Lviv, City of Paradoxes

When documentary photographer Dolph Kessler visited Lviv for the first time in October 2012, he wais profoundly impressed. Lviv is a magnificent city with an imposing and dramatic history. He decided to produce a photobook of the city, together with Amsterdam urban planner Kees van Ruyven, philosopher Ruud Meij and documentary journalist Michiel Driebergen.

The photobook shows Lviv in all its aspects: the attractive medieval centre, the gigantic districts of the Austrian-Hungarian era encircling the centre, the apartment block districts of the Soviet period and the new suburbs at the outskirts of the city. Dolph Kessler also portrays many residents of the city and visitors searching for their lost family history.

Apart from the photographs, the book includes three essays. Journalist Michiel Driebergen describes the history of both former and current inhabitants of the city. In the twentieth century the buildings of Lviv survived all wars, yet the city lost ninety percent of its population; the Poles were expelled and the Jews were murdered. How does the present population, mainly newcomers, stand in relation to that heritage?

Urban planner Kees van Ruyven traverses the city by tram and writes about the urban qualities of Lviv. The city centre is won over by the tourism industry and the nineteenth-century districts are of outstanding allure. How does Lviv preserve those extraordinary qualities and how do the residents cope with the increasing use of cars?

Philosopher Ruud Meij with his expertise as an integrity management consultant, deals with the most important problem that currently plagues the city: corruption. Taking into account the multicoloured and dramatic history of the city, he expounds how the inhabitants of Lviv could recover the citizenship of this beautiful Central European provincial city.

Lviv, City of Paradoxes will be available on 20 September 2014
Languages: Ukrainian, English and Dutch