Victor Cordella

Victor Cordella (January 1, 1872 – April 12, 1937) was a Polish-American architect known for designing churches for Eastern European congregations in Minnesota.

Early life and education

Wiktor Kordela was born on January 1, 1872, in Kraków to Italian father Marian, a sculptor, and Polish mother Florence, an artist. After studying at the Royal Art Academy in Kraków, and completing further studies in Lviv under Michael Kowalczuk, Cordella immigrated to Minnesota in 1893, and began to study architecture under Cass Gilbert. and the Swan Turnblad Mansion, built in 1908.

Cordella's designs embodied the ethnic identities of their congregations, and the Eastern Orthodox and Catholic churches in the Upper Midwest that he designed helped shape the identities of the immigrants who worshipped in them. He worked with many different ethnicities, including Slovaks, Ruthenians, Ukrainians, and Russians. One of the first churches that he designed was St. Mary's Russian Orthodox Cathedral in Minneapolis. Due to unease in the congregation of St. Mary's two offshoot churches were founded that Cordella designed; also in Minneapolis, and in 1926, he designed the Romanesque St. John the Baptist Greek Catholic Church and rectory in Minneapolis. St. Francis Xavier in Buffalo (1916), St. Stanislaus in Perham (1922), combination Spanish Mission and French Renaissance-style St. Luke's in Sherburn (1922), Holy Cross in North Prairie (1922), the Baroque Revival-style Our Lady of Lourdes in Little Falls (1923), and Holy Cross in Northeast Minneapolis (1927).

Personal life and death

Cordella married Ruth Maser on September 15, 1902. Cordella married Minnie Beckwith on October 9, 1918. In 1921, he was featured in the Minneapolis Journal for growing a 19-inch cucumber. The Great Depression greatly impacted Cordella and his wife; in 1930, he was unable to pay his dues to the American Institute of Architects. It seems possible that by the mid-1930s, he was resigned to work as a manual laborer.