Discovery in Brīvības Street Square

The Ogre History and Art Museum has received an interesting find – an old building detail discovered in Ogre during the reconstruction of Brīvības Street Square. As a tractor leveled a small hill in the center of the square, Senija Proose, the landscape architect of Ogre Municipality, noticed something unusual – an object that appeared to be a fragment of a building detail. Senija Proose transported the rather heavy concrete find to the museum.

The museum archive contains documents and photographic materials about the development of Brīvības Square dating back to the early 20th century. This discovery is a tangible historical evidence of Ogre city’s oldest history, of a building that once stood in the square.

1910. In 1912, entrepreneur Mārcis Paucītis built a beautiful, large house and stable in the center of what is now Brīvības Street Square, then at the corner of Lindenberga Street and Birch Avenue. The project was designed by the well-known architect Max von Osmidoff. Unfortunately, the building’s life was not long. 1914. When the First World War began, Mārcis Paucītis, like many other Latvian residents, fled to Russia. For two full years, the territory of Ogre city was in the front line and subjected to heavy shelling by the German army from the left bank of the Daugava. Almost all of the Ogre resort’s summer house developments and farmsteads were destroyed.

Returning home from Russia, the owner of the building, Mārcis Paucītis, found only a pile of rubble where his house once stood. The stable, however, had survived. It was rebuilt into a residential building, which is still located in the square.

As seen in an old photograph of the building, the concrete building detail found in the square is a fragment of a decorative fence that was located at the entrance to the building’s facade. It is possible that the square also holds other evidence of the building that once stood there.

Evija Smiltniece,
Former Director of Ogre History and Art Museum