Background

Set to become a cultural and arts centre of interregional as well as national significance, the forthcoming Latvian Museum of Contemporary Art benefits from a strategic site in New Hanza City (NHC), a commercial and residential development next to the Art Nouveau district of the historical centre of Riga, Latvia’s capital. Its unique collection will span art and visual culture in Latvia and the Baltic Sea region from the 1960s to the present day.

The new €30 million museum building is a private and public collaboration; funded by the Boris and Inara Teterev Foundation and the ABLV Charitable Foundation, the project is supported by the Ministry of Culture of the Republic of Latvia.

In 2015 the Foundation commissioned a high-profile invited design competition from leading competition specialists, Malcolm Reading Consultants, to identify the best architectural talent available for the project. Twenty-five international practices were asked to participate in the first stage of the competition.

The competition selected seven leading international practices, and those were encouraged to form creative partnerships with Latvian architects during the second stage of the competition. The full teams were as follows:

An eminent jury met June 6 and 7, 2016 to review the design submissions.

The jury comprised: David Bickle, (chair), Director of Design, Exhibitions and FuturePlan, Victoria and Albert Museum; Uldis Balodis, Architect, representing the Ministry of Culture; Gianni Botsford, Director & Head of Design, Gianni Botsford Architects; Jānis Dripe, Architect, representing the Ministry of Culture; Reinier de Graaf, Partner, Office for Metropolitan Architecture (OMA), and Director of AMO (OMA’s think-tank); Luke Jerram, Visual artist and director of Luke Jerram Ltd; Ieva Valtere, Executive Director, Pillar Management, SIA; Elīna Vikmane, Board Member, Latvian Museum of Contemporary Art Foundation.

Malcolm Reading, Competition Director, advised the jury.

Explore the submissions.