19th century mansion (Riga) Lauku Dzive / XXI design bureau

Passing the gallery

Text: Julia Shaginurova

A photo: Karen Manko

Art Director: Laila Biseniece

Architect: Gundega Martirova, Andis Shpak

Designer: Karina Abiko, date Berzin

Engineering: Vladimir Ovchinnikov, Vadim Sergehechev

Project Manager: Ulvis Abikis

Performance Manager: months Ulmanis

Magazine: N11 (78) 2003

A private mansion, the English Embassy, ​​the Party District Committee, the villa of the financial pyramid owner ... All this is the famous Riga house of Maykapar. For a monument of architecture in the territory of the former union republic, the biography is quite typical. And complicated. Because since the last English diplomat left the building, the house has gone through several repairs, each of which bore the imprint of the era in which it was made. In the sixties, plywood partitions appeared in the huge halls and showrooms, and the baseboards and some of the finishing details were painted with red lead and under oak. In Brezhnev times, a sauna with a swimming pool was set up in the basement - a structure, because of which the foundation of a historic building cracked diagonally. The new Baltic businessmen, who did not own the building for long, did not repair it at all, preferring to enjoy the remnants of the former luxury. The mansion on the former main street of Nikolai is twice stylized. The house of the last third of the XIX century, resembling a Renaissance palace, was named after its second owner. The tobacco manufacturer Zamuil Maikapar bought it in 1931 and radically reconstructed: the facades were completely redone, non-arched motifs prevailed in the exterior, and a rotunda was attached to the house. Interior Maikapar commissioned the most fashionable artists that he could find in Riga. So, having survived a whole series of twists and turns - the world war, the invasion of careless owners - the house lived to a careful reconstruction. The oil company, which acquired it for representative purposes, announced a tender for architectural and construction work. The winning architects of the Lauku Dziva Bureau began with a scrupulous historical study and carried out the restoration in strict accordance with its results. They restored not only the building and decorative elements of the interior, but also the landscape, which has no less historical value. Living rooms and technical rooms that do not match the bright luxury of the baroque facade and ceremonial areas were re-decorated and decorated in order to bridge this artistic gap. All modern communications - ventilation systems, air conditioning, heating - carefully masked. Indeed, unlike Maykapar, who was proud to have thrown all the furnaces out of the house, replacing them with central heating batteries, the new owners value the authenticity and spirit of the house-monument more than the latest technical innovations.