Riga’s about to unlock doors you’ve walked past a hundred times.
On 10–11 October, the city’s first Open House Riga festival opens about 40 buildings that usually stay locked — water towers, the Circus, Wagner House, Origo’s atriums and rooftop gardens, Viskaļi, Splendid Palace. London invented this format in the ’90s. Riga just joined the worldwide network.
Bookings went feral. The festival site shows roughly 3,942 spots already filled and only about 176 left. Circus, Splendid Palace, Čiekurkalns Water Tower, the Matīsa towers, Wagner House, Architects’ House — gone. Today, 2 October, organisers drop extra tour times for selected spots. Move fast.
Architect Kārlis Jaunromāns (Tandeems, organising team) puts it clean: you don’t learn architecture from lectures and films. You learn it by walking the rooms.
Tours are free. Latvian and English slots. Register only at openhouseriga.com — if your plans change, cancel so someone else can go.
If you’ve been watching this city show off — from the new Origo 3D screen to 825 with F1 cars in the streets — this is the next layer: behind the façades.
Grab a slot before the last ones vanish. See you in the buildings.
