24/01/2026
In the era of super speed, of algorithms that only promote entertaining content, it is not easy to have attention of the audience about such specific topics as harm of demolition, of neglect.
As houses cannot speak, have no senses, no advocates, the right to reuse and to remain is under the question mark. Especially in the current, profit oriented system with laws and policies empowering new construction, as a heritage from post - WWII politics, when Europe had to be re-constructed from zero. Now over 80 years has passed and Europe is already build (here some of you will argue, that we still have empty plots!). The amount of resources extracted to provide the wave of new build is enormous, and even if we choose to blame the modernist architects to use tabula rasa principles, modern western society had not gone far alway from the same drastic approach - demolish the old and build the new. It had been the measure of success for decades.
Let have a local view. It is sad to see our suburbs grow, green plots transform to grey, loading the infrastructure with quotidian migration of cars, as in Brodsky’s poetry - from Suburbs to the Centre, when so many buildings in historical Riga centre stand empty and in decay. It’s like heaving the city with an half-empty heart. It has to do with many factors of course, the prices of property, the quality of outdoor space, the tradition to have a green private loan near the house. But still, financial instruments to empower renovation could give a new stimulus to actually save and renovate, not wait until we have a ruin.
We still have one week to support new standards and tax relaxations for renovation in Riga, Tallinn, Vilnius, Berlin, Paris, all the EU! If you care for history, for the preservation of the resources, of homes and of the link between past and future - sign the initiative now
