Mikhail Osipovich Eisenstein (, ; – 2 July 1920) was a civil engineer and architect working in

Riga Riga ( ) is the capital, Primate city, primate, and List of cities and towns in Latvia, largest city of Latvia. Home to 591,882 inhabitants (as of 2025), the city accounts for a third of Latvia's total population. The population of Riga Planni ...

, the present-day capital of

Latvia Latvia, officially the Republic of Latvia, is a country in the Baltic region of Northern Europe. It is one of the three Baltic states, along with Estonia to the north and Lithuania to the south. It borders Russia to the east and Belarus to t ...

, when the city was part of the

Russian Empire The Russian Empire was an empire that spanned most of northern Eurasia from its establishment in November 1721 until the proclamation of the Russian Republic in September 1917. At its height in the late 19th century, it covered about , roughl ...

. He was active as an architect in the city at a time of great economic expansion and consequent enlargement, which coincided with the flourishing of

Art Nouveau Art Nouveau ( ; ; ), Jugendstil and Sezessionstil in German, is an international style of art, architecture, and applied art, especially the decorative arts. It was often inspired by natural forms such as the sinuous curves of plants and ...

architecture. During the years 1901–1906, Eisenstein designed many of the best-known Art Nouveau buildings of Riga. His son,

Sergei Eisenstein Sergei Mikhailovich Eisenstein; (11 February 1948) was a Soviet film director, screenwriter, film editor and film theorist. Considered one of the greatest filmmakers of all time, he was a pioneer in the theory and practice of montage. He is no ...

, became a well-known Soviet film director.

Biography

The archival documents from his personal file as a student at Saint-Petersburg University of Civil Engineering (1887–1893), published by professor and head of the Department of the History of Western Art of

Saint Petersburg State University Saint Petersburg State University (SPBGU; ) is a public research university in Saint Petersburg, Russia, and one of the oldest and most prestigious universities in Russia. Founded in 1724 by a decree of Peter the Great, the university from the be ...

Roman Sokolov, Ph.D., show that Mikhail Eisenstein was born as Moisey Eisenstein into a merchant Jewish family in

Bila Tserkva Bila Tserkva ( ; , ) is a city in central Ukraine. It is situated on the Ros (river), Ros River in the historical region of right-bank Ukraine. It is the largest city in Kyiv Oblast (which does not include the city of Kyiv) and serves as the ...

(

Kiev Governorate Kiev Governorate was an administrative-territorial unit ('' guberniya'') of the Russian Empire (1796–1917), Ukrainian People's Republic (1917–18; 1918–1921), Ukrainian State (1918), and the Ukrainian Soviet Socialist Republic (1919–19 ...

, in present-day Ukraine). Some suggest that his maternal side were of Swedish roots. Eizenstein converted to the

Russian Orthodox Church The Russian Orthodox Church (ROC; ;), also officially known as the Moscow Patriarchate (), is an autocephaly, autocephalous Eastern Orthodox Church, Eastern Orthodox Christian church. It has 194 dioceses inside Russia. The Primate (bishop), p ...

in 1897 and became a devout Christian. According to his son, he was a "staunch representative and admirer of the Russian bureaucratic class". He studied in Saint Petersburg and graduated as a

civil engineer A civil engineer is a person who practices civil engineering – the application of planning, designing, constructing, maintaining, and operating infrastructure while protecting the public and environmental health, as well as improving existing i ...

in 1893. Soon thereafter he moved to

, the present-day capital of Latvia, which was then part of the

. He would continue living in Riga until 1917. He was employed at the traffic road department of the regional authorities in the

Governorate of Livonia The Governorate of Livonia, also known as the Livonia Governorate, was a province (''guberniya'') and one of the Baltic governorates of the Russian Empire, Baltic Governorate-General until 1876. Governorate of Livonia bordered Governorate of E ...

in 1895 and in 1900 appointed head of the department. His work at the department contributed to a rationalization of the maintenance and management of infrastructure in the region. He was awarded several medals and awards for his work as a civil servant, including the

Order of Saint Anna The Imperial Order of Saint Anna (; also "Order of Saint Anne" or "Order of Saint Ann") was a Holstein ducal and then Russian imperial order of chivalry. It was established by Karl Friedrich, Duke of Holstein-Gottorp, on 14 February 1735, in hono ...

