Institute of Art History of the Latvian Academy of Art Anna Ancāne ...

Rodenburgh’s plan was also related to the ideas of ideal city topical
throughout Europe and Sweden (Gothenburg, Vanersborg, etc.).
Although the plan was meant just for building of a suburb and not
touching the old street network, the ideal city was commonly related to
the transformation of an existing city and/or its part, not to starting a new
city from scratch. These tendencies informed about the basic principles of
Baroque urban planning, using perspective as a means to achieve a
unifying effect. The Old Riga’s volume was included in the unified
spatial composition that comprised the suburban street network as well:
several of its parallel roads were oriented towards the verticals of old
Riga – its church spires.
2.4. 2 nd reconstruction period of Riga’s fortifications and the Citadel
In the last quarter of the 17 th century the synthesised Vauban’s-
Coehoorn’s system was implemented in Riga by Erik Dahlbergh; his
projects of the front of bastions was a major invention, placing several
defensive lines one behind the other according to the “onion peel
principle”. Typical features were massive, projecting bastions with
casemates, double defence ditches with ravelins and other auxiliary
structures. Dahlbergh was known by rounded, multi-level bastion towers
that were envisaged in Riga Citadel as well. Already in the mid-17 th
century there were six bastions in Riga, but four ravelins were added till
the end of the 17 th century. Defensive structures of the 17 th century were
inspired by the idea of star fort originating from the plans of ideal cities
worked out by Renaissance architects. They were known in the 17 th
century Riga but were implemented in the Dahlbergh’s project of the
Citadel. It was envisaged as a compact, detached fortress with six
bastions, a wide water-filled ditch and two ravelins. The Citadel was a
sort of “epicentre” of Riga’s fortification system in which Vauban’s idea
was interpreted most closely to the original, according to Vauban’s “first”
system.
Iconological and mathematical context of the fortress
Typical expressions of Baroque were organically identified with the
absolute monarchy that strived to embody the idea of power in the
organisation of large structures of urban planning. This was also the
message of plans intended to improve Riga’s fortifications in the 1680s
and 1690s. Baroque fortress, the functional product of military
engineering, included also the required iconological program to glorify
absolutism. The ideological accent was the fortification gate that
compositionally envisaged praises of the monarch. The volume and
location of fortifications was the dominant element of the landscape,
impressive by their wholeness and monumentality. Geometric concepts
were very much in focus in architecture, but the fields of mathematics
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