Jacques Rosenbaum (full name: Jacques Gustav-Adolf Rosenbaum-Ehrenbush) (1 July 1878 in Haapsalu, Estonia, former Russian Empire – 6 January 1944 in Berlin, then Nazi Germany) was an Estonian architect of Baltic German descent. Between 1904 and 1907 he served as municipal architect of Tartu, Estonia, and is best known for his Art Nouveau buildings in Tallinn.
Early life
Rosenbaum was the second child of Moritz Leonhard Gabriel Rosenbaum (1846–1907) and Mathilde von Liphardt. He came from a Baltic German bourgeois family . His father was a lawyer and his paternal grandfather was also an architect. He grew up in Haapsalu and Tallinn.
From 1889 to 1896, Rosenbaum studied at the Tallinn Peter's Real School, after which he went on to the Riga Polytechnic Institute, now in Latvia. In Riga, Rosenbaum initially studied chemistry (1896–1898), but then transferred to architecture and graduated from the school in 1904. Rosenbaum belonged to the Rubonia Corporation, a Baltic German student group.
In 1897, Rosenbaum married Adrienne Kerkovius. The couple had five children.
After finishing his studies in 1904, Rosenbaum became town architect of Tartu. In 1907, he left the position and moved to Tallinn.
Main works, 1907–1919
Rosenbaum's most productive and arguably most creative time as an architect was during the years 1907–1919, when he became the principal Estonian architect to adopt the style called Art Nouveau. His first projects of this time (including a project for a rebuilding of the House of the Blackheads), which were not executed, were historicist in style, drawing much inspiration from German Renaissance architecture.
Rosenbaum was employed until 1912 as a junior engineer of the construction department of the provincial government, and then from 1916 to 1918 as a senior foreman in the Maritime Security Government. During World War I, the architect left Estonia with his family and moved to Greifswald, Germany.
In the early 1920s, Rosenbaum returned to Tallinn, but did not stay there permanently. His last project built in Estonia was the Seamen's Home, which was completed in 1926. In 1932, he and his wife joined Hitler's National Socialist Workers' Party (NSDAP). In the 1930s, he worked as a technician at the Luftwaffe, and later in the Ministry of Armaments and Military Industry. Jacques Rosenbaum died on 6 January 1944 in Berlin.
House on Pikk 23/25
In 1908, Rosenbaum completed a project for one Reinhold Reichmann on the corner of the two streets Pikk and Hobuspea in old town, Tallinn. In this, the first building by Rosenbaum that was actually built, his eclectic style and love of ornamentation is already apparent. The building is not easily classified aesthetically into either of the then-popular architectural styles. It shows influences of Art Nouveau, German neo-Renaissance and neo-Mannerism, all of which is expressed in the wealth of ornamentation. Among the details, a comical sculpture of an old man gazing across the street through his pince-nez has given rise to plenty of local stories. This and the other ornamentation was executed by the renowned Riga-based sculptor August Volz.
The building on Pikk 23/25 also displays Rosenbaum's ideas on town planning, in that the architect has tried to enliven the urban space through the use of a corner tower with a twisting dome, balconies and other architectural ornamentation. It has been suggested that he was inspired by the theoretical works of Camillo Sitte in this and other projects.
The house on Pikk 23/25 was well received in the local press, and helped establish Rosenbaum as an architect in Tallinn.
House on Pikk 18
In 1910, Rosenbaum completed another project for Reinhold Reichman, this time on Pikk 18 – just across the street from the earlier building. This building, possibly the most well-known Art Nouveau building in Tallinn, is a decidedly more purely Art Nouveau. Two large dragons, again sculpted by August Volz, flank a single large typically curved window on the ground floor. Above it, two stern Egyptian women with bare torsos emphasise the verticality of the façade. The Egyptian theme is repeated by two herms just below the roof-line. As in Art Nouveau architecture in general, and the contemporary symbolist movement in the arts, these ornaments were intended to convey a meaning or message apart from the purely decorative; however, as to exactly what they are intended to symbolise, there seems to be no clear consensus.