Lviv Interactive and its Heritage: Presentation of Redesign and Discussion over Platform's Development

Lviv Interactive is a digital encyclopedia platform about the city and its past that includes research on the history of Lviv through space in relation to the stories of people, institutions, and events. The platform is based on a digital map. With its help, we aim to show the historical context that has shaped the modern, living city: its appearance, internal organization, and sociocultural dynamics. Today, the project contains more than 1500 publications covering the nineteenth and twentieth centuries and describing how its urban fabric was formed in different historical contexts, how public or private spaces emerged, which on the one hand created a certain urban culture and everyday life, and at the same time became places of extraordinary events or extreme violence. 

The key to the stories published on Lviv Interactive is its digital infrastructure. Over the 18 years of the platform's existence, which is unique for such projects, this infrastructure has undergone many changes. The long experience of creating Interactive Lviv today is an important legacy both for the project itself and for the field of digital history in general. Therefore, there is a growing need for reflection in light of a number of challenges related to the constant change in technology and data security. 

In 2025, we presented a new visual version of the website to make our materials more visible to users. During the presentation, we will present the key changes in the visual design and functioning of the platform. However, this is only the first stage of the renovations we are planning for Interactive Lviv. With this event, we also want to launch a discussion open to everyone about what technological solutions our digital urban history project needs to ensure a more balanced and reliable functioning of the platform in the coming decades.

The event will be launched online. To receive an invitation to participate in events, please contact Sofia Andrusyshyn via email: s.andrusyshyn@lvivcenter.org.ua. 

The event will take place within a series of seminars and workshops around specific cases of urban history digital platforms/projects, "Urban History Digital Infrastructures: Sharing Expertise and Networking Cities", organized by Center for Urban History, with the support of the Center for Governance and Culture in Europe at the University of St.Gallen.