Vecgulbenes muižas Baltā pils: cēlēji, arhitektūra un likteņi
The White Palace of Vecgulbene Manor - Its Builders, Architects and Fortunes

Summary/Abstract: Vecgulbene (Alt-Schwanenburg) manor is situated in Gulbene District within the territory of the town of Gulbene, which has been a crossroads since ancient times. The manor is known as one of the most prominent and splendid ensembles in Latvia and possibly in the Baltic region. This place suffered considerably during the wars and the Soviet period and therefore the research and promotion of these cultural and historical values would seem to be an urgent task. Construction and reconstruction of the so-called White Palace at 12 Brīvības Street has been dated differently by various sources. First it was stated that the central part had already been built in 1763 and reconstructed in 1840s –1870s. Art historian Dainis Bruģis holds that the Palace was built around 1840, which seems to be a more plausible version; construction was carried out by the Wolff family, possibly by Rudolf Gottlieb Magnus von Wolff (1809–1847) and entries in his daughter Isabella’s diary attest to this. Rudolf von Wolff had travelled to many countries including Italy. The style of Italian villas evident in the White Palace surely comes from Rudolf’s taste and interests. The Palace was inherited by Rudolf’s son Johann Heinrich Gottlieb von Wolff (1843–1897) who reconstructed and enlarged the building in the last quarter of the 19th century. The architecture of the Palace was influenced by the Renaissance. The project resembles the Renaissance villas found among Andrea Palladio’s works. The central two-storey block was almost cube-shaped and flanked by single storey wings at both ends. The façades were lavishly decorated. The central volume featured wide, fluted Colossal order pilasters; triangle-shaped, plastic frontons were placed over the ground floor window openings. The park side had a wide terrace that connected the building with the surrounding environment; the terrace is similar to Villa Pamphili by the 17th century architect Alessandro Algardi. The original exterior is captured in a photo published by Heinz Pirang in the 1860s and also preserved in a drawing by Wilhelm Siegfried Stavenhagen from 1862. The next landlord Heinrich von Wolff disliked the Palace and ordered wide-scale reconstruction works. Retaining the core of Italian villa and Renaissance forms, the building acquired two towers – one by the main entrance and the other at the end of the opposite single storey block that became the main vertical accent. The building was changed from symmetric to asymmetric, adding an expressive silhouette and picturesque shapes typical of Romanticism-inspired Neo-Gothic palaces. The decorative finish of the façades was very elaborate, especially that of the two towers, featuring ornamental and sculptural decorations. These are reminiscent of decors found on Riga’s Eclecticism-style buildings. The author of the reconstruction remains unknown, but these decorations had been mass produced and available to any well-off person at the time.

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