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A short reference to the architecture of the survived peasant farms and estates. The oldest living house of peasant, described by travellers in XVI c. and in manor inventories of the period- was "numas". It survived, because it was used as outbuilding in large farms and estates of XVIII c. and the beginning of XIX c. There are some examples of these buildings in the Open Air Museum in Rumšiškes. Numas-a rectangular building with a hip- roof covered with thatch. There is an open porch at the entrance. The open hearth is situated in the centre of the main room. The smoke goes out through the openings in the ends of the roof. Behind the main room there are premises for cattle with the doors leading to that room and outside. However, most of the wooden buildings of peasants, which survived in situ, are from XIX c. Lithuania consists of two main different ethnic parts, which were formed by ethnic people groups in the beginning of the second millennium: Aukštaitija ( Upland) - East part of Lithuania and Žemaitija- Samogitija (Lowland) -West part of Lithuania. The forms, structures and proportion systems of buildings of these parts are different. Up to XX c. the peasants in Upland lived in villages, which were formed during the King's Land Reform of the 1557. The buildings of a farmstead were arranged both sides of the village street. The dwelling houses and storehouses formed yards, the so-called "good" yards, situated along the street. The outbuildings (barns, drying houses, baths, stables) were behind the "good" yards or on the other side of the street. However, during the land reforms in the first half of XX c. the majority of villages were divided into individual farms. A traditional Upland house had one storey and was one or double-end log building. It was covered with a saddleback roof and in Western or Northern part of Upland with a half -hip roof. Up to XX c. such roofs were covered with thatch, later on with chips or small boards. A peasant's family lived in one end of the building. The other end was served as a guest room. There was an antechamber and a store in the centre of the building. In the family's end there was a bread-baking oven made of clay, which was placed at the wall between the room and the antechamber. The oven provided the heating and served for the cooking needs. The guest end was mostly not heated. Until the mid. XIX c. the oven had no flue and smoke went out through the hole in the ceiling or through the door. In the middle of XX c. the rooms were divided (planked) by board-walls in to smaller dwelling spaces of various function; the plate stove was attached to a bread-baking oven and the stoves were built in the guest-end. The main facade of the dwelling house faced the main street or the "good" yard. In the centre of the main facade there was an entry porch. Entry porches, window ledges and frames, doorways, cornices and gable windows were ornamented. The dwelling houses in the eastern part of Upland were richly decorated unlike the dwellings in the central part of this region. From the middle of XX c. traditional open entry porches were the porches enclosed with glass. The building of a peasant's dwelling house typical of the western region of Lithuania - Lowland, located in individual farms. The peasant farms were dislocated taking natural environment into account. The buildings of the farm-stead were making some yards. The "good" yard included a dwelling house and a granary. Beside the good yard there were other yards such as a cattle -shed yard and barn- yard. The "good" yard bearing trees (oak-trees, lime-trees, maples) were planted. Flower gardens were arranged under the windows. A traditional Lowland peasant's dwelling house (called the "troba") was a one -storey, log building with a hip-roof or half-hip-roof. Before XX c. the rafter type roofs were covered with thatch, later on with chips or small boards. The troba mostly was double-end and had up to 14 premises. In one end there was a main living room for the family, a guest room, a kitchen and small bedrooms for guests and owners. In the other end there were some rooms for the aged mother and some stores: a larder for milk, a larder for meat and pantries. In the centre of the dwelling there were two antechambers: the main antechamber facing the "good" yard, and the back antechamber facing the outbuilding yard. Between them there was a chimney-kitchen with an open fireplace and a bread-baking oven. The chimney-kitchen narrowing gradually upwards and ending in a funnel above the summit was made of kiln or unbaked bricks. A family room, a guest room and a kitchen were heated by stoves with heating "walls". The stores and the bedrooms at the ends of the building were not heated. The walls of the rooms were often plastered, the walls of other premises often originally exposed. The long facades of the building were asymmetrical, with the one end of the house more developed. The log walls often had vertical panelling. The troba usually had little decoration. The doors were most often panelled with various ornaments of boards nailed in different directions. Sometimes an open entry porch was attached to the main facade. Architecture of nobility houses was formed on the basis of local architectural traditions and construction technologies, which the best corresponded the way of life of Lithuanian gentry. Gentry made about 6-7% in XVIII-XIX c. (in the western part of Lithuania about 10%) of the population. Architecture of manor and especially of manor house depended upon the riches of owners. Wooden buildings dominated in the estate, because the main reason was coursed by the Lithuanian climate which is rather damp, and that's why wooden buildings were more comfortable and healthier to live in. Wooden architecture of manors was in it's golden age in the XVII - XVIII centuries when wooden estates and churches were built by significant landlords and even kings. However, XVI-XVII cent. Buildings have not been preserved. Thus chief data-sources are manor inventories and contemporary publications. There are some objects that survived from XVIII c. and more from XIX c. Gentry manor grounds of XVIII -XIX a. were located usually in a beautiful natural environment. There were up to forty buildings of different purpose in the large estates. They were combined into separate yards - representation yard, outbuildings and manufacture yard, animals- pen yard, barnyard. The