Construction history

The building at 5 Jura Alunana Street, currently occupied by the British Embassy, was built according to an 1875 design of the famous Baltic German architect Heinrich Scheel.  The owner of the impressive villa was Karl Janssen, a Riga merchant.

Rapid construction works on the extensive territories between the current Krisjana Valdemara, Brivibas, Terbatas and Krisjana Barona streets started after demolition of the Riga Fortress walls around 1857– 1863. A ring-shaped belt of parks was developed around the city canal (originally part of the fortifications system), replacing the demolished fortifications. Boulevards and avenues were mapped out immediately behind the area of the parks, and lively construction began there.  The corner of Jura Alunana and Andreja Pumpura streets, protected from thenoise of the main streets of the growing city, was where the merchant’s residence was built in 1875–1876.

Architect Heinrich Scheel

More than 40 buildings, factories, churches, offices and shop buildings, residential houses and residences were built according to designs of the architect Heinrich Scheel, who trained at the St Petersburg Academy of Arts at the turn of the 19th and 20th Centuries. They are part of the city’s architectural heritage and reflect the wide stylistic diversity at the end of the 19th century.

Concept of the building

Scheel had envisaged the building as a spacious two-floor villa in neo-classicist style. The floors housed the owners’ spacious living rooms and guest rooms, a library and an office, comfortable bedrooms and rooms for children. The residential house had a roomy cellar and there were flats in the attic built for servants.

The luxurious façade decorated with pilasters and the location of the building on the crossroads of two streets prompted an original solution to the architect, who rounded off the sharp corner of the building and added a balcony as a special accent. All windows of the first floor were decorated with plastic decorations.  The windows of the second floor façade were shaped with a more reserved elegance,however, they retained harmony both with the architectural division of the façade and with the scale of the building.

Changes to the building in different historical periods

After Latvia was recognised as a sovereign state de facto and de jure, the British Embassy acquired the building in 1930. In the following years the British Embassy adapted this private residence into its representative office and consulate. The specific needs of an Embassy required the additional construction of a further three-floor mews for offices on the A. Pumpura side of the street, and the replacement of the characteristic spiral staircase of the private residence by straight stairs. The quality of the finish of the building and its architectural shape were put to use by the subsequent masters of the building, the administrative institutions of the Soviet regime and,starting from the 1960s, the executive committee of the Council of peoples’ Deputies.

Renovation of the building as the British Embassy

After Latvia recovered its national independence in 1991, the building was soon returned to the British government, who arranged its refurbishment between 1994–1995. On completion of the refurbishment,the Embassy retained the plan of premises designed in 1930s and the former interiors were partially restored. Nowadays the ground floor of the building hosts the Embassy offices, including the Consular section. The Ambassador’s reception rooms display a tasteful interior, furniture of historical styles and British artwork.

Dr Ojars Sparitis, Art historian