Exhibitions at Town Hall Square and Dome Square Invite Visitors to Discover Historic Riga

To celebrate Riga’s 825th anniversary, three outdoor exhibitions have been opened at Town Hall Square and Dome Square, “Riga Stories. Riga City Council 800,” “Riga Viewing Card Index,” and “Observing Ancient Riga” inviting to explore Riga’s past through authentic archival documents and audio recordings. The exhibitions will be on display until the end of August.

At Town Hall Square, the exhibition “Riga Stories. Riga City Council 800” commemorates the 800th anniversary of the Riga City Council. It showcases the Riga City Council Minutes (1603–1889), one of Latvia’s most significant documentary heritage collections inscribed in the Latvian National Register of the UNESCO Memory of the World Programme.

The exhibition presents dozens of stories in Latvian and English drawn from the town hall minutes and displayed on ten historical maps of Riga, its surroundings, Latvia, and Europe. Together, they reveal Riga’s development as a thriving Baltic and European metropolis while highlighting the everyday lives of its residents, political events, conflicts, celebrations, and remarkable episodes from the city’s past. Visitors can also scan QR codes to listen to audio recordings of the selected stories narrated by actors Gundars Āboliņš and Gusts Kikusts.

At Dome Square, the interactive exhibition “Riga Viewing Card Index” marks the tenth anniversary of the Latvian National Archives website redzidzirdilatviju.lv. At its centre stands a large filing cabinet with six thematic drawers containing cards featuring historical photographs, maps, and drawings that reveal the stories of 58 Riga neighbourhoods. Each drawer is dedicated to a different part of the city—the City Centre, the Kurzeme District, the Latgale Suburb, the Vidzeme Suburb, the Zemgale Suburb, and the Northern District—and explores local history through the streets and buildings, port life, industry, public events, and everyday life. The exhibition encourages the visitors to become active explorers, uncovering Riga’s history step by step.

Also at Dome Square, the exhibition “Observing Ancient Riga” presents three video stories shown on a stylised vintage television. Featuring archival newsreels and documentary footage, the exhibition offers a glimpse into Riga’s parks, Art Days, everyday life, and public celebrations across different historical periods.

All three exhibitions invite visitors on a journey through Riga’s history brought to life through archival evidence – documents, photographs, maps and newsreels, allowing today’s visitors to experience Riga through the eyes of earlier generations.