(II and III classes) and the

Order of Saint Stanislaus The Order of Saint Stanislaus (, ), also spelled Stanislas, was a Polish order of knighthood founded in 1765 by King Stanisław August Poniatowski of the Polish–Lithuanian Commonwealth. It remained under the Congress Poland, Kingdom of Pola ...

(II and III classes). At the same time, he practiced as an independent architect. In 1897 he married Yulia Ivanovna Konetskaya, who came from a prosperous non-Jewish family in Saint Petersburg. The couple settled in a large apartment in central Riga and took active part in the social life of the city's upper strata. According to the recollections of his son, the family had an international outlook and Eisenstein spoke both German and French in addition to Russian. He was interested in history and literature, and his library contained the works of

Nikolai Gogol Nikolai Vasilyevich Gogol; ; (; () was a Russian novelist, short story writer, and playwright of Ukrainian origin. Gogol used the Grotesque#In literature, grotesque in his writings, for example, in his works "The Nose (Gogol short story), ...

Leo Tolstoy Count Lev Nikolayevich Tolstoy Tolstoy pronounced his first name as , which corresponds to the romanization ''Lyov''. () (; ,Throughout Tolstoy's whole life, his name was written as using Reforms of Russian orthography#The post-revolution re ...

Emile Zola Emile or Émile may refer to: * Émile (novel) (1827), autobiographical novel based on Émile de Girardin's early life * Emile, Canadian film made in 2003 by Carl Bessai * '' Emile: or, On Education'' (1762) by Jean-Jacques Rousseau, a treatise o ...

Alexander Dumas Alexandre Dumas (born Alexandre Dumas Davy de la Pailleterie, 24 July 1802 – 5 December 1870), also known as Alexandre Dumas , was a French novelist and playwright. His works have been translated into many languages and he is one of the mos ...

and

Victor Hugo Victor-Marie Hugo, vicomte Hugo (; 26 February 1802 – 22 May 1885) was a French Romanticism, Romantic author, poet, essayist, playwright, journalist, human rights activist and politician. His most famous works are the novels ''The Hunchbac ...

. Apart from his interest in contemporary architecture, Eisenstein enjoyed art and especially admired the paintings of

Konstantin Makovsky Konstantin Yegorovich Makovsky (; (20 June o.c.) 2 July n.c. 1839 – 17 o.c. (30 n.c.) September 1915) was an influential Russian painter, affiliated with the " Peredvizhniki (Wanderers)". Many of his historical paintings, such as ''Beneath the ...

. Due to "differences in temperament" and after Yulia had an affair with a general, the couple separated in 1909 and formally divorced in 1912. The couple had only one son,

, who would become a well-known Soviet film director. Following the

Russian Revolution The Russian Revolution was a period of Political revolution (Trotskyism), political and social revolution, social change in Russian Empire, Russia, starting in 1917. This period saw Russia Dissolution of the Russian Empire, abolish its mona ...

, Eisenstein joined the "

Whites White is a racial classification of people generally used for those of predominantly European ancestry. It is also a skin color specifier, although the definition can vary depending on context, nationality, ethnicity and point of view. De ...

" (anti-revolutionaries) as an engineer in 1918. His son chose to join the

Bolsheviks The Bolsheviks, led by Vladimir Lenin, were a radical Faction (political), faction of the Marxist Russian Social Democratic Labour Party (RSDLP) which split with the Mensheviks at the 2nd Congress of the Russian Social Democratic Labour Party, ...

, which ended their relationship. After the end of the

Russian Civil War The Russian Civil War () was a multi-party civil war in the former Russian Empire sparked by the 1917 overthrowing of the Russian Provisional Government in the October Revolution, as many factions vied to determine Russia's political future. I ...

