Riga, LATVIA: Art Nouveau Niche.

It's amazing to travel one hour by plane and feel like I'm in a different world. Perhaps it was the steady afternoon rain, perhaps it was the lack of English spoken, perhaps it's the fact it came on the heels of the Tallinn visit... but Riga didn't have the same charm we felt in Estonia...

Latvia, though no further east than Estonia, puts me back in the Eastern Europe state of mind. When we got off the bus in the city centre, we were funneled into a huge open air flea market, similar to those of Hungary and Romania. It's the real world... there's no faking it. This is the way people live; I appreciate that I have the opportunity to see, smell, hear, taste, and feel the personality of the world through travel and the quest to explore cultural sociology. Differences are cool.

There is no doubt about it though... Riga is up there with the most architecturally stunning places I've ever visited (up there with Paris and Berlin)! When the Art Nouveau movement reached it's peak in the early 20th Century in Europe, Riga was leading the way with flowing lines and geometrical ornaments. I wasn't able to take such great shots of the buildings as dusk settled in and the rain was soaking me (and my camera)... so these few photos are just googled images of the buildings I saw...







Beyond the architecture, there were a few notable art galleries I went to, surprising me with their modern flavours... The Riga Art Space was the best of them.



Rīgas Mākslas Telpa (Riga Art Space) is the coolest contemporary art venue I've seen in a long time! I spent a couple of hours in this underground multifunctional art hall (beneath the Riga City Council building)... just exploring... discovering artists and cutting edge style from across the Baltics... and stayed out of the rain too. Riga Art Space turned me on to some pretty incredible artists like Klāra Grundšteine (hilarious video animation: Bezfilma) and Elīna Zunde (gorgeous composition layers and figural juxtaposition: Tenderness). I was totally inspired and shocked to see such a leading contemporary art space in such an old world-feeling society.

All in all, Riga is fine. I like it, but I'm not sure I love it. Definitely worth the trip though... just for the architecture and Riga Art Space!