ალექსანდრე შიმკევიჩი
* 12.11.1858 Saint-Petersburg, Russia
† 1907 Tbilisi, Georgia
Architect
Aleksander Szymkiewicz was born in 1858 in St. Petersburg to a noble Polish family of a Civil lawyer and a descendant of old Cowen County family, Polikarp Szymkiewicz and his wife Emilia-Ana-Maria Gurskalin. Szymkiewicz received his secondary education in a German Karl May Gymnasium in Saint-Petersburg. He continued his studies in 1879, at the St. Petersburg Academy of Arts, after which he obtained an appointment of the City Architect of Tbilisi and moved to Georgia in 1885.
Szymkiewicz was the City architect of Tbilisi from 1885 to 1891. Between 1897 and 1901 Court Councillor Aleksander Szymkiewicz was elected as a deputy of Tbilisi City Counsil. He was also a member of the Society of Encouragement of Fine Arts. From 1905 to 1906, aside from his work, he taught at the Tbilisi Art School. In 1910, a merit-based scholarship has been established in his name.
Aleksander Szymkiewicz is buried at the Lutheran cemetery of Tbilisi. On 16 December of 2011 a symbolic tombstone was erected near the Lutheran Church of the Reconciliation in Tbilisi.
Info: Nino Kordzakhia
Main Projects
– “Islamic House,” property of Ekaterine Rotinoff, the wife of Ivan Rotinoff, a first guild merchant, Uznadze street #19, Tbilisi 1885
– Private house on Petre Didi Street #6 (nowadays Ingorokva Street), Tbilisi, 1886
– House of an Architect, Gudovich street #7 (nowadays Tchonkadze street #8) Tbilisi, 1888
– The Caucasian Sericulture Station (Area of Mushtaidi Gardens and Dinamo Stadium) Tbilisi, 1892
–State Silk Museum, Giorgi Tsabadze #6, Tbilisi 1891
– The Courtroom and District Court Building, at present The Supreme Court of Georgia, Zubalashvili street #32, Tbilisi 1896
– Construction Supervisor of Treasury Theatre (at present Tbilisi Zakaria Paliashvili Academic Theatre of Opera and Ballet, 1896 (Architect Victor Shröter)
– High school of Batumi, 1897
– A private house of a first guild merchant Iagor Tamamshev, Ialbuzi street #18, Tbilisi 1901
– Andreoletti house, Davit Aghmashenebeli Ave #79, Tbilisi 1901
– Artist Society, at present Rustaveli Theatre, Rustaveli Ave #17, Tbilisi 1901 (with Korneli Tatischev)
– “Tiflis Passage” (storey addition by Mikhael Neprintsev in 1935) Pushkin street #7, Tbilisi 1902
– Musical Academy (at present Tbilisi State Conservatory), Griboedov street #8 Tbilisi 1904
– A private house of a first guild merchant Gerasim Tumaev, Davit Aghmashenebeli ave. #166 Tbilisi, 1904
– A lower station of Funicular, Tbilisi, 1905 (Demolished and replaced in the first half of 1960s and reconstructed again as a not an exact replica in 2012)
Other Works
– Furniture design for Silk Museum and Library
Literature/Links
Mania, Maia: European Architects in Tbilisi, 2006. ISBN 99940-67-02-8
Mania, Maia. Silk museum. (24.09.2020)
Janusz Opaska, DZIAàALNOû POLSKICH ARCHITEKTÓW W TBILISI W XIX I POCZTKACH XX WIEKU. (24.09.2020)