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1

THE OTTO & WASSIL DECORATIVE SCULPTURE WORKSHOP IN RIGA AT THE TURN OF THE 20TH CENTURY (Dekorativas telniecibas darbnica Otto & Wassil Riga 19. - 20. gs. mija)

100%
Grosa S.
Materiali Latvijas makslas vesturei
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2004
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vol. 4
95-104
EN
Authorship questions of decorative finish of 19th and 20th century architecture in Riga are still largely unexplored because documentary evidence found in construction histories of buildings does not reveal the executors of decoration works. Information can be sorted out from advertisements, address books or daily press but it is superficial and incomplete. Between 1899 and 1914 there were about twenty workshops of decorative sculpture in Riga; most of their masters were new-comers and workshops functioned for short periods of time. They specialised in different kinds of commissions, and since 1876 the largest and most stable firm of decorative sculpture in Riga belonged to the sculptor August Volz who came from Berlin. Volz is the only Riga sculptor of this branch whose career has been examined in a greater detail. Unlike Volz's company, the role of other workshops is less clearly definable, still Otto & Wassil (after 1903 Wassil & Co) can be considered as one of the most influential workshops of decorative sculpture from 1900 to 1906. The sculptors Zygmunt Otto and Oswald Wassil were founders of this workshop. Data on Wassil is scarce, but quite detailed information on Zygmunt Otto's life and work has been found in Poland. Otto was born in Lvov, 1874, and died In Warsaw, 1944. He studied at the Krakow Academy of Art and specialised in decorative sculpture, although he worked in other branches as well. Otto has elaborated the decorative finish of many buildings in Warsaw, but his Riga period, although short and quite contradictory, gives an idea of his early career. Otto & Wassil received the golden medal for the design of an allegorical decorative fountain at the exhibition of Industry and crafts dedicated to Riga 700th anniversary (1901), but the work was never realised. It is known that the firm produced decorative finish of buildings, and the author of this paper has attempted to expand the list of their achievements by attributing a number of particular examples. Activities of Otto & Wassil in the decoration of Riga buildings promoted influences coming from Berlin and Vienna. This workshop made an important contribution to the plastic decor of several rent houses and shop buildings of the early Art Nouveau period in Riga.
2

ART NOUVEAU IN THE SACRED AND PUBLIC ARCHITECTURE OF RIGA (Rigas jugendstila perioda sakralo un sabiedrisko eku dekors)

100%
Grosa S.
Materiali Latvijas makslas vesturei
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2008
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vol. 7
147-154
EN
Sacred architecture has been especially important in the development of each epoch's most important innovations and as a reflection of the main stylistic tendencies. Although over the last years interest in the heritage of sacred architecture in Latvia has resulted in several extensive publications, the subject still features the blind spot of the Art Nouveau influences upon the sacred architecture and décor in Latvia at the turn of the 20th century. Active construction of churches went on in this period, revealing stylistic pluralism in wide-range reconstruction and renovation of churches as well. The aim of this publication is to specify particular aspects of stylistic estimation related to Riga architecture in the late 19th and early 20th century. The influence of Art Nouveau upon Riga architecture was not homogenous; it did not appear an all-embracing style that is especially evident in public buildings, including industrial objects, educational and commercial institutions and their decorative handling. In a similar vein, church construction reflected a wide scope of historical styles - Art Nouveau has not left a considerable impact on churches of various confessions (12 in total) built in Riga and its surroundings around the turn of the 20th century. Still new spatial tasks had to be solved; in other cases Art Nouveau has inspired particular decorative elements.
3

NEO-CLASSICISM IN THE DECORATIVE SCULPTURE OF ART NOUVEAU IN RIGA (Velreiz par neoklasicismu Rigas 20. gadsimta sakuma arhitekturas dekorativaja telnieciba)

100%
Grosa S.
Materiali Latvijas makslas vesturei
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2000
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vol. 1
74-83
EN
In analyzing the architecture of turn-of-the-century Riga, it is important to evaluate the style of decorative sculpture that was used in the construction process. This is a subject that has received scant attention from specialists so far. Some of the materials can be classified as belonging to Neo-Classicism. The fact that we can find elements of Neo-Classicism in the decorative sculpture of early-20th century architecture in Riga, moreover, allows us to expand the chronological frontiers which apply to this particular movement in Latvia. As the result of a comparative analysis, we have found several specific aspects of decorative sculpture in early-20th century Rigensian decorative sculpture that can be attributed to Neo-Classicism. These are found in clear efforts to imbue the style with regional motivation, taking a fairly free approach to the classic inheritance of the movement, as well as in close links and reciprocal effect with late Art Nouveau and National Romanticism. International influences were important, too. The trends toward Classicism expanded the range of expressive opportunities that were available to sculptors, letting them search for new forms of plastic expression. There were also changes in the range of decorative and iconographic motifs, promoting the development of allegorical and story-telling compositions in the external decorations of buildings. Riga's Neo-C1assicist decorative sculpture tended to be quite concrete in terms of iconographic expressiveness, and the trend was toward sculpture which really told a story. Sometimes a certain craftsmanship in execution of a sculpture could diminish the academic seriousness and attribute more liveliness to the depiction. At the same time, however, we also find professionally valuable interpretations of classical themes - ones in which the link to the conventional traditions of Classicism was unimportant in the shaping of subjective allusions to mythological themes.
4

