Pils iela 18
LV – 1050 Riga
Latvia
phone + 371 670 377 75
mail jugendstils@riga.lv
Rīga, the capital of Latvia, is a true Art Nouveau city. Its city centre features the highest concentration of Art Nouveau buildings in the world, with more than one third of all structures designed in this distinctive style. This exceptional urban ensemble is listed as a UNESCO World Heritage Site.
The early 20th century was Rīga’s golden age, a period of rapid growth and creativity that transformed the city into a major centre of industry, trade, and culture on the eastern coast of the Baltic Sea. In just 15 years, its population nearly doubled, surpassing 500,000 on the eve of World War I.
The first Art Nouveau buildings in Rīga appeared as early as 1899. Already after 1904 Eclecticism disappeared from Rīga’s construction activity, being completely replaced by Art Nouveau. This new style there was inspired by German, Austrian and Finnish architecture, but rooted mainly in local cultural traditions. Primarily local architects were employed, most of them having been graduated from the Architectural Department (established 1869) of the Rīga Polytechnical Institute.
In wide diversity of formal trends of Art Nouveau of Rīga rather restrained, structural sense of architectural idiom prevail, although extraordinary lavishly decorated buildings are presented as well. The most characteristic are so called Perpendicular Art Nouveau and National Romanticism. The latter reflected the search for the Latvian national identity in architecture. Art Nouveau in Rīga was highly professional and versatile phenomena, where all visual arts were melded into one.
