On Mežaparks

Mežaparks is a suburb of Rīga, Latvia's capital. It is a beautiful area of villas, a forest park, and a zoo. The Englishman George Armitstead, while Mayor of Rīga, created it in 1901 as the first Garden City in the world. Join me as we explore this delightful neighbourhood of Rīga and learn of its fascinating history. Walk with me through the park, as people have done for over 100 years. Join me on a visit to the zoo. Let’s also dig deep into what the great man George Armitstead accomplished with his vision for a garden city.

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Transcript

On Mežaparks

Mežaparks is a suburb of Rīga, Latvia's capital. It is a beautiful area of villas, a forest park, and a zoo. The Englishman George Armitstead, while Mayor of Rīga, created it in 1901 as the first Garden City in the world. Join me as we explore this delightful neighbourhood of Rīga and learn of its fascinating history. Walk with me through the park, as people have done for over 100 years. Join me on a visit to the zoo. Let’s also dig deep into what the great man George Armitstead accomplished with his vision for a garden city.
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A brief history of Mežaparks

The Latvian name ‘Mežaparks’ means forest park. It was initially known as Kaiserwald, ‘Emperor’s Forest’ in German. It had been used as a forest for recreational purposes since the 18th century and was added to the territory of Rīga in the 19th century. While Kaiserwald was being developed into the first garden city at the beginning of the twentieth century, many Latvians referred to the area as Mežaparks rather than Kaiserwald. However, the Rīga city administration still called it Kaiserwald. After the German occupation of Rīga during the Second World War had ended, the area became only known as Mežaparks.

It consists of a residential area to the south and a large forest park to the north, which share the same name. It is located on the western shore of Lake Ķīšezers.

An Englishman, George Armitstead, started the development of Mežaparks while he was Mayor of Rīga. In 1901, Mežaparks became the first location in the Russian Empire (remember that Latvia was then part of the Russian Empire) to embrace the principles of the Garden City movement. It was primarily aimed at more wealthy inhabitants and is regarded as one of the world’s first Garden Cities. The visionary urban planner Gustavs Ādolfs Agte and landscape architect Georg Kuphaldt developed plans for the forest and dune territory into a family park for recreation and entertainment. Kuphaldt’s vision was to create a park inspired by examples from Germany and the United Kingdom while preserving existing trees and dunes.

By the start of the First World War, more than 110 buildings had been constructed in Mežaparks, predominantly in the Art Nouveau style. The area expanded during the first half of the 20th century, serving as an elite sports complex. After World War II, the Soviet Government expanded the park with more recreational areas and buildings. Since Latvia regained independence, the park has seen a resurgence and remains a popular recreational location.

Mežaparks is unique in urban planning history, combining natural beauty, architectural heritage, and cultural vibrancy. This makes it a special place in Rīga.
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Visit Mežaparks

Jump on the shiny new number 11 tram from the centre of Rīga. We got on it at Brivibas iela. ‘Mežaparks’ will be the direction on the front of the tram. From the Hamburger iela stop, you will start to see the villas. They are of many different designs and construction materials, but all of a similar size, as was set out in the original plans for the Garden City. Many are Art Nouveau in style. It is fascinating to look at the villas when each one is so different and eclectic. You can leave the tram and walk the last stretch if you like. Otherwise, get off at Mežaparks/Zoo stop. Everyone else will, even though it isn’t the last stop. You are now in front of the forest park, which primarily has pine trees over its 424-hectare territory and features coastal dunes, boreal forests, and protected biotopes. To the right is the entrance to the zoo. More on that later - it is a few hours well spent, especially if children are in your party. Start walking, or hire one of the go-kart-like things. Well-paved paths lead you into the forest. Oh, take a frisbee with you. There is a free frisbee golf course in part of the park. One must land the frisbee in the metal rope baskets attached to trees or on stands. It looked fun, but we didn’t have a frisbee with us!

Find the Great Bandstand, which hosts the Latvian Song and Dance Festival every five years in early July. This event is a significant celebration of Latvian culture. Next, find the amusement part of the park, or what I call the swings area. If youngsters have energy left, they will burn it off while using the many climbing frames, exercise machines, and other amusements there. Also, find the historic open-air Green Theatre, originally built in the centre of the park in 1949, dismantled in the 1980s, and restored in 2003.

