Art Nouveau i Riga

After a lecture on Latvian economics, politics, and demographics, we set off on a walk through the Art Nouveau District. Art Nouveau was popular between 1890 and 1910. Following the Latvian Ethnographic Exhibition in 1896 and the Industrial and Handicrafts Exhibition in 1901, Art Nouveau became the dominant style in Riga and accounts for 1/3 of all the buildings in the center, making it the city with the highest concentration of such buildings anywhere in the world. The quantity and quality of Art Nouveau architecture was among the criteria for naming Riga in UNESCO World Heritage Site.

Tonight on the way to dinner, our guide wanted to test our knowledge and asked how we knew that the building next to us was Art Nouveau. A very funny woman with a thick Texan accent said, “Well, it has all that crap on the front.” I think the guide decided to give up on that exercise!

Attached are a few of my favorite examples.Читать далее