Starp tipizāciju un individuālismu. Ernesta Štālberga projektētā Rīgas pilsētas blokmāja Lomonosova ielā 12

• Authors: Horsta Karīna

Title variants

EN

Between Typification and Individualism. The Riga Municipal Apartment Building at 12 Lomonosova Street Designed by Ernests Štālbergs

• Languages of publication: LV

Abstracts

EN

The Riga municipal apartment building built to Ernests Štālbergs’ (1883–1958) design at 12 Lomonosova Street is a classic example of Functionalism in Latvia. It demonstrates the attempts by Riga’s social democratic municipality to deal with the housing shortage and establish a new, progressive type of apartment building in the interwar period. Štālbergs’ apartment building is among the rare interwar-period buildings with intentionally exposed brick façades that link the Lomonosova Street building to the Schillerpark housing estate (1924–1930) in Berlin by Bruno Taut (1880–1938) as well as Vienna’s residential quarters of Rabenhof (architects Heinrich Schmid, Hermann Aichinger, 1925–1929) and Quarinhof (architects Siegfried Theiss and Hans Jaksch, 1924–1925). The building’s both longitudinal façades are stylistically different and show the transformation of Štālbergs’ signature style in the late 1920s – early 30s when he actively appropriated expressive means of modern architecture, at the same time looking back on the classical architecture important for his previous creative period. All apartments were fitted with well-considered kitchen furnishings designed by the architect. Ideas of the so-called Frankfurt kitchen can be spotted there, taking into account the needs of hygiene, ergonomics and rational sequence of workflows, also separating the “dirty” and “clean” phases of cooking. Štālbergs was already attracted by modernist ideas since 1927 but the apartment building built in 1930 became his first modernist project to be implemented. In line with his typical pragmatic approach, the architect has found useful elements in both architectural systems, the traditional as well as the modernist. Štālbergs’ professional maturity is evidenced by the fact that he was not a blind follower of the modernist style but searched for a way to adapt the new, progressive architectural phenomena to Latvia’s conditions.

Keywords

EN

ERNESTS ŠTĀLBERGS; ARCHITECTURE; APARTMENT BUILDINGS; MODERNISM; FUNCTIONALISM; BRUNO TAUT; ERNST MAY; FRANKFURT KITCHEN

• Publisher: Institute of Art History of the Latvian Academy of Art and Art History Research Support Foundation
• Journal: Makslas Vesture un Teorija
• Year: 2020
• Volume: 24
• Pages: 43-62

Contributors

author

Horsta Karīna

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