Above all, enjoy the peace of walking in a well-managed forest just a stone’s throw from Rīga centre.
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George Armitstead

At the very beginning of the twentieth century, the province of Latvia - and the city of Rīga in particular, was growing in wealth. More people were enfranchised to vote in municipal elections. Being an elected city councillor was an unsalaried position but one of socio-political status. George Armitstead, an Englishman, was elected to the Rīga City Council. The first meeting of the council took place on 30 April 1901. At that meeting, it was decided to transform the Kaiserwald area into a recreation park with paths for pedestrians, bicycles and horse riders. The plans also included the provision to build residential homes in the territory in the style of summer cottages, with strict rules on the maximum height of these villas and the number of buildings allowed per plot of land. This was the foundation for the first Garden City in Europe.

The new Rīga City Council required a mayor, and councillors overwhelmingly voted for George Armitstead as Mayor of Rīga in May 1901. When the results were announced, Armitstead told the Councillors—all men at that time—“Thank you, Gentlemen, for the trust you have placed in me. I will do all I can to prove worthy of your trust.” After the Minister of Interior of the Russian Empire agreed to the nomination, Armitstead set to work. Tsar Alexander II granted municipalities some independence in decision-making, although the Minister of Interior and the Governor of the province had an overall say. Mayor Armitstead started his many good works to transform Rīga from a provincial city into a metropolis. My podcast episode ‘On George Armitstead’ will give you the story of what he achieved as Mayor for 11 years. Many historians regard Armitstead as the best mayor that Rīga has ever had. However, we will focus on his role in developing Kaiserwald - Mežaparks - into a garden city.

The first phase in the development of Kaiserwald took place from 1901. Electrified trams had replaced the horse-drawn ones between the city centre and Kaiserwald. New roads were built, 12 km of them, and many villas were built by the Rīga Building Society. Rīga City Council found that the income from Kaiserwald exceeded expenditure. In 1910, in Armitstead’s third term as Mayor of Rīga, the council discussed proposals to build more housing north of the present villa suburb. The German architect and city planner Hermann Jansen was commissioned to develop the second development phase. Jansen completed his work in 1911. In fact, he built 42 houses in 1911, a record for that time. Under Armitstead’s leadership, 66 villas were built in Kaiserwald, roads and tram lines were built to connect it to the city and the water supply was developed. Oh, and the architect Jansen received 3,699 roubles and 20 kopeks for his hard work on the second stage of Mežapark’s development. The Mayor of Rīga’s salary was 10,000 roubles a year, considered a modest salary for such a position at the time.
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Garden Cities

A Garden City is defined as a planned urban community that combines the benefits of the countryside with those of the city, featuring green spaces, residences, industry, and agriculture in a self-sufficient manner. Garden Cities are often surrounded by green belts and areas of open land for recreation, conservation, and agriculture, separating them from the central city. They are designed to be self-contained, focusing on community engagement, affordable housing, and a harmonious integration of nature and urban life. Often, they were satellite communities surrounding a major city.

The Garden City movement, born in the late 19th century, aimed to address the overcrowding and deterioration of cities by creating healthier, more balanced living environments. The Englishman Sir Ebenezer Howard, an urban planner, first proposed the concept in 1898 to respond to the social and environmental challenges of rapid urbanisation. Howard's vision was influenced by utopian novels and the desire to create a more balanced and sustainable way of life for the working class.

The world’s first Garden City is thought to be Letchworth Garden City in England, founded by Howard in 1903. It was created to solve the squalor and poverty of urban life in London. Letchworth’s neatly planned streets, attractive cottage housing, and wide green spaces offered an alternative to the crowded conditions of early 20th-century cities. The visionary concept behind Letchworth Garden City became a model for town planning across the globe. Its unique heritage includes a wealth of architectural styles, from Arts and Crafts to Art Deco. It features landmarks like the original cinema built in 1936 and the world-famous Spirella Building. Today, Letchworth Garden City thrives, balancing a progressive outlook with an enterprising approach to business. Other examples of Garden Cities followed, including Welwyn Garden City in England, Ifrane in Morocco, Den-en-chou in Japan, and Daceyville in Australia.

