Emerging Europe: Citadele Banka – back from the dead

Guntis Belavskis, Citadele

Bank headquarters are usually built to impress, but few are as easy on the eye as that of Citadele Banka. Located just to the north of Riga’s Old Town, its elegant proportions glow with warm colour on a steel grey Latvian winter afternoon. 

The men who commissioned German architect Meinhard von Gerkan to design Republikas Laukums 2a, however, never set foot in it. Just one month before the building’s completion in January 2009, the owners of Parex Banka – Citadele’s predecessor – were forced to hand over their shares to the Latvian government following a run on the bank.