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Concept
Art Nouveau architecture in Riga
Summary
The Art Nouveau architecture in Riga makes up roughly one third of all the buildings in the centre of Riga, making Latvia's capital the city with the highest concentration of Art Nouveau architecture anywhere in the world. Built during a period of rapid economic growth, most of Riga's Art Nouveau buildings date from between 1904 and 1914. The style is most commonly represented in multi-storey apartment buildings. Stylistic influences derived not least from present-day Austria, Finland and Germany, while the establishment of a faculty of architecture in Riga in 1869 was instrumental in providing a local cadre of architects. This included, but was not limited to, some of the first formally trained ethnic Latvian architects. As elsewhere, the Art Nouveau movement in Riga was driven by a desire to express greater individuality, local attachment and a more rational kind of architecture than that which had dominated during the 19th century. Stylistically, the Art Nouveau architecture of Riga can be further divided into four different stages: Eclectic, Perpendicular, National Romantic; and Neo-Classical.
At the end of the 19th century, the old Hanseatic town and seaport of Riga was an important city in the Russian Empire which was enjoying a period of rapid economic, industrial and demographic development. Between 1897 and 1913, the city grew by 88%, reaching a population of 530,000 in 1914 and making it the fifth largest city in the Russian Empire and the third largest in the Baltic region. Its growth rate during this period was the highest the city had ever experienced.
By the middle of the 19th century, the city had begun to expand beyond medieval Riga, which was once surrounded by gates and walls. These were demolished between 1857 and 1863, and replaced with a belt of boulevards and gardens. The expanding city possessed urban coherence, as it developed along a grid pattern, following strict building regulations (which stated, for example, that no house could be taller than six storeys or ).
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