Riga’s architectural history spans centuries: many of its traditional Baltic wood buildings are battered but still standing, and its Art Nouveau structures are a standout, competing even with powerhouse cities like Paris in preservation and density. But it is Riga’s socialist modernist buildings that offer a unique lens into the city’s mid-to-late 20th century, with several major projects initiated before the fall of the Soviet Union but finished after, a physical record of Latvia’s postwar urban development under the shadow of occupation.
Diesel Engine Factory (Rīgas Dīzeļs ĢD)
Originally built in the early 20th century and expanded during the 1950s-60s, this complex was central to Latvia’s Soviet industrial network. The massive edifice features minimal ornamentation but a surprisingly intricate structure, with diagonals and overhangs breaking up the rectilinear grid, and an entry tunnel, added later, that could generously be called an architectural oddity. Today, parts of the site are abandoned while others are still in use, with its overall shell largely intact but deteriorating.
World Trading Center (Pasaules tirdzniecības centrs)
Begun in the late 1980s, this unfinished high-rise was meant to integrate Soviet Latvia into global commerce. The unique three-winged concrete and steel structure, planned at 30 stories, was never completed after independence. While its rectilinear frame and stripped-down facade reflect international ambitions, it lacked the national identity of projects such as the National Library (see below), and now stands abandoned behind a makeshift chain-link fence.
Latvian National Library (Latvijas Nacionālā bibliotēka / “Castle of Light”)
Designed in 1989 by Gunnar Birkerts, delayed by the historical events of that year, and finally completed in 2014, the library bridges Soviet-era planning and national revival. Its angular glass and steel form draws from Latvian folklore and late modernist design, referencing the folk myth of a glass mountain. Though realized post-independence, it is a triumph of monumentality both from outside and from within, where from the massive atrium one can see a multi-story bookshelf rising to the heights (aided by some strategically-placed mirrors).
Dailes Theatre (Dailes teātris)
Built in 1976 by Māris Gaiļis and Martins Krūmiņš, the Dailes Theatre has hosted experimental and forward-thinking work for half a century, spanning the fall of the USSR and continuing today. Its raw concrete, dark brick, and large glass panels are functionality writ large, but the massive semi-abstract sculpture that sits atop the building is reminiscent of the transcendental socialist bas-reliefs near Alexanderplatz in Berlin.
Museum of the Occupation of Latvia (Latvijas Okupācijas muzejs)
Originally opened in 1970 as a Soviet military museum, this dark concrete structure was later repurposed to document Latvia’s 20th-century occupations. The dark, gridlike, sober patterning of its multi-sided facade is both a remnant of the Soviet era and a persistent representation of its rigidity; the building itself fitting its theme by feeling bound by its own surfaces.
