Rahgo

History

According to the annex to the 1756 status map, the owner of the plot was Juhana Rahgo. According to the 1800 tax list, the owner was the bourgeois Petter Östring, who also owned a field, a couple of barns, a shed and a share of a reef outside the densely built-up urban area.

Fire insurance

The southern half of the Rahgo house was insured against fire in 1863, when it was owned by the bourgeois M. A. Jernwall. Along Anundilankatu was a well-maintained residential building, recently built, and still unplanked and unpainted. The building had a boarded roof. There were two halls, a pantry, a kitchen and two hallways. A porch was also marked on the site plan. The building had three tiled stoves and an oven in the kitchen, which also had a bread oven. The small outbuilding, located on the western boundary of the property, was an old, unpainted and unplanked log building. It contained a barn and a barn. There was also a well on the property.

There were two residential buildings in the northern part of the plot, a taller one on the south side of the plot and a shorter one on the Anundilan side, almost attached to the residential building in the southern part of the plot. The outbuilding was on the south side of the street. A carpenter’s workshop operated in the house. The buildings on the northern half of the plot were insured against fire in 1871, when the house was owned by the sailor W. Sandroos. The main building on Eteläpitkäkatu had a hall and a pantry, as well as a hall, kitchen and pantry. The house also had a covered entrance. There were four tiled stoves and a kitchen stove. The small building on Anundilankatu had a baker’s and a makinah. The outbuilding had a barn, a stable and a barn. This is roughly how the group of buildings is shown in the oldest photographs from the turn of the 19th and 20th centuries.

Modification drafts

A plan by Arvi Leikari from 1913 has been preserved, according to which the building on Eteläpitkäkatu was to be to be built on the courtyard side with two kitchens and two entrances. It was proposed to demolish part of the adjacent bakery building in its place. An entrance would be created on the roof side. There would also be an extension to the south end of the Anundilankatu side of the building to provide space for a new kitchen and entrance. The outbuilding was also to be extended. The building on the south side had T-shaped windows and Art Nouveau-style panelling, as shown on the drawing. The bakery section was clad in vertical clapboard. The six-paned windows had classical mouldings. There were no attic windows in this low section. The other building facing Anundilankatu was also planked with vertical weatherboarding and the attic section was horizontal planked.

A plan from 1919 shows that the main building and the second residential building would have been joined and the whole of the resulting angular building would have been lined in a single unit. However, the buildings have retained their separate character. At the same time, the old outbuildings on the western side of the plot were to be demolished and a new stone one built on the southern edge of the plot. Apparently, this plan was not realised, as three years later, new plans for the stone outbuilding were submitted again. This building, once completed, was modified in the following decades: in 1945, for example, a sauna was added to the building. In 1940, new apartments were added to the attic of the main building. One of the downstairs rooms was then used as a barber’s shop, but the building began to be used for commercial purposes in the 1950s. In the 1960s, the whole building was gradually converted into commercial premises, with large shop windows.

In the 1980s, the stone outbuilding was demolished. The land-use plan was changed, and the shape of the plot was also altered. A new commercial building was constructed on the new western boundary of the site. The old commercial building was also renovated in 1981.

Current situation

Commercial building
Long corner residential and commercial building, later horizontal brickwork, saddle roof, windows from the 1960s. Exterior retains features of the 1913 alteration (Arvi Leikari)

Exterior building along Anundilankatu
Lined outbuilding, old window design

Residential building along Anundilankatu
Short-cornered residential building, later lining, old window model, built in 1860.

Commercial building along the alley
New building from the 1980s, commercial and ancillary premises (Markus Bernoulli)

Gate
Adapted to the new building.