„Veel üks unistus“: interjöörimaalingud ja tapeedid astronoomimaja sisekujunduses läbi aegade

“Another Dream”: Interior Paintings and Wallpapers in the Interior Decoration of the Astronomer’s House Through the Eras

Abstract

The title quotes a letter from the then-university architect Johann
Wilhelm Krause (1757–1828), where he talks about his dreams related
to the construction of the observatory, which was completed in
1810, after many disputes and reconsiderations, on Toome Hill. The
Astronomer’s House was built next to the observatory ten years later.
In May 2023, extensive reconstruction work began in the Astronomer’s
House, which was completed in May 2024. Interior walls are now
decorated with reconstructed stencil patterns, and layers of paintings
and wallpapers from the 19th century are conserved and exhibited.
The first residents of the Astronomer’s House from 1821 were Friedrich
Georg Wilhelm Struve (1793–1864) with his wife Emilie and their
children. The Struve family lived in the house from its construction until
1839. Struve handed over the observatory and its complex to Professor
Karl Eduard Senff (1810–49) in 1839. Senff, in turn, handed over the
observatory to Struve’s successor one year later, in 1840. The new professor
of astronomy and director of the observatory was Johann Heinrich
Mädler (1794–1874), who lived in the Astronomer’s House with his
poet wife Minna until 1864. After that, the director of the observatory
until 1872 was the previous observer, Thomas Clausen (1801–85).
During the times of Struve, Senff, Mädler, and Clausen, the walls
and ceilings of the rooms were covered and decorated with paint, using
lime or distemper colours, and the interiors were decorated with
ornamental paintings (Figures 5-8, and 12-13). During the renovation
in 2023–24, the paintings from the Struve and Mädler periods
were conserved (Figures 7-8), and stenciled ornaments were reconstructed
in the office rooms (Figures 9-11).
In 1872, Peter Carl Ludwig Schwarz (1822–1894) became the new
director of the observatory; his wife was the painter Julie Wilhelmine
Hagen-Schwarz (1824–1902). During the period from the 1870s to

the 1890s, the walls were covered with modern wallpapers that had
become accessible to ordinary citizens by that time.
In 1894, Grigori Lewitsky (1852–1918), a professor at Kharkov
University, was appointed director of the observatory. He immediately
began modernizing and refurbishing the observatory; among these
changes, the astronomer’s residence was insulated from the inside in
1895. During the renovation in 2023–24, an average of four different
layers of wallpaper were revealed under this layer. The last layer of
wood-imitating wallpaper from the Schwarz period in the 1890s is
now conserved and exhibited in the Astronomer’s House (Figure 14).
In 1908, Konstantin Pokrovski (1868–1945) became the director
of the observatory. The first two decades of the 20th century are fragmented
in terms of interior decoration, as little has been preserved,
or the decoration was sparse, as the Astronomer’s House was no longer
used as a single-family residence but was expanded for teaching,
and the building was divided into apartments.
Taavet Rootsmäe (1885–1959) was appointed as the first Estonian
director of the observatory at 1919, and he remained in this position
until 1948. A typical stencil pattern from the 1920s, which decorated
the walls of the astronomer and astrophysicist Ernst Öpik’s (1893-
1985) apartment in the western part of the building, was preserved.
The stencil pattern from Öpik’s time was reconstructed on the wall of
the large hall in 2024 (Figure 7, pattern with hearts).
During World War II, the observatory and its complex were heavily
damaged, followed by extensive restoration work. The typical roller
pattern of the 1940s was used on the walls of the second-floor manager’s
office, which was Rootsmäe’s office then.
Some wallpapers from the Soviet era (1960–1980), printed in
Estonian and Riga factories, were found on the astronomer Peeter
Traat´s apartment walls (Öpik’s former apartment).
In re-independent Estonia, modern vinyl and latex-based materials
(paints and wallpapers) began to be used. From 1997 to 2011, the
AHHAA Science Center operated in the Astronomer’s House, and later
University of Tartu museum staff used the rooms as office space.
Before renovation, the house stood empty, and from 2024 the freshly
renovated astronomers’ residence became the home of the University
of Tartu’s personnel department.