Speech by State Secretary Per Kristian Skulberg

The opening of the exhibition “Jugend in Riga”

Ålesund, 15 February 1999

Guests from Riga and Latvia,
Friends of Jugend-style architecture,
Friends of Ålesund,

It gives me great pleasure to be here in Ålesund once again - the last time was during the international seminar on the Jugend style in November last year. It is as inspiring and rewarding now as it was then to meet concerned and interested people from at home and abroad. I revealed in November that I have a deep love of both art nouveau and Ålesund - and I am not going to repeat what I said then. However, my field of interest stretches beyond Norway’s borders and is not confined to art nouveau.

Contact between Latvia and Norway is based on long traditions, and our two countries have more history in common than buildings in the art nouveau style. Latvia and Norway are both coastal nations with long trading and maritime traditions. Over the centuries, the Baltic and the North Sea have provided many opportunities for contact, social interaction and cultural exchange.

I should particularly like to mention the Hanseatic period, which played a decisive role in Norway’s contacts with the European continent. For almost five hundred years, the Hanseatic League dominated all trade across the North Sea and the Baltic, and although Ålesund was not a Hanseatic port, communities all along the Norwegian coast were affected by Hanseatic trade and the cultural impulses it brought with it. I know that Riga was one of the leading Hanseatic ports on the Baltic coast and contact with Riga was vitally important. Many homes along the Norwegian coast today still contain beautiful artefacts that were brought back by seafarers and traders. On the south coast of Norway, “Riga spoons” are a well known phenomenon - beautiful spoons with a unique design that were presented as gifts by Riga merchants.

Artists have been inspired by the sea, too - Wagner’s opera The Flying Dutchman has a pre-history that directly links Riga with Norway. Wagner was director of the Riga Opera at an early stage of his career - he fled from his creditors on a sailing ship that had to seek shelter in Sandviga, a small port on Norway’s south coast. Wagner is said to have been told the legend of the Flying Dutchman on board this vessel - about the ship that appears to seamen and warns of impending shipwreck - and the legend gave him the idea for the opera, which is frequently performed here in Norway.

We know that Riga is a particularly beautiful town with many important and beautiful cultural treasures from various periods. Riga deserves its place on UNESCO’s exclusive World Heritage List and, on behalf of Norway, I am proud that both Riga and Ålesund are included in the Nordic World Heritage Office’s project “Sustainable Historic Cities”. Recent years’ developments in cooperation between our two countries on the management and conservation of our cultural heritage are particularly pleasing, and I regard the contact that has now been established between Riga and Ålesund as an extremely important element of this cooperation.

The exhibition Jugend in Riga will show us examples from one of Riga’s golden eras and will help to link our two towns even more closely together. Thank you for inviting me to be here today. I am looking forward to studying the exhibition more closely, and I have a strong feeling that it will inspire us all!