SILVIJA GROSA JŪGENDSTILA PERIODA PLASTISKAIS UN ...

19 th century and thereafter. Sometimes the textual element was granted
specifically decorative qualities.
A merger of romantic ideas and presentation of the building owner can be
seen on the façade of the building at Rūpniecības Street 1, which was built for
Dāvids Bikars (1903, architect Rudolf Zirkwitz, plastic décor by Otto & Wassil).
In terms of iconography, it is significant here that Bikars chaired the Rīga
Association of Latvian Craftsmen, because that association was the one which took
out the loan that was needed to put up the building at Lācplēša Street 25 (1902,
architect Edmund von Trompowsky) which was erected for the Rīga Latvian
Society and was also the first home for the Rīga Latvian Theatre. Its opening in
1902 was an important event for Rīga’s Latvian society. Today the pathos in the
décor of the Bikars building embodies the aesthetic ideals that were typical of the
era. It also emphasises the role of the building’s owner in promoting Latvian
culture. Sadly, the desire to express such as diverse message meant that the artistic
solution turned out to be excessively complicated.
V.4. Increased excessiveness in décor
The decorative solutions that were typical of the Art Nouveau period, as
initially seen in the design of the Bobrov and Tupikov buildings, found particularly
heightened expression in the décor of several buildings that were designed between
1903 and 1906 by the civil engineer Mikhail Eisenstein.
Eisenstein buildings tended to involve a great deal of sculpture,
emphasised and rhythmic elements that were repeated again and again, contrasts
between glazed brick and rougher surfaces, and, in some cases, the non-traditional
window apertures which were so popular in Art Nouveau architecture. The
iconographic motifs in Eisenstein’s buildings are, in some cases, typical of Art
Nouveau, but in other cases they have been tested in other styles that are found in
the history of art. The plastic motifs create powerful contrasts between light and
shadow. The principle of contrast also dominates in the interpretation of the motifs
themselves (variations on their scope, the choice of a naturalistic or stylised
solution, etc.). The specifics of the décor are found in the expressiveness of
anthropomorphic motifs, in the architect’s ability to create a certain amount of
tension and polysemantic emotion. This is enhanced even further by the open or
hidden portentousness of zoomorphic motifs in the design, with a precise balance
between the beautiful and the beastly. When it comes to the genesis of motifs of
décor on Eisenstein façades, there is an unquestionable link to the Wagner school,
as well as to impressions from the décor of contemporary architecture in Berlin.
Eisenstein also accessed decorative ideas from Viennese buildings built in the style
of Historicism, as well as structures in the style of the Second Empire in Paris. It
can also be assumed that the architectonic fantasies of Otto Rieth were not
unimportant.
One of the most impressive façade compositions among those that were
designed by Eisenstein was, in terms of the decorative solution, the one on the
84