Our last day in Riga we walked to Alberta iela (Street) which is full of buildings built in the Jugendstil style, the German/eastern European version of Art Nouveau. The most ornate buildings were the work of architect Mikhail Eisenstein, interestingly enough the father of famed Soviet filmmaker Sergei Eisenstein, director of the Battleship Potemkin, and the inventor of the montage sequence.
I have to say I prefer the geometric designs to
the more exuberant faces,
and I also prefer the more restrained Finnish version of Jugendstil that we checked out in Helsinki. Let's not even talk about the Spanish version of Art Nouveau!
But my favourite of all is the work of Charles Rennie Mackintosh of Glasgow, Scotland (pretty Internet blog days). We even ate in the Willow Tea Room, which he decorated.
I think I detect a pattern here. It seems I spend the last day of every trip to the capital city of a European country looking for Art Nouveau architecture.
We also checked out some Soviet Style sculpture (sculpture is Leo's interest, he took lots of pictures, which I so far have not been able to download off his cellphone). Riga is BIG on sculpture, especially commemorating Latvian Nationalists.
And we visited Riga's giant City Market,
There are 3 of these massive halls, plus outdoor vendors
full of vendors ranging from senior citizens selling a few cups of chanterelles and blueberries they picked in the forest to acres of vendors of cheap plastic items.
And we spotted this artfully designed bench/public art made of glued laminated lumber.
and do I detect some Jugendstil influence in the building in the background?
Oh no! Rows and rows of cheap plastic items? I hope Leo avoided those and loaded up on pastries. Somehow, I can imagine he found a good bakery.
ReplyDeleteThe "more exuberant faces" are definitely not something you would want staring at you in the bedroom, but the artistry is remarkable.
Your photos suggest that Leo has survived another body-bashing orienteering competition. Glad to see it!