Snikkar

History

In 1756 the house belonged to Juhana Snickar. In 1800 it was owned by the bourgeois Carl Gronman. He had more than a barrel of arable land, plus a meadow and an old barn.

Fire insurance

The fire insurance was taken out in 1852 by the merchant-owner J. W. Wilén. The main building was located at the corner of Kuninkaankatu and Vähäkirkkokatu and was a gable building. It was erected in 1850 and was neither panelled nor painted. The building had a porch made of ponte board on the courtyard side, with three half-windows and one large window. There were nine rooms: two halls, a parlour, four chambers, a kitchen and a baker’s pantry. There were six windows of one size and eight of a slightly different size, plus ten attic windows. Two of the intermediate doors were full transom, six half transom and one half transom, which was smaller than the others. The hallway doors were half-transom double doors, and the outer door was a double board door. There were also two boarded cupboards in the hallway, one of which had an attic staircase leading off it. Three of the rooms were wallpapered and had skirting boards and ceiling tiles. The tiled stoves had one flat, yellow glazed stove and three yellow round stoves. There was also one brick tiled stove. The kitchen stove had no oven. The oven in the loft had a stove and a bread oven. On the southern boundary of the property were outbuildings. One was of partly old and partly new logs, erected in 1850. It had a sleeping room and a dining hall. The other outbuilding was part log, part plank. It had a stable, a barn, a feed store and a woodshed.

A new insurance policy was taken out in 1865, when the house was owned by G. O. Holmström. An extension was built at the east end of the main building. The building was planked and painted with oil paint, the rooms were re-papered and several rooms had painted floors. There were now two halls, a foyer, six chambers, a kitchen and a baker’s pantry. There were two porches and a vaulted cellar under the building. The cattle shed part of the outer wing had been rebuilt in 1861 and painted red. Facilities throughout the row now included two dormitories, a carriage house, a wood shed, a barn and a stable with a hayloft. The gate, which was painted with oil paint, was also insured.

Modification drafts

In 1904, Arvi Forsman drew up a plan to give the street facades of the buildings a grand neo-renaissance look. The main building was on the corner of Kuninkaankatu and Vähäkirkkokatu, and other changes were made. A commercial building was opened on the corner of the building. The shop was formed by demolishing the wall between the two chambers and opening a door in the corner of the building. The shop was also fitted with tall display windows, two on each side of the roof. The large room with the baking oven was abandoned and a small chamber in the Kuninkaankatu wing was fitted with a kitchen fireplace, but no baking oven was added. The second kitchen was on the side of Vähäkirkkokatu, in fact in a different building. The street end of the outer building had already been used for residential purposes. There had been a small room with a baking oven or sauna oven and a chamber with a tiled stove. Now the old ovens were dismantled and replaced by a large kitchen stove. There was no baking oven in this stove either. The wall between the rooms was also demolished, so the kitchen became large. Although the kitchen was in a different building, it was still connected to the living quarters, as a covered terrace was built into the pass. There were two other entrances on the courtyard side, one at the corner of the building and the other near the end facing King Street. This gave access to the second new kitchen. All the rooms were connected, so the building offered many possibilities for living.

In 1919, the facades of the building were altered according to Arvi Leikari’s plans. The interior was now reminiscent of 1920s classicism. The facades with horizontal boards, simple lining of windows, the division of the windows from the top into narrow squares were all part of the idea, as were the arched façade and the dentils. The exterior building was made of brick, and included a baker’s shop, a sauna, a storeroom and a latrine. The street-side building was extended on the courtyard side. A café was added to one of the commercial buildings, with an attached performance gallery. In 1925, the café and associated bread shop were extended. In 1938 the premises were again altered. Toilet facilities were added to the café.

In 1955, central heating was installed in the building. A new shop entrance and three large shop windows were built on the Kuninkaankatu side. The two old shop windows on Vähäkirkkokatu were enlarged. A new shop door was also added on this side.

Further changes were made in 1959. All the windows on both street facades were replaced with large single-sash windows. The building contained commercial premises such as a coffee bar, accessed through a corner door, and a shop for the Sinisalo bakery, accessed through a door on the square side or through the café. On the Kuninkaankatu side there was a small chemical shop and a textile shop. On the courtyard side there were storage, office and kitchen facilities. On the site of the old outbuilding was a two-storey stone bakery building. Toilet facilities were provided in all the commercial buildings and in the bakery.

The café premises were refurbished in the early 1990s and in 1999 both the café and the bakery were converted to serve a hamburger restaurant.

Current situation

Building along Kuninkaankatu and the market square
Short-cornered residential building, now a commercial building, built in 1850, ribbed horizontal planking, saddle roof. Arched facades and dentil mouldings in 1919 (Arvi Leikari), large display windows mainly from 1949, still traces of a 1904 neo-renaissance design (Arvi Forsman) on the courtyard side.

Exterior building
Plastered outbuilding, used as a bakery.