Riga wears its culture on its facades — 750+ Art Nouveau buildings, more than any city on earth. Beyond them sit a National Museum of Art in a Neo-Baroque palace, an opera house where Wagner once conducted, and a contemporary scene rooted in old warehouses.
Latvia's largest art collection in Wilhelm Neumann's 1905 Neo-Baroque palace, reopened 2016 after a rebuild that dug galleries under the garden. Strong on Purvītis, Rozentāls and Valters. Tue-Thu 10:00-18:00, Fri to 20:00, closed Mon.
The only restored Art Nouveau apartment in Riga open to visitors, in Konstantīns Pēkšēns' own 1903 house with a spiral staircase spun around a painted light well. Rooms furnished to 1903; staff wear period dress. Open daily 10:00-18:00.
Modern and contemporary Latvian art in a 19th-century customs warehouse behind Riga Castle, its thick limestone walls holding rotating shows of Soviet-era nonconformists and current Baltic artists. Wed-Sun 11:00-18:00.
Mikhail Eisenstein's most theatrical work — 1903 facades stacked with giant masks, sphinxes, peacocks and screaming stone faces above the seventh floor. Free to view from the street at any hour; the light is best late afternoon.
A 123-metre Gothic church whose spire has burned and fallen three times, rebuilt in steel in 1973. The nave doubles as an exhibition hall for Latvian artists; a lift climbs to the 72-metre gallery. Tue-Sat 10:00-19:00.
Jāzeps Vītols Latvian Academy of Music occupies a 1875 Neo-Renaissance building on Krišjāņa Barona iela; students' practice drifts through the open windows, and its concert hall hosts free student recitals most weekday afternoons.
An 1863 Neoclassical house on the city canal where Richard Wagner worked as a young conductor. Its crystal chandelier holds 176 bulbs. Guided backstage tours run in English; the season runs September to June.
The 1884 Walcker organ in Riga Cathedral had 6,718 pipes and was the world's largest when built; Liszt composed a piece for its inauguration. Short recitals are held several evenings a week in the vast brick nave.
Thirteen restored 19th-century red-brick warehouses behind the Central Market now hold galleries, the Latvian Contemporary Art Centre offices and the Riga Ghetto and Latvian Holocaust Museum, an open-air site rebuilt from wooden ghetto houses.
Riga's 'street of peace' runs past the Laima chocolate factory and is lined with independent design shops, the Taste Coffee roastery and small studio galleries. The pavement smells of cocoa when the factory is running.
Housed in a black 1971 Modernist block on Latviešu strēlnieku laukums, reopened in 2022 after renovation. Documents 1940-1991 through personal objects, Gulag artefacts and a reconstructed barracks room. Daily 11:00-18:00.
The open-air stage in Mežaparks holds 15,000 singers for the Latvian Song and Dance Celebration, a UNESCO-listed tradition since 1873. Rebuilt in 2021, it stands among pines in Europe's first garden-city suburb.