Spikeri Concert Hall

Since the 14th century the Spikeri Quarter served as a location for cargo ship loading and unloading and housed a number of warehouses (Hanf-Ambaren or ‘hemp warehouses’ in German). The warehouse block and the warehouses of the present-day Riga Central Market were constructed mostly in the 1860s –1880s after the demolition of Riga Fortress. Then the centre of Riga was reorganized according to a town planning idea based on the project developed in 1856 by the Riga city architect Johann Daniel Felsko (1813–1902) and the architect Otto Dietze (1832–1890). This project envisaged transformation of moats to the south-west from Old Riga into a port basin and construction of similarly-shaped warehouses in the territory stretching out to the present-day Turgeneva Street. During the period from 1886 to 1864 overall 58 warehouses were built in the territory, but only 13 of them are preserved.