, Eisenstein settled in

Berlin Berlin ( ; ) is the Capital of Germany, capital and largest city of Germany, by both area and List of cities in Germany by population, population. With 3.7 million inhabitants, it has the List of cities in the European Union by population withi ...

, where he died in 1920. He is buried at the

Berlin-Tegel Russian Orthodox Cemetery The Berlin-Tegel Russian Orthodox Cemetery () is the only Russian Orthodox burial ground in Berlin. It is located on Witte street in the Tegel locality of the Reinickendorf borough. It is owned and operated by the Brotherhood of St. Prince Vladim ...

Architecture

Eisenstein was active as an independent architect in Riga at a time of great economical expansion and consequent enlargement of the city, which coincided with the flourishing of Art Nouveau in the city. Even today, Riga has the highest concentration of Art Nouveau buildings anywhere in the world. Eisenstein designed some of the arguably most well-known of these Art Nouveau buildings, several of which are grouped together on Alberta iela (Albert Street) with other noteworthy buildings by

Konstantīns Pēkšēns Konstantīns Pēkšēns (born 3 March 1859, Mazsalaca parish, Russian Empire — died 23 June 1928, Bad Kissingen, Weimar Republic) is one of the most prominent Latvian people, Latvian architects of all times. After Jānis Baumanis he is the epito ...

and

Eižens Laube Eižens Laube (May 25, 1880 – July 21, 1967) was a 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 Eižens Laube was born in Riga as ...

. Since almost no archival or biographical documents remain connected to the life of Eisenstein, his artistic development can only be sketched. It is known that he visited

Paris Paris () is the Capital city, capital and List of communes in France with over 20,000 inhabitants, largest city of France. With an estimated population of 2,048,472 residents in January 2025 in an area of more than , Paris is the List of ci ...

and he may have attended to '' Exposition Universelle'' of 1900 and experienced the Art Nouveau architecture of

Hector Guimard Hector Guimard (, 10 March 1867 – 20 May 1942) was a French architect and designer, and a prominent figure of the Art Nouveau style. He achieved early fame with his design for the Castel Beranger, the first Art Nouveau apartment building i ...

and

Gustave Serrurier-Bovy Gustave Serrurier-Bovy was a Belgian architect and designer (born in Liège 27 July 1858, died in Liège 19 November 1910). With Paul Hankar, Victor Horta and Henry van de Velde, he was one of the leading Belgian representatives of Art Nouve ...

as well as the ''L'Art Nouveau'' art gallery of S. Bing first-hand; he certainly brought home large numbers of French architectural reviews. Inspiration may also have come from the

Vienna Secession The Vienna Secession (; also known as the Union of Austrian Artists or ) is an art movement, closely related to Art Nouveau, that was formed in 1897 by a group of Austrian painters, graphic artists, sculptors and architects, including Josef Ho ...

and the architecture of Viennese architects

Otto Wagner Otto Koloman Wagner (; 13 July 1841 – 11 April 1918) was an Austrian architect, furniture designer and urban planner. He was a leading member of the Vienna Secession movement of architecture, founded in 1897, and the broader Art Nouveau mo ...

and

Josef Hoffmann Josef Hoffmann (15 December 1870 – 7 May 1956) was an Austrians, Austrian-Sudeten Germans, Moravian architect and designer. He was among the founders of Vienna Secession and co-establisher of the Wiener Werkstätte. His most famous architect ...

, which display some superficial similarities with that of Eisenstein. Contemporary Art Nouveau architecture in Saint Petersburg also clearly influenced Eisenstein. It has furthermore been noted that the decorative motifs employed by Eisenstein suggest a strong association with

Symbolist Symbolism or symbolist may refer to: *Symbol, any object or sign that represents an idea Arts *Artistic symbol, an element of a literary, visual, or other work of art that represents an idea ** Color symbolism, the use of colors within various c ...

ideas. In any case, the main corpus of buildings designed by Eisenstein share a number of characteristics. They are representatives of a highly, occasionally extremely, decorative form of Art Nouveau and display some innovative use of new materials such as

cast iron Cast iron is a class of iron–carbon alloys with a carbon content of more than 2% and silicon content around 1–3%. Its usefulness derives from its relatively low melting temperature. The alloying elements determine the form in which its car ...

but are conservative in their spatial layout. Although well known because they are so lavish, Eisenstein's buildings are not representative of Art Nouveau buildings in Riga more broadly.

