Located in the very heart of Old Riga, next to Livu Square, stands the architectural monument “Mazā Ģilde”.

History

The building was designed by the outstanding architect Johann Daniel Felsko. The foundation stone of the building, laid on 22 May 1864, contains newspapers from that time, a calendar, the signatures of all guild elders and master craftsmen, as well as a brief chronicle of the Small Guild, also known as St. John’s Guild.

Next to the guild building on Amatu Street, the Small Guild’s brothers’ shelter was built in 1855 according to the same architect’s design. In 1901, the building was reconstructed and adapted to serve the needs of the craftsmen’s school established there.

For more than a hundred years, these two buildings — the Small Guild House and the shelter building — have been organically connected, both literally and figuratively, forming a unified complex where the life of the Small Guild continues.