REFLECTION OF SOCIAL PRESTIGE IDEA IN RIGA EARLY ART NOUVEAU ARCHITECTURAL DÉCOR (Sociala prestiza ideju atspogulojums Rigas agra jugensdtila arhitekturas dekora)

100%
Grosa S.
Materiali Latvijas makslas vesturei
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2007
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vol. 6
137-166
EN
As a result of economic boom, Riga had become a metropolis in the second half of the 19th century, featuring industrialisation accompanied by wide-scale construction of multi-storeyed stone buildings, widening of respectable areas, urbanisation and workers' districts appearing in suburbs. Huge social inequality and strong contrasts characterise Riga as a typical Western city of the period, still at least two aspects were specific to Riga: firstly, being part of the Russian Empire and a zone of special interest as one of the few cities with a developed industry; secondly, the complicated national issue resulting from German minority's traditional privileges. In this situation early Art Nouveau décor acquired a very pronounced dimension of social prestige, becoming not just a self-advertisement of the rapidly growing bourgeoisie but also a symbol of an imagined aristocracy and the proprietor's prestige: at the beginning of the period the richest sculptural décor is found on buildings in Old Riga and the so-called Boulevard District where comparatively rich decorative sculpture was created since the 2nd half of the 19th century as well as in the former suburban districts that were gradually added to the respectable area after city's building regulations were modified. The visually most attractive embodiment of the ideas of social prestige in building décor appear in widely-spread cartouches and shields with the proprietors' monograms as well as with symbolic representation of professional attributes or elements derived from heraldry or emblematics. These elements, taken over from the 19th century, were endowed with a new meaning at the turn of the 20th century. Popularity of the ideas of social prestige created preconditions for persistent neo-style solutions of façades: Art Nouveau with its asymmetry, biomorphic décor and self-sufficient aesthetics of linear rhythms was ill-adapted to the traditional idea of respectability. So late-19th-century and early-20th-century façades feature a certain dualism; typical Art Nouveau motifs coexist with attempts to glorify ancient cultures, reflections of interests in theosophy, freemasonry etc.
5

MOTIFS IN THE DECOR OF ART NOUVEAU ARCHITECTURE IN RIGA AND THEIR ORIGINS (Rigas jugendstila perioda arhitekturas dekora motivi un to izcelsme)

100%
Grosa S.
Makslas Vesture un Teorija
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2009
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vol. 12
5-21
EN
As soon as Art Nouveau began to appear in the architectural decor of Riga at the turn of the 19th and 20th centuries, depictions of nature became increasingly popular. Of course, there was not just the main and specific Art Nouveau approach, which Robert Schmutzler cleverly described as 'Biological Romanticism', there were also other ways of approaching the natural world. Paul Greenhalg has described this as 'symbolic conventionalization', pantheism, metamorphosis and evolutionism. Pantheism became the main strategy for interior design at the turn of the 19th and 20th centuries in Riga, particularly insofar as vestibules are concerned. By contrast, façades manifested ideas of conventional Symbolism or of metamorphosis and evolutionism. Stylisation of natural motifs was one of the most popular techniques in designing wallpaper and stenciled decor on walls. Specialist publications had a major influence when it came to selecting the range of colours and ornamentation and since the mid 19th century their number had increased very rapidly. In Riga, as in several other provincial centres in the Russian Empire, Historicism played a particularly important role in architectural décor. When architects and designers began to move toward Art Nouveau it was often in the context of a reinterpretation of motifs that were popular in various neo-styles. New meaning was also attached to motifs and subjects that had been tested in the decorative arts and remained well known in the latter half of the 19th century and whose sources were to be found in various popular publications such as the ornamental handbook by Franz Sales Meyer, the edition 'Alegorien un Embleme' issued by Martin Gerlach, etc.
6

ATIS KENINS SCHOOL BUILDING AND NATIONAL ROMANTICISM IN THE ARCHITECTURE OF RIGA AT THE TURN OF THE 20TH CENTURY (Ata Kenina skolas eka un nacionalais romantisms Rigas 20. gs. sakuma arhitektura)

100%
Grosa S.
Materiali Latvijas makslas vesturei
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2003
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vol. 3
55-65
EN
National Romanticism belongs to the most controversial trends in the architecture of the early 20th century. Connections between National Romanticism and Art Nouveau in Riga were detected already between the wars, and there is a reasonable ground to consider National Romanticist architecture as a modification of Art Nouveau. But some particular questions of National Romanticism are still waiting for answers. This article about the Atis Kenins School (1905, Terbatas Street 15/17, architects Konstantins Peksens and Eizens Laube), the first public building of this style in Riga and one of the most outstanding examples of it, tries to answer some of these questions. The present look of the Atis Kenins School differs from the elevation drawing in the project as well as from some early- 20th-century photographs that show more influences of Finnish architecture. It was a very important source of inspiration for the National Romanticist architecture in Riga. Comparing the general features of the Finnish architecture with those of the Latvian National Romanticist architecture, the article tries to define the specificity of National Romanticism, pointing to some stereotypes in methodological approach. Conclusions based on research experience in other countries do not allow to interpret the National Romanticist architecture as a manifestation of national identity. Even the school owner Atis Kenins' very nationalist-minded personality does not convince that the look of the building is expressive of Latvian identity. These aspirations are only part of a certain stylistic trend that comprises many other features as well. The analysis of the Kenins School interiors proves that National Romanticist interiors should be included in one typological group with different stylistic elements. So the term of National Romanticism in Riga as well as in Finland and other countries should be used as a neutral stylistic category.
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