However, Mežaparks was started in 1901. Doesn’t that make this suburb of Rīga in Latvia the world’s first Garden City? 1901 against 1903. In my view, it does.

The Garden Cities were designed to encourage walking and cycling, reducing the need for cars and promoting a healthier lifestyle. A contemporary version of this is the 15-Minute City. This urban planning model aims to create more sustainable and liveable cities by ensuring that all residents can meet most of their daily needs within a 15-minute walk or bike ride from their homes. The idea was popularised by Carlos Moreno, an urbanist professor at the Sorbonne University in Paris, who proposed it in 2016. It involves restructuring cities so that workplaces, shops, schools, healthcare facilities, and leisure activities are all within a short distance of where people live. Like the Garden Cities movement, it is centred on improving the poor outlying areas of cities where people primarily sleep and commute to the centre for work, shopping and leisure. The area of Rīga where I live, Imanta, was known as a ‘sleeping dormitory’, and many such areas were constructed in Soviet times on the outskirts of Latvian cities to house low-paid workers. So, too, was my birthplace, Peckham in South London, although this is becoming gentrified.

The 15-minute model reduces the need for cars, cuts down on traffic, thereby minimising emissions, and promotes healthier lifestyles through increased physical activity.

It is about designing public spaces, pedestrian-friendly streets, and mixed-use developments integrating residential, commercial, and recreational areas. Unlike the Garden City movement 100 years ago, the widespread availability of information and communications technology supports this lifestyle change, allowing for remote working and reduced daily commuting. The concept has gained traction globally, with cities like Paris leading the way in its implementation. In Paris, more bicycle journeys are made than car journeys! Parisians love it! Unfortunately, in the UK, the British Government hates the concept. They see it as an attack on the rights of rich people to do whatever they want - especially driving big Range Rovers and similar vehicles. They have also used propaganda to say that 15-minute cities limit people’s freedom. It is total rubbish, but the pressure put on local authorities by the rightwing British government is such that most cities, like Oxford, have now dropped all plans to be a 15-minute city. It's crazy politics, but that is Britain when recording this episode.
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Kaiserwald Concentration Camp

All is not good. Mežaparks has a negative part in its history. During the Second World War, the Kaiserwald concentration camp was located there. Tragically, many Jews, Gypsies, Communists, and other opponents of Nazi rule were murdered in these woods.

Kaiserwald concentration camp was established in March 1943 during the German occupation of Latvia. The first inmates were several hundred convicts from Germany. However, following the liquidation of the ghettos in Rīga, Liepāja, and Daugavpils in June 1943, the remaining Jews in Latvia, along with survivors from the Vilna - Vilnius - Ghetto, were deported to Kaiserwald. In early 1944, smaller camps around Rīga were brought under Kaiserwald’s jurisdiction1. By March 1944, the camp had 11,878 inmates, including 6,182 males and 5,696 females, with only 95 non-Jewish inmates. Unlike extermination camps such as Auschwitz, Kaiserwald was not built to exterminate people. Inmates were forced to do labour for large German companies, such as AEG, that used many female Jewish prisoners in the production of electrical goods. As the Russian Red Army advanced into Latvia in August 1944, the Germans began evacuating inmates to the Stutthof concentration camp in Poland. Those deemed unfit for the journey, including all Jews under 18 or over 30, were murdered. The Red Army liberated the camp in October 1944.

The site of the former concentration camp has been transformed over time, and now there is a playground and apartment building complex where the camp once stood. However, remnants of the camp’s history remain, including fragments believed to be part of a watchtower, and there is a recently erected memorial that provides information about the concentration camp and its inmates. This serves as a poignant reminder of the atrocities that took place and ensures that the memories of those who suffered are preserved and honoured. It also plays a crucial role in educating current and future generations about the Holocaust and the importance of remembering its victims.
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The Great Bandstand

