Built by Riga’s Estonian community to a design by one of Latvia’s leading architects, the house at Nometņu iela 62 has been a society hall, a theatre, the first studio of Latvian television and an Estonian school. Today it houses a hotel and a radio station.
At a glance
Āgenskalns is the old suburb across the Daugava from Riga’s centre, a district of wooden houses and early masonry blocks. In 1908 the city’s Estonians founded an education and mutual-aid society, and within a few years they built themselves a house on what is now Nometņu iela. The design, chosen from two commissioned proposals, was by Eižens Laube, a central figure of Latvian National Romanticism. The foundation stone was laid in April 1912 and the building was completed in the autumn of 1913. After 1940 it was confiscated; it then housed the Jelgava theatre, and from 1954 the first studios of Riga television, whose first broadcast went out that November.
Key facts
- Where: Nometņu iela 62, Āgenskalns, Riga
- Architect: Eižens Laube (1880–1967); design dated 1910 by the National Encyclopedia of Latvia
- Built: foundation stone 28 April 1912; consecrated 26 December 1912 while still unfinished; completed autumn 1913
- Built for: the Riga Estonian Education and Mutual Aid Society, founded 6 January 1908
- Later uses: Jelgava theatre 1944–1953; Riga television studios 1954–1988; Estonian school after 1989
- Current use: hotel (from August 2009) and a radio station
- Coordinates: 56.936690, 24.071334 · open in Google Maps (address point of the plot)
History
The Riga Estonian Education and Mutual Aid Society was registered on 6 January 1908, with the lawyer Jüri Jaakson as its first chairman. It soon needed a building of its own. According to the Āgenskalns local-history portal Cita Rīga, the society asked two architects for designs and chose Eižens Laube’s. Laube was then designing a series of buildings in the National Romantic manner, in which historians see echoes of old Latvian castle silhouettes; the National Encyclopedia of Latvia lists the Estonian society house at Nometņu iela 62 among these works, under the year 1910. The foundation stone was laid on 28 April 1912 and the house was consecrated on 26 December the same year, with its interiors still unfinished. Building was completed in the autumn of 1913. The society was active until 1940.
After the Soviet occupation the building was confiscated. From 1944 to 1953 it was the home of the Jelgava theatre. When that company was dissolved, the house was given to the new Riga television centre: studios and technical rooms were fitted into it, and on 6 November 1954 the centre made its first broadcast, the feature film Mājup ar uzvaru. Latvian Television dates its first transmission tower, built in Āgenskalns, to 1955. The studios stayed here until 1988.
After 1989 the house returned, for a time, to an Estonian use as a school. A Cabinet of Ministers order of 1996 kept the buildings of the plot in state ownership under the Ministry of Finance. Since August 2009 part of the building has been a hotel; a radio station also works there.
What you see
We have not been able to find a free photograph of Laube’s building that we could identify with certainty, so we do not describe its facade here. The plot at Nometņu iela 62 contains several buildings. A recent photograph on Wikimedia Commons shows the street front of the plot: a long two-storey timber house, painted grey-blue, with white window frames and small dormers on the roof, bearing the number 62. The society house stands within the same property.
The neighbouring streets mix nineteenth-century wooden houses with early twentieth-century masonry buildings.
Practical information
- The building houses a hotel and a radio station; the plot is visible from Nometņu iela.
- The Āgenskalns market is a few minutes’ walk away.
- Āgenskalns is a good district to see Riga’s wooden architecture outside the old town.
Getting there
Āgenskalns is on the left bank of the Daugava, across the Stone Bridge from the Old Town. Trams from the centre stop near the Āgenskalns market; from there the walk is a few minutes. From the Old Town on foot, allow about thirty minutes.
Nearby
- The Āgenskalns market, a few minutes’ walk away.
- The wooden houses of Mazā Nometņu iela and the surrounding streets.
- The Stone Bridge across the Daugava to the Old Town.
Sources
- Cita Rīga, Āgenskalns: Igauņu biedrība: the society, the Laube design, 1912–1913, the Jelgava theatre, television 1954–1988, the school, the hotel from 2009.
- Nacionālā enciklopēdija, Eižens Laube: the Estonian Education Society house at Nometņu iela 62 among his 1910 works.
- Latvijas Televīzija, Vēsture un fakti: the first broadcast of the Riga television centre and the 1955 tower in Āgenskalns.
- Wikipedia (lv), Latvijas Televīzija: the former Estonian Society building given to the television centre, 6 November 1954.
- Latvijas Vēstnesis, Cabinet order no. 282 of 17 July 1996, Par ēkām Rīgā, Nometņu ielā 62.
- OpenStreetMap / Nominatim: address point returned as 62, Nometņu iela, Āgenskalns, Rīga.
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