Building Name

Large Cotton Mill Narva

Date
1857
District/Town
Krenholm Island, Narva
County/Country
Estonia
Architect
Client
Johann Ludwig Knoop
Work
New build

The cotton mills at Narva are part of an integrated textile community consisting of a monumental factory, workers’ housing, schools and institutes, comparable to Saltaire in England, built in the mid‑nineteenth century by the entrepreneur L Knopp. The mills produced cotton fabrics of high quality which were awarded a Grand Prix at the World Exhibition in Paris in 1900. The mills are powered by falls on the Narova River, on the other side of which are the almost equally monumental Steiglitz flax mills in present‑day Russia.

In 1842 the British ban on the export of cotton machinery, imposed in 1774 to protect the country's head start in technology, was lifted, allowing the manufacture of cotton to expand in Russia. Johann Ludwig Knoop, a cotton merchant and entrepreneur, was born on 5 May 1821 at Bremen, Germany and learned the cotton trade at Manchester with the Bremen‑born cotton exporter Johan Frerichs's company De Jersey & Co. He went to Moscow as assistant to the firm's agent Franz Holzhauer in 1840 and that year he established the first power driven cotton mill in Russia. Knoop used English credit to build and fit out mills with English equipment. The commissioning in 1847 of Morozov's Nikolsk mill at Orekhovo‑Zuyevo, Knoop's sixth, was seen as a landmark in the industry's development in Russia.

In 1852 he founded L Knoop & Co, in association with De Jersey and the machinery manufacturer Platt Brothers of Oldham, Manchester and in 1857 he built the largest cotton spinning mill in Europe on the island of Krenholm at Narva, Estonia. The Narva factory had nearly half a million spindles driven by water‑power and employed 4500 people. It paid low wages, but took its responsibilities to its workforce seriously, introducing a health insurance scheme and supplying workers with dwellings, kindergartens and schools.

The main industrial buildings of the Kreenholm Factory were built on two islands: the eastern Kreenholm and western Joala islands, in close proximity to the two falls. The first stage of factory buildings (the old factory, new E&F factory, gasworks and warehouses) were built of limestone quarried from the same Kreenholm Island. Architecturally these buildings are rational: monotone rows of windows running along unplastered, smooth limestone walls, emphasised only by fired brick lintels. A graded cornice, marking the former roof's eave line, can be seen running between the 3rd and 4th floors. The buildings' corners are emphasized by stairwells, whose top floor (a water tank), rises above the roof ridge as a square tower. The towers' facades are decorated with corner pilasters.

The second phase of construction included the buildings on Joala Island: Joala and Georg factories and the lumber drying department. Joala factory is built in the style of a traditional "English" textile mill, with exterior walls made of brick and vaulted brick ceilings in its six floors, supported by cast iron posts. An similar textile mill building is located in Tallinn – the Baltic Cotton Factory's main production building. The architecture of Georg's factory was ultramodern for its time: the factory's outer walls were made up of a metal frame, into which a brick wall was built. Large, multi-paned windows made up most of the walls of the eastern and western facades. The projecting stairwells were also almost entirely made of glass (the building was destroyed in WW II; only the corner towers remain). Georg's factory's massive corner towers and the design of its end walls shows the continued use of historicist elements of style, however it also boldly leans towards stylised geometric aesthetics. It's interesting to note the similarity of the Georg factory with classic church architecture: in the centre of the southern facade is a round window, above which are wall niches seemingly awaiting sculptures. The niches continue on the upper reaches of the majestic towers without roofs.

Along with the factory buildings, housing for employees was simultaneously constructed on the Narva River's west bank, near the Kreenholm Factory. Inspired by the progressive working class neighbouthoods of England, the Kreenholm district aspired to be an ideal model of society, where everyone's material and spiritual (including aesthetic) needs are met to the fullest. The area had its own school and kindergarten, Lutheran and Russian Orthodox churches, large hospital complex, stores, detention house and clubhouse. With its own infrastructure, the Kreenholm factory neighbourhood was a kind of satellite-city to Narva. Administratively, in the early 20th century Joaorg was the Kreenholm Textile Mill's workers' neighbourhood, as of 1917 Joaorg was considered part of central Narva. Emphasis was placed on the architecture of buildings. Historicist architecture became most prevalent throughout, with touches of Neo-Roman, Neo-Gothic and Neo-Renaissance. The hospital building alone is Art Deco.

Without exception, the first buildings to be built in the area were built exclusively of wood, since stone structures were not allowed to be built closer than 1,4 km from the Narva Fortress. In 1864 Narva was taken off the list of fortresses and the construction of stone buildings in the previously banned zone was permitted.

Drawings for the mills were exhibited by Peter Alley at Manchester Architectural Association meeting held on 6 November 1866 at which various members exhibited recent works.