Jānis Dripe, architect
07.11.2005

Our modern history has not had any particular doubts about the location of the NLL - our ship of books, the glass mountain created by Gunars Birkerts, we want to anchor it on the left bank of the Daugava, exactly opposite to the Old Town of Riga. In fact – there is no more treasured place to be found, the responsibility is as great as with the architect I.M.Pei’s glass pyramid in the courtyard of Louvre or J. Novel’s Centre of Arabic Culture on the bank of the Seine. The river Daugava is the central compositional axis for Riga, even more than the Seine is for Paris.

Just like in the engravings of the 16^th century the Dome, Jacob’s and St. Peter’s churches dominate the skyline of the Old Town, and the new NLL will be an opposite placed mirror in which these beautiful churches will finally catch a glimpse of themselves.

Even at the beginning of the 19^th century the place where the new NLL will be located had an idyllic atmosphere with charming wooden buildings. It is very clearly seen in the drawings by J.K.Brotze of 1793. However, only in very rare cases urban construction serves as a workshop for restoring the spatial witnesses of the lost ages. Another kind of buildings have replaced the ones seen in the pictures.

But similarly to the way the state agency “N 3 B” take care of the 3 new culture objects; the uniqueness of Riga’s cultural space is rooted in the logical harmony between the heritage of wood architecture, magnificence of Art Nouveau architecture and good contemporary architecture.

The NLL, the planned Acoustic Concert Hall, the Museum of Contemporary Art and the new Riga Business Centre are placed in direct connection to the space of the Daugava, the perception of these individual unique buildings and the whole of the ensemble across the water planes has been analysed.

The total view of the NLL – but let’s focus upon the territory to the right of the NLL building. The narrow land stripe is allocated to the new Acoustic Concert Hall, and an international tender has been announced for its project design.

Perhaps in the future we shall here a building by Dominique Perro, the author of the French National Library, perhaps it will be the good acquaintance of Gunars Birkets Cesar Peeli, Dane Henning Larsen or one of the Future Systems architects.

I‘ll mention M. von Gerkhan in connection to another project, we can conclude that in the nearest future a company of respected architects is going to gather in the centre of Riga.

The Museum of Contemporary Art is planned a little bit to the north of the historical centre, but in direct connection with the Daugava. This is not going to be a new building, but similarly to Tate Modern in London or D’Orsay Museum in Paris a historical building will be adapted for its use. In this case – the thermo station in Andrejsala, a technical monument in its own right.

A few basic data about the city of Riga-

730 000 inhabitants with the tendency to decrease

307 km2, including 54 km2 of lakes and the planes of the Daugava river,

36 % of the territory of the city covered by publicly accessible forests and greenery

UNESCO decisions debated and passed in Paris. We have a reason to be proud of the fact that the extensive territory of Riga city centre has been inscribed on the list of the Special World Cultural Heritage.

The red line denotes the protected territory itself, but the yellow one marks the so called adjacent or buffer zone. In this respect the location of the new NLL building is special.

Riga and the whole region of Riga tends to receive a wide range of culture and other services in the capital – Riga.

Even though there are 600 rural districts with a library of its own in Latvia – NLL is the uniting link, the methodological centre and information base.

It is logical that the agglomeration of Riga with its 1.5 million inhabitants will be the direct clients of the NLL.

Currently the urban space around the NLL and the concert hall is a zone of special responsibility - the AB dam has been preserved from 1887, when the coal port was constructed.

The Stone Bridge will take directly from the Old Town of Riga to the new NLL, and in the future this bridge will be open only to the public transportation and pedestrians.

The Daugava is approximately 700 metres wide in this spot, and I have to remind the present audience of the fact that compared to it the Seine is just a small water phenomenon.

The new Business Centre of Riga in the southern part of Ķīpsala is not an offer to concentrate high-rise buildings as an end to itself, but an attempt to bring order to and to add the not so very successful practice of building high-rises in Riga that was begun during the Soviet period in Riga.

The detailed development of the spatial vision shows the already completed bank buildings and an actual project by M. Von Gerkhan in the background. Gerkhan’s family roots, just like the roots of Birkerts’ family are in Latvia.

Hopefully, during the next stage of development in-between the southern point of Ķīpsala and the new NLL the construction on Klīversala will finds its own, original solution.

One of the solutions – the eclectic, but intriguing game between the modern architecture and the motives typical of Hanseatic towns.

The envisaged three new culture projects have already striking contemporary architecture neighbours in the space of the Daugava River on both sides of the Old Town.

It is our effort and our duty to increase the aspects that are typical of and suited to Riga as the metropolis of the Baltics in the game between the heritage and the spatial accents.

And this can happen in various ways. Including the involvement of the French architects.