Latvia
Art Nouveau Building
 |
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.
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 21.3 metres, 70 ft). Between 1910 and 1913, 300 to 500 new buildings were built every year, mostly in the Art Nouveau style, and most of them outside the old town.
