House of the Black Heads

The House of the Blackheads stands on the Town Hall Square in the heart of Riga's old town. First built in 1334 as a warehouse and meeting hall for merchants, it later served the Brotherhood of Blackheads, a guild of unmarried merchants, shipowners and foreigners, and gained much of its ornate Mannerist decoration in the early seventeenth century. The building was destroyed during the Second World War and razed under Soviet rule in 1948; the present structure is a faithful reconstruction completed in 1999 for Riga's 800th anniversary.

The medieval cellars are the only part to survive the war, and the site's long association with commerce, ceremony and loss lends it a certain gravity. Some visitors speak of an evocative, almost weighty atmosphere in the historic vaults, and the building is sometimes included in old-town ghost walks. Any such impressions are subjective and anecdotal rather than evidence of the supernatural.

The House of the Blackheads is above all a symbol of Riga and of the city's Hanseatic mercantile heritage. It functions as a museum and event venue, home to the largest silver collection in the Baltics, and its richly gabled facade is among the most photographed sights in Latvia.

The House of the Blackheads is open to the public as a museum, with daily exhibition visits taking in the grand halls, the historic cabinets and silver collection, and the surviving medieval cellars. Guided tours are available at set times.

Admission is ticketed, and the building is also used for concerts, conferences and ceremonial events, which can affect access on given days. Opening hours and tour schedules are listed on the official website, and it sits centrally in Old Riga within easy walking distance of other landmarks.