Art Nouveau is an international philosophy and style of art, architecture and applied art—especially the decorative arts—that was most popular during 1890–1910. English uses the French name “Art Nouveau” (“new art”), but the style has many different names in other countries. A reaction to academic art of the 19th century, it was inspired by natural forms and structures, not only in flowers and plants but also in curved lines. Architects tried to harmonize with the natural environment.
Riga is one of the key economic and financial centres of the Baltic States. Roughly half of all the jobs in Latvia are in Riga and the city generates more than 50% of Latvia’s GDP as well as around half of Latvia’s exports. Biggest exporters are in wood products, IT, food and beverage manufacturing, pharmaceuticals, transport and metallurgy. Riga Port is one of the largest in the Baltics. It handled a record 34 million tonns of cargo in 2011 and has potential for future growth with new port developments on Krievu Sala. Tourism is also a large industry in Riga and after a slowdown during the recent global economic recessions, grew 22% in 2011 alone
Wile Riga is a fairly large city; the places interesting to tourists are located around the monument of Freedom and Old town. The best way to see them is a walking tour. Begin with the House of Blackheads, the tourist office there offers free pamphlets with descriptions of many buildings and map for independent walk tours, alternatively a guided tour can be arranged. In case you want to get away from the touristy areas there tours on bike’s and on foot arranged by private companies.The Freeport of Riga facilitates cargo and passenger traffic by sea. Sea ferries currently connect Riga to Stockholm and Lübeck, operated respectively by Tallink and DFDS Tor Line. The Latvian-flagged ferries MS Romantika and MS Silja Festival are located in the Riga Passenger Terminal.
Art Nouveau is considered a “total” style, embracing architecture, graphic art, interior design, and most of the decorative arts including jewellery, furniture, textiles, household silver and other utensils and lighting, as well as the fine arts. According to the philosophy of the style, art should be a way of life. For many Europeans, it was possible to live in an art nouveau-inspired house with art nouveau furniture, silverware, crockery, jewellery, cigarette cases, etc. Artists desired to combine the fine arts and applied arts, even for utilitarian objects.
Although Art Nouveau was replaced by 20th-century Modernist styles, it is now considered as an important transition between the eclectic historic revival styles of the 19th-century and Modernism
One of reasons why Riga is popular in the world is because of its best restaurants. Latvians are devoted to their food and you can really how devoted they are on the food that they offer to customers once you have tried dining at RozenGals located at Rozen Street, Old Riga. Massive food portions such as baked duck drumstick served with cherry-onion that can satisfy any appetite are offered in the place.
At its beginning, neither Art Nouveau nor Jugendstil was the common name of the style but was known as this in some locations, and the style had different names as it was spread. Those two names came from, respectively, Siegfried Bing’s gallery Maison de l’Art Nouveau in Paris and the magazine Jugend in Munich, both of which promoted and popularised the style.
Maison de l’Art Nouveau (House of New Art) was the name of the gallery initiated in 1895 by the German art dealer Siegfried Bing in Paris that featured exclusively modern art. The fame of his gallery was increased at the 1900 Exposition Universelle, where he presented coordinated—in design and color—installations of modern furniture, tapestries and objets d’art. These decorative displays became so strongly associated with the style that the name of his gallery subsequently provided a commonly used term for the entire style. Thus the term “Art Nouveau” was created.
Part of the evolution of Art Nouveau was the Exposition Universelle of 1900 in Paris, which presented an overview of the ‘modern style’ in every medium. It achieved further recognition at the Esposizione Internazionale d’Arte Decorativa Moderna of 1902 in Turin, Italy, where designers exhibited from almost every European country where Art Nouveau was practiced.
It is generally recognized that Riga has the finest and the largest collection of art nouveau buildings in the world. This is due to the fact that at the end of the 19th and beginning of the 20th centuries, when art nouveau was at the height of its popularity, Riga experienced an unprecedented financial and demographic boom. In the period from 1857 to 1914 its population grew from 282,000 to 558,000 making it the 4th largest city in the Russian Empire (after Saint-Petersburg, Moscow and Warsaw ) and its largest port. The bourgeoisie of Riga used their wealth to build imposing apartment blocks around the former city walls. Local architects, mostly graduates of Riga Technical University, adopted current European movements, and in particular art nouveau. However, the most notable architect of Riga, Mikhail Eisenstein was an alumnus of Saint-Petersburg State University of Architecture and Civil Engineering. In that period around 800 art nouveau buildings were erected. The majority of them are concentrated in the central part of Riga and a few more in the Old Town.