The year in Latvian architecture began with the selection of a new chief architect of the city of Riga. As a result of a rather complicated procedure, architect Pēteris Ratas, who received his basic professional education at the Riga Technical University, and his master’s degree in architecture at the New Jersey Institute of Technology, USA, has taken the new position. Having worked on ambitious projects with a commercial orientation in the USA and China, he returned to Riga with the idea that the small is not always something worthless. Upon taking office, Pēteris Ratas promised to pay the main attention to Riga’s public space, starting from the city streets and then continuing with environmental improvement – attractive environmental design and greenery. After many interviews in the media at the beginning of the year, interest in Riga’s chief architect has faded, but hopefully the city’s chief architect is quietly working and we will hear more about the results of his work next year.
One of the Riga urban improvement projects was recognized by the international jury of the Latvian Architecture of the Year Award as the best architectural work of the year: the big award of the year went to the architects’ office MADE architect about the forecourt of Daile Theatre. The new layout of the theater square is probably now the way Marta Staņa, the architect of the theater building, would have liked to see it. Outwardly, it corresponds to the ideas of the modernist direction about a good public space, which the representatives of this direction so rarely managed to implement in life, also in the original design of the Daile theater square. The design elements and composition of the square complement the theater building, but the solutions that are not immediately noticeable to the eye correspond to the principles of post-modernist architecture of the new millennium – the ability of pedestrians and transport serving the theater building to adapt to each other, sustainable rainwater management solutions and environmental accessibility for various members of society.
Exhibition from From Arcadia to Mars (curator Anda Boluža) at the National Library of Latvia this year told about another part of the city – the parks of Riga. At the exhibition, the original plans of Riga parks were hidden behind neatly draped cotton curtains, whose authors include Georgs Kūfalts, Andrejs Zeidaks, and other names less known to the general public. The main value of the exhibition was the contextualization of these plans and the story of parks as an important part of the city environment, in which various protest actions took place at different times – both the gardeners’ strike in 1905 and the rally in Arkadia Park against the construction of the metro in Riga in the 1980s, as well as various protest actions present day. Parks as a place not only for lazy relaxation, but also for an active civic stance.
In the works of artist and designer Jānis Straupe, the function of objects becomes absurd and their practical application unnecessary. In the picture – work Running chairs. 2021. Linden. Property of the author. Photo – Jānis Straupe
Also in Latvian design this year, two exhibitions are worth highlighting – both were held in the first half of the year at the Museum of Decorative Arts and Design (DMDM). An exhibition of Jānis Straupe’s works was opened at the beginning of the year Non-things (curator Inese Baranovska). Jānis Straupe is a skilled craftsman who uses his knowledge and skills to play and challenge himself in order to solve seemingly intractable tasks in the material, as a result of which the function of objects becomes absurd and their practical application unnecessary. It is a table from which everything slides off, and a chair on which it is impossible to sit. The anti-functionality of things is brought to the extreme, to the extent that the viewer is unable to think about anything else but how these objects could still be used in everyday life.
A view from the personal exhibition of designer German Ermich Flowing, which was on display at the Museum of Decorative Arts and Design in the first half of the year. Photo – Filips Schmidt
After that, DMDM presented a compilation by designer German Ermich in an exhibition Flowing (curator Evelina Ozola). It was the first solo exhibition of the internationally respected Latvian designer living and working in Amsterdam in Riga, where you could not only view his most famous work – the chair Ombré – but also get to know his creative path up to that point and his latest works. The exhibition, the arrangement of which was created by the designer himself, together with the sound design (Artūrs Liepiņš) and the graphic design (Aleksejs Muraško) created a unified story about the use of common means in graphic design – color and lines – in spatial objects. Also in the works of German Ermić, the absolute beauty that is difficult to formulate in words and the study of the peculiarities of the material make us forget about the possible practical applicability of the objects created by the designer.
A design competition has been announced at the end of the year Riga Philharmonic – conversion of the former Riga Congress Hall into an acoustic concert hall – winner. It is an architect’s office MARK the architect and Mailītis A.I.I.M. together with SIA Good trees the developed proposal Baltic Shine. Time will tell whether its realization will become an event in Latvian architecture.
2023-12-28 06:00:53
#architecture #design #Ideas #squares #parks #exhibitions
