Riga City Hall

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Riga City Hall
Town hall in the 17th century
Town hall between 1917 and 1920

The Riga City Hall ( Latvian Rīgas rātsnams ) is the city ​​hall of the Latvian capital Riga .

location

It is located in the Old Town of Riga on the northwest side of the Town Hall Square ( Rātslaukums ) at the address Rathausplatz 1.

Design and history

A predecessor of today's town hall was built at the beginning of the 14th century. It had arbors as well as a council chamber and citizens' hall on the ground floor. The building with a tower was probably built as a brick building on a rectangular floor plan and had simple, stepped side gables, similar to the Reval town hall . On the outside of the building was a picture of the Virgin Mary created by Johann von der Lynen in 1466 .

During the Northern War it was destroyed, so that a new building was necessary. The new building began in 1750 by Lieutenant-Colonel engineer Friedrich von Oettinger . The building, financed by contributions from the town council, was completed in 1765. Half of the basement was used by the stock exchange's merchants until they moved into their own building in the 19th century. On the occasion of the opening ceremony in 1765 , Johann Gottfried Herder published the commemorative publication Do we still have the audience and the fatherland of the elderly? .

The result was a two-storey building with a mansard roof and a 60-meter-long street front. The gable was decorated with a coat of arms , an openwork cornice ran around the building. The building was crowned by a graceful bell tower . The town hall had a porch with Tuscan columns . In 1791 the mansard roof was expanded. A third floor was then added from 1847 to 1850. The Riga City Library with 120,000 volumes was housed on the upper floor in 1883. There was also a mural inside. As decoration in the outdoor area there was a fence made of cannon barrels from the Northern War, which were connected by chains.

The house served as a meeting place for the German city council until it was abolished by a Russian city ​​reform. The municipal discount bank and the Guardianship Office of Riga were located on the ground floor . The Riga city administration was located at Grosse Koenigstrasse ( Ķēniņu ) 5 and not in the historic council building.

The town hall was largely destroyed during the Second World War . As early as June 1941, only the outer walls were essentially preserved.

In 2003, today's town hall was completed in the same place. The new building cites the historical architecture, but also combines modern architectural elements. A shopping arcade was added to the rear of the building. There is also a historic oak trunk that was found during the construction work.

literature

  • Guide through Latvia , WF Häcker printing works, Riga 1929, page 39.

Web links

Commons : Riga City Hall  - Collection of images, videos and audio files

Individual evidence

  1. Wilfried Göpel, Der Altmarkt zu Riga, Deutscher Kunstverlag Berlin 1944, page 4 ff.
  2. ^ Wilfried Göpel, Der Altmarkt zu Riga, Deutscher Kunstverlag Berlin 1944, page 6
  3. Guide through Latvia , Buchdruckerei WF Häcker, Riga 1929, page 39
  4. ^ Karl Woldemar von Löwis of Menar , Riga, Verlag von Joneck & Poliewsky, Riga 1918, page 31 f.
  5. ^ Wilfried Göpel, Der Altmarkt zu Riga, Deutscher Kunstverlag Berlin 1944, page 4
  6. Robert Kalimullin, Martin Brand, Reise Know-How CityTrip Riga , Reise Know-How Verlag Peter Rump, 2018, ISBN 9783831746002 , page 16

Coordinates: 56 ° 56 ′ 52.5 ″  N , 24 ° 6 ′ 23.2 ″  E