The Great Bandstand in Mežaparks is significant in Latvia’s cultural history. It was constructed according to a design by architect and civil engineer Vladimir Schnitnikov as a large open-air bandstand. Since 1955, the bandstand has been the main venue for the Latvian Song and Dance Festival, a key part of Latvian culture and national identity. This festival is included in the UNESCO Cultural Heritage list. The bandstand is in the middle of the pine forest and features long wing-shaped benches that can seat 30,000 spectators. It has hosted up to 200,000 spectators during events like the Latvian Song and Dance Festival. Several renovations and reconstructions have been made to maintain and improve the bandstand. A major reconstruction project began following an international design competition. The winning design came from a collaborative team of Latvian architects. The first phase of the reconstruction was completed in June 2018, in time for the Latvian Song and Dance Festival that year. It involved expanding the audience area, increasing the seating capacity, and adding transformable audience fields to accommodate more spectators. The second stage of reconstruction involved improving the acoustics. That was completed in time for the 2023 Song and Dance Festival. Euro 100 million was the cost of the total rebuild. Architecturally, the bandstand was shaped like a crescent, consisting of five levels. It can accommodate 13,000 choruses, making it one of the largest such venues in the world. A novelty of the bandstand is a unique device that blows fog to cool down participants, making standing easier during performances. The Song and Dance Festival occurs in late June - early July when temperatures are often 30 degrees in Latvia.

The Great Bandstand continues to symbolise Latvian cultural pride and is a venue for significant events, reflecting the country’s rich music and communal celebration tradition. I covered this in more detail in my podcast episodes ‘On Song and Dance’ and more recently ‘On Music’.
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Rīga Zoo

Another development that started during George Armitstead’s time as Mayor of Rīga was the establishment of Rīga Zoo. The zoo was founded after a society was established in 1908 to coordinate its formation. By April 1911, land had been allocated for the zoo, and it officially opened to the public in October 1912. Initially, the zoo housed 267 animals of 88 species. It received significant donations, including 538 animals, in 1914. However, the newly formed zoo faced challenges during the First World War and closed in August 1917 after the German army occupied Riga. After the First World War, the site became a camp for children from low-income families. The zoo reopened in September 1933 with 124 animals of 48 species. By 1938, the number of species had increased to 106. Then came the Second World War. Despite this, the zoo’s collection was preserved, and it reopened to the public in November 1944. The zoo then thrived during the Soviet era and was considered one of the best in the Soviet Union. It saw the creation of an aquarium in 1950. After Latvia regained independence in 1991, the zoo experienced difficulties but recovered. It joined the European Association of Zoos and Aquaria in 1992. The zoo has undergone several development projects to attract visitors. The zoo has developed its infrastructure to improve animal habitats and visitor experiences. For example, the new Savannah area is a beautiful place to walk at a higher level and observe zebras, giraffes, and other animals. The zoo has modernised enclosures, added new facilities, and created environments that closely mimic the animals’ natural habitats. Rīga Zoo has enhanced its role in education by offering various programs and tours that inform visitors about wildlife conservation, animal behaviour, and the importance of biodiversity. My son is going on a school trip there on Wednesday. Latvian schools organise an away day for every class, every term. The zoo participates in international breeding programs and conservation efforts to protect endangered species. For example, it is involved in reintroducing the European tree frog to Latvia and an eagle breeding project. It is also a leading zoo in conserving and breeding the Amur leopard, one of the world’s most endangered big cats, with only a few dozen remaining in the wild. It is also involved in community engagement. When we went there the other weekend, many people walked around the zoo carrying big wooden bird boxes. Sometimes, the young child was turfed out of the pushchair to accommodate the bird box. Later, we found a big group of volunteers making these bird boxes for visitors to take away. Nice one!

Rīga Zoo is committed to growing as a modern institution dedicated to the welfare of animals, the education of the public, and the conservation of wildlife. The staff are also insightful. Like many younger people, my son is a big fan of Capybara. Capybara are at Rīga Zoo, but the staff explained that we would unlikely see them that day as the weather was too cold. They would be sleeping. We should come back on a warm day for that experience.
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In conclusion, Mežaparks is well worth a visit if you are in Rīga. If you are not nearby, its history as the first Garden City is inspirational. Think about the concept of Garden Cities and the 15-minute city. It is relevant for our times. Yet again, the great Englishman George Armitstead showed what could be achieved while Mayor of Rīga. He was so much ahead of his time. One should never forget the negative period in Mežaparks’ history when it housed a concentration camp and genocide took place. The rest of the localities’ history makes for a beautiful story. 

[Image: An Englishman in Latvia. Music: Julius H. from Pixabay]