Saeima backs new national concert hall, but it's still a long way off

On April 1st, Latvia's parliament, the Saeima, passed a law on the establishment of a new National Concert Hall – the Riga Philharmonic. The concert hall is planned to be created by rebuilding and expanding the existing Riga Congress Centre.

The law confers the status of an object of national interest for the concert hall. The law is needed to establish a specific legal framework for its creation. This will help with construction, as well as regulate issues of use and ownership of the concert hall.

The concert hall will be built by the Riga Municipality in cooperation with the Ministry of Culture (KM). The changes stipulate that by December 31st of this year, the municipality will ensure the development of a construction project in accordance with the idea selected in the design competition. By the end of the year, the municipality will also submit the project control plan to the Ministry for approval. As previously reported by the Riga Municipality, the design contract has already been concluded.

The development of the construction project will be financed by the Ministry of Culture from the state budget. In turn, the construction works until commissioning will be financed by the Riga Municipality.

The Cabinet of Ministers will determine the procedure by which the state will reimburse the municipality for its financial investments. The concert hall will have to be commissioned no later than four years from the date when the Cabinet of Ministers has made a positive decision on financing during the state budget preparation process.

According to the calculations of the winning architects of the design competition, based on 2023 prices, the costs of implementing the concert hall project could reach approximately 61.3 million euros, the annotation to the bill states – though the costs of such grand projects do have a tendency to grow well beyond initial estimates.

The completed concert hall will be handed over to the Ministry of Culture for long-term use by the Riga Municipality. The Ministry will ensure its operation, maintenance and management, as well as determine the procedure for its use.

The question of an "urgent" need for an acoustic concert hall in Riga has been repeated since the late 1980s. In 2020, the Latvian Union of Architects, responding to the call of the Ministry of Culture, conducted a new study of a suitable location for the implementation of the concert hall project, conducting an in-depth study  in several stages. 36 potential sites were identified, of which the territory of the Riga Congress Center was eventually selected as the most suitable.

On March 8, 2022, the Cabinet of Ministers approved an initiative jointly promoted by then-Minister of Culture Nauris Puntulis and the Chairman of the Riga City Council Mārtiņš Staķis – for the state, in cooperation with the Riga City Council, to implement a concert hall project on the site of the Riga Congress Hall.

On August 3, 2022, the Ministry of Culture, the Riga City Council and SIA "Rīgas nami" (owner of the Riga Congress Hall) signed a memorandum of understanding on the implementation of the National Acoustic Concert Hall project.

In November 2024,  the Riga City Council, the general partnership "Mark Arhitekti un Mailītis Arhitekti" and the Ministry of Culture entered into a mutual contractual obligation, which resulted in the start of work on the design of the Riga Philharmonic. The Ministry predicted at the time that the design work could be completed within two years. The design of the new concert hall has been given the odd-sounding English-language name "Baltic Shine".