Definition of Andri Kronberg or Kronberg’s 5 “K”
Awards, of course, say a lot, especially if they are awarded repeatedly, but much more interesting is the charm of the personality, the inner self, which embodies the strength of every highly awarded person. “Cramps” is not only the name of the book written about Kronberg (author Jānis Lejnieks), it is also what Andri’s colleagues and friends used to call him.
For the program “Congratulations, jubilee!” it seems that in addition to Krampie – which should be understood as strength of character – Kronberg is characterized by a few other words, which, like his last name, all begin with the letter “K”: servant – to beauty and the public good, conceptualist – it seems that Kronberg does not work if he does not see the square . And so that the previous one doesn’t sound too serious, let’s gather another 2 “Ks”: piano and clarinet, which Kronberg once had to study at music school, and which seems to have opened his world view wider and more colorful: the high demands of music both on himself and on his architecture can be read very clearly in the work of art. Jānis Dripe, architect, cultural space expert and Kronberg’s friend, also said that architects who studied music also think more broadly in the art of construction. On the other hand, Kronberg himself said: “We, architects, are idealists!”
Jānis Dripe greets Andri Kronberga2min
Jurmalnieks from Zemenu Street
Kronberg’s father was also an architect, while his mother was a mathematics teacher. Andris Kronbergs came from seaside residents, once famous fishermen and strawberry growers, and still lives in the now renovated house of his grandfather, a craftsman, in Melluži, on Zemeņu Street. The other grandfather was a fisherman: the sea, blue-grey tones, associations with Nordic nature, ice and glass – a lot of this, in the context of new technologies, can be seen in Kronberg’s art.
“Nature is what can help us balance,” admits the architect, adding that nature also provides lessons: “Light, darkness and the sun have great merit in architecture.”
Fishermen and architects3min
A dream of music or a thirst for freedom?
As a child, Andris did not think to follow in his father’s architectural footsteps, he studied the already mentioned instruments – piano and clarinet at the Jūrmala Music School, while also playing guitar and drums in various groups. He was also involved in the creation of the legendary “Minuet”.
The sixties of the twentieth century was the time when the Latvian pop scene began to form, in Jūrmala, Asaros, the band “Katedrāle” played music, jazz, “Beatles” were in fashion, and on November 4, 1968, 4 boys from the 4th high school of Jūrmala founded a group, the name of which was read on the period perfume bottles: “Minuet”. With this story, Kronberg and his friends seem to have felt not only the stage, but also the taste of freedom, which at that time, together with the sounds of the hippie movement and Western music, flowed into the Soviet Socialist Republic of Latvia, although very weakly, but intoxicatingly.
How about without “Minuet”? 2min
“When he sits down at the piano, that person flourishes!”
Although serious music-making in the long past, even today Kronbergs likes to indulge in it in a free moment. At one time, the architect Zaiga Gaile said that “when you sit down at the piano, that person [Andris Kronbergs] fully flourish!”
“Music never interferes,” says Andris himself, when asked if the sound of rehearsals of the music house “Daile” does not interfere with the architects’ work: both the concert hall and Kronberg’s office “Arhis” are under the same roof. In recent years, the maestro Raimonds Pauls also often performs at Dailes nama, who in the program “Dauks laimes, jubilār!” sends birthday greetings to the architect, joking in his ironic style: “Whenever I get to visit the famous architect’s house, I always have to play popular songs performed by a pitiful choir of Kronberg friends.” Cronberg, of course, has to laugh – is it possible to imagine a nicer birthday greeting?
“When he sits down at the piano, that person flourishes!” 1 min
“A talented person can do anything!”
“A talented person can do anything!” – this sentence also belongs to the architect Zaiga Gaile, thus commenting on the conversion of Kronberg’s musical dream into architecture. It is hard not to agree with Mrs. Gaile, even more so if we agree with another philosophical statement: “architecture is frozen music”. Of course it is. Just look at Kronberg’s works.
A path in architecture
Kronberg’s career as an architect began in a traditional way – at the Riga Polytechnic Institute, followed by a great offer: work in the workshop of the outstanding master Modras Ģļž, at the “Pilsētprojekts” design institute, where one of Kronberg’s first big projects was created: Mežciems public and shopping center – awarded, but unfortunately not realized dream. At the end of the eighties, the architect Kronbergs, having already gained authority, together with his colleagues founded one of the first private architects’ offices “Arhis”, which he still manages together with Arni Kleinberg and his colleagues Raimondas Saulītis and Jānis Zvejniekus.
“Architecture must reflect the age,” Kronberg says, but this seems to happen only if the architect is “a doctor, a teacher, a conceptualist with an ethical paradigm” – any of these labels belong to the talented architect.
2024-01-20 07:02:41
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