the 20th century, buildings in the Art Nouveau style appeared in the architecture of Ekaterinoslav. Stanislav Kharmanski also used its elements in his work.

In his position as a provincial engineer, Stanislav Kharmansky supervised the construction of important buildings in Ekaterinoslav. First, in 1896-1898, he supervised the construction of the district court building (now the building of the Dnepropetrovsk Region Prosecutor's Office at 38 Dmytr Yavornitsky Avenue). In 1890 he was a member of the commission on the construction of the English Club (3 Voskresenska Street).

In 1899-1901, Kharmansky was a superintendent on the side of the commissioner - the opening committee of the Yekaterinoslavsky Higher School of Mines of the City Board - of the construction of the buildings of the city's first university on Yekaterinsky Prospect (now 19 Dmytr Yavornitsky Avenue). It should be noted that Stanislav Charmansky directed this huge building. The complex of two edifices - the main one and the chemical one - designed by Kharkiv architect Oleksiy Beketov became the most magnificent building in Kharkiv at that time. Today, this building houses the National Technical University "Dniprovsk Polytechnic University".

In 1904. Stanislav Kharmanski supervised the construction of the new bodies of the gubernial postal and telegraph office in Yekaterinoslav, and Leonid Brodnitsky, at that time a gubernial architect, was a member of the commission on their construction.

Stanislav Kharmansky left his mark on the urban space of the district town of Novomoskovsk in Yekaterinoslav gubernia: at the beginning of the 20th century, he completed the design of a new complex of a land hospital. In 1909, he built the new Novomoskovsk District Council building. Dnieper researchers believe that based on the vast majority of his works, it can be concluded that he inherited a rationalist creative style from his father.

Stanislav Charmanski was involved in the life of the Polish community of Ekaterinoslav, on whose commission he rebuilt St Joseph's Church. Built in 1869-1877, the church at the beginning of the new century could not accommodate about 15,000 Poles and Catholics of other nationalities living in Ekaterinoslav. It should be mentioned that the author of the first project of the church was the architect Albert Brodniсki. The temple was built according to a corrected design by the Russian architect Peter Merkulov (1836-1901), a member of the Technical and Construction Committee of the Ministry of Internal Affairs. Therefore, due to the increasing number of worshippers, on 22 February 1900 the Ministry of the Interior approved a project for the extension of the church by the provincial architect Stanislav Charmanski. As part of the project, the building was extended to include side aisles. The presbytery was also rebuilt. The work was completed in 1910. The neo-Gothic church combined new inspirations. The frontage of the church on the street side was decorated with two tall towers, on which bells were placed. A portal was located above the main entrance and a figure of an angel with a cross was placed above the nave. The temple originally had only one nave lit by tall, soaring windows, ending in an altar apse. Above the altar on the roof, a tall, openwork tower was envisaged in the design.

Unfortunately, the designs made by Stanisław Charmański for private commissions remain unknown. The realisations commissioned by charitable, public and official societies with limited funds are made in a very economical and rational style. With such commissions, it is simply not possible to establish the architect's creative style, although even these buildings, which are in various states preserved to this day, testify to Charmanski's abilities as an architect of the Art Nouveau trend.

To date, researchers have not been able to find any information about the private life of Stanislaw Antoni Charmanski, his family or even the date of his death. The last references to him are from 1914, at the beginning of the First World War. The reason for this situation is the lack of archival sources, the local press of the time. This has resulted in a gap in the biography of gubernial engineer Stanislav Kharmanski, one of the representatives of the dynasty of Polish architects active in left-bank Ukraine - in the major cities of Yekaterinoslav and Kharkiv.