Eižens Laube

Eižens Laube (May 25, 1880 – July 21, 1967) was a Baltic German Latvian architect. He was responsible for some of the reconstruction work of Riga Castle in the 1930s and designed more than 200 houses in Riga.

Biography

Laube graduated from the Riga Polytechnic Institute's department of Architecture in 1907. In his early academic years, he began to work at the Konstantīns Pēkšēns architecture office.

From 1909 to 1914 he was the official adviser to the Commission for Artistic Issues in Architecture, in Riga. He was also chairman of the Latvian Architects Society (1924–6). In 1944 he emigrated to Germany where he worked as Professor of Architecture at the Baltic University, Pinneberg, near Hamburg. From 1950 he lived in the USA.

Before World War I Laube was one of the pioneers of Riga Art Nouveau movement, notably the lavishly decorated apartment building at 23 Tallinas Street 1901 with Peksens. His best-known works are in the National Romantic version of the style. He mainly used natural materials, different-colored bricks, local varieties of stone, metal, wood. Laube building ornaments were typically flower and geometric motifs, and his buildings were usually directed upwards in a vertical shape. Later his works especially in the 1930s were influenced by more neo-classical influences.