Arhitekts un politika. Ernesta Štālberga dzīve un darbs

• Authors: Horsta Karīna

Title variants

EN

The Architect and Politics. The Life and Work of Ernests Štālbergs

• Languages of publication: LV

Abstracts

EN

Ernests Štālbergs (1883–1958) experienced two world wars and six different political regimes one after the other. His biography is an obvious example of how fundamental socio-political shifts can affect not only the architect’s private life but also his professional output and even the work on particular objects. Štālbergs was born in Liepāja in 1883 and studied at the St. Petersburg Academy of Arts for a long period, from 1904 to 1914. This was partly related to financial problems as well as to political events, such as the Revolution of 1905. After graduating from the academy, Štālbergs stayed on in St. Petersburg and began to teach at Yelena Bagayeva’s private Women’s Higher Courses of Architecture. The academy was closed down after the Bolshevik coup of 1918; The Petrograd State Free Art Studios were opened in its place and Štālbergs began to head the master studio of architecture there. However, the new order in Soviet Russia was grotesque, so the architect returned to Latvia in 1922, taking an instructor’s job at the recently opened University of Latvia, Faculty of Architecture, where he headed his master studio of architecture for almost 30 years. In Latvia he could freely realise his ideas and designed various objects for both the university and the political elite but as a modernist, he saw architecture as a potential solution to social problems. The years of the Second World War were a tragic period in the architect’s life, especially the Nazi occupation from June 1941, as his wife was Jewish. The restored Soviet occupational regime held Štālbergs in high esteem at first, heaping him with prestigious posts and various honorary titles. However, as an ever more conservative version of Socialist Realism was on the rise, the architect’s modern, West-inspired ideas appeared unacceptable to Soviet ideology. Due to the political and economic situation and commissioners’ changing interpretations of architecture, Štālbergs’ realised works reveal a much more conservative and modest side of his creativity.

Keywords

EN

ERNESTS ŠTĀLBERGS; LATVIAN ARCHITECTURE; RUSSIAN ARCHITECTURE; POLITICAL FACTORS; FREEDOM MONUMENT; RESIDENTIAL HOUSES; HOTEL RĪGA

• Publisher: Institute of Art History of the Latvian Academy of Art and Art History Research Support Foundation
• Journal: Makslas Vesture un Teorija
• Year: 2019
• Volume: 22
• Pages: 23-39

Contributors

author

Horsta Karīna

• Institute of Art History of the Latvian Academy of Art, Akadēmijas laukums 1-302, Riga LV-1050, Latvia