Liffander

History

In 1756, the plot belonged to Anders Liffander. The name of the plot was given as Suutari in the annex to the map. In the 1800 tax list, the plot was named Liffander and the owner was Isak Grönlöf. He owned a field and shares in a ship. Petter Söderman, a bookbinder who did not own the property and was poor, also lived on the plot.

Fire insurance

The fire insurance was taken out in 1861 by the merchant-owner I. G. Östman. There were three buildings on the plot, one on the side of Kauppakatu, one on the side of Isopoikkikatu and one on the northern side of the plot. The building on Kauppakatu was old and in good condition. It was panelled and painted with oil paint. The building had a hall, two halls, two chambers and a kitchen. There were nine windows and they were six-paned. There were also five attic windows. There were five semi-transomed doors. The outer door was a double, boarded double door with a window above. The tiled windows were glazed in white and three in brown. The kitchen stove included a baking oven. One room had fabric wallpaper and three rooms had paper wallpaper. All had skirting boards and ceiling tiles. There was a closet in the hallway with a staircase leading up to the attic. The outside stairs were covered, with posts supporting the ceiling. The building also had gutters.

The building on the Isopoikkikatu side was a combined residential and outbuilding. It was built of logs in 1850, in good condition and painted in red paint. The building had an entrance hall, a laundry room with a stove and a baking oven. It also had a cart shed, a stable and a barn. Under the building was a stone cellar, accessed from the entrance hall. The building had one window and two attic windows. There was one double board door, three double doors, one single door of single board and two boarded shutters. The third building on the site was an old, red-painted dormitory standing on stone pillars. There were two gates to the site, one from the side of the shopping street and the other from Isopoikkatu, between the buildings.

In 1896, a new insurance policy was issued. The house was then owned by the widowed Mrs H. Byring. The buildings on the side of the shopping street and Isopoikkikatu were combined into one corner building. The part on the shopping street was boarded up and painted with oil paint, while the rest was unboarded and painted with mixed paint. The building had a tin roof. The building had eight living rooms: two halls, one of which was used as a shop, four chambers, a kitchen, a laundry room, two hallways and two board-rooms, and three dormitories. Under the building was a vaulted stone cellar. The interior of the building, including the floors, ceilings, doors, windows and almost all the fireplaces, had been modernised. The rooms were painted and wallpapered inside, and the walls were raised. A tin roof had also been installed.

The outer building, part of which was made of logs and part of plank, was built partly in earlier times and partly in 1893. The building was painted in mixed colours and roofed with double boarding. The building contained a dormitory, a barn, a latrine and a cement-floored manure tank. There were two driveways to the property, one from Kauppakatu and the other from Isopoikkatu, on the north side of the building.

Modification drafts

In 1882, there was an alteration drawing concerning the opening of the door of the commercial building to the Kuninkaankatu side. It came from the east end of the building, at the second window of the second room. The door was a double door, as was the custom of the time, with diagonal windows at the top. In front of the door was a staircase which, unlike the usual staircase, was wide, with three steps, not high, parallel to the pavement and rising on two sides. The façade of the building was of wide horizontal boarding, the windows were hexagonal and had a classical surround. On the east side of the building was a high arched gateway.

John Fredr. Lindegren’s alteration drawing of 1888 gave a picture of the buildings on the site at the time. The buildings on the side of Kauppakatu and Isoraastuvankatu were joined together to form a corner building, and the whole building was proposed to have a single lining, despite the fact that half of the Isopoikkatu wing was used for storage. The cladding was tripartite, the windows four-paned and the moulding classical. There was one entrance to the shop on the side facing the shopping street. The upper part of the double doors was made of glass. The stairs were parallel to the pavement, rising on two sides. The building facing the commercial street was a semi-detached at the base with an end chamber at each end. One of the halls was a commercial building. The building facing Isopoikkikatu had, in addition to the sleeping quarters, a combined baking room and sauna, with an adjoining chamber or storeroom. Now, when the buildings were joined, a space was created in the articulated part which was connected to the main chamber and divided by a new wall into two small chambers. The baking room and the sauna were separated and the baking room was connected to the rest of the dwelling. The baking room was also accessed via a porch and hallway shared by the sauna and the baking room. There was also a porch in front of the main door of the building. Of the remaining dormitories, one was the same depth as the baker’s building, two were narrower. There was also a solitary outhouse in the courtyard.

In 1893, the outhouse was extended with a barn and privy.

In 1904, the building was modified according to drawings by Arvi Forsman. A second commercial building was added by combining a hall and a couple of chambers. A corner door was added to the new commercial building. One tall display window was also added. On the courtyard side, an extension was built on the site of the porch, adding a kitchen and two entrances. By removing partition walls, the former hall and pantry were combined into a larger pantry, the jointed part and the loft into a pantry, and the loft and sauna into a large living room. The bricks were used to create a warming room, one a store and the other a pantry. A couple more kitchens were added to the Isopoikkikatu wing and porches were added in front of them. The drawing showed that the building had a three-tiered lining and classical-style window frames. The exterior was extended with a gabled section and a new storage room at one end. In 1905, tall display windows were added on either side of the corner door to replace the ordinary windows. In 1912, a shop window was added to the second commercial building on the Kauppakatu side.

In 1916, changes were made to the buildings on the site. According to Arvi Leikari’s plans, the building was given an Art Nouveau façade. As usual, however, not everything was done according to plan, but some things were compromised. Changes were also made inside the building. Already earlier, the last of the dormitories on Isopoikkikatu had been put to more productive use. An extension had already been made to the courtyard, but now there was a further extension, so that almost the entire length of the building was extended. The extension included kitchens, pantries and entrances to provide more living and commercial space. There were six roof entrances in the plan. There were three kitchens, so housing was also important. There were five entrances to the courtyard. The previous outbuilding, with storage and toilets, was replaced by a new one which, in addition to the above-mentioned facilities, also housed a baker’s and a sauna.

In the following decades, changes were made to the shop windows and doors as business demanded. In 1922, large display windows were made, with the top divided into small panels. Arvi Leikari was still the designer. In 1934, a new shop door was opened on Kauppakatu, and a partition wall was used to divide one shop into two. In 1949, the narrow shop windows that still existed on the Kauppakatu side were enlarged. At the same time, partition walls were removed from one of the commercial premises, so that the storefront extended across the width of the building. In 1924, a stone two-storey building was planned to replace the outbuilding, but it was not built.

In 1963, the shop windows on the east side of the shop were enlarged and the shop was heated by oil fires. In 1973, oil central heating and a boiler room were added to the outbuilding. In 1977, storage and toilet facilities were added in the basement. In addition to the commercial apartments, the building still contained a dwelling.

Current situation

Street-side building
An elongated residential building, now a commercial building, the later west wing built in 1850. Neo-Renaissance Art Nouveau lining on the street façade, ribbed horizontal moulding on the courtyard façade, the roof lining had features of the 1888 Neo-Renaissance design by John F. Lindegren and the 1916 design by Arvi Leikari for the Jugend. Windows had been made and added from 1905 onwards.

Outdoor building
Exterior building, partly lined with horizontal boarding

Gate
Old art nouveau gates.