SILVIJA GROSA JŪGENDSTILA PERIODA PLASTISKAIS UN ...

was inspired by Finnish architecture, but the style is described as Northern Art
Nouveau.
In Latvian architectural history, the development of National
Romanticism is also linked to architecture in Finland, but the intensity of those
effects has been evaluated in different ways. National Romanticism in Rīga was a
style which offered edgier forms and surfaces than was the case in Finland, and
this can, to a certain extent, suggest that the focus was on a transformation of the
traditions related to vernacular wood structures. At the same time, the types of
window apertures which were designed in Rīga as a derivative from those wood
structures can also be found elsewhere, particularly in Helsinki, but also in St
Petersburg, where Fyodor Lidval (Федор Лидваль) designed buildings for Vasily
Island and Kamennoostrovskiy Prospekt, and Ippolit Pretro (Ипполит Претро)
designed the Putilov building in 1906 and 1907. The architecture of National
Romanticism also made use of imitations of elements from Medieval fortresses in
plasterwork. Sometimes Bronze Era architectural motifs from the Mediterranean
Sea basin were brought to bear. In other words, there was a purposeful return to
archaism in building projects – something that was also a key principle in Finnish
architecture and an important trend in the architecture of National Romanticism as
such. In Rīga, unlike in Finland, however, National Romanticism was used largely
for the design of residential buildings. The few exceptions to this include the
Cross Church (Wilhelm Bockslaff and Edgar Friesendorff, 1910) and the Atis
Ķeniņš School (Konstantīns Pēkšēns and Eižens Laube, 1905).
Much has been written about the role in the initial development of
National Romanticism that was played by Konstantīns Pēkšēns and two young
architects who worked for him – Eižens Laube and Aleksandrs Vanags. Among
the buildings which they defined was a residential and commercial building at
Marijas Street 26 (Pēkšēns and Laube, 1905), the aforementioned Ķeniņš School,
and residential buildings at A. Pumpura Street 2a/Alunāna Street 5 (Knut
Wasastjerna, Gust Lindberg and Aleksandrs Vanags, 106) and Brīvības Street 58
(Vanags, 1906).
The number of buildings built in the style of National Romanticism
continued to increase in Rīga until 1911 or so. Many architects in the city used
that style, seeing it as one which would allow them greater creativity, as well as
synthesised solutions. After 1907, when the construction of stone buildings
became more common again after a period of decline, the combination of archaic
and traditionally rooted vernacular elements with ornamental décor was nothing
unusual. There were references, for instance, to the architecture of Ancient Egypt
(Nometņu Street 47, Wilhelm Bockslaff, 1909; Blaumaņa Street 31, Aleksandrs
Vanags, 1911). In other cases there was purposeful rusticalisation of ideas about
evolutionism that were typical of the era (Skolas Street 12a, Eduard Busch, 1908).
Particularly typical were attempts to offer generalised and poetic approaches to
Nordic ideas, which sometimes created archetypical associations. There was also
increased interest in the Domestic Revival during this period (the building of the
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