Art Nouveau Centre

They are still working on the collection at the Art Nouveau Centre in Riga - but the permanent exhibitions are already evocative monuments to a gloriously optimistic fin de siecle Europe that was blissfully unaware of the impending horrors of the decades to come. Back then, as the 19th century ticked over into the 20th, art was all about the fresh, the new and young - Art Nouveau, Jugendstil, call it what you will, this was the movement that gave the world such icons as the Paris Metro entrances and London's Liberty's and Co department store. The museum in Riga, famed for its Art Nouveau heritage, is gathering together the trinkets, furniture, clothes and stories from the time, and using them to recreate rooms in the 'Young Style.'