Baroka laikmeta dzīvojamais nams Rīgā, Miesnieku ielā 8: Būvvēsture un mākslas vērtības
Baroque Dwelling House at 8 Miesnieku Street in Riga: Construction History and Artistic Values

Summary/Abstract: The house at 8 Miesnieku Street is among Riga’s most outstanding late 17th – early 18th century monuments that have come down to us. Unlike many other testimonies of that time, this house has fortunately retained its initial basic volume despite several reconstructions and changes of interior layout. Several periods stand out in the construction history of the house at 8 Miesnieku Street. Marten Kröger (also Kruger) acquired the building plot in September 1700 and built a house there the same year. After Kröger’s death in 1702, it was inherited by his son-in-law, Small Guild craft member Christian von der Heyde. There is information that the builder was the city master mason Hinrich Hänicke (also Hönnicke). The house had three floors of dwelling space with office premises on the ground floor, ceremonial and living quarters on the first and second floor as well as two attic floors for the storage of goods and a basement. Both façades feature four pilasters in the Tuscan colossal order along the first and second floor, supporting a very protruding, profiled cornice. The decorative finish of the façades is enhanced by corner rustication – a widespread method used for Riga’s dwelling houses during the Baroque period but popular also on the threshold of the 18th century and later.The limestone portal initially faced the main Miesnieku Street but in the early 19th century, it was relocated to the Mūku Street façade. According to the classification once proposed by the architect Aleksandrs Birzenieks, the portal represents the so-called decorative group in which the interpretation of order elements is decorative rather than tectonic. The Miesnieku Street façade has a pompous two-level gable with a rich cascade of volutes and smooth pilasters. This design represents the most lavish type of Riga’s volute gables in the Baroque period architecture, combining an expressive silhouette, garlands of floral motifs and acanthus volutes as well as order components. In general, such an array of elements pointed towards Northern Dutch innovations in residential houses introduced by the noted architect Philips Vingboons around the mid-17th century. Initially the interior could boast of an opulent finish that was subsequently lost in numerous reconstructions and repairs during the later centuries. The plafond painting from the first floor ceremonial room, dismantled during the reconstruction of 1931, is one of the best preserved monuments of Riga’s Baroque interiors, demonstrating the period’s typical local striving towards luxury based on French examples adapted via Sweden and Northern Germany.

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