Buildings by Eisenstein

Eisenstein designed a total of about 20 buildings in Riga. While Eisenstein designed buildings as early as 1897, these were in a rather typical and plain

Historicist Historicism is an approach to explaining the existence of phenomena, especially social and cultural practices (including ideas and beliefs), by studying the process or history by which they came about. The term is widely used in philosophy, ant ...

style and bear little resemblance with his later work, characterized by "exuberance and love of ornament". The work for which Eisenstein is most well-known are a set of buildings on and near Alberta iela built between 1901 and 1906. Together they form an architectural ensemble which Jeremy Howard has described in the following way: "As a whole the tenements create a distinctively stylised and energised ensemble, yet at the same time each building appears to compete with its neighbours in terms of modern decorative extravagance." Several of these houses were commissioned by Eisenstein's wealthy client A. Lebedinsky. The first of the buildings forming this loose ensemble is a tenement house on Elizabetes iela (Elisabeth Street) 33, built in a transitional style between Historicism and Art Nouveau in 1901. Already in this building, Eisenstein's characteristic use of pronounced

stringcourses A course is a layer of the same unit running horizontally in a wall. It can also be defined as a continuous row of any masonry unit such as bricks, concrete masonry units (CMU), stone, shingles, tiles, etc. Coursed masonry construction arranges un ...

and rich sculptural decoration drawing from a Symbolist vocabulary of forms is present. These and other traits, such as Eisenstein's "dramatic sense of contrasts expressed in architectural, sculptural and decorative forms as well as in color, texture and scale" become even more pronounced in the somewhat later buildings on Alberta iela, for example the somewhat more vertically oriented house on number 8 (1903), the strikingly red- and cream-coloured building on number 6 (1903) and the building on Elizabetes iela 10b (1903) with its unusual giant female heads flanking the central bay. The facade of Elizabetes iela 10b was based on patterns and drawings published by two

Leipzig Leipzig (, ; ; Upper Saxon: ; ) is the most populous city in the States of Germany, German state of Saxony. The city has a population of 628,718 inhabitants as of 2023. It is the List of cities in Germany by population, eighth-largest city in Ge ...

-based architects, G. Wünschmann and H. Kozel. The building on Alberta iela 10a was originally designed by Eižens Laube but the facade was rebuilt in 1903 by Eisenstein, containing elements which may have been inspired by the

Secession Building The Secession Building () is a contemporary art exhibition hall in Vienna, Austria. It was completed in 1898 by Joseph Maria Olbrich as an architectural manifesto for the Vienna Secession, a group of rebel artists that seceded from the long-estab ...

in Vienna by

Joseph Maria Olbrich Joseph Maria Olbrich (22 December 1867 – 8 August 1908) was an Austrian architect and one of the Vienna Secession founders. Early life Olbrich was born in Troppau, Austrian Silesia (modern day Opava, Czech Republic), the third child of Edm ...

. The building on Alberta iela number 4 (1904), also commissioned by Lebedinsky, is more ornamentally restrained with a facade dominated by contrastic window shapes and several large sculptures, including two standing lions elevated above the roof on pedestals at the corners,

Medusa In Greek mythology, Medusa (; ), also called Gorgo () or the Gorgon, was one of the three Gorgons. Medusa is generally described as a woman with living snakes in place of hair; her appearance was so hideous that anyone who looked upon her wa ...

heads and

relief Relief is a sculpture, sculptural method in which the sculpted pieces remain attached to a solid background of the same material. The term ''wikt:relief, relief'' is from the Latin verb , to raise (). To create a sculpture in relief is to give ...

s of lions or

griffin The griffin, griffon, or gryphon (; Classical Latin: ''gryps'' or ''grypus''; Late and Medieval Latin: ''gryphes'', ''grypho'' etc.; Old French: ''griffon'') is a -4; we might wonder whether there's a point at which it's appropriate to talk ...

