Slow Urbanism Riga: the study area

Some times only after deep thinking you understand things. For instance I was wondering why I all the time had such a good feeling about Riga, as if I knew it for a long time. Only after spending a weekend at my parental house I understand. Just around the corner of the house where I used to live is an old warehouse with the name of Riga on it. The city where I am from, Harlingen, has a big harbour. Probably they where trading wood with Latvia via Riga. As a small boy I always wondered how that city would look like. Then I imagend a city with a river full of loggs floating around. Sadly this is not true as I know now but still I really like the old city center next to the big open river landscape. This again is reminding me of Harlingen where the city center is also next to the big open sea.
 

Back to Riga
The study area which I plan to visit composes the innercity, the 19th century city, Kipsala where the new city center should take place and off course the design area, north of the innercity. On the map you will see there used be a train depot, garden allotments, a old harbour and many factories. The design area will be on another position in the mental map when the Baltic Highway and the northern bridge will realised. Then it can become one of the main entries when coming from Tallin (north) or from the ferrie city Ventpils in the west.



Existing situation in the design area

Starting for east to west:
Along the new big street called Skanstes iela some developments allready have taken place. These mainly involve big-scale programmes like a multifunctional sportshall called 'Arena Riga' , the Olympic sportscomplex and the Skonto sportscomplex with another mulitfunctional hall and footbal stadion. Also big apartmentcomplexes are built like this one on the picture below.

Also a big bank building has just been finished. It emphasisis the corner location although whright now the cornerstreet is not laid out. The architecture must be a bit inspired by El Lissitzky with his Wolkenbügel building which was more about the horizontal importance than the compition to build the highest building.

In the middle of the design area used to be the freight station. The old train depot is cleaned of traintracks but the depot station building is still standing. Old factories around it are transformed into businessunits or torn down to make way for hypermarkets

Even more to the west is a nice small park called 'Viestura Darzs'. Around it some nice apartment complexes are built. The area north of the park is a residential neighbourhood called Petersala.

Then in the west is the river Daugava and the harbour area. The port is moving northwards making this area redundant. Transformation to residential and mixed neighbourhood is the development strategy and OMA made a urban design for this. Later I will post more about these plans and also the plans elsewhere in the design area. For now two more pictures about the harbour and then I need to pack my bag for flying to Riga tomorrow.

Back to the website Buro Breidablik