The Hilbig Institute in Riga was established as an international platform for research, activism and new interdisciplinary knowledge. It is a place where leading Baltic and international activists and academics develop new ideas of how cities and architecture become catalysts for social, cultural and economic change.
The Hilbig Institute celebrates and continues the great tradition of advanced Community led education and research established in Riga in 1869. It stands for collaborative and cross sectorial approach to knowledge generation in fields of urban planning, architecture and art.
The Hilbig Institute celebrates the unique Urban Culture that emerged in the second half of the 19th century in the multiethnic metropolis Riga, that was defined by the notion of political autonomy, activism and open civic society, advanced urban planning and development. Ethnically, culturally, socially and politically very diverse Riga, before 1914 could be considered as a role model for the Contemporary European Urban Culture of 21st Century.
Today in the 21th Century the Hilbig Institute advocates for sustainable and inclusive urban politics in Baltic Sea Region and beyond. The Hilbig Institute supports a common Baltic Sea cultural and economic policy and promotes it outside the own core region.
The institute is named after architect, educator and visionary Gustav Ferdinand Alexander Hilbig, who became the first Dean of the Architecture Faculty at the newly established Riga Polytechnical Institute (RPI).