Many believe that the beautiful five-story building at Sumskaya Street was designed by Oleksander Ginzburg, one of Kharkiv’s most talented architects, who has enriched the city’s skyline with numerous Art Nouveau buildings.

However, that is not entirely accurate—Ginzburg was previously regarded merely as the architect behind the renovation of two old buildings that were combined into a single structure.

According to research by A. Paramonov, the original buildings (a three-story and a two-story structure) were built for the merchant family of Yakov and Evdokia Lysikov in 1887–1889, based on a design by architect Boris Pokrovsky. The renovation of the apartment building was commissioned by the new owner of the property, Isaac Freiman, and completed in 1910.

Modern researchers believe that Ginzburg is incorrectly credited as the renovation author. For example, in the book *Kharkiv: Yesterday, Today, Tomorrow” (authors: Yu. Shkodovsky, I. Lavrentiev, A. Leibfreid, Yu. Polyakova, 2002), Boris Kornienko is cited as the architect of the reconstruction; other architect-researchers (E. Solovyov) also agrees that Kornienko is the architect. It is Kornienko who is listed as the architect of the building in the brochure by the firms of Barlakh and Telatnikov, published in the Izvestia of the Kharkiv City Duma.