Rautla

History

In 1756 the Rautila plot belonged to Sideberg. In 1800 the plot was owned by Heinr. Östman. He had more than four barrels of arable land, two acres of arable land, a cabbage field, two reefs with barns, three beach fences, two loading docks and a food shed. There were also ship’s shares and merchandise. There were also outstanding claims.

Fire insurance

The buildings on the Rautla plot were insured in 1862. The house was owned at the time by the navigator C. F. Bartram. There were a total of seven buildings on the plot bounded by Kuninkaankatu, Isokirkkokatu and Vähäkirkkokatu. The main building on Kuninkaankatu was an old two-storey log building, well maintained and in good condition. The building was boarded up and painted with yellow oil paint. The roof was made of boards. On the ground floor there were eight rooms, a hall, three chambers, a pantry, a kitchen, a dining room and a hallway. There were five tiled ovens and a kitchen stove with a bricked-in iron stove and a roasting oven. Upstairs there were six rooms, a hall, two halls, two pantries and a kitchen with a total of four tiled stoves and a kitchen stove. The building had a covered external staircase. The main building was joined with an outbuilding on Kuninkaankatu. It was made of logs, old but in good condition, unplanked and painted red. The roof was made of boards. There was a carriage house and a two-part dormitory.

The second residential building was located on the northern side of the plot, with its end facing Isokirkkokatu. The year of construction of the log building is unknown. The building had no planking, but was painted in red paint. The roof was boarded. It had two halls, a hall, three chambers, a baker’s room and a sauna. There were four tiled stoves, an oven in the baking room with a stove and a vaulted oven in the sauna. There was a vaulted cellar under the building. At the eastern end of the building was an outbuilding as an extension. It was made of logs, recently built, unplanked and painted in red brick. The building had a coach house and a wooden staircase. There was also a separate log dormitory on the northern boundary of the property, also of recent construction, unplanked and painted red.

On the eastern boundary of the property there was still a log outbuilding, part old, part new, unplanked but painted red. The building contained a stable with a hayloft, a barn, a chalk barn and a shed. There was also a boarded toilet block in the centre of the plot. Two more oil-painted driveways were also insured, one facing the residential courtyard and the other facing the cattle yard. The red-painted fence and the trellis fence around the garden land and the well ring were also insured. Apart from the separate garden, the cattle yard area was also separated from the plot.

Modification drafts

According to the 1911 plan, there was a residential building on the corner of Kuninkaankatu and Isokirkkokatu, with an extension of the outbuilding. There were also outbuildings along Vähäkirkkokatu. On the northern side of the plot there was a row of buildings which was affected by the change. The building was slightly shortened and replaced the former bakehouse and chambers by a room with a masonry floor and two adjoining chambers, a kitchen and a two-chamber apartment, and a larger apartment with a kitchen, six rooms and two hallways. The façade, designed by Leonard Ahti, was of vertical planking. The four-light and a pair of wider, six-paned windows had fairly simple panelling.

In 1922, a kiosk was being built in the outer row of buildings on Kuninkaankatu to open on the square. The following year, the entire row of outbuildings was removed and a stone bank building was built on the edge of the square. The building, designed by J. G. Palmqvist from Helsinki, has a two-storey hipped-roof section that echoes the shape of the old town hall, and a lower section with a mansard roof. In addition to the bank premises, two commercial apartments were added on the ground floor. On the second floor there was an apartment and offices. The basement was also used. There was a boiler room, a laundry room and other storage space. The new building was equipped with water and sewage, and a septic tank was installed in the yard, as the town did not yet have a water and sewage system. Of the old buildings on the site, a two-storey residential building along the square and a wooden building on the northern boundary were left in place. The old shed on the northern boundary of the site was also left in place.

There were few changes to the building. The adjacent wooden building had given way and a kiosk was on the site. In 1968 a sauna was built in the basement to replace the laundry. The utility cellar and fish store were converted to other storage uses. At the same time, however, larger plans were being made. In 1968, plans were made to build a flat-roofed, clinker-clad shop on the side of the stone building. The first part was to be followed by another, in a similar style, when the stone bank building was demolished. The plans were drawn up by engineer Risto Niittynen.

In 1983, the appearance of the clinker-clad part of the building changed dramatically. The whole building was given a new shell, making it the western wing of the former bank building in the centre. The façades were rendered, the windows were of the same type as in the second wing, and the roof was given a similar shape (including roof tiles) to the visible parts of the second wing. However, the shell concealed the flat-roofed commercial building as such. For example, the positions of the windows were determined by the positions of the original windows. The alteration enlarged the space on the ground floor of the commercial building, as the original building’s ground floor had been smaller than the upper floor, and the shop windows had been located under a canopy formed by the upper floor. However, the windows were now brought to a new wall surface. However, the external dimensions of the building increased more than the internal space. This was mainly due to the change in the shape of the roof. The old wing and the new wing were separated by details. The courtyard area was also introduced as part of the change. The courtyard area was enclosed by a board fence with a high gate. The plans were drawn up by Markus Bernoulli.

Current situation

Commercial building
A plastered 2-storey commercial and residential building from 1923 (W. G. Palmqvist), with a hipped and pitched roof. Originally a bank building.

Western part of the commercial building
Facade altered in the 1980s to match the adjacent building (Markus Bernoulli). The building dates from the 1960s-1970s and was originally a 2-storey commercial building with a clinker-glass façade (Risto Niittynen). The older building was to be replaced by an extension in the same style, but the opposite happened.

Gate
A large gateway from the 1980s.