Riga, capital of Latvia, is home to one of the largest concentrations of Art Nouveau buildings in Europe, a circumstance that’s due to the city nearly doubling its size in the 15 years after 1897, at a moment that was both the height of Art Nouveau design and of Riga’s prosperity.
Art Nouveau buildings dot the newer parts of the city and line many of its streets from that era, but one building, which now houses the museum of the Riga Art Nouveau Center is unique: It was built in 1903 as the private home of one of the leading Latvian architects of the period, Konstantin Peksens.
The museum is located on the first floor and basement of the building, with an interactive display of Art Nouveau designs, textiles and furniture in the lower area, and a restoration of Peksens’ apartment on the ground floor. The upper stories were rental apartments when built.
Riga’s Art Nouveau explosion matches the same time period when other architects were working the style in different ways across Europe and America, including Gaudi in Spain, Victor Horta in Belgium, Hector Guimard in France, Otto Wagner in Austria and even Frank Lloyd Wright in the U.S. Like each of those, Peksens’ work has connections to local styles and tastes as well as the broader movement.
Some of the excitement of the period spilled over into Riga’s big 1900 Exhibition, celebrating its 700th birthday. Eclipsed by the huge international exposition that year in Paris, it drove a lot of building and growth in Riga.
Furniture styles were changing as well, and the style appears in decorative objects of all kinds in the exhibit.
Items from Peksens’ workspace…
The heart of the museum’s exhibit, though, is the apartment, with many of the original pieces in place and reproductions of others, and a thorough redecoration to ‘how it was” in the architect’s own time. The work was completed in 2007, when the museum opened.
The images above show the living room of the apartment; below is the ‘fireplace room,’ a less-formal place for family and friends.
The fanciest room in the apartment was the dining room, where both formal and family meals occurred; descriptions from the time mention both serious cooking and strong discipline and manners expected.
A small area at the windows gives a view of the world outside, framed by delicate stained-glass flora. A small table, suitable for two, sits in front of the window, seen in the title photo.
One room of the apartment, believed to have been either a bedroom or Peksens’ workspace, has been set up as an exhibit hall for furniture, glassware, china and more from the period, almost all made in Riga and surrounding areas.
The bedroom may seem a bit cluttered to a modern eye, but is full of small touches that make it pleasant. Notice that instead of closets, there’s a huge mirrored wooden wardrobe.
A dining room like we’ve seen here needs a sizable kitchen to keep it going. The wall tiles behind the stove are surviving originals, while the rest are reproductions. Next to the kitchen, a well-stocked pantry.
There’s also a reasonably-pleasant room for the maid, whose work was apparently never-ending; in addition to her sleeping space, there was a sewing machine and other supplies. In addition to house-cleaning and helping the cook, the maid was responsible for sewing and mending.
When the house was built in 1903, modern flush toilets, already common in Western Europe, were just becoming ‘standard equipment’ in Riga, and the Peksens’ family had all the ‘mod cons.’
Like every old city, Riga has plenty of very old sights to see, but the museum was a reminder that periods closer to our own are also fascinating. If you plan to visit Riga, I recommend not only the museum, but a walking tour of its Art Nouveau treasures. And you may find some surprises there, too: My guide, in the years Latvia was part of the USSR, was a guide in Siberia for the government Intourist agency!
