Abandoned like painful memories of the Soviet occupation, the decrepit shell of an unfinished performance theater originally built to entertain Soviet intelligence leaders idles in the south end of Stryisky Park in western Ukraine’s historic city of Lviv. Seemingly futile, the looming carcass of the shelter will soon be peeled from the earth like a scab, and in its place will bloom eight acres of a fruitful new college campus designed, in part, by University architecture and honors college student Jonathan Lemons.
Lemons, who will graduate this spring, enrolled at the University and the Robert D. Clark Honors College in the fall of 2001, but did not begin his five-year professional degree program with the School of Architecture until fall of 2002. Lemons concludes his education at the University this term by presenting his thesis: designing phase one and working with a team on the master plan of the Ukrainian Catholic University, the only Catholic university within the boundaries of the former Soviet Union.
“This design for a world-class academic village in Lviv, Ukraine, will catalyze a bridge between the sensitive cultural crosscurrents of this historic city with the people’s contemporary values,” Lemons said.
This campus will revitalize what was previously lost by residents of Lviv during the Soviet occupation. Communist leader Josef Stalin and his followers cleansed many intellectuals and institutions from Ukraine; the UCU was closed in 1945 and was not opened again until 1992, after Ukrainian independence was declared. Faculty of the UCU, leaders of the Greek Catholic Church and intellectuals of high esteem, among others, were interrogated, imprisoned and killed.
Helen Southworth, assistant professor of literature at the UO honors college, who had Lemons in a prior thesis prospectus seminar said, “One had the sense that his involvement in the design of the Lviv university had profoundly altered his outlook on the world.”
Lviv is not the only community that has benefited from Lemons’ worldly ambition. Lemons’ titanic repertoire includes: designing and building for the Umpqua Valley Wildlife Rescue Organization; an apprenticeship involving a Japanese heavy timber framing kiln shed; and a position as a United States International Student Leader discussing the derelict conditions in sub-Saharan Africa.
In his position as a United States International Student Leader, Lemons was able to discuss solutions to a myriad of regional issues with Kenyan community leaders involved in architecture, religion and education. Lemons’ undergraduate thesis adviser Gerry Gast says of Lemons, “Jonathan is highly skilled in architecture and intensely interested in world issues. He has excellent professional promise.” Described by fellow UO architecture student Simon Newton as “tenacious and inspired,” there seem to be no bounds to Lemons’ ideas.
Fortunately, Lemons is a man of ideas and action. In March, 2006, Lemons founded his own firm, Unified Works Building Design. Lemons is also currently the project designer for an addition to Allen Hall on the UO campus along with an eco-friendly forest house for a local glass artist. Post-graduation, Lemons will work for various American and European firms to earn his architect’s license.
“Never stop persisting or imagining a better future. Anything you imagine is possible in this discipline,” says Lemons, a man whose generous and brilliant mind many would like to see the blueprint for.