Get an impression of the project’s unique spaces and its historical significance.

The building at Kārļa Mīlenbaha 12, formerly known as Puškina 12, is located in the Latgales forstate of Riga, an area rich in historical and architectural heritage. The street itself has a long history, originally named Lielā Jēzusbaznīcas iela in 1846 and renamed multiple times before being dedicated in 2024 to Kārlis Mīlenbahs, a prominent Latvian linguist. The address has been associated with residential and commercial activities, acting as a border between the elite, inner city center and a lower-class, residential area.

The building itself was commisioned by 100 years ago, the Latvian government approved the statutes of the State Paper Printing House as an autonomous state company subordinate to the Minister of Finance, and at the same time appointed the artist and graphic artist Rihards Zariņš as the director of the nationally significant typography building. The printing press under the leadership of Zariņš was already established in 1919; the building of the former Augusts Lira printing house at 12 Puškina Street, at the corner of former Maskavas and Puškina Street, was purchased by the state for its needs back in 1920, but now the legislative base was arranged. The state paper printing house was entrusted with the most complex and important printing works in the new country.

“Svari” 1932. caricature: R. Zariņš, director of the state paper printing house, at work.

Postcard made in the Typography Author K. Melbārdis, NMKK Archive

The company was not prohibited from fulfilling the orders of private individuals or other countries, but the statutes specifically stipulated that priority should always be given to Latvian state orders. The task of the state paper printing house was to produce and print banknotes, postage stamps, tax stamps, as well as promissory notes and forms of state institutions and company shares, lottery tickets.

The state paper printing house could print books and magazines, which in the 20s-30s In the 1990s, a lot was done at a high artistic and technical level. At the same time, the statutes emphasized that "the methods of production of state treasury marks and securities produced by the state paper printing house shall not be disclosed". Drawings, clichés, engravings and drawings of state treasury marks, securities and similar could not be discovered either: "The employees of the state paper printing press guilty of violating the mentioned regulations shall be punished according to the law on the disclosure of state secrets." As you know, during the Soviet occupation, the State Paper Printing House was renamed the Paraugtipografija.

After the restoration of independence in the early 1990s, the State Company "Rīgas Paraugtipografija" made money again - Latvian rubles, postage stamps and other important national documents, but at the end of the 1990s the company was privatized and ended its mission.

sources: la.lv, enciklopedija.lv, LNB.lv

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