small gentry farms had two or three yards only. The gentry's house was the main building in the manor grounds and dominated over the buildings in the representational yard. In front of the house there was an open space (flower -beds, a parterre). The house was enclosed by park or garden and a cluster of planted trees (oak- trees, limes, maples, chestnut - trees, etc.) The house structure was determined by its traditional mode of aristocratic life and construction traditions, which were also modified by improving technical equipment and introducing stylistic innovations. The architectural ideas were most often suggested by the owners. The houses of gentry greatly differed from each other according to the position of a noble in hierarchic system, distances from the cultural centres, a different historic development of the lands. The construction of buildings was established by the masters. The carpenters of XVI -XVII c. were independent, belonged to landlords and were living in villages ( in manor's inventories we can find villages, which are so -called "Dailides" - "Carpenters"), in XIX c. the main buildings of estates were build by hired carpenters. A typical house of manor nobleman in the XVIII -XIX a. was a rectangular in form one -storey log building with attic premises. It was a house of symmetrical composition, closely related with the surroundings The demands made on these houses by contemporaries were "strength", "usefulness" and "beauty". "Strength" was understood as accurate construction of houses of high quality materials. "Usefulness"- as rational and economic structure of layout, suitable for everyday life for the noble's family, quests and the people servicing it. "Beauty" - as the usual proportions' system of main parts of building and changes in stylistic elements (by "fashion") in the interior and the exterior decor, composition of the porch and pediment, etc. Cosmopolitan architectural style-forms influenced by the local carpenter schools and life-style norms acquired regional features. The forms of the Baroque and later Classicism were used both in the exterior and interior décor of the dignitary and grand nobility wooden houses. Architectural stylistic innovations in the houses of the smaller middle gentry are absent. Up to the end of XVIII century (in Baroque period) the roof was high hip or mansard ( the proportion of roof to wall height was 1:2), but later on, with the coming of Classicism, it became low hip or half-hip (vas 1:1,5). The change of the structure of periods was also reflected by structure of the main entry porch of the façade (which modulated from a portico to a glazed entry porch of the end of XIX c.), its forging and window decoration. The houses were built on a stone foundation or a plinth wall. For the walls fir and pine flat hewn logs had been used panelling or plastered with clay and painted white (decoration imitating masonry). The construction of roofs was rafter-type with post and truss. It was covered with thatch, shingles and tiles. The rooms in the houses were arranged in two or three lines on both sides of the long walls and joined in an enfilade way. The rooms were divided into representational and dwelling ones. Representational rooms (a state room, a drawing room, a dining room) were located in the centre of the house alongside the main facade and central vestibule. Dwelling rooms (bedrooms, a study ) were alongside the back facade and in the ends of the house. In the houses up to the end of XVIII c. there were a big chimneys - a brick -stone work premises getting narrower upwards and ending in a flue. Other stove flues met in it The original purpose of a big chimney was to let smoke from the stoves safely out of the rooms through wooden roof constructions. The stoves of the rooms were fluid from a big chimney. The kitchens, in which food was prepared, were in a separate building. Only after the middle of XIX c, when a food preparing technology has changed and English type stoves have appeared, kitchen and premises such as larders, pantries, laundry etc. were located in the corner alongside the back facade. In some cases a special wing with a kitchen and other service premises in it was attached to one of the house-ends. The walls of the representational rooms were plastered, painted, wall-papered or tapestries. The ceiling often plastered and painted polychromatically. The floor was a parquet or board floor in imitation of a parquet. These rooms were decorated with glazed tile stoves and hearths. The walls in the kitchen and its additional premises were exposed logs and often had threshing floor. The houses of the small gentry had the dining room and other premises for the host family in the one end and in the other there was a premise with a dough - trough for common farming needs and meant for the workers. Though there is given the retrospective of dwelling houses, but the other wooden buildings situated in their surroundings such as barns, sheds, etc. also has a very interesting architecture. Especially smart and originally constructed are manor barns. What is the situation of the wooden heritage now? Some part of old villages and individual farms survived all agriculture reforms of XX c. and Soviet period. They were left in those territories, which were not suitable for intensive agriculture - they are in the East, Southeast (part of Upland) and the centre of the Western part (Lowland) of Lithuania. However, the architecture of buildings was also modified by improving technical equipment and introducing innovations of life. The situation is especially serious when talking about the heritage of wooden estates culture. In the 1940, when Lithuania was occupied by the Soviet Union, part of the noblemen immigrated to Europe, others were deported to Siberia. The centres of the Soviet collective farms were established in the remaining estates. Now the Soviet collective farms have vanished and all the buildings of the estates are left unused. When in the last 20 years we lost the most valuable objects of the XVIII century. The open-air museum has saved the Aristavele estate which is taken to pieces. But we fail to get means to collect it and form it's environment (that would cost around 1 million Lt). I am afraid that this part of wooden culture (the estates culture) will disappear before the society will create conditions (legitimate, financial, etc.) for it to survive. |
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