The Art Nouveau capital of the world — 750 buildings, all within walking distance
Riga (population 800,000, the largest city in the Baltic states) has more Art Nouveau buildings than any other city in the world — 750 buildings, roughly one-third of the entire city center, built in an extraordinary 13-year burst of construction between 1901 and 1914 during a period of economic expansion that made Riga one of the fastest-growing industrial cities in the Russian Empire. Mikhail Eisenstein (father of the filmmaker Sergei Eisenstein) designed the most elaborately decorated facades on Alberta iela and Elizabetes iela — two blocks that constitute a concentrated outdoor museum. Th…
Riga was founded in 1201 by Bishop Albert of Bremen as a Crusader trading post and joined the Hanseatic League in 1282 — for 400 years one of the most important trading cities in the Baltic, exporting amber, flax, timber, and grain. The Art Nouveau building boom (1901–1914) coincided with Riga's peak as a major industrial and commercial center of the Russian Empire; the city was at that point larger than Stockholm. Latvia declared independence in 1918, was occupied by the Soviet Union in 1940, Germany in 1941, the Soviets again in 1944, and regained independence in 1991. The Old Town (Vecrīga…