Petko Momchilov

Petko Ivanov Momtschilow (also Petko Ivanov Momchilov written Bulgarian Петко Иванов Момчилов ; * 2. October 1864 in Gorna Oryahovitsa , today in Bulgaria ; † 18th January 1923 in Sofia ) was a Bulgarian-Austrian architect.

Life

Petko Momchilow was born on October 2, 1864 in Gorna Orjachowiza, the son of Ivan Momchilow . The city of Gorna Orjachowiza was then still part of the Ottoman Empire .

Ivan Momchilov, the father of Petko Momchilov, was a famous advocate of the Bulgarian National Revival Movement . He graduated from Herson High School in Odessa (then Russian Empire ) and edited 15 textbooks. After the father's return to his “subjugated” homeland (Bulgaria was only liberated in 1878 ), he founded the first class schools in the Balkan city of Elena in 1843 , which was a cultural center of the rebirth period. Many well-known advocates of the Bulgarian National Revival emerged from this school. The father founded another school in Gorna Orjachowiza in 1859. Gorna Orjachowiza was also a cultural and economic center of Bulgaria at that time.

Petko Momchilow completed his primary school education in his native town of Gorna Orjachowiza. Then he went to Varna and graduated from the local high school. From 1885 to 1887 he worked as a teacher in Varna before he received a scholarship from the newly established Bulgarian Ministry of Education to study abroad. After a short study visit to Munich Momchilow studied architecture from 1887 to 1892 at the German Technical University in Prague .

After completing his studies Momchilow returned to Bulgaria and worked from 1892 to 1893 as an employee in the Ministry of Education in the Bulgarian capital Sofia . In this role, he was commissioned to design six standard school building projects in the municipalities and district centers that were implemented across the country. In 1893 he won the tender for the construction of the train station in Bucharest with an attached hotel. In the same year he became a co-founder of the Bulgarian Association of Engineers and Architects .

Today's Church of Sweti Sedmochislenizi

From 1894 to 1906 Momchilow was the head of the architecture department of the Ministry of Public Works, Roads and Town Planning , a member and from 1905 to 1906 chairman of the committees for the construction of the Alexander Nevsky Memorial Church in Sofia. From 1895 to 1897 he worked with G. Nenow and Jurdan Milanow Popow the law for the planning of localities in Bulgaria . Jurdan Popov's father was a teacher at the class school founded by Ivan Momchilow in Elena. Together with Popov, Petko Momchilow led the renovation of the Black Kodscha Dervish Mosque by the Ottoman master architect Mimar Sinan in Sofia and its conversion to the Sweti Sedmochislenizi Church from 1899 to 1903 . He also built the Synodial Palace in Sofia (next to the Alexander Nevsky Cathedral), the Bulgarian People's Bank, the Sofia Central Prison, the Alexandrow Hospital and other buildings in Sofia. On December 19, 1903, he was awarded the Cavalier's Cross on the occasion of the opening of the maternity hospital in Sofia, which he built with the architect Popov.

The girls' high school in Varna (today the Archaeological Museum of Varna ) was also designed by him, as was the building of the Metropolitan of Varna . In Lovech , Veliko Tarnovo and Plovdiv he created the projects for the construction of the grammar school. In Sliven he planned the Central Mineral Bath.

In 1906 Momchilow left the ministry and signed a contract with the Sofia municipality for the establishment of the Sofia Central Mineral Bath in the center of the Bulgarian capital. The construction of the bath, which was built in the style of historicism , lasted until 1913. In 1906/07 Momchilow founded the cement company in Zlatna Panega. In 1908 the cement factory in Zlatna Panega, the first in Bulgaria, went into operation. The factory, which was part of HeidelbergCement until 2004 and today belongs to the TITAN Group , went bankrupt after the First World War. In 1911 Momchilov was elected as a member of the Fifth Grand National Assembly.

Petko Momchilov died in Sofia on January 18, 1923. He was buried in the Central Cemetery in Sofia .

Famous works

Main entrance of the thermal bath in Sofia

• Railway station with hotel (1893) in Bucharest
• Boys' high school (1893–1898, with Jurdan Popow) in Russe
• Girls' high school with boarding house (1893–1898, today the Archaeological Museum with Popow, construction management - Kowatschewski) in Varna
• Thermal bath with hotel (1884–1885, the hotel building has now been demolished) in Bad Sliwen
• Archaeological Museum (1886–1895) in Plovdiv
• Administration building and clinics of the Alexandrov Hospital (1895–1900, with Popov) in Sofia
• Maternity home “Maitschin dom” (1898–1914, supported by Popow), Sofia
• Sveti Sedmochislenizi Church (1899–1903, reconstruction and adaptation of the “black” Kodscha Dervish Mosque by Mimar Sinan with Popov) in Sofia
• House of Ivan Geschow (1899, after a design by Friedrich Grünanger in the bombing of Sofia destroyed, planned reconstruction) in Sofia, Bul. Tsar Oswoboditel 16
• Building of the Holy Synod and Metropolis (1904–1910) in Varna
• Building of the Holy Synod (1904–1912 with Popow, construction management - Christo Kowatschewski ) in Sofia
• Parts of the tuberculosis hospital (1905) in Trojan
• M. Momchilov's house (1905) in Sofia, Bul. Patriarch Evtimij 2
• Central prison with church and school (1905–1909) in Sofia
• Sofia Municipality Thermal Baths (1906–1911, with Popov)
• Primary school (1907) in Gorna Orjachowiza
• House of Teodor Teodorow (1908, now a restaurant Crimea) in Sofia, Str. Dobrogea 2
• Petko Momchilov's house (demolished) in Sofia
• House of Todor Wlajkow (location not identified) in Sofia

literature

• Grigor Doytchinov, Christo Gantchev: Austrian architects in Bulgaria. 1878-1918. Böhlau, ao Vienna 2001, ISBN 3-205-99343-8 , p. 162 ff.