The Kalpaka Boulevard Library (Latvian: Bibliotēka Kalpaka bulvārī) is a branch of the University of Latvia libraries located on its eponymous street in central Riga, Latvia. It is housed in a historic mansion built between 1874–78 to designs of Jānis Frīdrihs Baumanis. It is technically the newest branch library of the University of Latvia, and is used primarily for research by the Center for Humanities and Social Sciences.
Design and history
The project for the Karkovius House on what was originally Totlbena (now Kalpaka) boulevard 4 dates back to 1874, but the construction was completed only in 1878. J. F. Baumanis, one of Riga's more prominent nineteenth-century architects, designed it as a mansion for Ludwig Wilhelm Kerkovius (1831-1904), a successful lumber merchant and Mayor of Riga, and his family of nine children. The three-story building is designed in an expressive Gothic-revival style, following the asymmetrical structure of Gothic castles. The building is designed as a typical mansion of its time with two entrances and two courtyards. The first is a small closed garden with an entrance only from the owner's apartment, while the second consists of a yard that originally served the stables and the carriage servants. The structures rests on a vaulted cellar, and the layout of each of the floors was identical with ten rooms each.
The facades of the building (both towards Kalpaka Boulevard and both side facades) are articulated elaborately in plaster in the English Gothic tradition. Despite the height of the second floor created by the tall lancet windows, the facade of the building is nonetheless topped by a wide attic. The initial painting of the façade, found at the level of the first floor, was yellow, while the plinth of the building was painted brown. The building has ten different types of windows and nine types of doors. All the original windows with the first equipment have been preserved in the façade facing Kalpaka Boulevard, as well as all the original internal shutters on the first floor. The original external sash of the windows have been preserved in the courtyard facade. Stylistically analogous profiling has been created for the replaced sashes and frames.
Most of the original doors in the building have been preserved with neo-Gothic decor. The entrance to the subsidiary building is next to the large (second) courtyard gate, but the main entrance and the "black" (servant's) staircase are from the courtyard. In this courtyard there used to be an attached horse stable for four horses and a carriage. On the second floor of the extension there were two living quarters for servants and a storage warehouse.
The oak spiral staircase is made of turned balusters and use wall-mounted brackets and metal steps. The interior includes luxurious, historic doors with baroque iron ornaments and expressive wood carvings. The main staircase and lobby feature rich dark red wall paintings and multi-colored ceiling paintings. Oak parquet has been preserved in several rooms, which reveals various and different pattern compositions in each room: in the reception room on the first floor, the parquet is in the pattern of a chessboard, while the parquet in the hall contains star-type marquetry.
The traditional cellar was used for various economic purposes. In the twentieth century there were at one point 20-30 apartments in the basement. The renovation of 2012-13 renovated the basement, but preserved the original wooden wall panels. The upper floors are actually outfitted in an Art Deco style reminiscent of the 1930s, with floors covered with parquet in a herringbone pattern.
While the house was still used as a residence, before the 1940s, there was a large, well-equipped ten-room apartment on each of the three floors with a separate "black" or backyard staircase and a maid's room by the kitchen. The owners lived on the first floor and rented out the apartments on the second and third levels.
The design of the building also discloses the functions of the ground floor rooms - anteroom, office, waiting room, hall, fireplace room, winter garden, central dining room, four bedrooms, a kitchen, maid's room, bathroom and two toilets. The building was originally heated by an oven, but only one round white-tiled stove has survived, which is currently located in the main staircase. In 1908, the building was added to the city's sewer system.