s flanking the entrance. It has been described as one of the most distinctive of Eisenstein's facades, together with the building on 2a. The building on Alberta iela 2a (in which the Russian-British philosopher

Isaiah Berlin Sir Isaiah Berlin (6 June 1909 – 5 November 1997) was a Russian-British social and political theorist, philosopher, and historian of ideas. Although he became increasingly averse to writing for publication, his improvised lectures and talks ...

lived 1905–1915) on the other hand is characterized by strong colour contrasts and a strong vertical orientation of the facade; it was designed in 1905. Another project for Lebedinsky is the building on the corner of Alberta iela and Strēlnieku iela, built 1904–1906 again in a richly decorated Symbolist form of Art Nouveau with elements of Historicism. The last building of this ensemble, located on

Brīvības iela Brīvības iela (''Freedom Street'') is the central street of Riga, the capital and most populous city of Latvia. It is more than 12 km long, cutting across all of Riga, from the Vecrīga, historical centre to the outskirts. History The ...

99 and built in 1905, again displays plentiful sculptural ornament and deep horizontal grooves and stringcourses. A few later buildings by Eisenstein also survive in Riga, so for example on Strūgu iela 3 and Lomonosova iela 3. These buildings, built in 1911, lack the characteristic profuse sculptural decoration of Eisenstein's earlier work and may reflect an adaptation to changing international trends towards a reduction in ornamentation, formulated in

Adolf Loos Adolf Franz Karl Viktor Maria Loos (; 10 December 1870 – 23 August 1933) was an Austrian and Czechoslovak architect, influential European theorist, and a polemicist of modern architecture. He was inspired by modernism and a widely-known c ...

' influential essay from 1910, ''

Ornament and Crime "Ornament and Crime" is an essay and lecture by Modernism, modernist architect Adolf Loos that criticizes ornament (art), ornament in useful objects. History Contrary to popular belief that it was composed in 1908, Adolf Loos first gave the lec ...

''. These later buildings by Eisenstein however still contain recognizable traits of the architect, notably the use of lively colour contrasts.

Representative buildings

File:Riga Jugendstil Elizabetes iela 1.JPG, Building on Elizabetes iela 33 File:Alberta ielā 4 20120728-02.JPG, Building on Alberta iela 4 File:Immeuble art nouveau (Riga) (7582914046).jpg, Building on Alberta iela 8 File:Immeuble art nouveau (Riga) (7558512158).jpg, Building on Elizabetes iela 10b File:Immeuble art nouveau (Riga) (7575664960).jpg, Building on Alberta iela 2a File:Immeuble art nouveau (Riga) (7573888878).jpg, Building on Brivibas iela 99

Examples of decorative sculpture from facades

File:Alberta ielā 4 20120728-16.JPG, Building on Alberta iela 4 File:Alberta ielā 4 20120728-10.JPG, Building on Alberta iela 4 File:Immeuble art nouveau (Riga) (7582910630).jpg, Building on Alberta iela 8 File:Riga Jugendstil-Ornament Art Nouveau.jpg, Building on the corner of Alberta iela and Strelnieku iela File:Immeuble art nouveau (Riga) (7558515546).jpg, Building on Elizabetes iela 10b File:Immeuble art nouveau (Riga) (7558516004).jpg, Building on Elizabetes iela 10b

References

Bibliography

* * * * *

External links

Information about Mikhail Eisenstein on the webpage of Riga Art Nouveau Centre (in Latvian)
{{DEFAULTSORT:Eisenstein, Mikhail 1867 births 1920 deaths 19th-century architects from the Russian Empire Art Nouveau architects Converts to Eastern Orthodoxy from Judaism Russian Christians Russian people of Jewish descent Jews from the Russian Empire Russian exiles Engineers from Saint Petersburg Art Nouveau architecture in Riga Saint-Petersburg State University of Architecture and Civil Engineering alumni Architects from Riga Burials at the Berlin-Tegel Russian Orthodox Cemetery