Step back in time to the time of the Art Nouveau movement in Riga
From October 2023 we will be offering our Art Nouveau tour of Riga at 12:00 to make the most of the daylight hours and warmth intro the colder and darker months. Our tours of the Art Nouveau quarter of Riga are running Mondays, Wednesday, Fridays, Saturday & Sundays during October
To see our full current schedule just click here for the Free tour schedule in Riga,
Make sure to book your space and join us on a tour to open your eyes to the ornate and over the top style that is Art Nouveau. Where did the style come from? Why was it so popular in Riga? Where did all the money come from to build one of the Worlds largest collections of Art Nouveau? And how did the other half live in Riga?
Ultimately this period is the last era of a failing Russian Empire and there is a lot more to discuss other than the architecture of that time. We will get close and meet the inhabitants of Riga of the early 1900's and try to understand what was leading to all these developments architecturally as well as social change in the city.
One of our most popular free tours covers the areas of Riga's art nouveau architecture and the turn of Riga in the early 1900's, This turbulent time at the end of the Russian Empire in Riga was one of change, modernity, massive construction, new arts as well as new political ideas within the working classes.
Join us on the Art Nouveau free tour of Riga to uncover this brief window of massive change in Riga's history. Learn how from a medium sized port city, Riga grew into a massive industrial hub in the Baltic sea. How the wealthy had accumulated their fortunes and how they put that to use during the industrial revolution,
From the photographs on this blog page we give an impression of the various styles that dominate Riga's architecture from the art nouveau period. It was a time of shifting fashions and we really get the sense of the city that was moving places, even with all the challenges the Russian Empire faced in the early 1900's
Some of the decorations seem almost from a different time but as we look closer into the subject we discover that the people of these times were not too far from our own modernity.
You will learn about how changes in building techniques, how modern inventions such as eletcticty and automobiles appear on Riga's streets. How the electric Tram system begins and discover the political and personal life of the Mayor of Riga, who helped to oversee huge changes in his time in office.
We use the streets and the marvelous architcur=ure to help paint a picture of a time gone by and to attempt to get into the mindset of the inhabitants of Riga at this time. What happend to the architectes and the inhabitants of these ornate buildings after the first World War? Where did they move to and did they leave their styles and impressions else where across the globe?
The Art Nouveau Free Tour of Riga is for sure a great way to see mo0re areas away from the Old town of Riga and enjoy som eof the finer ornaments that Riga has to offer. We recommedn not obnly our tour but we certaibly recomend you to viusitr the art nouveu musuem in Riga which can be done at the endo of the tour for an extrra fee.
More info on trhe tour here - Riga Art Nouveau Tour
More info for the Museum - Art Nouveau Museum